DCUM Weblog

On Friday, I described how the Purcell principle, the idea that courts should not make decisions involving voting close to elections due to the possibility of creating voter confusion, has been used to favor Republicans and disadvantage Democrats. Two cases that I mentioned on Friday are important for today's post. In the first, Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court, after first allowing maps that lower courts had found to be unlawful due to violating the Voting Rights Act to be used in elections, ruled that the lower court decision was likely correct. This led Alabama to create a second majority-minority district. In the second case, Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court — in a rare exception — had applied the Purcell principle in a way that favored minority voters. The court had rebuffed an attempt by Louisiana's state legislature to introduce new voting maps that eliminated one of two majority-minority districts. The new maps, said the court, were being introduced too close to the election. However, things did not stop at this point and, as I will explain today, have resulted in a situation in which almost all majority-minority districts in the South will be eliminated. As for the Purcell principle, that appears to now be irrelevant when changes close to elections benefit Republicans.

The political system in the United States is not close to functioning as it should. The presidency is held by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, a cognitively impaired narcissist who sees himself as a king or emperor. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are controlled by Republicans who have capitulated to Trump and rarely fail to do his bidding. For the most part, both chambers are simply rubber stamps for Trump's wishes. The one hope for preventing the U.S. from falling completely into autocracy has been the judicial branch. Federal judges have routinely ruled against Trump and halted many of his excesses. But at the top of the judicial branch sits the Supreme Court, dominated by Republican appointees who have acted in what can objectively be called a corrupt manner to protect Republican interests when it comes to voting. Conservative Supreme Court justices have not simply put their thumbs on the scale when it comes to voting rights; they have leaned on the scale with all the body weight they can muster.

I have written a lot about the United States-Israel war against Iran, so today's post is going to be a bit repetitive. However, I think it is worth taking a step back and considering just how badly cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has harmed U.S. interests. It is now almost indisputable that Trump lost the war within the first 24 hours. His expectation was that killing Iran's top leaders would lead their successors to capitulate and make a "Venezuelan-style" deal with Trump. When that failed, Trump had no Plan B. In fact, Trump has said that "You don’t need a backup plan," completely ignoring that this was a near-perfect example of when he should have had one. Trump did not expect that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, but the strait has been closed since February 28, and Trump still has no plan for reopening it. As a result, the global economy is on the brink of disaster. Trump is now flailing with no clear idea for what to do next. As I have repeatedly written, he has to choose between a humiliating deal with Iran to end the war peacefully or escalate and restart the fighting. Renewed fighting is unlikely to significantly change the status quo, leaving Trump with the same two choices again. In the meantime, Trump is temporizing and simply allowing things to get worse.

Is the United States-Saudi Arabia alliance undergoing potentially unprecedented strains? That is a difficult question to answer without visibility into what is happening behind the scenes. But, from the vantage point of someone whose primary job is simply running a website, the answer appears to possibly be "yes." The de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is not exactly known for his subtlety. This is a man who, after all, had a journalist opponent bone-sawed and once invited most of his domestic opponents — including relatives — to the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh where they underwent "psychological abuse and — in some cases — torture" in order to force them to sign away much of their wealth. As such, one would expect that the Saudi Crown Prince would express his views by a means more visible than, say, tea leaves. Indeed, some fairly obvious signs have appeared.

As some readers may remember, my youngest brother passed away just over three years ago. One of the last conversations that I had with him was about cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump and why Trump still had considerable support. My brother lived in the Midwest, surrounded by Trump supporters. He argued that all the Democrats did was complain about a new terrible thing that Trump did each day and that this message was not effective. In response, I pointed out that Trump does do terrible things every day and those things should not be ignored. He conceded my point, but nevertheless was convinced that most voters didn't care and, therefore, didn't respond to the message. Now, in Trump's second term during which Trump's pace of doing terrible things has, if anything, only quickened, I think about that conversation often. Almost every day, Trump does something that should be career-ending and, in most administrations, probably would be. Yet Trump's actions get cursory attention at best and are often overlooked completely.

The last few days might have been the peak ineptitude for cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. Trump has completely mismanaged his war against Iran, essentially assuring a strategic defeat for the United States and currently mired with no plan to extricate the U.S. from the war. Trump is caught in a cycle of repeated promises of progress towards an agreement with Iran, threats to escalate the conflict, and embarrassing backdowns. Nobody is taking Trump seriously anymore. Even the U.S.'s Arab allies in the Gulf appear to have given up on Trump, despite making significant financial investments in him, both in his personal capacity and as the U.S. President.

The current round of incompetence began on Saturday evening when Trump posted the following on his Truth Social social media network:

Back in August, I wrote about the opposition of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump to renewable energy, especially wind generation projects. As I wrote then, Trump's dislike of wind turbines goes back to a battle he lost to stop an offshore wind project that was within view of his Scottish golf course. Since then, Trump has nurtured a hatred of wind turbines, blaming them for a host of issues including causing cancer, killing both birds and whales, and, strangely enough, being bad for the environment. Other than the fact that some birds are killed by wind turbines — though far fewer than are killed by buildings and electrical lines, not to mention cats — Trump's allegations have no basis in fact. At a time of rising electricity rates and an oil crisis brought on by Trump's war against Iran, the administration's stance on renewable energy continues to be self-defeating and unwise.

The rule of thumb for announcements by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump during the United States-Israel war against Iran has been that when the financial and oil markets are closed, Trump talks tough. When the markets are open, Trump is conciliatory. You don't have to be particularly cynical to guess that he is trying to keep oil prices down and the stock market up. Amazingly, he has been having significant success with this strategy. However, there are indications today that investors have finally caught on and are no longer paying Trump's remarks as much attention.

Trump believes that reality is whatever he says that it is. He is surrounded by courtiers who will do everything they can to ensure that reality conforms to Trump's wishes. As we have seen, if a hurricane is not headed to where Trump claims that it will go, it takes nothing more than some marks with a Sharpie to alter a map of the hurricane's path. It is Trump, not the facts, that decides what is true. In the Iran war, however, Trump is encountering a situation that is not bending to his will. Trump believed that the decapitation of the Iranian regime on the first day of the war would result in a Venezuelan-style capitulation. It did not. Trump assumed that the war would end so quickly that the Strait of Hormuz would not be closed. In fact, the strait was and remains closed. Trump once said that the war would be over in less than four weeks. We are now in the 10th week. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Iranians are desperate to negotiate an agreement to end the war, only to have Iranians skip expected negotiations. Far from Trump controlling reality, his words have repeatedly been shown to be empty. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz went so far as to say that "An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership".

There are any number of indications that the United States-Israel war against Iran is going badly for the United States. Simply consider that one of the most important issues for ending the war — opening the Strait of Hormuz — did not exist prior to the war because the strait had previously been open. In addition, almost no progress has been made towards eliminating Iran's nuclear program. But one of the strongest signals is the fact that almost nobody among top Republicans, with the exception of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is vocally championing the war. As the expression goes, success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. For the most part, the Iran war is an orphan and nowhere is that more obvious than when it comes to the two Republicans most likely to pursue the presidency after Trump. Both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President and reply guy JD Vance are doing all that they can to distance themselves from the war.

What do golf and the Gulf have to do with each other? The answer is LIV Golf, the professional men's golf tour financed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. One of the earliest supporters of LIV Golf was cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. While the PGA Tour was cancelling events at Trump-owned golf courses, LIV agreed to host events at Trump's properties. Trump went on to become an enthusiastic cheerleader for the new tour. However, LIV Golf now appears to be falling victim to Trump's war against Iran. The Public Investment Fund has announced that it will no longer fund LIV after this season, and the tour appears to be on the verge of collapse. Few passions are as close to Trump's heart as golf, so this is likely to be a significant blow to him.

As is frequently the case with my blog posts, I need to offer a caveat. I know nothing about golf and have never even played it. The closest that I have ever been to golf is driving a golf cart around at a charity golf tournament, providing refreshments to participants. My general attitude towards golf is that of Furio Giunta in The Sopranos: "Stupid-a-fucking game!" So, I apologize in advance for anything I get wrong about the sport.