This is a special abridged edition of Global Thoughts coming just before the elections.
When was the last time a call-center or counter person told you that their systems were working just fine that day?
I am being told that senior-level sources in the Democratic party are already resigning themselves to the fact that Harris is going to lose to Trump. Georgia and North Carolina do not appear to be even close. People don’t want to vote for a black woman and feel the economy was better under Trump. This is a big problem because they thought black men would vote for her. The Democrats are either going to be in denial afterward or they are going to have to come to terms that the party leadership and delegates are more leftist than the voters and they will keep losing unless they put up white male centrist candidates for president. The press seems to be in a conspiracy of silence with this story, but you’ve heard it here first. If I’m wrong, then fine; it’s not the first time I’ve been wrong about an American election. I’m not telling you to join Wall Street professionals who are placing large bets that Trump will win, but there’s a good chance they know something.
When I took political science in college, a professor mentioned something called leftist fascism to indicate that if you went radical left far enough, you get to the same place the radical fascist right is. That’s what this election feels like; you are either voting for a leftist fascist or a rightist fascist. People prefer the fascist with the lower taxes and one who doesn’t run around talking about how he wants to take from the rich to give to the poor. In America, every poor person sees himself as the next potentially rich person. It’s not France where everyone prefers to be equally poor.
All you have to do is watch 10 minutes of a Harris rally and a Trump rally and it’s obvious. Trump is telling people what he will do for them, and she is just standing there laughing and looking like she’s having fun and “joy” and telling people that Trump doesn’t care about them and that she does. But she doesn’t really tell them what she will do for them. Trump shows a video of Harris saying she will take away 500,000 fracking jobs and then tells them he will save their jobs and that their electricity costs will go down 50% and that he will get rid of all the electric vehicle mandates. What do you think goes down better in Pennsylvania? And remember the only people on the center-left who really care about the right to abortion are those people who actually want them for themselves. For everyone else, it’s an issue but it doesn’t affect them directly. It’s the economy stupid.
What I don’t understand is why Bill Gates and Jamie Dimon (head of Chase Bank) both allowed their quiet support for Harris to leak this past week when it was too late to make a difference. If I have good information that Trump is going to win, so should they. So why alienate him? Bezos has already cowered with his Washington Post by ordering them not to endorse Harris, and Elon Musk has secured himself hundreds of billions of dollars in government contracts by coming out early for Trump.
You would think from the press that the Arabs in Michigan are 30% of the voting population. They are 1%. Jews are actually two to three times that amount and they certainly contribute much more money. At the Democratic convention, the huge pro-Palestinian demonstrations never happened probably because people were not ready to shell out money to travel to Chicago to be there. These are great examples of the press blowing a story out of proportion, namely that Arabs in Michigan were going to vote against Harris because of Biden’s pro-Israel position and she would lose the election. All those stories of pressure-pointing by the progressive wing of the party did a better job of scaring the Jews that cared enough about the election into voting for and donating money to Trump. Jews want to be in a safe world and Biden has made that world less safe; Trump might be surrounded with anti-Semites but the Democrats have made it outwardly fashionable to be anti-Semitic so Jews look at a progressive like Harris and see that the future with her is not bright. The majority of Jews will vote for her but many won’t, and a lot of Jewish money and activism is going against her because they feel that at least Trump is not weak and will not stand in Israel’s way. Iran’s nuclear program must be defeated now while a golden opportunity awaits, or else the world will pay for it in spades; Jews are the canary in the coal mine and if it is a choice between strong and weak, they’ll take the strong America in the world. All year long I’ve been hearing from liberal Jews who felt really upset when people they thought were their friends and political allies turned on them after Israel fought back after the October 7 attack. It went beyond Israel – it was clear that it became an excuse to show one’s dislike for Jews. Jewish liberals are never going to forget this crossing of the Rubicon in America and abroad all over the world in supposedly liberal democracies ranging from the UK to Australia. People who run Jewish charities say that this year there has been much more interest than usual from usually unaffiliated Jews in coming to dinners and doing things publicly to identify with the Jewish community. What keeps Jews alive and distinct in the world is opposition to them.
Personally, I want to punish the Democrats for promising to put back the SALT tax deduction (state and local taxes) and then welching on it when the progressive wing of the party said it was a giveaway to the rich. I’d rather keep the Trump tax cuts than have the Democrats raise a ton of taxes on my back to waste it on government programs that don’t work and a government that is working from home something like 80% of the time. Stuff sits for years and doesn’t get done; they still can’t fix the skies over NYC airports even after several years of constant weekend chaos.
About 6 months ago, I offered to take Jeremy to visit his sister abroad and to stop over in Paris on the way home. His reaction? How many days off school can we go for (hoping for the maximum the Lord would allow). All of a sudden, a month ago he asks me about the trip and says he cannot afford to miss several days of school 2 weeks before finals. Something happened between 10th and 11th grade, and now he realizes that he doesn’t want the easy way out and that his future lies before him. Except of course when it is the most important football game of the season (which is just about every week). In case you’re wondering, I postponed the trip until the week of Christmas when everyone agrees they are on vacation. Karen and I are looking forward to a few years from now when we can go as we please and not pay those premiums to go just when the academic calendar allows.
Elizabeth has completed almost 2 months abroad in Israel on what is known as a gap-year program (for the year between high school and college). She is having the time of her life enjoying a well-executed program and the freedom of being a teenager roaming the country with friends all around her, although as a parent, it is a bit of an endurance game of anxiety hoping the year ends without anything going wrong. One day a few weeks ago when the Iranian missile attack was underway, I got a text from her saying she’s in a bomb shelter and that everything is OK. And “I Love You.” Then nothing for about 15 minutes. I’m freaking out and wondering what’s going on. Turns out the internet service below ground wasn’t so great. Two hours later she’s asking me for her Amazon password because the girls are back in their cabins having a movie night. And that’s what you get over there – everything is fun and dandy as long as there is no sirens or rockets going off in front of your face.
When those pagers and walkie talkies went off in Lebanon, many of these 3,000 militia-men who got injured had them in their pants. When they exploded, their dicks got ruined. This little- known fact is actually significant as it is not helping recruiting efforts in Lebanon to attract new fighters. Meeting 72 virgins in Paradise ain’t worth much if your penis isn’t working.
Everywhere I look, I keep seeing that the US is out to lunch diplomatically. They are just not making any difference in the Middle East, with China or with Ukraine. People abroad at this point are simply in contempt of Biden’s foreign policy team and having Blinken running around on endless shuttles that go nowhere doesn’t help maintain credibility. The #1 reason is that unless you are willing to use leverage (ie: military force), nobody has any reason to pay attention to you. The Americans are so interested in not having anything escalate, that they actually produce the opposite result – the bad guys know they can keep escalating and that the US is afraid to counter them fearing even more escalation. Unless the US can figure out that this is not the way to run the world, we will see a nuclear Iran sooner than later, and such a country will not hesitate to escalate once they have the means to do so.
A senior analyst for the Washington Institute made a few observations at a briefing in early October: The night the US helped defend Israel against Iranian missiles, the US and Israel used up an entire year’s worth of anti-missile armaments. This is scary because the US also has to deal with Ukraine and Taiwan. It can’t use up a year’s worth of armament in one night with Iran. As long as Iran has born zero cost for sending over 500 missiles to Israel this year, until just a week ago, they had every incentive to continue. The US needs to start helping countries like Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan manufacture armaments because the US clearly cannot supply everyone with stuff to fight wars that could break out in more than one place at a time per year. He also noted that it would take 3-4 years to train a Palestinian military force to take Israel’s place in Gaza and that nobody else other than Israelis or Palestinians has any interest in putting boots on the ground there. Nothing has been done so far to set up such a force, so it probably means that either Hamas comes back to Gaza or the Israelis will be there for a minimum of 3-4 years. Another interesting takeaway: Most of Iran’s nuclear sites are not that far underground. You could drop bombs one atop another and if you do it correctly, you can keep going further underground with each bomb. My takeaway from the latest Israeli attack on Iran is that they will wait for Trump to go after the nuclear and industrial sites. Biden wouldn’t allow it and their intelligence services probably feel at this point they can just bide their time till next year. Israel’s migration to US Central Command involved tradeoffs; they are more enmeshed with their Arab neighbors along with the US, but they also have to avoid pissing off their partners and play ball. When the US placed the THAAD anti-missile system in Israel, it was also to impress the Gulf countries that they could be defended against Iranian missiles. The Gulf fears that if the Iranians can hit Israeli targets, how much more so can they be vulnerable to such strikes.
I don’t know if the Israelis will wind up the fighting in Lebanon or be stuck there for a long time. The Israelis are at the point of diminishing returns having hit all the easy targets and winter is coming in a few weeks. I don’t know how much Hizbullah really has behind it as a fighting force and if they can keep the Israelis bogged down for months even if they can’t strike at the heart of Israel as much. Israeli reservists need to go back to work and the country’s economic rating has been downgraded twice this year by the major rating companies. I don’t know how long businesses can afford to do business in a country where the airline monopoly is charging crazy prices for tickets to get in and out of the country. In Israel, the vast majority of voters prefer Trump. He is probably also preferred in the Gulf. Biden’s administration has loosened sanctions against Iran hoping it will keep them at the nuclear talks. Iran is taking advantage of getting lots of money to fund lots of trouble-making. Meanwhile, the Israelis have taken a lot of the Iranian chess pieces off the board and the Iranians will have to think twice before inviting attacks on their naked positions. They may have to spend more money within their borders protecting themselves rather than fighting wars by proxies abroad.
It is disingenuous to claim that Netanyahu has no strategy. He does. It’s just that others don’t like it. His strategy is to stay in power. And, as far as the Arabs are concerned, they can live in a shithole and nothing needs to happen forever unless someone like a Mandela comes around and looks like a reasonable person to deal with and who has the confidence of the Palestinians. Most Israelis deep down agree with this. The rest of the world keeps talking about making progress and setting goals; he thinks it’s all BS and that nothing needs to happen. After 80 years, nothing has happened and I’ll bet that 50 years from now, the world might be different but this region will be the same. The Arab leaders around Israel like stability and predictability and Bibi suits them fine, even if they think he’s an asshole. I’m sure lots of people in that region think that MBS of Saudi Arabia is an asshole too but they probably respect him since he figured out how to rise to the top and stay there, and they probably expect to deal with him for the rest of their lives.
A major VC player tells me that the biggest way AI will affect our lives is that cancer drug research will be sped up with AI.
The question is not whether Ukraine will join NATO; the question is whether NATO will even exist, and that’s something the US has to decide. In Asia, this business of so-called alliances with the US and other countries is BS; these countries are all weak. China is very strong. The only country that can take on China is the US, and it has to decide whether it wants to just talk the talk or build up its military and be prepared to fight.
China’s GDP has gone from 75% of the US’s 4 years ago to 66%, meaning their economy has been growing less than it was.
Russia has been using criminals across Europe to do acts of sabotage and to create instability. This is actually an act of desperation for them since so many of their spies have been thrown out of Europe. Criminals are easier to catch and to punish.
I’m not happy about the upcoming US elections. I wouldn’t be surprised to see swastikas come out after Trump’s victory, and people who thought they were the smartest people in the room can see what they voted for. Just remember that 25% of Jews reportedly voted for Hitler in 1932. Vance is a good insurance policy for Trump; he’s just as radical but twice as smart. I’m just hoping that if he becomes president, which is a real possibility, that the real Vance is better than the suck-up version we’ve seen till now, which I’ll grant you is one way to make it to the top. To me, the silver lining is that after the US gets hit hard by its enemies in 2025 sensing a leadership crisis, the elites in both parties will have to get together to defend the nation’s interests, and people will take stock and realize that this political shitshow that is America today is not a good idea and that the president is not a DEI hire or a matter for entertainment. But when I go outside and see so many people still wearing masks over 2 years since this pandemic ended, I remind myself that there are so many people out there with things going on inside their hands that I cannot relate to or begin to understand. And then I know that this 5% can swing an election. So whatever we get, it’s what we deserve by having all kinds of weirdos among us and allowing ourselves to be pandered to our darkest impulses.
I personally don’t plan to vote. I don’t favor either one of these candidates enough to vote for one of them or against the other; i’ll leave the decision to others. Besides, in NY, my vote is meaningless. Harris will win NY. Wasting an hour to vote when you know your vote doesn’t count is not democracy, and this is not a good situation for a nation of 330 million people that are consistently left with lousy choices every 4 years. Credit Fox News for creating the condition that no sane person other than an egomaniac with an ideology wants to be in politics. What I will say is that if Trump wins, I don’t want to go to a gym with TV’s in it for the next 4 years. I was so happy the first weekend after Biden got into office when I didn’t have to see Trump on a TV screen. Boring is best. If Trump loses, it will be because people silently decided that they don’t want a rerun of his drama for the next 4 years. I really think it comes down to that. Historically, really racist candidates lose. Maybe this time he will. But you’re asking a whole lot of people to reject a racist and vote in a black woman who doesn’t really inspire confidence. That’s a heavy lift for America. Anyway, a week from now the deed will have been done. Tune in next time and we’ll see what kind of world we get.
