“Hormuz toll revenue would be an immense boon to Iran, perhaps generating over $100 billion a year, which is about the size of Iran’s entire government budget. (. . .)one of the main criticisms against Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran (. . .) was it supposedly gave Iran $1.7 billion”
“Negotiations could go nowhere, but for now at least, the United States accepted in principle to lift all sanctions on Iran, unfreeze Iranian assets, and recognize that Iran controls Hormuz, imposing a toll of up to $2 million per ship.” www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-surren...
"Given this deeply embedded feeling of distrust—not based on phobia, but on sound philosophy and cumulative experience—it is not surprising to discover that Madison and his colleagues placed little trust in the office of president." www.liberalcurrents.com/too-great-fo...
Thank you
"Like his America First forbears in the 1940s, Trump desires an 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 with the dictators of our own day that would effectively cede Europe and East Asia to Moscow and Beijing while granting the United States 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘦 to dominate the Western Hemisphere."
Half the Answer #77: A bloodthirsty, homicidal maniac is in charge of our nation's military, and he deeply believes that extreme violence is awesome and God likes it a lot. Trent and Caitlin ask Greg Sargent what he learned from experts about Pete Hegseth's attitude toward violence.
"This is not a legislative revolution. It is an administrative evolution. Governance changes not because new laws are debated, but because new tools are installed. Smart city rhetoric presents these tools as neutral." www.liberalcurrents.com/governing-by...
"The only way forward is to build a coalition not around restoring the conditions that made moderate conservatism possible, but around dismantling the hierarchy that made fascism inevitable." www.liberalcurrents.com/it-was-fasci...
A functional system of publicly funded science. Manufacturing capacity. World class institutions of higher education that draw talent from everywhere. All of these things are good for America, if we can get them back. But they also have geopolitical implications, which we should not cede either.
Many thanks to @mike-eagle.bsky.social and @anamariecox.bsky.social for having me on to talk about @liberalcurrents.com podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...
In Venezuela and Iran, “the Trump administration followed a period of negotiation with a decapitation strike. In both countries, the Trump administration has shown ambivalence about the final shape of the government in the aftermath of that decapitation.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-moral-ar...
“America managed a very good economic recovery, only to punish our politicians for pulling it off, leading to Trump’s chaotic and idiotic economic policies.“ www.liberalcurrents.com/the-next-dem...
“Some Americans take comfort in China’s present woes. After all, their stumbling gives us more time to heal from our own self-inflicted wounds. By contrast, the economist and China expert Dan Wang longs for a competition that actually forces both sides to be more than they are.”
“A 2028 Democratic candidate ought to lean into our rivalry with China not just because the international system is in shambles, and Republicans are to blame. The pressure of the first Cold War was successfully channeled into long needed reforms at home” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-next-dem...
After fucking around in the Middle East, Trump has triumphantly announced that the world gets to find out the consequences—in the form of greater Iranian control, and extraction from, the Strait of Hormuz www.liberalcurrents.com/the-moral-ar...
“In short, we would be better off if we had an actual race to the top rather than our current race to the bottom.
We can begin the journey to that reversal in 2028, if the Democratic candidate frames the rivalry in those terms and wins.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-next-dem...
“Our growing rivalry with China has so far been more of a race to the bottom. Both Trump and Xi are de-institutionalizing each system.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-next-dem...
“In an international system that is not, in fact, full of moral actors refusing to use their true power, it is difficult to get countries to do what you want by bombing them.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-moral-ar...
“We have seen that campaigning for democracy alone has been insufficient to consistently beat Trump.(. . .) framing the fight for democracy in terms of China’s growing shadow will allow Democrats to cast themselves as tough and confrontational, and reconstruction as an urgent geopolitical necessity”
The next Democratic candidate for president should use tough rhetoric on China. But other than drawing a bright line around Taiwan, this should largely be aimed at channeling geopolitical competition towards domestic reconstruction www.liberalcurrents.com/the-next-dem...
As is his custom, @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com is correct in this. It aligns with things that I was told by an EU trade negotiator during Trump 1, that the EU wanted to help the USA against China and didn’t understand why Trump was picking a fight with them. Me neither, buddy.
“That the operations are illegal and have little advanced planning is then part of their appeal. Despite his retrospective criticism of Iraq, Trump has tried to portray himself as embodying a muscular foreign policy, capable of striking his and his followers’ enemies at home and abroad.”
Being China Hawk apparently means *stares at notes* showing China liberal democracy is awesome
“We would be better off with an America that takes trade and industrial policy seriously, and actually learns from the objectively impressive accomplishments of what Wang calls the ‘engineering state,’ while also trying to avoid its mistakes.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-next-dem...
“The Trump administration’s incompetent displays of dominance have set us the farthest back that we have been geopolitically in the postwar era (. . .)Close allies—including Canada right next door—have been sent running into the arms of China.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-next-dem...
"The administration has shown no feeling of responsibility toward either the citizens in the countries it attacked or the citizens of the U.S. to build an understanding of why they felt military action necessary. They have simply embraced the chaos of turning the United States into a rogue state."
Published one year, one month, and one day ago:
“In Iran, the goal appears to have been to throw the country into chaos, with the hope that something friendlier than Khamenei would emerge. This did not happen. Iran’s government now is controlled by hardliners, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps appears as close to power as ever.”
“But would Iran want to end the war now? In hard power dynamics, this is the strongest position the Islamic Republic has ever been in, the most leverage they have over the United States since the 1979-80 hostage crisis.” www.liberalcurrents.com/what-if-iran...
Stop the War on Iran. 6 pm at White House - sponsored by multiple organizations
Anti-War protest tonight at 6 pm at the White House. Spread the word!