The Weekly Sift

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

– Seneca, “Moral Letters to Lucilius”
first century AD

This week’s featured post is “Can Democrats compete for Christianity?“

Ongoing stories

• Trump’s assault on American democracy. Trump continues to lose in court. I’ll try to do a round-up next week.
• Climate change. Trump killed a report on the health of nature in the US, but the researchers released it anyway.
• Ukraine. Ukraine is offering us anti-drone tech for our war with Iran. Russia is offering Iran targeting information on our forces. So Trump lowered sanctions on Russian oil. No wonder Adam Kinzinger wonders what Putin has on Trump.
• Epstein. Miami Herald: “Three FBI interviews that contain graphic sexual and physical assault allegations against President Donald Trump were released Thursday by the Justice Department.” If the purpose of attacking Iran was to make Epstein go away, it’s not working.

This week’s developments

This week everybody was talking about the Iran War

When I wrote last week, the war had only just started and it was hard to know what was happening. So I focused on the Trump regime’s lack of preparation: The first lesson of our defeat in Vietnam was that a long-term war effort would fail without popular support. So any war but the briefest needs to be preceded by marshaling public opinion at home. George W. Bush did nearly everything else wrong in Iraq, but that part he understood. Conversely, Trump had done virtually nothing to explain why we needed to attack Iran.

At the time it was still plausible that there was a clear reason, but we weren’t being told what it was. This week it became apparent that there is no explanation for why we attacked Iran. Or at least there is no explanation that connects clear national goals with some likely outcome of this war. For several days Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth contradicted each other and sometimes themselves. It was about nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles or regime change or freedom for the Iranian people or punishing evil or making the world safe for Israel or remaking the Middle East or some other thing that you would hear about one day but not the next. The war would be short or maybe long or maybe something in between.

Eventually it came down to this: We attacked Iran because Trump had a “feeling” or a “hunch” that this was the right thing to do. And the war will last “until we decide it’s over“. Josh Marshall seems to be to have this right:

If the goal of your military action is clear, your exit strategies should be straightforward. Indeed, you shouldn’t need a ‘strategy’ at all. When your goals or met you’re done and you leave. … This war is probably just about Donald Trump being in charge. That’s not a clear or definable goal. It leaves the initiative in the hands of whoever currently controls the Iran state and military. It’s a recipe for unclarity.

---

Here are the most insightful takes on the war I’ve seen:

James Fallows’ “The Arrogance of Ignorance”. He’s been reporting on war and the military since the1980s, and boils the lessons we should have learned during that time, but haven’t, into five points.

• “How does this end?” That’s the question to ask before you begin.
• The importance of morale and moral factors. Your side needs to believe that you are right and your cause is just.
• The memories a war creates will persistent for decades. Iranians still remember 1953, when the US engineered a coup to topple the elected government and install the tyrannical Shah.
• What if the war comes home? Even a country that is dominant militarily can be vulnerable to terrorism.
• Leadership matters. Fallows drives this point home with the following juxtaposition of photos: George Marshall and Pete Hegseth.

[T]hink of the clowns and posturers who now have the controls. They don’t know what they don’t know. They have no idea what they are unleashing. It took years for the United States to get into its quagmire in Vietnam. It took many months to prepare the groundwork for the disaster in Iraq. These people have changed the world, for the worse, in just nine days. And none of us knows how it will end.

---

“The Epic Miscalculations of Trump and Khamenei” by Karim Sadjadpour points out how hard it was for either man to understand the other.

One leader views the world as a transactional playground where everything is for sale, while the other views his own survival as a world-historic necessity, regardless of the ruin it brings to his people.

Trump really has only two methods of trying to influence people: He buys them off or he intimidates them. He does not understand people who act out of values deeper than greed or fear (which is why he gets so frustrated with “the Deep State”, i.e., government workers who believe in the mission of their agency). And he is fundamentally incapable of forming a shared understanding of the situation and arriving at a win/win solution.

Khamenei, on the other hand, did not want money and welcomed the prospect of martyrdom. So none of Trump’s levers could move him. Quite possibly, Trump won’t do any better moving Khamenei’s successor, his son.

---

Marcy Wheeler looks at how the NYT and other mainstream publications indulge Trump’s fantasies of omnipotence.

The most irksome reporting, however, is the response to Trump’s promise, on the fourth day of this war, that he will jerry-rig a program to ensure the “FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD … as soon as possible.”

His “program” is an order to the US Development Financing Corporation to offer risk insurance to ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz “at a very reasonable price. Wheeler points out that such a program would take time to set up and funding from Congress. Maybe it could work if somebody had thought of it months ago and had it ready to implement as soon as the first bomb dropped.

But Politico covers this as if Trump’s tweet had already created this program in a “Fiat lux!” sort of way. Clearly the world sees through this: That’s why the price of a barrel of oil has jumped from below $60 in January to over $100 today.

---

It was the US, not Israel, and not the Iranians themselves (as Trump claimed) who blew up the girls school in Iran.

The Times has identified the weapon seen in the new video as a Tomahawk cruise missile, a weapon that neither the Israeli military nor the Iranian military has. Dozens of Tomahawks have been launched by U.S. Navy warships into Iran since Feb. 28, when the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran began.

James Fallows commends the NYT for reporting this straight rather than watering it down to please Trump.

Not “appears to contradict” or “is at odds with” or “may give rise to suspicions that.” Flat out: “Contradicts.” “Video shows.” About the US blowing up a school full of little girls.

---

I’m not sure who started this meme:

If your pastor is telling you that murdering Iranians will hasten the return of Jesus, you’re not a church member. You’re a cult member.

and the primaries

The flashy news from Tuesday’s primaries in Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina was the Texas Senate race. (Complete primary calendar here.) James Talerico defeated Jasmine Crockett on the Democratic side, while Republican incumbent John Cornyn goes to a run-off with Ken Paxton.

Turning Texas blue is a longstanding dream of the Democrats. The hope is that Texas follows the California model: Republican hostility to the growing Hispanic population eventually makes the state unwinnable for them. So far it hasn’t happened. Beto O’Rourke got within three points of Ted Cruz in 2018, but so far that has been the high-water mark. (Cruz beat Colin Allred in 2024 by 6.5%.)

This race was interesting from both sides. Cornyn and Paxton have waged a nasty and expensive campaign, and unless Trump forces one of them to drop out — he’s been making noises — the run-off is likely to be even nastier and more expensive. Paxton is the more true-blue MAGA, but is a scandal machine. The Texas House passed 20 articles of impeachment against him in 2023, mostly focusing on misuse of his office and bribery, but the Senate didn’t convict him. Last year, his wife of 38 years filed for divorce “on biblical grounds”. His legal problems go back to 2008, and he appears to have never held an office he didn’t misuse for personal gain.

Talerico is a Presbyterian seminarian who speaks the language of religion comfortably without compromising progressive positions on the major issues. I discuss what this might mean for the nation in the featured post.

Give Crockett credit for offering a timely and complete concession to Talerico. The only way Democrats pull this off is if they stay united. Crockett showed the kind of class that used to be standard, but is rare these days.

---

One of the winners in Texas was Rep. Tony Gonzalez who, despite being married with six children, pressured a staffer into an affair; she later committed suicide by setting herself on fire. Fortunately for Republicans, party leadership is wiser than Gonazlez’ voters: They forced Gonzalez out on Thursday, but want him to serve out his term because they have such a small margin in the House. (Moral considerations only go so far. Power is more important.)

Prior to his withdrawal, Gonzalez provided a lesson in how Republican Christianity works. Here, Gonzalez admits to the affair, but assures the voters that it’s all fine now.

I have reconciled with my wife Angel, I’ve asked God to forgive me (which He has), and my faith is as strong as ever.

What the staffer’s family thinks is not worth mentioning.

I love the “which He has.” Not “I believe He has” or “I trust He has” or “My faith tells me He has.” Just “He has.”

How convenient a powerful man must find it, to believe in a God who lets you speak for Him. And once God had spoken (through Rep. Gonzalez), what voter would dare not to forgive him too? No wonder Gonzalez’ faith has remained strong, probably just as strong as it was when he was screwing his staff.

You see this over and over in Republican circles: We do far worse things than Democrats do, but God forgives us and not them. God, in His mysterious ways, works through flawed men like Donald Trump, but not through far better men like Barack Obama.

Republican Christianity is a very convenient religion. I recommend it to powerful-but-amoral people everywhere.

and Noem

Kristi Noem finally lost her job as Homeland Security Secretary, but not for of the reasons you might expect. It wasn’t that her agents murdered two people in Minneapolis, or that she blatantly lied about it. It wasn’t because DHS under her leadership routinely ignored court orders. It wasn’t that she had DHS buy a $70 million luxury jet under the guise of “deportations”, but really for her own use.

An executive jet the Department of Homeland Security has told the White House’s Office of Management and Budget it needs for immigrant deportation flights and Cabinet officials’ travel features a bedroom with a queen bed, showers, a kitchen, four large flat-screen TVs and even a bar, according to images of the aircraft obtained by NBC News.

I can’t quite imagine who we’d want to deport in that kind of luxury. But that is just corruption; you can’t get fired for that in this administration.

It also wasn’t because of her barely-hidden affair with underling Cory Lewandowski. (They’re both married.) And it wasn’t even because she wasted $220 million of DHS money on TV ads that seem aimed more at raising her name recognition and personal profile than any legitimate DHS purpose.

The ad campaign did indirectly lead to her downfall, but only because she passed the buck to Trump.

During a congressional hearing this week, Ms. Noem was asked if Mr. Trump had approved a $200 million-plus government ad campaign in which she was prominently featured. Ms. Noem said Mr. Trump had tasked her with “getting the message out to the country.” Asked if Mr. Trump had signed off on the campaign before the ads aired, Ms. Noem responded, “We had that conversation, yes, before I was put in this position and sworn in and confirmed. And since then as well.”

That’s Rule #1 in the Trump regime: Nothing is the Boss’ fault.

---

You can now add a third covered-up murder to Noem’s tally: We now have video showing that Ruben Ray Martinez was not trying to run over an ICE agent when he was shot nearly a year ago. Like Rene Good and Alex Pretti, Martinez was a US citizen.

and you also might be interested in …

The February jobs report was terrible: Nonfarm payrolls fell by 92K workers. It’s a mistake to read too much into any single month’s report, but the trend over the last year is not looking good. And things are not likely to improve now that oil prices are soaring.

---

The British medical journal The Lancet unloads on RFK Jr.’s first year in office, which it characterizes as “1 year of failure”.

Cutting-edge discoveries and clinical investigations—on subjects ranging from mRNA vaccines to diabetes and dementia—are denied crucial resources while junk science and fringe beliefs are elevated without justifiable explanation. … Kennedy has continued to spread misinformation and push politicised agendas at the expense of the country’s most vulnerable. When called to account for his decisions by Congress, he has been evasive and combative. The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm.

---

When you’re trying to predict the outcome of some misguided policy, don’t forget to figure in how it will interact with other misguided policies. Now measles have broken out inside one of Trump’s concentration camps.

---

This is discouraging. A 25-country survey by Pew Research asks whether your fellow citizens’ morals are very good, somewhat good, somewhat bad, or very bad. US citizens showed the least trust in each other, with only 47% rating fellow citizens as very or somewhat good. No other country was under 50%, and Canada was the most trusting at 92%.

---

With so many substantive reasons to denounce Trump, I don’t like to focus on his symbolic outrages. But when he attended the return of the coffins of the first six American troops to die in the Iran War — known to the military as the “dignified transfer” and considered a solemn ritual — he wore a white USA golf hat that he sells on his website.

Fox News apparently realized how bad this was, because they “inadvertently” deceived their viewers to cover for him. Instead of showing the actual footage, they replayed video from a dignified transfer in December when he wasn’t wearing a hat.

---

The next time someone asks why you don’t like Trump, show them this 6 1/2 minute video from Dean Withers. He goes through Trump’s character, domestic policies, and foreign policies in an amazing amount of detail.

---

Thursday, Alabama is scheduled to execute Sonny Burton. Burton was involved in a 1991 robbery in which someone got killed. He was not the shooter. The shooter has already died in prison. He’s 75, and the victim’s daughter has asked for clemency. Will Governor Ivey intervene?

and let’s close with something anachronistic

What if “Staying Alive” had been done in the 1500s as a four-part madrigal?