Bret Stephens: Completely satisfied New Yr, Gail. Donald Trump might be president once more in a few weeks. Is there any information on the horizon that provides you trigger for optimism?
Gail Collins: Effectively, Bret, the vacation season is at all times a good time to reunite with family and friends. Completely satisfied to look again on that. However as for the close to horizon, I’ve a sense you’re on the lookout for one thing a bit extra … political.
Bret: Both that, or the third season of “Squid Sport.”
Gail: In addition to, you’re the one who needs to debate the likelihood that Trump II gained’t be the hair-pulling catastrophe we now have each purpose to anticipate it to be. So take it away.
Bret: I made a New Yr’s decision to remain optimistic about Trump II — a minimum of till actuality smacks me within the face, in all probability by Jan. 21. So right here goes: deep cuts to wasteful authorities spending; an extension of the 2017 tax cuts; the defunding of federally sponsored D.E.I. applications, that are counterproductive and divisive; a conclusive finish to Iran’s nuclear ambitions; the discharge of all of Israel’s hostages in Gaza and the top to Hamas’s terror state in Gaza and Hezbollah’s in Lebanon; extra home power manufacturing; a really safe southern border; the sale of Greenland to the US — which isn’t such a loopy thought, as long as it’s voluntary — and Canada as our 51st state.
OK, I’m kidding about Canada; I ask just for the Canadian aspect of Niagara Falls. However my primary hope is that Democrats come to grips with all of the methods they fell quick final yr and determine how one can be a reliable opposition occasion. What do you assume ought to be the primary classes realized?
Gail: Everyone knows the Principal Lesson Discovered was that many, many, many Individuals are sad about the price of residing. One fast approach to enhance issues could be a tax reduce for the center and dealing courses, mixed with a hike for the rich. No approach we’re gonna give everyone, together with billionaires, a discount with out skyrocketing deficits.
And the cash we save by not chopping taxes additional for Elon Musk and his buddies can be utilized, partially, to fund applications that assist struggling staff — higher colleges for his or her children, plus high quality early schooling for the little ones, saving mother and father from the limitless disaster of balancing work and little one care.
Bret: It’s good to see intellectually sincere Democrats, like James Carville, publicly acknowledge that every one of their glad discuss final yr concerning the success of Bidenomics wasn’t working with voters squeezed by larger costs, larger rents and better financing prices. There’s a lot voter anger over that, simply as there’s anger on the approach the Democrats misled the general public about Joe Biden’s health to serve a second time period — or perhaps even a primary.
Gail: I’m not going to divert us into one other one in every of my speeches concerning the many achievements of the Biden presidency, from entry to inexpensive well being care to environmentalism. Tax reform, I need to admit, hasn’t been one of many prime 10.
Bret: Democrats are additionally seen by many citizens, together with me, because the occasion that introduced us a drug disaster in Oregon, persistent shoplifting in San Francisco, loopy folks on the subways of New York, thousands and thousands of unlawful immigrants overwhelming public companies from Chicago to Yuma, Ariz., lecturers’ unions extra thinking about defending their members than in educating college students, and a world that’s far more threatening right now than it was when Biden took workplace. The Democratic Occasion that wins is one which, like Invoice Clinton in 1992, figures out how one can stand for public order and orderly change, not dysfunction and decay.
Gail: Trying ahead to arguing with you on almost each level there. However first, I wish to ask you about a number of the political dramas of the week. How do you’re feeling about Mike Johnson’s survival as speaker of the Home? Though I’m positive I’m going to be complaining about Johnson endlessly over the subsequent two years, I’ve to confess that I hated the concept of his being destroyed for having stored the federal government operating.
Bret: Completely agree. It’s good to have one thing approaching semiregular order within the Home after the antics of 2023. But it surely’s additionally going to be unusual having somebody like Tom Massie, the isolationist libertarian consultant from Kentucky who was the one Republican to vote towards Johnson, as successfully the second strongest member of the Home as a result of he’s the probably to be a swing vote. When American politics is that this intently divided and polarized, fringe figures like him get an excessive amount of energy.
Gail: When there’s one swing vote, the prospect of it being a loopy particular person could be very excessive.
Talking of loopy — OK, I’m going again to Trump. There’s been a lot nutty discuss immigrants recently. When a terrorist from Texas plows by a road full of individuals, our president-to-be implies — completely incorrectly — that he’s an alien. We’ve obtained plenty of chilly winter forward, and I anticipate him accountable immigrants for the temperature.
The brand new administration is after all going to maintain them out, besides perhaps until they’ve some particular expertise Elon Musk might use for his companies.
Bret: We’re going to wish to commit an entire dialog to Elon. I’d identical to to level out that I used to be anti-Musk earlier than it was cool.
Gail: You and I agree, I feel, that the financial system would take a horrible hit if there weren’t immigrants round to do the work they do, whether or not it’s a high-paying job or a low-paying one. Only recently talked with a instructor whose faculty had a roof that was caving in that the management couldn’t discover anybody to repair — besides a workforce of immigrants with all the required expertise and ardor.
What’s the subsequent administration going to do? Any predictions on the way it’ll work out?
Bret: Immigrants are each proof of America’s greatness and a big piece of what makes America nice: It’s a credit score to us that thousands and thousands of individuals wish to come right here; and it’s a credit score to them that they create a lot power, ambition and creativeness to the financial system.
However one other massive piece of what makes America nice is the rule of regulation, and it’s not proper that so many individuals have flouted it to get right here. I’m not in favor of mass deportations of unlawful immigrants. However we have to safe the border, know who’s within the nation, require them to pay fines as a penalty for breaking the regulation, instantly deport anybody with a legal document, and create significantly better incentives to encourage vetted immigrants to reach right here legally. Do you disagree?
Gail: We might let anyone drop in for the weekend and simply keep.
Simply kidding. If we had an incoming president who wished to really make the immigration system higher, you and I might after all be able to debate wise methods to tighten the legal guidelines. However forgive me for my lack of optimism.
Bret, one main story within the week arising is the funeral for Jimmy Carter. I’m sort of a fan. Your tackle our former president?
Bret: That one mustn’t communicate ailing of the lifeless. What made you a fan?
Gail: Effectively, he actually wasn’t good. However I’d say championing desegregation as governor of Georgia and main the best way on environmental points like local weather change places him on a better rung than many different main politicians. And his later years working for world peace earned him a Nobel Prize — plus he set an amazing instance along with his hands-on work to offer housing for the poor.
Bret: All true. He was sincere and upright and lived in response to the values of his religion, which is greater than might be stated for sure of his successors. And, as a bonus for folks like me, he deregulated the airways.
Which jogs my memory of one thing an entire lot extra mundane: What do you consider the congestion pricing guidelines that got here into impact for the decrease a part of Manhattan on Sunday?
Gail: It’s fairly clear that it’s a good suggestion in precept — make it a bit costlier for folks to drive into Manhattan, and use the income to enhance mass transit companies. Gov. Kathy Hochul, initially a fan, squashed a way more costly plan, maybe to fulfill Democrats within the suburbs. Now the election’s over and sanity can prevail.
However I haven’t had a automotive for years — you’re a driver who lives outdoors town. Give me your take.
Bret: To me, it looks as if simply one other progressive brainstorm that sounds good in principle — encourage folks to make use of mass transit; scale back smog and street congestion; use the cash to fund public infrastructure — however will simply be one other tax that may fall hardest on working-class individuals who, for one purpose or one other, want their vehicles in Manhattan. Fareed Zakaria had a terrific column final week in The Washington Publish declaring that New York state’s finances is greater than twice that of Florida’s, and taxes are a lot larger, nevertheless it’s exhausting to argue that New Yorkers get extra for his or her tax {dollars}. Possibly the state ought to tax much less and govern higher, moderately than consistently elevating taxes in a approach that drives folks out of the state.
Gail: We’d like extra time to do a real New York vs. Florida argument. The controversy’s coming at us like leaves falling off palm bushes. Trying ahead.
Bret: At any charge, I’ll proceed to drive into town. I’ll additionally proceed to induce our readers to not miss the most effective journalism of the week, which leads me to C.J. Chivers’s lengthy, essential and spellbinding report on Ukraine’s drone wars towards Russia’s invasion military. Along with serving as a terrifying window into the way forward for warfare, it comprises the most effective prose I’ve learn wherever in fairly a while. One instance:
Prorok flew the second quadcopter, which carried a fragmenting anti-personnel submunition salvaged from a Soviet-era cluster bomb. He steered it to the tree line and searched, a mechanical vulture searching for weakening males, then maneuvered it slowly below the cover of a woodlot inexperienced within the bloom of Ukrainian spring. On the second move, the much less wounded Russian appeared onscreen. Listening to the drone, he ditched his peer and bolted. Prorok chased him for about 20 meters, overshot, then turned and buried the drone’s nostril into the dust. “I hit two meters away from him with that heavy munition,” he stated. “That’s assured to kill.”
Ernie Pyle and Martha Gellhorn have a twenty first century peer. Glad he writes for us.
