WEEK 17

WEEK 17

A glimpse of the Polish view of life: "How was your day? Average: worse than yesterday but better than tomorrow." Many people comment that my Diary is grim and I repeatedly ask myself whether it is so because the events I comment on are grim or because of my Polish roots. I began writing about this week thinking that the Polish adage must be true. But in the middle of the week, conflicts suddenly broadened and intensified. My gut intuition tells me that we are approaching a crisis: a situation which cannot last and must be resolved one way or another. And now I do not know what to expect of the next week and the ones that will follow.

Enemies

One persistent theme about dictatorships is that they need enemies. They can be internal -- Jews in Nazi Germany, "kulaks" in the Soviet Union -- or external -- China in the US, already under Biden. In the US now these lines are blurred: are "immigrants" internal or external? I put "immigrants" in quotation marks because this is a category that extends from people who entered the country without any documentation, people who were formally registered as entering the country, people who reside in the country illegally, people who reside legally on a temporary status, ..., the list goes on until it includes green card holders and then naturalized US citizens. Thus far, repression, brutal and cruel, is targeted at whomever ICE considers immigrants but it has already extended to some green card holders. Moreover, mistakes are inevitable: a deputy US marshal was detained by ICE at a court in Tucson, a translator was detained at a court in Chicago.

Volumes have been written about dictators' need for enemies and yet Trump's logic is an a class of its own. The logic of Trump's Proclamation dated June 4 is that if a country promotes terrorism, people who escape from it are terrorists. Trump says: "I have determined to fully restrict and limit the entry of nationals of the following 12 countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. These restrictions distinguish between, but apply to both, the entry of immigrants and nonimmigrants.... I have determined to partially restrict and limit the entry of nationals of the following 7 countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela." He closes the door to the people who try to escape, many because they fear for their lives, brutal dictatorships, lawlessness, and omnipresent violence. Trump does not like these countries because they have "a significant terrorist presence" within their territories, because their refuges have a high visa-overstay rate, and because they do not cooperate with accepting back its removable nationals. But the Afghans, Cubans, or Iranians seeking asylum in the US are trying to escape terrorism and if they overstay their visa and do everything possible to avoid being sent back, it is often their very lives are at stake.

I know one such person. He escaped from his country when he learned that an arrest warrant was issued against him for having participated in a student pro-democracy demonstration. Having left his wife behind, he crossed half of the globe, was twice held at a gun point, and succeeded to legally enter the US asking for asylum. He has eked an existence while waiting for his court hearing, which is now scheduled. He is not overstaying his visa: he has a legal right to remain in the US pending his court hearing. A few days ago, he learned that the Federal Immigration Court where his hearing is to take place is an ICE trap. When consulted, his lawyer told him that she and her colleagues do not know what to do. There is no place in this world where he could go. If caught and sent to his country, he risks being tortured and perhaps killed.

On green card holders. The law provides specific reasons for which the right to permanently reside in the US can be revoked. But there is also one vague provision: "engaging in criminal activity that jeopardizes public safety or national security issues." This clause was applied to Mahmoud Khalil in March. Khalil, who is a Palestinian raised in Syria and a permanent U.S. resident with a green card who first came to the U.S. on a student visa in 2022, and played a major role in the protests against Israel while at Columbia University as a graduate student. Detained by ICE, until today he languishes in some Louisiana detention center.

China. According to yet another Proclamation of the President, also dated June 4, "Crime rates at Harvard University --- including violent crime rates --- have drastically risen in recent years.... Harvard has, among other things, repeatedly hosted and trained members of a Chinese Communist Party paramilitary organization...." This Proclamation is in tune with the press release by Marco Rubio on May 28: "Under President Trump's leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields. We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong."

I commented earlier, giving as an example barring the access of Jews to some professions in Nazi Germany, that what for some people is repression for others is cooptation. Here is how Trump framed the new offensive against Harvard in his Proclamation: "Harvard and its affiliated organizations on campus continue to deny hardworking Americans equal opportunities. Instead of those Americans, Harvard admits students from non-egalitarian nations, including nations that seek the destruction of the United States and its allies, or the extermination of entire peoples." There are about 1.5 million foreign students in the US. They financially support many universities and many universities are financially dependent on their tuition. About 30% of students at New York University are foreign and 20% are from China. Some return, often joining political elites of their countries; some stay and contribute to the scientific leadership of the US in the world. Do they take places that would have been otherwise open to people born in the US? The trick in Trump's argument is that he presents the number of university places, for students and faculty, as fixed, so that the "hardworking Americans" face a zero-sum game. This is why foreigners are enemies. He probably does not even realize -- how could he? -- that the greatness of US universities is to a large extent due to the influx of foreigners, first the refugees from Nazism and then from the entire world. US universities expanded and came to dominate the world of science and education because they were open to the world.

Empirical research on the economic effects of immigration generates, as always, some divergent results. There are two areas in which the consensus is large: immigration has no effect on the employment of natives and no effect on crime rates. In turn, its effect on the low wages is controversial. One study finds "none or positive effects of immigration on native incomes, including at the lower end of the income distribution," while another concludes that "Immigration negatively affects wages of less-skilled labourers and earlier immigrants." The fiscal effects of immigration do not lend themselves to general conclusions because, as another study concludes, "several variables, including the age and skills of immigrants in any given country and for any given welfare scheme, will affect their net fiscal position." Finally, estimates of the impact of immigration on economic growth range from none to positive, emphasizing again that the devil is in details. All the studies I read, however, converge to the conclusion that the anti-immigrant backlash is due to cultural and political factors and that it is not warranted to economic realities. So enemies have to be invented; they are not ready made.

Corruption

There is ample evidence that Trump and his family are actively increasing their wealth. What is striking, however, is that Trump makes no attempts to hide it, to cover it up. He charges for having dinners with him, he launches bitcoins, he accepts gifts; all openly. He does not steal anything from anyone. If people want to pay for meeting him, buy his crypto currency, or gift him an airplane, these are their decisions. In his view, he spends his public time governing and his private time getting rich, and he finds nothing wrong with it.

In some countries, the public makes distinctions between the forms or the effects of corruption. One distinction made by inhabitants of Spanish coastal cities (sorry, I do not remember the authors) was between "roba pero hace" and "roba": steals but does versus just steals. In France, not only the public opinion but even the courts made a distinction between stealing for oneself and stealing for the party and treated the latter much more leniently. So what about the corruption practiced by Trump?

Jan-Werner Mueller, writing for the Project Syndicate, considers the Quatari place episode as evidence of "blatant corruption." But what constitutes "corruption"? Conditioning "corruption" on the legality of some actions is futile. Many features of the US political financing system are illegal in most countries. Most definitions of "corruption" view it as an appropriation or use of public resources for private gain. Bribes constitute corruption but only if there is a direct link between payments and favors. Selling pardons is perhaps the closest Trump has come to corruption under this definition. But if some individuals, firms, or foreign governments contribute to Trump's wealth just because they expect that some day these contributions may turn out to be economically advantageous to them, these are bets they make. Not accepting them would be just irrational in Trump's view. Even more, if some people are willing to pay for being in the same room with Trump, it would be just irrational not to offer them this chance. There is nothing illegal about your guests paying for their dinners. When people have a chance to get rich, they try to get rich: this is just a natural order of things. Would any of the people who throw the epithet of corruption at him not had done the same in his place?

Corruption emits an odor, so it is not surprising that many people smell it. But the effect of corruption scandals on public opinion has always been due to the attempts to hide corrupt actions. Uncovering corruption feeds the media; the drama of revealing it captivates the public; the ultimate trial of justice vindicates moral norms. But, as both Mueller and Ezra Klein (in one of his podcasts) observed, Trump hides nothing. And because his corruption is open, blatant, brazen, he disarms his critics.

Kremlinology

As many have expected, the mine exploded. Whether, or perhaps to what extent, the Trump-Musk feud is a clash of egos or of interests is already a subject of debates. The ferocity with which the conflict erupted is astonishing. Trump threatens with withdrawing "Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts"; Musk threatens that "In the light of the President's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately." Steve Bannon, always Musk's rival and enemy, raises anew the charges that Musk violated US immigration law by working on a student visa. Musk suggests that Trump's name appears on the Epstein file and raises the possibility of impeachment.

I thought of Kremlinology because we will be now exposed to a daily dose of palace intrigues. Both sides have weapons, so the threats are not empty. Trump can withdraw the contracts on which Musk's fortune was built. Nothing stops Trump from pursuing Must for violations of immigration law. There are already suggestions that he could nationalize @SpaceX. But Musk is the wealthiest man in the world and he is right that Trump's electoral victory was financed by him. It is not beyond belief that Musk has some dirt -- a compromat to use Kremlin's language -- that would hurt Trump. Perhaps most importantly, control over @SpaceX places Musk in the position of Dr. No in a Bond movie.

Kremlinology was a pursuit of political scientists who were trying to peek through the palace walls. They could get only glimpses: whose picture appeared on a particular days on the front page of Pravda, who stood closest to the Leader, perhaps even some leaks. But political intrigue is not a reserve of dictatorships: I was told by a government minister in a democratic country that the first piece of information he asked of his chief of staff every morning was who lunched with whom the day before. At another time I asked a prominent politician about one of his rivals, to which he said that he trusts him. This declaration was not quite credible, so I pushed: "When you say you trust someone, what do you mean?" I loved his answer: "If I were a trainer and he were a lion, I would have walked into his cage. But my head into his jaw I would not have put."

The Trump-Musk conflict is an opening salvo for palace intrigues. The signal for them to erupt has been given. Now everyone in the palace has to recalculate. Loyalty to Trump became a risky asset. Will the conflict end up in some lasting truce? In Trump destroying Musk? In Trump being replaced by Vance? One factor that should be considered is that, at least in his public appearances, Trump seems mentally diminished. His instincts remain the same: make exorbitant demands, threats, and promises; shift to a different issue if he is defeated, without ever admitting a defeat or doubting his infallibility. But he seems to forget more and rambles without any control. This may be another signal for the ambitious people around him. His control over the Administration and, perhaps more importantly, over Republicans in the Congress may be impaired. Palace conflicts often have collateral damage but they may be the first glimpse of hope.

Overdoing?

Detaining a woman who has lived in a small community for 20 years, has kids in a local school, and was perfectly integrated socially created an uproar even among people who voted for Trump. Some Republican voters dining in their favorite local restaurant reacted in horror when they saw ICE suddenly yanking waiters who served them for years. These are just vignettes but as the numbers of ICE detentions reach hundreds of thousands, such episodes become widespread. They must become widespread just because of the sheer numbers. The detention quota for ICE was set at 3,000 per day, which adds up to over one million over the year. Suppose that there is just one person among Trump supporters who cares about each of the detained: cares because she has been having a coffee with the victim of ICE after a PTA meeting, because their kids played together, because the victim of ICE was her employee, because he has been served by an ICE target for years in a local restaurant, because for years the victim cleaned her house, because the victim took care of his elderly father, or perhaps because he or she just cares. She or he voted for Trump but their sudden disappearance may be just too much.

And then there is muscle. Trump just issued a Memorandum federalizing 2,000 members of the California National Guard to support activities of ICE in Los Angeles. Some days ago, the DHS requested the Pentagon the help of 20,000 National Guards, 3,500 to locate fugitives, 2,500 for detention support, and 10,000 for transportation support. If this request is granted, it will be without a precedent. ICE is already being assisted by the FBI, the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Drug Enforcement Administration. In principle National Guard cannot engage in repression of civilians, only assist ICE indirectly. But the Presidential Memorandum seems to break this taboo: "To carry out this mission, the deployed military personnel may perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary to ensure the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property."

One person taken to a hospital for treatment and then into custody in the Los Angeles demonstrations was David Huerta, the President of the United Services Workers East branch of the Service Employees International Union California, an organization with 700,000 members. His arrest led to a statement by the President Liz Shuler of the AFL-CIO, an organization with 15 million members: Huerta "was doing what he has always done, and what we do in unions: putting solidarity into practice and defending our fellow workers. The labor movement stands with David and we will continue to demand justice for our union brother until he is released."

Even before the Los Angeles demonstrations, Trump opened another dimension of conflicts by threatening to cut federal funds for California. Government Newsome already reacted by threatening to withdraw federal taxes contributed by California. Now he issued a statement calling deployment of National Guard to Los Angeles "purposefully inflammatory." I was struck by how tepid was the response of the LAPD spokesperson Jennifer Forkish to a question about the role of the Los Angeles police in the street confrontation between ICE and crowds defending people its detained: "We received an officer needs help call from our federal partners and responded to separate the parties to maintain order. We had nothing to do with the operation, but we do have an obligation to respond to any law enforcement agency requesting urgent assistance."

Is Trump overdoing it? Most people do not want politics to impinge on their everyday life. We do get engaged in electoral campaigns, sometimes we pay attention to dramatic world events, sometimes we get involved in local issues, but most of the time we want to lead our everyday lives free of political conflicts. We prefer to watch baseball games rather than reels of demonstrations. I am not a baseball fan but even I, a political scientist, would not give up a soccer game for a show of Trump hosting a foreign leader. We want some kind of normality. Some political events are an integral part of normal life but repeated disruptions of daily life by politics make us uncomfortable.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to live free of the turmoil. People are yanked from long established social networks, monstrously armed soldiers occupy streets, researchers cannot do research, teachers find themselves without students, government employees lose jobs, employers lose employees, an entire State is being threatened with being fiscally expelled from the Union. How long can this last? And how will it resolve?

Miscellaneous

How does a country which bars entry to citizens of 19 countries host a World Cup? Iran has already qualified and while the team will be allowed in, its fans will not be. What will FIFA do?

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was returned from El Salvador, albeit to face criminal charges in the US.