Right Piece, Wrong Puzzle

Good News: My conversation with Heather Cox Richardson is rescheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, at 3:00 p.m. EDT. Sorry about the scrub yesterday. Blame Substack.

Bad News: I can’t do politics today. I’m sorry, but I just can’t. Here’s the trifecta that broke me.

(1) The vice president of the United States took over a podcast, from his government office, and used the occasion to declare war against “the radical left.” I would like someone, somewhere, in MAGA to give me a list of people outside of the MAGA ummah who are not “radical left.”

Is Chris Christie part of the radical left? Kamala Harris? Bernie Sanders? AOC? Cory Booker? Liz Cheney?

How about Scott Galloway, Mike Masnick, or Mark Cuban? Give me actual names of real people who oppose Trump and occupy positions of prominence and/or power but are not considered “radical left.”

(2) The TikTok deal that’s coming is such a blatant disregard of the law that I don’t even know what to say about it. Congress passed a bill mandating the sale of TikTok. A POTUS signed it into law. The next POTUS just . . . ignored it. And Congress and the courts let him not because they thought he had a legal basis, but because they couldn’t figure out how to force him to comply.

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act disappeared as a controlling piece of law because the new president didn’t like it.

I care about this issue on the merits—because TikTok absolutely should not remain in Chinese control. But also because of what it says about the strength of law right now.

I’ve given up counting the number of times some well-meaning lawyer has tried to reassure me that Trump can’t do this or that because “There are laws!”

Uhhh . . . no. There are two problems with relying on “the law.”

• Laws are meaningless without the will to enforce them. Which is how Trump disregarded PAFACA. It’s like that law never existed.

• In many cases, delayed enforcement is tantamount to no enforcement. Example: “The law” eventually ruled that the federal government could not mass fire probationary employees. But there’s no remedy. It did mass fire probationary employees. Those people are long gone. The best you can say for this particular law is that next time maybe the government won’t be able to mass fire people. But I wouldn’t bet the milk money on that, even.

I have low confidence that “the law” will protect us in all cases over the coming months and years.

(3) This story on Trump’s deal with the UAE is amazing. The most blatant act of political corruption and self-dealing in our nation’s history. In any other timeline it would have brought down the presidency.

I’m not sure more than 5 percent of voters noticed it.

Look: If you can’t make citizens care about corruption this easy to understand, at this scale, then what’s even left to argue over? What sort of country are we?

Anyway that’s my long preamble. I’m taking the day off from politics. Instead, I want to share some life news and talk a little bit about philosophy. If you’re not interested that’s okay. I won’t take it personally.

1. Ball Is Life

On Monday my oldest son, Flash, committed to a college for baseball. It was a big moment for him; something he’s been working toward since we started playing catch in the front yard when he was 5.

Over the course of his journey he’s learned a lot about life, because that’s what baseball teaches you. It’s a game of managed failure. But I want to talk about the big lesson he learned from the recruiting process: the concept of fit. ...