Bret Stephens: Gail, I really feel heartsick watching the pictures popping out of Los Angeles. Lives, houses, companies, landmarks, neighborhoods — charred, destroyed, vanished. I do know there was sure to be a political dimension to this, and a variety of blame to throw round, however this needs to be an event for unity of objective.
Gail Collins: Completely. The entire world is united in sorrow.
Nonetheless, as soon as the hearth’s lastly below management and we cross by means of our first phases of grief and mourning, I actually, actually imagine we have to take care of world warming and local weather change — a phenomenon our incoming president says he doesn’t believe in.
Bret: Yep — nevertheless it’s approach too quickly for political arguments and ideological score-settling, whether or not the alleged offender is local weather change or D.E.I. For now, let Democrats and Republicans work collectively to get Angelenos the assistance they want. Later, we are able to struggle about all of it.
Gail: Agree. And we’ve bought a variety of different stuff to struggle about with the brand new Congress beginning up. However we have to start with — sigh — Donald Trump. I’m kinda happy with the result of his trial right here in New York.
Bret: Say extra.
Gail: Can’t ship a man to jail when he’s simply been elected president by individuals who have been totally knowledgeable about his conviction on 34 felony counts. For, um, falsifying enterprise information to cowl up a intercourse scandal.
However giving him an unconditional discharge makes him the primary felon ever to function president. Assume that’ll be his footnote in historical past?
Bret: To me the conclusion of this drama simply reinforces the sense that the prosecution, verdict and sentence have been basically political.
I’m not speaking concerning the morality of Trump having an affair with a porn star whereas his spouse was at house with a new child after which attempting to cowl it up with a hush-money cost. Voters can determine for themselves what to make of that — they usually have. I’m speaking concerning the convoluted rationale for the case — a misdemeanor record-keeping offense remodeled right into a felony — which might virtually actually not have been introduced towards a much less infamous defendant. Additionally, the wrist-slap sentence, which might not have been given to a much less vital defendant — or do defendants convicted of 34 felonies ordinarily get off scot-free? Lastly, the political impact of the case, which was to lift Trump’s standing together with his base, to not point out serving to him increase a fortune for his marketing campaign, whereas furthering the notion of politicized justice within the fingers of progressive prosecutors.
Gail: The Trump base can be enthralled if he bought arrested for something.
Bret: Which is one more reason to oppose him solely within the court docket of public opinion. Lengthy story quick: Liberals now get to name Trump a “felon” whereas the remainder of America calls him “Mr. President.” Any sense of what his first few weeks again in workplace will seem like?
Gail: I’m very, very all in favour of seeing what occurs in Congress. The place the very slim Republican Home majority desires to increase the Trump tax cuts, a lot of them focused towards the rich.
Speaker Mike Johnson has made it clear he desires to keep away from any cuts to Medicare or Social Safety.
Sounds ache free, aside from that previous satan, the nationwide debt. Bret, you’re a real fiscal conservative. How does all that strike you?
Bret: Effectively, sustaining present tax charges as an alternative of letting the 2017 cuts expire would assist non-public spending and funding, create jobs and improve productiveness, and cut back the burden of debt relative to gross home product. I’m additionally hoping Trump is severe this time about taking an ax to authorities waste — just like the $100 billion a yr misplaced to Medicare and Medicaid fraud — and dumb federal mandates, rules and subsidies, just like the billions we waste yearly on ethanol and different environmentally damaging biofuels. According to one study, there have been some 1,091,860 federal rules as of January 2023.
Gail: Let’s see if Elon Musk and associates really choose the unwise ones to remove.
Bret: Honest level. Possibly he can whittle it all the way down to a mere 420,000 regs and see who will get the joke. And, sure, Musk’s prominence in Trumpworld does fear me. Far too nice a focus of non-public wealth, political energy and media affect. That, plus his newfound fondness for far-right events in Europe. The query is whether or not the Trump-Musk bromance will final 4 years — or 4 months?
Gail: Might go both approach, proper? Huge private wealth is one factor Trump actually respects. But when we ever hit the purpose the place the president thinks Musk is getting extra consideration than he’s, all bets are off.
Bret: One other “only-in-Trumpworld” topic I’ve been mulling, Gail, is his demand to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Whereas he’s at it, what about altering the title of New Mexico to “Not Mexico”? Or Arizona to “Amerizona”? Or El Paso to “No Pasarán”?
Gail: Hey, we are able to ask Musk whether or not attempting to rename a serious worldwide physique of water is an environment friendly approach to spend cash.
Bret: To not point out the forthcoming renaming of Greenland, as one viral meme had it, as “Mar-a-Igloo.” Which jogs my memory: Ought to we purchase it?
Gail: Many Greenlanders want to get out from below Denmark’s thumb, however I doubt Donald Trump’s huge hand can be an enchancment.
Can’t consider new territories I’d wish to see us purchase. However you’re the overseas affairs man, what do you suppose?
Bret: Effectively, right here goes: I’m for it. Not by drive, in fact. However Greenland is strategically vital, minerally rich and economically underdeveloped — which is why the Chinese have taken an unwholesome interest in it. Additionally, why is there nonetheless an unlimited European territory, bigger in dimension than Mexico, on the North American continent?
We must always urge Denmark to permit Greenlanders to carry a referendum on the next: a U.S. provide to make Greenland a self-governing U.S. territory, with a standing much like that of, say, the U.S. Virgin Islands — which we additionally purchased from Denmark, through the First World Battle — and a suggestion to pay each particular person in Greenland $1 million over 10 years to change into U.S. residents. With round 57,000 individuals in Greenland, that will price the U.S. about $5.7 billion a yr. Not a steep worth for an island that might sometime be as vital to america as Alaska, as soon as referred to as “Seward’s Folly.”
Gail: It’s one week till inauguration day, Bret. Any entertainers you’d prefer to suggest for the — shudder — celebration?
Bret: Are the Village Individuals nonetheless round? Who would you recommend? Rudy Giuliani doing his finest Frank Sinatra imitation?
Gail: Ah, glad you introduced up Giuliani. He’s a superb instance of why the general public ought to at all times do not forget that simply because someone is nice at doing one specific factor doesn’t imply he’s good at every thing. And even two issues.
Wonderful crime-fighter again within the Nineteen Eighties, however going into politics was a catastrophe for Rudy — from dangerous mayor to loopy Trump acolyte who’s principally going to lose every thing he ever earned to 2 Georgia election employees he wildly defamed after Trump’s election defeat.
Bret: I keep in mind Rudy a bit in a different way: showboating U.S. Lawyer, terrific mayor, human practice wreck.
Gail: As for the entertainers, I suppose it’s Child Rock all the way in which.
Bret: There’s a musical time period for his artwork: barf. Completely different topic — any ideas on Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to overtake Meta’s speech guidelines to make it much less censorious and even move part of its operations from California to Texas?
Gail: We’ve got to do not forget that we’ve moved into an unprecedented world of human communication, the place the previous guidelines we made to manage public speeches and the printed phrase gained’t essentially all work.
However the concept we’ve moved past fact-checking is … approach farther than I’m able to go. And as you most likely know, Bret, I as soon as wrote a e-book about Texas. Many great individuals in Texas, however highly effective people who transfer their companies there are usually not typically in the hunt for Texan enter.
Bret: Effectively, the issue is that Zuckerberg principally admitted that left-leaning, California-based Meta staff have been censoring opinions they didn’t like, and {that a} social-media platform shouldn’t be within the enterprise of attempting to tip the scales in political debates.
Whereas he was at it, Zuckerberg additionally informed Joe Rogan that “individuals from the Biden administration would name up our workforce and, like, scream at them and curse” to get them to take posts down, which is a heck of a approach for a Democratic administration to guard the rules of the First Modification. Possibly it’s time that liberals do not forget that if liberalism stands for something, it’s freedom of speech for all.
Gail: We will all be a part of fingers and agree that representatives of the president shouldn’t curse at publishers whose contributors criticize the administration.
So significantly better to have civilized … conversations. Proper?
Bret: Completely. Though there’s one thing to be mentioned for solitude. Which jogs my memory: Be sure you learn Elisabetta Povoledo’s captivating obituary in The Instances for Mauro Morandi, referred to as “Italy’s Robinson Crusoe.” Morandi, who died this month, lived alone for 32 years in an deserted hut on the gorgeous and otherwise-uninhabited island of Budelli, simply north of Sardinia, till previous age and native officers compelled him off a couple of years in the past.
“A very powerful factor,” he mentioned, “is that I’ve a serene relationship with time.” If solely all of us might.
