Monday, March 17, 2025

Part I

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The Democratic Party Identity Crisis Turns Into a Political Crisis: As Senator Schumer Backed Away from Shutdown, Young Democrats are Reeling

Over the course of the last several weeks, the headlines have been dominated by Republicans and not just Republicans, basically, one Republican, the Republican President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Understandably, given the fact that he has been pushing so much energy through the executive orders, other presidential actions, a lot of presidential press conferences and statements, he has intentionally been basically using up all of the public attention.

But the Democrats are turning out to be a very interesting story in themselves, particularly right now. And that’s because the Democrats lost the White House, lost their majority in the Senate and failed to overcome a Republican majority in the House.

Now, on the House side, that Republican majority is a very thin majority. Senate side, a little more comfortable, but still on the Senate side remember, any major bill requires 60 votes. That’s the votes necessary for cloture and in order to avoid a filibuster. And so the Senate and the House operate by very different rules and they also operate with different political agendas, and that was made very clear just in recent weeks. The House of Representatives passed the measure that was endorsed by the White House and the Republicans did so with Republican votes alone. No Democrats were required to vote for the continuing resolution in order for it to pass. Therefore, the Democrats in the house could basically say they were against it. They took a principled stand against it. They were opposed to it. They were willing to shut the government down, but the Republicans had the majority, “So what could we do?” That’s the kind of language they were using.

Meanwhile, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, Senator Schumer shocked everyone on Thursday by saying he was going to vote with the Republicans and he was hoping there would be enough Democrats to vote with the Republicans to move the bill along. And to just understand there’s huge Democratic opposition to the bill.

There’s not only huge Democratic opposition to the bill, there is now huge Democratic opposition to the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, Senator Schumer himself. He is facing what is almost assuredly now going to be a primary challenge.

He is facing calls to be dismissed and replaced by someone younger and presumably a fighter further to the left. This is demonstrating some giant strains and fissures within the Democratic Party, some of it ideological, some of it political, some of it demographic, but mostly, these days, it looks pretty generational.

Senator Schumer is 74 and he said that he was going to vote with the Republicans, not because he likes the bill. He tried to make very clear he hates the bill. The bill gives increased authority to the President of the United States and the executive branch in these fiscal matters. It basically accomplishes absolutely nothing the Democrats wanted to accomplish other than preventing the Democratic Party from being saddled with the blame for a government shutdown, which citizens tend very much not to like.

That’s a lesson that Republicans have learned over a period of time, but there are some interesting angles from the Republican side. For one thing, how in the world did the Republican majority in the House of Representatives get this bill through when there are some budget hawks in the House who haven’t voted for anything like this and have said they have not done so on principle?

Well, the answer to that is Donald Trump. Donald Trump leaned in and not only encouraged Republicans in the House to vote for the bill, he basically threatened Republicans who might be recalcitrant. But that shows you what having a president in the White House does for a party. It radically increases party discipline.

It means that when you’re looking for the cues about where the party is headed, if you have the president of that party in the White House, the president pretty much sets that agenda. And so, right now, the big question mark is on the Democratic Party, not on the Republican Party.

Long-term Republicans know they have some big questions to answer as well, but right now those questions are answered by the election of Donald Trump to a second term in office, and when you have Republican majorities in the House and in the Senate.

But remember, the Senate operates on different rules than the House. In the Senate, you have to get 60 votes out of 100 in order to achieve cloture, be able to move the vote to the floor. Now, when the bill got to the floor, when Senators actually voted on the bill, it won with Republican votes alone.

But it couldn’t get to the floor without some Democratic votes. Chuck Schumer basically said that he wanted to see the bill go through because if there were to be a government shutdown, he warned his party, and tried to warn the nation in his own inimitable way that there would be a vast increase in executive power because in the situation of a shutdown, he said that President Trump and Elon Musk, head of the DOGE program, would move in to expand even further executive power. Senator Schumer said he didn’t want to see that happen and so effectively again, he went along with kicking the can down the road.

Well, you would think that he had just committed treason against the Democratic Party. “The Democratic leader in the Senate has betrayed the Democratic Party.” That is exactly what came from the House of Representatives, from the Democrats in the House.

And as a matter of fact, a very interesting line came when one representative said, “There’s the old adage in Washington that Republicans are the opposition and sometimes the Senate is the enemy.” 

That means that Senate Democrats, and in this case it means particularly the Democratic Senate leader, is being blamed by more liberal members of the House for having failed to uphold the Democratic side and Democratic Party principles. Basically caving. And so now there are open calls for him to be primaried and for him to be replaced. He’s 74 years old. He has been a fixture in the House and then later in the Senate on the Democratic side for a long time, and now you have a generational crisis in the Democratic Party.

By the way, they have a good number of very old legislators in both the House, but especially in the Senate in the next electoral cycle. And when it comes down to younger Democrats, they are increasingly willing to go out front and say they’re done with it. The big question is does this include the chief Democrat in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries? He is also from Brooklyn. He is also from New York, but you had the Democratic leader in the House who refused to answer the question as to whether or not the Democratic leader in the Senate should continue in his job.

Okay, in political terms, this is getting really, really interesting. When Congressman Jeffries was asked about Senator Schumer remaining as the Democratic leader in the Senate, he simply said, “Next question.” But interestingly, the Washington Post said that he had left a retreat of fellow members of Congress and driven 35 miles each way just to hold a press conference in the Capitol in order to say, “Next question.” And to pile all kinds of judgment upon those Democrats in the Senate who enabled the Republicans to forward this legislation.

The New York Times ran a front page article over the weekend and it simply said this, “The eruption of anger about Mr. Schumer’s seeming surrender thrust into public view a generational divide that has emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s deepest and most consequential rifts.” The paper went on, “Younger Democrats are chafing at and increasingly complaining about what they see as the feebleness of the old guard’s efforts to push back against President Trump. They are second guessing how the party’s leaders like Mr. Schumer, who brandishes his flip phone as a point of pride, are communicating their message in the TikTok era as Republicans dominate the digital town square. They’re now demanding a bolder leadership and a bolder representation from the Democratic party. If not, they’re saying to the older generation of Democrats, ‘Get out of the way.'”

Representative Chris Deluzio, a 40-year-old member of Congress on the Democratic side from a district outside of Pittsburgh, said, “Our party needs more of a fighting spirit. This is not a normal administration and they’re willing to do dangerous things.”

He went on to say, by the way, that, “The division on the Democratic side is not just generational,” but if you have to say it’s not just generational, it probably is pretty overwhelmingly generational. And already, and remember that the New York Times is the hometown newspaper for both the Democratic leader in the House and the Democratic leader in the Senate, and the New York Times simply stated this: “Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, age 35, who burst on the political scene by slaying a party giant in a 2018 primary challenge pointedly declined to shoot down a question about running in a primary against Mr. Schumer who is up for reelection in 2028.”

In other words, old geezer, the battle’s on. This kind of dynamic plays out, if you observe it, on both sides, in both parties. There are Republicans who are pressing from the right, particularly on budget issues. That’s the big thing. Who are pressing from the right saying they’re simply not going to support legislation that doesn’t accomplish some of their intentions on fiscal savings.

And this has been particularly true of a couple of holdout Republicans in the House, but they did not hold out this time. They went with President Trump on this probably because President Trump and Elon Musk have been demonstrating such intensity in trying to find areas in the budget to cut.The President basically said to the Republicans in the House, “You better go with me on this. Let’s see where we are in just a few months.”

On the Democratic side, some of the younger Democrats are saying that the party is suffering from a Biden hangover. An indication of the fact that the Democratic Party is still not close to being defined in a post-Biden age. And a lot of the younger Democrats are blaming the former president for staying on too long, weakening the party, leading to the electoral defeat, and quite frankly, leaving a vacuum, even a hangover for the party after his exit.

The generational dynamic in the Democratic Party would seem to indicate that the future of the party is not going to be moderated at all. It’s not moving towards the middle at all. In all likelihood, the generational energy that is now coming out so strongly, it is almost assuredly going to push the party to the left. Even further to the left. And in some cases even further to the left than we can imagine right now.

The reality is that it’s hard to imagine how the Democrats would move to the political center right now because, just look what they’re saying about their own Democratic leader in the Senate. He’s a sellout, basically a traitor to the party. That tells you a lot, not only about the Democratic party, but about the big questions in its future.

Part II

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Failed States and Terrorist Threats: The Need for a Sustained Military Effort Against the Houthi Rebels in Yemen

In international terms, the big story, of course, are the American military attacks. The large scale strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. President Trump ordered what he called, “Overwhelming lethal force,” to be used by the American military in order to weaken the Houthis and deter them from action against transportation through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea.

The reality is Houthi rebels have reshaped the landscape there, particularly when it comes to transporting cargo, and we’re talking about untold billions of dollars of cargo every single year. Now, what President Trump referred to in the White House statement is the necessity of a decisive and powerful attack on the rebels. In order to understand this, we need to set the landscape a bit. When you think about the Islamic world, of course, the great divide is between the majority Sunnis and the minority Shia, the Shiites as they’re often called. But the majority Shia are almost universally related to Iran.

That is to say wherever they are found, they are generally a part of the sinister forces basically allied with, and Americans and our allies assume under the direction of Iran and its supreme leader. So, one of the things that Iran has done is to operate by proxies. And this includes Hezbollah and other enemies of Israel.

The Houthi rebels, of course, are the decided declared foes of Israel, but also of the United States of America. Something very similar to the posture taken, not coincidentally by Iran. Just remember what Iran wants to do. Iran’s goals is to destabilize the region to try to minimize the influence of the United States to lead to the basic extinction of Israel, the erasure of the Jewish state in Israel. It will do just about anything it can. It will operate with any proxies available to it.

But at the same time, Iran as a Shia force, a Shia nation is surrounded by a larger population of Sunni Muslims. By the way, there are Sunni terrorists as well. Al-Qaeda was basically Sunni, not Shiite. But Americans know the term primarily because of the Iranian revolution, the taking of hostages a generation ago.

But what are we looking at with the Houthi rebels? Well, first of all, we’re talking about Yemen. Yemen, there in North Africa, is a very strategically located area, and it has been a part of the rise and fall of empires for thousands of years. Even as Christianity moved into Yemen in the early centuries of the first millennium, it was Islam that eventually conquered Yemen, and became so much a part of the landscape there. And when you’re looking at Yemen, you’re also looking at what is classically defined as a failed state. That is to say the government is basically incompetent.

The government in many ways is not even represented. You’re simply looking at rival groups warring for power, and you’re also looking at the fact that this Shiite militia group has moved into, basically, creating an oppositional force to Israel and to Israel’s allies. But there’s another piece of the puzzle.

The American attacks, by the way, have been massive. The American military now declaring that they’ve knocked out and eliminated several Houthi leaders. The Houthis are indicating they’re going to continue. And remember, where the hardest military goals in the world is to fight against an amorphous force that can move just about anywhere in the desert and then show up again with modern missiles, which are now extraordinarily cheap in compared to the economy of scale of times past when only nations could afford them.

Now, you have these terrorist groups, and by the way, these militias are funded by Iran. The missiles they’re firing, almost assuredly come from Iran, but there are indications that there are other actors who would like to injure the United States and allied power in the region, not to mention Israel.

Okay, but there has to be something else going on here because if you have a failed state and you basically have a collapsing culture, if you have anarchy, well then how would a group like this, how would a group like the Houthis rebels get the money that they’re demonstrating with their ability to fight back?

And The Economist of London, just a few days ago, ran a report even before the American attack, just indicating the business model that this terrorist organization has now adopted. It is a business model that basically takes the entire Red Sea all the way up to the Suez Canal, at least as far as is within the missile range of the rebels arms.

They’re operating on the basis of extortion, requiring money to be paid by shippers in order to allow the ship to go through. Now, remember, we are talking about one of the most trafficked cargo routes in the entire world. If ships cannot go through the Red Sea and then through the Suez Canal, they have to go around Africa. This is actually not only very expensive, it adds days and days mean money. You also have to add fuel to that.

It upsets Western economies based upon the cargo shipping, and it also creates a very dangerous situation because many of those cargo ships having to go around Africa at the very southern part encounter seas that can make it very difficult and very dangerous to go through with that kind of cargo vessel. But you can understand why this business model is now working. The Economist basically called the terrorist group, “Houthi Incorporated,” and their report declares that the Houthis offer a disturbing glimpse into an increasingly anarchic world.

So, where you have governments growing weaker and terrorist groups growing more powerful, and when they have, basically, a situation of anarchy there in Yemen as a failed state out of which they operate, this can be a long-term problem. Now, The Economist warns that many people in the West think that the Houthis have been animated mostly by the Israeli incursion into Gaza, the military action against Gaza after the attack by Hamas. They’re siding, of course with Hamas, a fellow Islamic terrorist group.

But The Economist says, on the other hand, they have developed an economic model. They developed a business model, and there is no reason to think they’re going to drop this even if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. As The Economist said, “Far from going quiet when the shooting stops in Gaza, the Houthis may be heralding an anarchic world without rules or a policeman.”

In a full investigative report, The Economist came back and said, “Not since the Second World War have merchant ships faced such peril.” That’s the scale of what we’re looking at here. The American attacks, the large-scale strikes against the Houthis over the weekend, if there’s going to be an effective pushback and weakening of the Houthis, it’s going to require a sustained military effort.

It is likely at this point that the Trump administration understands what’s at stake and has decided to act. This is another situation in which many allies to the United States may be silent, some of them may even warn in terms of taking an action that might be too radical. On the other hand, they’re counting on America doing exactly what it’s doing. Don’t be fooled, whether they make a public statement of support or not, they want their ships to be able to get through the Red Sea.

The pain, by the way, in terms of what the Houthis have been doing, it’s not only affecting the non-Muslim world, it’s affecting many Muslim nations as well. The Economist says it is estimated that Egypt has lost $7 billion in revenue, “equal to a third of its current account deficit.”

What we are seeing here is a very effective form of modern piracy. That’s exactly what it is. Just like the pirates of old, they are demanding a ransom or a fee for transit through an area that they control. The Economist concludes with these words, “Despite the efforts of America and its allies to restore security, it seems likely the Houthis will continue to exert control over the Red Sea as they please.”

They have opened the creatively named Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center. So, in other words, that’s the terrorist group’s organization. What do they call themselves? This is absolutely Orwellian, the Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center. Which offers, here’s the kicker, they call it a safe transit service. In other words, they are billing their piracy as a service to enable a ship to get successfully and safely through the waters.

According to one Houthi official, the Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center is, quote, “Always ready to respond to any inquiries or provide advice,” end quote. Their main advice, of course, is pay up or see your ships sunk. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the American strikes would send a powerful and clear message to the Houthis, and that attacks on international vessels and global shipping would have to stop. It’s going to be interesting to see if the United States continues these strikes in order effectively to weaken the Houthis.

An example as to how this can be done is seen in Israel’s degrading of Hamas in terms of its leadership and Hezbollah as a fighting force. So it can be done, the question is, do Western nations have the will to see it done? 

Lots of big stories this week. The epicenter of one is Columbia University, and as we’re going to see it has a lot to do with the future of higher education, and in particular, free speech claims made.

Also, the question of immigration. The Trump administration taking action to deport a leader of the protests there at Columbia who was in favor of Hamas. It’ll be very interesting to follow this story. We’ll be talking about it. Massive story this week.

We’re also going to be looking at a very tragic case of assisted suicide and on the part of someone who was a very well-placed American intellectual. Raises a host of issues. Interesting to see how often that issue is arising in headlines these days.

Part III

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A Titan of the Self-Help Movement Dies at 76: The Death and Legacy of Melody Beattie, Author of ‘Codependent No More’

But today, I want to close with a look at an obituary that ran over the weekend in the New York Times. It is the obituary of Melody Beattie who died at age 76. The New York Times headline, simply says, “She Wrote a Self-Help Bestseller,” but she did a lot more than that. In many ways, she was one of the main figures behind the rise of the self-help movement, self-help titles in terms of the publishing industry, the rise of the therapeutic culture. She did so with the publication of a book, which skyrocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list that was simply known for the concept of codependency.

The title was “Codependent No More: How To Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring For Yourself.” According to The Times it has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. Basically, she popularized the idea of codependency, and that became one of those therapeutic categories that just took over the culture.

And clearly, like most therapeutic categories, it does sometimes explain something or describe something that’s real. On the other hand, coming from the viewpoint of secular psychology, it comes basically with the idea of the sovereign-self. Codependency was something you’re supposed to get over, and the self-help movement basically says that you need to unleash the inner you and improve and liberate the inner you by getting rid of external constraints on you.

Melody Beattie was big in what became known as the Recovery Movement. Tish Travis, another author in that area, went on to say, “There had been other books and pamphlets published in the recovery space in the early 1980s.” Don’t you love that? Now, everything’s a space. This is the recovery space. She continued, “Melody made the same arguments, but her voice came across very clearly. It wasn’t clinical, and she had a set of ideas that could be applied to many, if not all the problems one was having, and it hit the market at the right time.” So that’s really the point. That is really the point. She’s making an argument about self-help in such a way that it, “Could be applied to many, if not all the problems one was having.” So this is just one of those self-help movements that took over the entire culture, and by the way, shifted the entire mentality of the culture in terms of the mainstream culture at least, in such a way that people started using the term codependent, like they were say, “I’ll have mayonnaise on that sandwich.”

All the therapeutic categories, it’s the self-help movement, but also beyond the self-help movement. All the therapeutic categories, they’re in the air all around us, and the water in which we swim. By the way, she had at various times given different definitions of what it means to be codependent, but you’re going to love this,  “A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect them, and who is obsessed with controlling that other person’s behavior.”

Well, just think about that for a moment, because in one sense that would describe in a non-unhealthy way, say, the relationship between a parent and a child, or the relationship between a husband and a wife, the relationship between a brother and a sister. That is to say, one has let another person’s behavior affect them. Well, unless you’re living by yourself, someone else’s behavior is going to affect you. And then, “Who is obsessed with controlling that other person’s behavior.” Again, otherwise known as a parent, otherwise known as a spouse, otherwise known as a say, friend.

The obituary tells us something we’re not really surprised by, and that is that she had several marriages. All of them, according to the New York Times ended in divorce. That’s one way to overcome codependency. Drew Pinsky identified as, “The addiction medicine specialist and media personality,” said that, “Codependent No More was one of the four most influential self-help books of all time.”

Christians see the fact that the self-help movement is an alternative religious system. That’s what it is. All of this is just an alternative religious system. With Christianity increasingly facing a secularizing culture, that culture still has impulses and heavens, it still has problems. It won’t accept the Christian diagnosis of our problems, so it has to turn to substitute synthetic diagnoses such as, “Oh no, I’m codependent.” And eventually, when that diagnosis just gets universally applied, it comes down to I’m codependent, you’re codependent, we’re codependent on codependency.

But of course, then there are authors to come along and tell us how to overcome this or that, but they’re only going to sell books if overcoming this or that we have something else.