Bret Stephens: Gail, I feel bad looking at the pictures from Los Angeles. Lives, homes, businesses, landmarks, neighborhoods – burned, destroyed, disappeared. I know there must be a political side to this and a lot of blame, but this should be an event of unity of purpose.
Gail Collins: Definitely. The whole world is united in grief.
However, once the fire is under control and we go through our first stages of grief and mourning, I truly believe we need to address global warming and climate change – something our next president claims he doesn’t believe in.
Brett: Yes – but it is too soon to have political conflicts and the resolution of ideological points, whether the suspect is climate change or DEI In the meantime, Democrats and Republicans should work together to get Angelenos the help they need. Later, we can fight about everything.
Gail: Agree. And we have many other things to contend with as the new Congress begins. But we need to start with the sigh – Donald Trump. I am satisfied with the outcome of his case here in New York.
Brett: Say more.
Gail: I will not be able to send the boy to prison if he has just been elected president by people who are fully informed of his conviction for 34 counts, falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal.
But removing him unconditionally makes him the first criminal to become president. Do you think that will be his footnote in history?
Brett: To me, the ending of the play only reinforces the idea that the prosecution, verdict and sentence were political.
I’m not talking about Trump’s behavior of having an affair with a sex star while his wife was at home with a newborn child and then trying to cover it up with a cash payment. Voters can decide for themselves what to do about that, and they did. I’m talking about a settled case – a misdemeanor record keeping charge that was converted to a misdemeanor – almost never brought against a notorious defendant. Also, a sentence of whipping on the wrist, which would not have been given to a lesser accused. Or do defendants convicted of 34 counts usually get off scot-free? Finally, the political impact of this case, which was to raise Trump’s standing with his base, not to mention help him raise money for his campaign, while furthering the idea of political justice in the hands of progressive prosecutors.
Gail: Trump’s base would be happy if he was arrested for anything.
Brett: Which is another reason to oppose him only in the court of public opinion. Long story short: Liberals are now calling Trump a criminal, while the rest of America is calling him Mr. Trump. Any idea what his first few weeks in office will look like?
Gail: I’m very interested to see what happens in Congress, where the slim Republican House majority wants to extend Trump’s tax cuts, most of which are aimed at the wealthy. Speaker Mike Johnson has made it clear that he wants to avoid any cuts to Medicare or Social Security. It sounds painless, except for that old devil, the national debt. Bret, you are a real moneylender. How do you handle all of that?
Brett: However, maintaining existing tax rates instead of allowing the 2017 cuts to expire would support private spending and investment, create jobs, improve productivity and reduce the debt burden relative to gross domestic product. I also hope that Trump is serious this time about taking an ax to government waste – like the $100 billion a year lost to Medicare and Medicaid fraud – and dumb federal mandates, regulations and subsidies, like the billions we waste every year on ethanol and other biofuels destroy the environment. According to some research, there were about 1,091,860 federal laws as of January 2023.
Gail: Let’s see if Elon Musk and his colleagues really choose the unwise to eliminate them.
Brett: Fair point. Maybe he can roll it back to 420,000 regs and see who gets the joke. And, yes, Musk’s prominence in Trumpworld worries me. The accumulation of personal wealth, political power and media influence is enormous. That, and his penchant for far-right parties in Europe. The question is whether the Trump-Musk bromance will last four years — or four months.
Gail: He can go either way, right? A person’s great wealth is one thing that Trump really respects. But if we ever reach a point where the president thinks Musk is getting more attention than he is, all bets are off.
Brett: Another Trumpworld-only topic we’ve been discussing, Gail, is his need to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. While he’s at it, how about changing the name of New Mexico to not Mexico? Or Arizona to America? Or El Paso to No Pasarán?
Gail: Hey, we can ask Musk if trying to rename a large part of international water is an efficient way to spend money.
Brett: Not to mention the upcoming renaming of Greenland, as another viral meme had it, as Mar-a-Igloo. Which reminds me: Should we buy it?
Gail: Many Greenlanders would like to get out from under Denmark’s thumb, but I doubt Trump’s big hand would be any better.
I can’t think of any new areas I’d like to see us achieve. But you are a foreigner, what do you think?
Brett: Well, here it is: I’m ready. Not by force, of course. But Greenland is extremely valuable, rich in minerals and economically underdeveloped – which is why the Chinese have taken an undue interest in it. Also, why is there still a large European area, larger than Mexico, on the North American continent?
We should urge Denmark to allow the Greenlanders to hold a referendum on the following: the US offer to make Greenland an independent US territory, with the same status as, say, the US Virgin Islands – which we also bought from Denmark, during World War I – and the offer to pay all a person in Greenland $1 million over 10 years to become US citizens. With about 57,000 people in Greenland, that would cost the US about 5.7 billion a year. It’s not the rising price of an island that could one day be as important to the United States as Alaska, once known as Seward’s Folly.
Gail: Inauguration Day is one week away, Bret. Any artists you’d like to give a shout-out to in celebration – trepidation?
Brett: Are there still people in the Village? Who would you suggest? Rudy Giuliani doing his best Frank Sinatra impersonation?
Gail: Ah, I’m glad you brought up Giuliani. He is a perfect example of why society should always remember that just because someone is good at one thing doesn’t mean they are good at everything. Or two things.
The best crime fighter back in the 1980s, but getting into politics was a disaster for Rudy – from a bad mayor to a crazy Trump who will lose everything he’s ever won to two Georgia election workers who were rude after Trump’s defeat.
Brett: I remember Rudy differently: the showboating US attorney, the scary mayor, the human train wreck.
Gail: As far as entertainers go, I think it’s Kid Rock all the way.
Brett: There is a musical term for his art: barf. On a separate topic – any thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to revise Meta’s speech rules to make it redundant and move part of its operations from California to Texas?
Gail: We must remember that we have entered an unprecedented world of human communication, where the old rules we have made to control public speech and the printed word will no longer apply.
But the idea that we’ve gone beyond fact-checking … is a little further than I’m willing to go. And as you may know, Bret, I once wrote a book about Texas. Lots of wonderful people in Texas, but powerful people who move their businesses there often don’t want Texan input.
Brett: The problem, however, is that Zuckerberg basically admitted that the left-leaning, California-based Meta staff were criticizing ideas they didn’t like and that social media shouldn’t be in the business of trying to close the scales in political debate.
While there, Zuckerberg also told Joe Rogan that “Biden’s people are going to call our team and, like, yell and curse at them” to demote them, which is a fancy way for the Democratic administration to protect the principles of the first amendment. Perhaps it is time for liberals to remember that if freedom stands for anything, it is freedom of speech for all.
Gail: We can all hold hands and agree that the president’s representatives should not be insulting the publishers who contribute to their criticism of the administration.
It is much better to have civilized conversations. OK?
Brett: Definitely. Although there is something to be said for being alone. Which reminds me: Be sure to read the fascinating biography of Elisabetta Povoledo in the Times by Mauro Morandi, known as the Robinson Crusoe of Italy. Morandi, who died this month, lived alone for 32 years in an abandoned hut on the beautiful and uninhabited island of Budelli, in northern Sardinia, until old age and local officials forced him to leave a few years ago.
“The most important thing,” he said, “is that I have a calm relationship with time.” If only we all knew.
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