Bret Stephens: Gail, any strong feelings on whether Jerome Powell should remain chairman of the Federal Reserve?
Gail Collins: Gee, Bret. Do I think the Fed chairman should be bounced for calling President Trump’s maniacal tariff plans “very fundamental policy changes?” Hmm.
Bret: What Powell meant to say is, “This is the stupidest @$*%# idea since the French cavalry suited up in armor at Agincourt.”
Gail: True, Powell did say the Fed was confronting rather daunting challenges in trying to deal with the chaos Trump has thrown the world economy into. But his word choices were certainly … muted, given the historically idiotic, horrific, miserable, ego-driven, disastrous nature of Trump’s chaos-creating actions.
Guess I’m thinking Powell has been pretty restrained.
Bret: Trump wants Powell to cut interest rates to ease the pain of tariffs. But the reason interest rates are up in the first place is because the country is still dealing with an inflation hangover caused in large part by government overspending. If Powell cuts rates now, inflation could rise again even as prices go up over tariffs and overall economic uncertainty. It’s a fiasco whose only silver lining is Trump’s rapidly falling approval rating.
At this point, I’d gladly take a recession if that’s what it takes to wake Americans up to the threat Trump poses to our civil liberties. You?
Gail: Well yeah, but I’d very much prefer for the wake-up to come without spiraling unemployment or hungry families.
Bret: Of course. But it still might be better than despotism arriving behind the tinted windows of a Tesla Cybertruck.
Gail: We’ve got a president who won’t acknowledge that a second term will be his limit. Who’s created a cabinet that isn’t even willing to keep military secrets secret or protect children from measles. Who’s ….
Aaaah, I think I’m gonna put my head down. Feel free to tell me what you think the next awful thing is gonna be.
Bret: The Supreme Court is going to weigh in on the subject of birthright citizenship, which has been guaranteed since 1868 by the 14th Amendment and settled Constitutional law since the 1898 Wong Kim Ark case — and which Trump is now attempting to end via executive order. My guess is that the vote will be 9-0 against the administration — even Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito aren’t going to go along with an attempt to overturn long-settled law through presidential fiat. And my guess is that Trump will still try to defy the court. Which brings us into … dangerous waters.
Gail: Dangerous waters, but where there’s no room for Trump to even doggy paddle. The constitution says people who are born here have a right to citizenship. Pretty much nobody who’s ever gone to law school thinks different.
And while you’re right about how scary a presidential rebellion against the Supreme Court would be — or maybe I should say another rebellion — this is a case where the right answer is so completely clear that if we have to have this kind of crisis, I’m good for fighting it on this issue.
Bret: Then there’s the administration’s assault on academic freedom. I never thought I’d have a reason to say this, but: Three cheers for Harvard!
Gail: Boy, Trump really does hate the Ivy League, doesn’t he? You think it’s because he couldn’t get into Harvard or Yale?
Bret: Well, he did go to Penn. Whether he got in on merit is a whole other question.
But I really want to praise Harvard, particularly its impressive president, Alan Garber, for standing up to the administration’s vague and unconstitutional demands to monitor people’s views. Harvard and other universities still have a lot to do when it comes to antisemitism and the civil rights of its Jewish students. But on questions of academic freedom, Harvard can’t budge an inch, even if it means losing government funding for research — and its tax-exempt status. Money can always be restored. Principles can’t. And the most basic principle in a free society is that government has no more of a right to interfere in what goes on in a classroom than it does in what goes on in a bedroom — so long, of course, as it’s consensual.
Gail: Bret, I get very nervous when we agree so much. Want to go back to the days where mediocrity reigned in the White House and we could fight endlessly about budgets and taxes?
C’mon — pick a fight.
Bret: Well, word is that people in the White House are trying to persuade Trump to raise the top income-tax rate on the highest earners. Awful, right?
Gail: Good choice! It’s always been true that when we find ourselves too much in harmony, taxing the wealthy will get us back in the groove.
Right now, America’s wealthiest families are paying about 8.2 percent of their income in taxes, compared with about 13 percent for average folks. No reason for that whatsoever, particularly if bringing the rich up to the norm helps fund programs for the poor and middle class.
Bret: We aren’t mainly talking about billionaires, many of whom have their wealth tied up in shares of companies they own. The taxes Trump’s aides are considering would wallop the upper middle class, doctors or lawyers or other professionals making a little more than $400,000 a year. A lot of these people live in high-tax states like California and high-price cities like New York, so their cost of living is sky high already. I’m not sure where the logic is in driving people away from these high-tax jurisdictions to less expensive places like Texas or Florida.
Actually, this would be a good issue on which Democrats could start … evolving. It shouldn’t just be Republicans who change all their policies. Any other issues where Democrats could rethink some of their moldy shibboleths?
Gail: The Democrats’ biggest problem isn’t moldy shibboleths — it’s the inability of their leaders to come together on a coherent, specific set of plans that they can rally around and then sell to the voters.
Joe Biden’s latest disaster-ridden public appearance is an excellent example of what’s wrong with the party. The excitement Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are working up in their rallies shows that there’s a large untapped population of youthful voters who are just waiting to be shown that the Democrats have a compelling vision for their future.
Bret: You mean the one where Biden mixed up Ukraine and Iraq and dropped an ice cream bar on the floor? Every time he appears in public it feels like a form of elder abuse.
But if Democrats decide to make two Democratic Socialists their standard bearers, they’re going to destroy their chances of winning a presidential election for many years. Americans want a sane alternative to Trump, not an ideological mirror image.
Gail: Did not say a Bernie-A.O.C. ticket was the wave of the future. Don’t think anybody says an 83-year-old senator is the wave of the future. But the rallies they’re holding show how much the public wants candidates who will get them excited about progressive change.
Bret: I sometimes wonder whether the willingness of people to turn up to rallies is any indication of broader appeal. It’s definitely true in Trump’s case. But somehow I don’t see A.O.C. or other members of the now-depleted “squad” leading the Democrats to anything other than political disaster. Just give me a sane Democrat who still believes in the goodness of American ideals, the power of free markets and the need to chart a middle course in politics. In other words: Bill Clinton.
Gail: How about … Barack Obama? An exciting speaker who could fill a crowd with hope without turning them into shrieking jackals. Who gave the nation great reforms in everything from equal pay for women to expanded health care rights for children and the poor.
Bret: Sadly, I think the main thing Obama gave us was Trump.
Gail: Obama was such a stupendous orator and overall public presence — I’m sorry to say I don’t see any current Democratic candidates on his level.
Still, I have great hopes. There are a bunch of smart, principled, talented Democrats who are going to be vying for the next nomination, and the voters will get a chance — unlike last time around — to pick their favorite in the primaries.
When I look at the presidential picture I only have one deep, sad reaction: It’s gonna be almost four years before we can make this happen,
Sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh.
Bret: Let’s not be all doom and gloom, Gail. Great things happen in unseen places thanks to unknown people on account of unexpected circumstances. It reminds me of my favorite poem, “God’s Grandeur,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It’s one I know by heart:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
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Gail Collins is a Times Opinion columnist focusing on domestic politics. @GailCollins • Facebook
Bret Stephens is an Opinion columnist for The Times, writing about foreign policy, domestic politics and cultural issues. Facebook
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