Donald Trump – dwkcommentaries

Immigrants Dominate U.S. Population Growth

For Fiscal 2024, ending June 30, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the U.S. population grew by about 1% to 340.1 million, which was the fastest growth since 2001. This includes 2.7 million net arrivals of immigrants. This was fueled by a surge in legal and illegal arrivals, a falling birthrate and a death rate propped up by an aging population.”[1] This net arrival figure is after the subtraction of 271,484 immigrants who were deported last fiscal year by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.[2]

The South accounted for 54% of this growth led by Texas (+563,000) and Florida (+467,000). Only three states were estimated to have lost population, and just barely: Vermont, West Virginia, and Mississippi.

“Immigrants became a major source of U.S. growth because of recently high numbers of people coming to the U.S., a historically low birthrate and a death rate that, while down from pandemic peaks, remains elevated in part because of the graying population.”

“Many states would have lost population if not for immigration. California, for example, lost about 240,000 people to other states. But it netted about 361,000 immigrants, Census estimates show. New Jersey lost a net 36,000 residents to other states but added 131,000 from abroad. Overall, about two-thirds of immigrants who arrived in the last year were concentrated in 10 states.”

“Seventeen states saw more deaths than births in the recent year. The biggest impact was in West Virginia and three New England states with particularly old populations: Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.”

“President-elect Donald Trump’s proposals to limit immigration and boost deportations could affect the nation’s ability to grow, given its heavy reliance on immigrants.” Moreover, “a significant loss of immigrant labor could put upward pressure on wages and prices.”

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[1] Kamp, Follow & Follow, Immigrants Dominate U.S. Population Growth, W.S.J. (Dec.19, 2024).

[2] Miroff & Sacchetti, U.S. deportations at highest level since 2014, ICE report shows, Wash. Post (Dec. 19, 2024).

Analysis of Recent U.S.Immigration Surge

A New York Times columnist, David Leonhardt, has provided an analysis of the recent surge in U.S. immigration. Here are the seven highlights of that analysis.[1]

“1. The immigration surge since 2021 has been the largest in U.S. history, surpassing even the levels of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Total net migration — the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving — will likely exceed eight million people over the past four years, government statistics suggest. That number includes both legal and illegal immigration.”

“Never before has annual net migration been close to two million for an extended period, according to data from the Census Bureau and the Congressional Budget Office.”

“2. Even after adjusting for today’s larger population, the surge is slightly larger than that during the peak years of Ellis Island traffic, when millions of Europeans came to the United States.”

“3. The share of the U.S. population born in another country has reached a record high as a result. That share hit 15.2 percent in the summer of 2023 (and continued rising over the past 18 months). The previous high of 14.8 percent occurred in 1890, and the share remained high for decades afterward.”

“It began to decline after the passage of a tough immigration law in 1924. That restrictive era lasted until 1965, when a new law expanded immigration.”

“4. President Biden’s welcoming immigration policy has been the main reason for the recent surge. During his 2020 campaign, Biden encouraged more people to come to the U.S., and he loosened several policies after taking office.”

“Biden administration officials sometimes argue that outside events, such as the turmoil in Haiti, Ukraine and Venezuela, have been the main cause of the surge, and those events did play a role. But the sharp decline of migration levels since this past summer — when Biden tightened the rules — indicates that the administration’s policies were the biggest factor.”

“5. More than half of net migration since 2021 has been among people who entered the country illegally. Of the roughly eight million net migrants who came to the U.S. over the past four years, about five million — or 62 percent — were unauthorized, according to an estimate by Goldman Sachs.”

“6. The unprecedented scale of recent immigration helps explain why the issue played such a big role in the 2024 election. Polls showed that the sharp rise in immigration was unpopular with most Americans, especially among working-class voters, some of whom complained of strained social services, crowded schools and increased homelessness.”

“The issue appears to have been Kamala Harris’s second biggest vulnerability, after only the economy. Donald Trump made striking gains near the border in Texas, winning six counties along the Rio Grande that he lost badly only eight years ago. And Democrats who outpaced Harris and won tough congressional races — in Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, New York and elsewhere — often criticized Biden’s immigration policies.”

“7. The recent immigration surge has probably ended. Trump has promised to impose even tougher border rules next year than Biden recently imposed. Trump also campaigned on a plan to deport millions of immigrants who entered the country illegally.”

“It remains unclear how far Trump will go and whether his plan will remain popular once he begins to implement it. Either way, the pace at which immigrants enter the U.S. has already fallen significantly from the peak levels of 2022 and 2023 and may continue to fall after Trump takes office. Historically, in both the U.S. and other countries, very high levels of immigration often cause a political backlash that leads to new restrictions.”

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[1] Leonhardt, The Largest Immigration Surge in U.S. History, N.Y. Times (Dec. 11, 2024). More details are contained in Leonhardt’s longer article, Recent Immigration Surge Has Been Largest in U.S. History, N.Y. Times (Dec. 11, 2024).. See also David Leonhardt (background).

Support for Immigration from Nicholas Eberstadt and George Will

Nicholas Eberstadt , the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at Washington, D.C.;’s American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has authored a penetrating 23-page article about the upcoming new era of history he calls “the age of depopulation.”[1]

Eberstadt “researches and writes extensively on demographics and economic development generally, and more specifically on international security in the Korean peninsula and Asia. Domestically, he focuses on poverty and social well-being.” The AEI is a “public policy think tank dedicated to defending human dignity, expanding human potential, and building a freer and safer world [and advancing] ideas rooted in our belief in democracy, free enterprise, American strength and global leadership, solidarity with those at the periphery of our society, and a pluralistic, entrepreneurial culture.”[2]

George Will’s Endorsement of Eberstadt’s Article

George Will, the noted columnist for the Washington Post, has endorsed the importance of the Eberstadt article, in a two-page column that distills at least some of Eberstadt’s important points.[3]

Here are the key points of that distillation.

“Earth’s population is going to decline. A lot. This will create social hazards that will challenge political ingenuity. Still, it will be, primarily, a protracted reverberation of a relatively recent, and excellent, event in humanity’s story: the emancipation of women.”

Eberstadt “says a large excess of deaths over births will be driven not by a brute calamity like the bubonic plague but by choices: those regarding fertility, family structures and living arrangements, all reflecting ‘a worldwide reduction in the desire for children.’”

“Today, two-thirds of the world’s population lives in countries with below-replacement levels (2.1 births per woman) of fertility. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia has had 17 million more deaths than births. The 27 European Union countries are, collectively, 30 percent below replacement. Last year, France had fewer births than in 1806, when Napoleon won the Battle of Jena. Italy had the fewest since its 1861 unification, Spain the fewest since it started keeping track of this in 1859. America’s “demographic exceptionalism” is despite its fertility rate (1.62 last year), thanks to immigration.”

“Eberstadt says, as the world has become richer, healthier, more educated and more urbanized, ‘the most powerful national fertility predictor’ has been something related to these changes: changes in ‘what women want.’ Volition shapes birth rates because now people everywhere are ‘aware of the possibility of very different ways of life from the ones that confined their parents.’”

“It is possible that ‘the pervasive graying of the population and protracted population decline will hobble economic growth and cripple social welfare systems in rich countries,’ Eberstadt writes. Also: ‘A coming wave of senescence,’ smaller family units, fewer people getting married, ‘high levels of voluntary childlessness,’ ‘dwindling workforces, reduced savings and investment, unsustainable social outlays, and budget deficits’ are the fate of developed nations — unless they make ‘sweeping changes.’”

“Eberstadt is, however, tentatively cheerful: ‘Steadily improving living standards and material and technological advances will still be possible.’ The Earth ‘is richer and better fed than ever before — and natural resources are more plentiful and less expensive (after adjusting for inflation), than ever before,’ and the global population is more ‘extensively schooled’ than ever. What is required is ‘a favorable business climate,’ which is Eberstadt’s shorthand for allowing market forces to wring maximum efficiency from fewer people: ‘Prosperity in a depopulating world will also depend on open economies: free trade in goods, services, and finance to counter the constraints that declining populations otherwise engender.’”

“The ‘demographic tides’ are, Eberstadt writes, running against the quartet of nations (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea) that, oblivious of demography, are exaggerating their future powers. China’s next generation ‘is on track to be only half as large as the preceding one.’”

“Furthermore, ‘demographic trends are on course to augment American power.’”

“Although the United States is ‘a sub-replacement society, it has higher fertility levels than any East Asian country and almost all European states,’ Eberstadt says. Even more important, thanks to immigration, ‘the United States is on track to account for a growing share of the rich world’s labor force, youth, and highly educated talent.’”

“One issue in this year’s presidential campaign is germane to the convulsive demographic changes that are coming: immigration. Concerning this, Donald Trump is obtuse, and Kamala Harris has, as about most things, vagueness born of timidity.”

Conclusion

Many thanks to Eberstadt and Will for their illumination of these exceedingly important issues.

This blog has written many posts about the aging and declining population of the U.S. and many of its states and other countries in the world and the challenges that presents and to the importance of the U.S. continuing to develop policies that encourage and welcome immigrants.[4]

With some exceptions, most U.S. citizens should be glad to think and say “I am a proud descendant of immigrants to the U.S.” and support reforms of U.S. immigration law to welcome more immigrants.

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[1] Eberstadt, The Age of Depopulation: Surviving a World Gone Gray, Foreign Affairs (Nov/Dec 2024)

[2] Nicolas Eberstadt, Bio & Experience; About {AEI}.

[3] Will, If demography is destiny, bring on immigration. We’re going to need it, Wash. Post (Oct. 23, 2024)

[4] Here is a list of some of the posts to dwkcommentaries regarding the challenges to public policy presented by low birthrates for the U.S. and many other countries and hence the need for more immigrants: U.S. States That Could Have Greatest Benefit from Immigrants Labor (February 28, 2024); Another Documentation of the U.S. Need for Immigrants (April 12, 2024); U.S. Fertility Rate Falls to Record Low (April 25, 2024); Will the World’s Population Cease To Expand? (May 15, 2024); Foreign Physicians Needed To Solve U.S. Doctor Shortage, (June 1, 2024);“Economist” Magazine Also Predicts Lower World Population (June 3, 2024):Pew Research Center Proposes Framework for U.S. Immigration Reform (10/2/24);The Significance of the U.S. Low Birth Rate (10/7/24);.Government Difficulties in Raising Birthrates (10/14/24)..

A Conservative’s Critique of Trump

Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist for the New York Times, writes a most damning critique of Donald Trump as president.[1]

The coronavirus pandemic, Douthat says, provided Trump with the opportunity to consolidate political power. “Here was a foreign threat, an invisible enemy that required a robust government response, a danger that arguably vindicated certain nationalist and populist ideas, a situation in which the normal rules of politics could be suspended for public safety’s sake.” This “was exactly the scenario that people alarmed by his ascent most feared — a case of History granting a president temperamentally inclined to authoritarianism a genuine state of exception in which to enact his fantasies of one-man rule.”

“But Trump didn’t want the gift. It’s not just that our president was too ineffective to consolidate power, that any potential authoritarianism was undermined by his administration’s incompetence. . . . Trump clearly lacks both the facility and the interest level required to find opportunity in crisis. In this case, . . . he showed no sense of the pandemic as anything save an inconvenience to be ignored, a problem to be wished away, an impediment to his lifestyle of golf and tweets and occasional stream-of-consciousness stemwinders. And when reality made ignoring it impossible, his only genuinely political impulse — the only impulse that related to real power and its uses — was to push the crucial forms of responsibility down a level, to the nation’s governors, and wash his presidential hands.”

“In this the coronavirus has clarified, once and for all, the distinctiveness of Trump’s demagogy. Great men and bad men alike seek attention as a means of getting power, but our president is interested in power only as a means of getting attention. Which is why, tellingly, his most important virus-related power grab to date has been the airtime grab of his daily news conferences — a temporary coup against the cable television schedule, a ruthless imposition (at least until the reviews turned bad) of presidential reality TV.”

The more important aspects of his character are a “fear of claiming any power that might lead to responsibility and someday blame, a showman’s preference for performance over rule, a media addict’s preference for bluster over deeds.”

The “great crisis of his presidency has revealed the vast gulf that separates him . . . from almost every statesman ever considered uniquely dangerous or uniquely skilled.”

“In the fourth year of this presidency the black comedy has finally given way to tragedy. But not because Trump suddenly discovered how to use his authority for dictatorial or democracy-defying purpose. Rather, because in this dark spring America needed a president capable of exercising power and found that it had only a television star, a shirker and a clown.”

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[1] Douthat, Donald Trump Doesn’t Want Authority, N.Y. Times (May 19, 2020).

Pandemic Journal (# 20): Oprah Winfrey’s Challenge to the Pandemic Classes of 2020

On May 15, Oprah Winfrey gave an inspiring online commencement address to all graduating high school and college members of the classes of 2020, the pandemic classes. Here is what she said.[1]

“[N]ever has a graduating class been called to step into the future with more purpose, vision, passion, and energy and hope.”

“Every one of us is now being called to graduate, to step toward something, even though we don’t know what. Every one of us is likewise now being called to temper the parts of ourselves that must fall away, to refine who we are, how we define success and what is genuinely meaningful. And you, the real graduates on this day, you will lead us.”

“It’s vital that you learn, and we all learn, to be at peace with the discomfort of stepping into the unknown. It’s really OK to not have all the answers. The answers will come for sure, if you can accept not knowing long enough to get still and stay still long enough for new thoughts to take root in your more quiet, deeper, truer self. The noise of the world drowns out the sound of you. You have to get still to listen.”

“Can you, the class of 2020, show us not how to put the pieces back together again, but how to create a new and more evolved normal, a world more just, kind, beautiful, tender, luminous, creative, whole? We need you to do this, because the pandemic has illuminated the vast systemic inequities that have defined life for too many for too long. For poor communities without adequate access to health care, inequality is a pre-existing condition. For immigrant communities forced to hide in the shadows, inequality is a pre-existing condition. For incarcerated people, with no ability to social distance, inequality is a pre-existing condition. For every person burdened by bias and bigotry, for every black man and woman living in their American skin, fearful to even go for a jog, inequality is a pre-existing condition.”

“You have the power to stand for, to fight for, and vote for healthier conditions that will create a healthier society. This moment is your invitation to use your education to begin to heal our afflictions by applying the best of what you’ve learned in your head, and felt in your heart. This moment has shown us what Dr. King tried to tell us. Decades ago, he understood that ‘we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.’”

“Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. If humanity is a global body, every soul is a cell in that body, and we are being challenged like never before to keep the global body healthy by keeping ourselves healthy in mind and body and spirit. As all the traditions affirm, the deepest self-care is at once caring for the human family.”

We “see this so clearly with essential workers. Look who turns out to be essential: teachers — your teachers, health care workers, of course, the people stocking grocery shelves, the cashiers, the truck drivers, food providers, those who are caring for your grandparents, those who clean the places where we work and shop and carry out our daily lives. We are all here because they, at great and profound risk, are still providing their essential service.”

“What will your essential service be? What really matters to you? The fact that you’re alive means you’ve been given a reprieve to think deeply about that question. How will you use what matters in service to yourself, your community and the world?”

Comments

I concur that “the pandemic has illuminated the vast systemic inequities that have defined life for too many for too long.”

It also has illuminated the many antiquated aspects of the American government that need to be eliminated or substantially reformed—the Electoral College, the U.S. Senate in which every state has two senators regardless of population, the Senate’s filibuster rule, the needlessly complex structure for voting that allows some states to suppress voting by minorities or citizens who favor the other political party from those in charge. The more specific need this year is prevent the re-election of Donald Trump and any attempt by him and his allies to subvert the election.

So too there are many aspects of the American economy that need to be substantially reformed, such as the immense differences in compensation of corporate CEO’s and the essential hourly employees. For example, the CEO of Target Corporation had total compensation of $21.6 million for fiscal 2019-20 while “essential” employees in its stores in April 2019 had their hourly wage boosted to $13 with the goal of reaching $15 by the end of 2020 and on March 22, 2020, were advised that they would receive an additional $2 per hour through at least May 2. [2]

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[1] Winfrey, Virtual Commencement Address, Facebook (May 15, 2020); Bogei-Burroughs, Oprah to Class of 2020: ‘What Will Your Essential Service Be?’, N.Y. Times (May 15, 2020).

[2] Kennedy, CEO Pay Watch: Target’s Brian Cornell made $21.6 million last fiscal year, StarTribune (April 23, 2020); Reagan, Target raises its minimum wage to $13 per hour, with goal of reaching $15 by end of 2020, CNBC (April 4, 2019); Wilson, Target gives raises, bonuses to employees during coronavirus pandemic, WTHR 13 (Mar. 24, 2020).

New Yorker Report on Medical Problems of U.S. Diplomats in Cuba

The November 19, 2018, issue of The New Yorker has a lengthy article about the medical problems experienced by some U.S. diplomats in Cuba starting in late 2016 (and after the U.S. presidential election). [1]

The conclusion, however, is the same as previously reported: some U.S. personnel did suffer injury and the U.S. Government has publicly stated it does not know the cause or perpetrator of these injuries.[2]

But the article does provide greater details about many of the victims having been CIA agents and about the U.S.-Cuba interactions over these incidents.

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[1] Entous & Anderson, Havana Syndrome, New Yorker at 34 (Nov. 19, 2018).

[2] See posts listed in the “U.S. Diplomats Medical Problems in Cuba, 2017-18” section of List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: CUBA.

New Perspective on Different Social Class Attitudes Toward Immigrants

A new perspective on different attitudes towards immigrants by U.S. elites and non-elites has been provided by Joan C. Williams of the University of California-Hastings College of Law.[1]

Williams’ Thesis

“As recently as the 1990s, Harvard sociologist Michèle Lamont found that working-class men in the New York City area held generally positive attitudes toward immigrants, describing them as ‘family oriented’ and ‘hard workers, just like us.’”

“More recently, however, many working-class men express different attitudes towards immigrants.” Williams attributes this to stagnant real wages. She says “real wage growth for the working class has been abysmal for a generation, and for many native-born blue-collar workers the culprit seems obvious—immigration. “My fiancé’s worked at the same company for 21 years and it’s a union [job], and they are hiring Mexicans,” one Trump voter told the Public Religion Research Institute. “And I don’t want to be racial, but that’s all they’re hiring. He makes like $31 an hour, and they’re coming in at making like $8 an hour.”

Although “economists have demonstrated immigration’s positive effect on gross domestic product, . . .that misses a crucial point: People don’t live the averages. They live where they live, and see what’s in front of them. In 2016 Donald Trump won far more counties than Hillary Clinton did—but Mrs. Clinton’s roughly 500 counties represented two-thirds of GDP. Mr. Trump won in regions left behind.”

Today , Williams continues, “less than half of Americans born in the 1980s earn more than their parents did, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research study led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty. Antitrade and anti-immigrant voices offer a clear explanation of why good jobs left the U.S. (free trade), and why the jobs that replaced them pay less (immigrants).”

“Those who believe otherwise need to communicate an alternative explanation and recognize that anti-immigrant fervor reflects cultural as well as economic divides.” These people primarily are what she calls “global elites, “ who “pride themselves on their cosmopolitanism. Some younger elites reject the notion of national borders entirely.” Indeed, many of these people “seek social honor by presenting themselves as citizens of the world. And many are, with membership in global networks dating to their college years or earlier.”

Such attitudes or beliefs are rejected by “many blue-collar whites [who] interpret this as a shocking lack of social solidarity. They are proud to be American because it’s one of the few high-status identities they can claim.” They “tend to stay close to home because they rely on a small circle of family and friends for jobs, child care and help patching that hole in the roof.”

“Driven in part by their contrary lifestyles and networks, elites and non-elites hold radically different core values. A 2007 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that elites focus on achievement and individuality, while the working class prizes solidarity and loyalty—values that bind members to their communities.”

“This class culture gap is also fueled by what sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild calls ‘feeling rules’ in her book, ‘Strangers in Their Own Land.’ These unwritten rules govern who deserves sympathy and who doesn’t. Elites’ feeling rules mandate empathy for immigrants, viewed as vulnerable people separated from their families or fleeing persecution, gangs or conflict. This empathetic human-rights lens contrasts sharply with the neoliberal lens elites use for blue-collar Americans, who are often viewed as dimwitted and fat. Homer Simpson is emblematic.”

“All this has created a toxic environment in both the U.S. and Europe.”

Williams’ Suggested Remedies

Williams provides three suggestions for members of the elite class to try to turn things around.

“The first is to recognize that the nation-state matters greatly for non-elites in developed countries. . . . Dismissing national pride as nothing more than racism is a recipe for class conflict and more racism. Better by far to embrace national pride, balance it with concern for those outside the nation, and refuse to allow racism to pose as national pride.”

“The second, . . .highlight the ways President Trump’s immigration and trade policies are hurting red-state constituencies that voted for him. Critics can point to farmers unable to find farmworkers, small-business owners unable to find dishwashers, and construction workers hit hard by steel tariffs.”

“The third step is to fight the scapegoating of immigrants by ensuring that hardworking Americans without college degrees can find good jobs. Economist Branko Milanovic has found that people in the bottom half of rich, developed countries’ income distributions have seen ‘an absence of real income growth’ since 1988. What’s happening, Mr. Milanovic argues, is the ‘greatest reshuffle of individual incomes since the Industrial Revolution.’ [Indeed,] the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that average wages fell last year for nonsupervisory workers in the U.S.”

“There’s no inherent reason why native-born blue-collar workers should be anti-immigrant. They often hold similar attitudes toward hard work and family values. Elites who sympathize with immigrants do themselves no favors by dismissing the working class as too bigoted or too stupid to recognize the economic benefits of immigration. Instead they should actually try to make the case and address the causes of anti-immigrant scapegoating.”

Conclusion

These suggestions make sense although I would add the following as elements to ameliorating the class divide: publicizing the many ways that today’s immigrants enhance the life and economy of the U.S.; emphasizing the need for immigrants in the many parts of this country with declining, aging populations; and reminding everyone of the many injustices that faced prior immigrants who are our ancestors.

There also is a profound need, especially for members of the elite and for individuals in both camps to find ways to meet and have respectful conversations about these problems.

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[1] Williams, The Elites Feed Anti-Immigrant Bias, W.S.J. (July 9, 2018). Williams is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, Chair of the UC Hastings Foundation and the Founding Director of the Center for WorkLife Law. She also is the author of “White Working Class” (Harvard Business Review, 2017). She has degrees from Yale University (B.A., History), MIT (M.A., City Planning) and Harvard Law School (J.D.).

President Eisenhower’s Secret Campaign Against Senator Joe McCarthy

During the first two years of President Eisenhower’s first term (1953-1954), U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (Rep., WI), was garnering national attention with his reckless charges of communist infiltration of the U.S. government, including the President’s beloved U.S. Army, which he had brilliantly served during World War II. Yet Ike, as the President was known, did not publicly confront McCarthy.

Now David A. Nichols, a retired history professor at Kansas’ Southwestern College and an authority on the Eisenhower presidency, has provided great details on Ike’s behind-the-scenes campaign against McCarthy in Ike and McCarthy: Dwight Eisenhower’s Secret Campaign Against Joseph McCarthy (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2017).

According to Nichols, Ike drew upon his experience in strategic deception as Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe in World War II to orchestrate the campaign against McCarthy. Keys to this strategy were the President’s avoiding public criticism of McCarthy and deflecting journalists’ questions about the Senator at presidential press conferences and instead having presidential subordinates issue statements and take actions against McCarthy. Those “subordinates” included Sherman Adams, White House Chief of Staff; James Hagerty, White House Press Secretary; Fred Seaton, Assistant Secretary of Defense; Herbert Brownell, Jr., Attorney General; William Rogers, Deputy Attorney General; John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State; and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Ambassador to the United Nations.

An important part of this history was the relationship between Roy Cohn, who was McCarthy’s chief counsel, and a handsome young staffer on McCarthy’s committee, G. David Schine, who after being drafted as a private into the U.S. Army obtained preferential treatment by the Army as a result of pressure from Cohn and McCarthy. Below are photographs of the two men.

When President Eisenhower learned of the special treatment and the reasons therefor, he instigated a secret Army investigation of these matters. The subsequent report of that investigation was publicly released and prompted fiery denunciations of the Army by McCarthy and Cohn, resulting in the now infamous Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954.

The implicit message of this report was Cohn and Schine’s having a homosexual relationship, which at the time was widely condemned. At the subsequent Army-McCarthy hearing, Army counsel, Joseph Welch, alluded to this relationship when he questioned another McCarthy aide, James Juliana, about the origins of a photograph that had been altered. The question: “Did you think it came from a pixie?,” which Nichols says was a sly allusion to the alteration’s having been made at the direction of Cohn, who was believed to be gay. McCarthy interrupted: “Will the counsel for my benefit define—I think he may be an expert on that—what is a pixie?” Welch’s response: “Yes, I should say, Mr. Senator, that a pixie is a close relative of a fairy [a widely used term for a homosexual at the time]. Shall I proceed, sir? Have I enlightened you?” The room erupted in laughter. (Nichols at 239.)[1]

The hearing’s climax occurred on June 9, 1954, when Welch sarcastically asked Cohn about the important committee work that he and Schine purportedly had done on their weekends together and taunted him to “hurry” to “act before sundown” to discover communists anywhere. McCarthy sought to counter this attack on Cohn and McCarthy by interrupting to say that Welch’s law firm had “a young man named Fisher . . . who has been for a number of years a member of an organization which was named, oh years and years ago, as the legal bulwark of the Communist party.” (Nichols at 280.)

Welch, after finally getting McCarthy’s attention, said, “Senator, I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. Little did I dream that you would be so reckless and cruel as to do an injury to that lad. . . . If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.” (Nichols at 280-81.)

McCarthy, ignoring this plea, resumed his attack on Fisher. Welch responded, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?” (Id.)

At the time, many thought that Welch was surprised by this attack on Fisher, but there was no such surprise. Indeed, some thought that Welch’s cross examination of Cohn was taunting McCarthy so that he would attack Fisher and that Welch’s “no sense of decency” speech was rehearsed. (Nichols at 280-82.)[2]

Six months later, on December 2, 1954, the U.S. Senate by a vote of 67 to 22 passed a resolution condemning McCarthy for certain of his actions as a U.S. Senator. Thereafter he had virtually no influence in the Senate or the country at large. He died on May 2, 1957. (Nichols at 292-97.)

Postscript

In 2012, I met author Nichols when he gave a lecture at the Minnesota Historical Society on President Abraham Lincoln’s involvement in issues related to the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862,[3] a subject in which I had an interest and about which have written blog posts.[4] Later when I had written blog posts about Joseph Welch and his representing the Army in the McCarthy hearings,[5] Nichols told me he was writing a book about Eisenhower and McCarthy, and I provided him with materials I had collected. I was surprised and pleased when Nichols included this kind acknowledgement at the end of his just published book:

Nichols was “particularly indebted to Duane Krohnke, a retired Minneapolis attorney and authority on Joseph Welch, his fellow alumnus at Grinnell College in Iowa. Duane provided me with documents unavailable elsewhere, especially Fred Fisher’s account of the hiring of Welch as counsel for the Army-McCarthy hearings. Duane also connected me with Ann M. Lousin [Grinnell, 1964] and Nancy Welch [not Grinnell’s 1961 Nancy Welch], Welch’s granddaughter, both of whom provided important information about Welch and McCarthy.” (Nichols at 300.)

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[1] After Cohn died of AIDS in 1986, public speculation about his sexual orientation intensified. Some say that his relationship with Schine was platonic while others assert it was homosexual. In the HBO film of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” Al Pacino plays Cohn as a closeted, power-hungry hypocrite who is haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg as he lies dying of AIDS. It should also be noted that in 1973 Cohn was hired by Donald Trump to defend the Trump Management Corporation against charges of racial discrimination and Cohn thereby became a close friend and mentor to Mr.Trump.

[2] See also U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Nemesis: Attorney Joseph Welch (June 4, 2012); of “Good Night, and Good Luck: The Movie’s Offstage Hero, Joseph Welch,” Grinnell Magazine (Summer 2006).

[3] Nichols has written a fascinating book on this subject: Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Policy and Politics (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1978, 2000, 2012).

[4] Here are blog posts on this subject to dwkcommentaries.com: The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 (Nov. 3, 2012); White Settler’s Contemporaneous Reaction to the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 (Nov. 6, 2012); Abraham Lincoln’s Involvement in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 (May 21, 2013); U.S. Military Commission Trials of Dakota Indians After the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 (June 11, 2013); President Abraham Lincoln’s Involvement in the Military Commission’s Convictions and Sentences of the Dakota Indians (June 24, 2013); The Sesquicentennial Commemoration of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 (Nov. 9, 2012); Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Hanging of the “Dakota 38” (Dec. 26, 2012); Minneapolis and St. Paul Declare U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 “Genocide” (Jan. 12, 2013); Remembering the U.S.-Dakota War at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (Part I) (Nov. 18, 2012); Remembering the U.S.-Dakota War at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (Part II) (Nov. 25, 2012); Remembering the U.S.-Dakota War at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (Part III) (Nov. 29, 2012); Personal Reflections on the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 (Dec. 10, 2012).

[5] I am the author of “Good Night, and Good Luck: The Movie’s Offstage Hero, Joseph Welch,” Grinnell Magazine (Summer 2006); the biography of Welch in Newman (ed.), The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (Yale Univ. Press, 2009); and the following posts on my blog (https://dwkcommentaries.com): Joseph Welch Before the Army-McCarthy Hearings (06/14/12); The U.S. Army’s Hiring of Joseph Welch for the Army-McCarthy Hearings (06/08/12); U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Nemesis: Attorney Joseph Welch (06/04/12); Attorney Joseph Welch’s Performance at the Army-McCarthy Hearings (06/06/12); President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Involvement in the Army-McCarthy Hearings (06/10/12); Joseph Welch After the Army-McCarthy Hearings (06/12/12); and Legal Ethics Issues in the “Anatomy of a Murder Movie [in which Welch played the judge]” (06/27/12). The joys of researching about Welch and other subjects are celebrated in Adventures of a History Detective, dwkcommentaries.com (April 5, 2011).

Three Experts Anticipate Little Change in U.S. Policies Regarding Cuba

Three partners in Washington, D.C. offices of major law firms expect little change in U.S. policies regarding Cuba.[1]

Harry Clark, a partner at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and chair of the firm’s international trade and compliance group, sees “the new administration leaving things where they are, by and large. It could roll back some liberalization, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it does so in incremental ways. But the political factors of keeping a harder-line sanctions policy on Cuba is often over-estimated. There won’t be a lot of political cost for sort of keeping things where they are. The fact that Fidel Castro has died made it less likely that there will be a dramatic re-imposition of sanctions.”

“The fact is, we still have an embargo on Cuba. The liberalization hasn’t been that far-reaching. There isn’t a lot of business you can do in Cuba; you can see the changes more in licensing policy. The current administration has adopted a relatively forgiving licensing policy, where it has been willing to license some activity forbidden by the embargo. I can see the administration not changing the rule very much, but they won’t be nearly as willing to give out licenses.”

Adam M. Smith, an attorney at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP who previously served as a senior adviser at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said, “Before the death of Fidel, there was already a low likelihood [Trump would] . . . change the reality. The downside is too great and the upside is unclear. Companies have invested significant money there. Rollback is now a no-go, because of the clear downside to the companies that have already invested. Now that Fidel has died, Raul is trying to establish his authority in the absence of his brother. There could be an argument to reduce some [U.S.] relief if the [Cuban] human rights situation gets worse. But there are few concerns about the geopolitics here [in Washington].”

Richard L. Matheny, III, a partner at the law firm Goodwin and the head of its National Security & Foreign Trade Regulation Practice, referred to Trump’s stated approach of seeking to make a “better deal” with Cuba. “Ultimately, it may matter little what this means substantively, because I don’t think Trump cares much for substance, so long as Trump is able to sell it as evidence of his alleged deal-making ability.” Moreover, there is

Substantial “momentum within the U.S. business community to build economic ties with Cuba . . . and will ultimately win out; we might not take steps forward on Cuba, but I don’t think we’ll go backwards either.”

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[1] Rubenfeld, Trump Will Continue Using Behavioral Sanctions, Unlikely to Change Cuba Very Much, W.S.J. (Jan. 6, 2017).

The Future of U.S.-Cuba Normalization Under The Trump Administration

Many U.S. citizens who welcomed the last two years of U.S.-Cuba normalization are worried about whether that policy will be continued by the future Trump Administration. Therefore, examination of past comments about Cuba by prospective members of that future administration is appropriate. Here is such an examination.

A prior post recounted the responses to the death of Fidel Castro from President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, prospective White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Trump aides Kellyanne Conway and Jason Miller. The basic conclusion of their remarks was that Mr. Trump would be seeking a better deal with Cuba than the Obama Administration had negotiated.

More recently, at a December 16 “thank You” rally in Orlando, Florida, Trump told the crowd, “America will also stand with the Cuban people in their long struggle for freedom. Their support has been unbelievable. The Cuban people. We know what we have to do, and we’ll do it. Don’t worry about it.”[1]

Additional negative views about U.S.-Cuba rapprochement are found in comments by others in the prospective Trump Administration.

The most negative words came from Cuban-American Mauricio Claver-Carone, transition team member for the Department of the Treasury. After the election in an op-ed article in the Miami-Herald he argued,“Obama’s new course for Cuba has made a bad situation worse.” It concluded with this statement: “There’s no longer any rational strategy behind President Obama’s ‘Cuba policy.’ It has gone from what it initially portrayed as a noble purpose to pure sycophancy in pursuit of ‘historic firsts. Unfortunately, those Cuban dissidents who recognized Obama’s intent from the beginning and labeled it ‘a betrayal’ of their fight for freedom have now been proven correct. Their foresight has come at a terrible cost.”[2]

A similar hostile analysis of rapprochement come from Mike Pompeo, a Congressman from Kansas and the nominee for Director of the CIA.[3] Here are two examples. Immediately after the December 17, 2014, news of the release of Alan Gross from Cuban prison, Pompeo said, “Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has once again taken the opportunity to appease America’s enemies by releasing convicted spies, reviewing Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terror, and attempting to re-establish diplomatic relations with the Castro regime. In March 2016 Pompeo said, Obama’s trip to Cuba was “misguided for the flawed Cuba policy it represents,” including the dropping “ Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, . . . [loosening] sanctions, and . . . [opening] a U.S. Embassy in Havana while there has been zero needed political reform, no increase in freedom, and inadequate loosening of Castro’s grip on power.”

General Michael Flynn, the proposed White House National Security Advisor, sees Cuba as an enemy. Promoting a book he co-authored (The Field of Fight), Flynn stated his belief that the U.S. is in “a global war, facing an enemy alliance that runs from Pyongyang, North Korea, to Havana, Cuba, and Caracas, Venezuela. Along the way, the alliance picks up radical Muslim countries and organizations such as Iran, al Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic State.” (Emphasis added.) Another Kelly article says the world is divided into two sets of enemies. First, there are the radical Islamists, whom he sees as America’s principal foes. Then there is a constellation of hostile anti-democratic regimes that he calls “the alliance” that includes both Islamists and non-Islamists that collaborate against the West because we’re their common enemy. The alliance includes Russia, Syria, North Korea, China, Iran, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.” (Emphasis added.) [4]

Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, however, has not expressed an opinion on U.S.-Cuba relations. Only tangential clues turn up. [5] For example, Tillerson has negotiated multi-billion dollar deals with Putin and Kremlin-confidant Igor Sechin, the head of a Russian state-owned oil company who has negotiated oil deals with Cuba. But at ExxonMobil’s May 2014 annual stockholders’ meeting, Tillerson said the company had no plans to participate in Cuban deposits development by Russian oil major Rosneft because of U.S. sanctions against Cuba.

Guardedly positive comments about Cuba have been made by General John Kelly, the nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security, who recently served as the U.S. military’s Commander of the Southern Command with responsibility for the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Last January Cuba was a first-time participant in the Caribbean Nations Security Conference, when Kelly said, “We’ve normalized now and, regardless of how we think of each other in terms of politics, we have very, very common challenges.” Kelly also said that the Naval station at Guantanamo Bay is “strategically valuable” and should remain open after the detention facility is closed and possibly jointly operated with Cuba employing Cubans. At an earlier Pentagon briefing he said, “the Guantanamo Naval Base is a hugely useful facility to the United States.”

In an October 2015 interview, Kelly said that the U.S. “Coast Guard has worked with the Cubans over the years, but mostly in terms of rescue-at-sea and humanitarian activities. But the other four services – Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines – have had zero relationships with the Cubans. There is a meeting called the “fence-line meeting” at Guantánamo where the Base Commander, a U.S. Navy Captain, meets about weekly with a counterpart on the other side. They talk and chat a little bit, but it’s not much of a relationship.’ In addition, “There are no drugs in Cuba.” [6]

As Kelly neared retirement as Commander of the Southern Command in January 2016, he said, “What tends to bother [terrorist groups and rights activists] . . . is the fact that we’re holding them [at Gitmo] indefinitely without trial … it’s not the point that it’s Gitmo. If we send them, say, to a facility in the U.S., we’re still holding them without trial.” If “ it were agreed Guantanamo should be closed, logistically it wouldn’t be hard, and remaining detainees could be held in the U.S.— “They’re not going to escape, for sure.”

One advocate for rapprochement in the Trump team is (or has been?) Kathleen (K.T.) McFarland, named as Deputy National Security Advisor. She has publicly backed open relations with Cuba. In 2014, she wrote “We must take steps now to ensure that Cuba doesn’t become a Russian or Chinese pawn, and thus serve as a launch pad to threaten America’s security were they to establish a military presence.” [7]

Basic Internet searches about the following members of Trump’s team failed to find any comments about Cuba: General James Mathis (Secretary of Defense), Vincent Viola (Secretary of the Army), Steven Mnuchin (Secretary of the Treasury), Wilbur Ross (Secretary of Commerce), Todd Ricketts (Deputy Secretary of Commerce), Nikki Haley (U.N. Ambassador) and Jeff Sessions (Attorney General).[8]

Conclusion

The above analysis of commentaries by members of the Trump team regrettably suggests a dim future for continuation of normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations. Those of us in the U.S. who believe that this is an erroneous move need to continue to advocate for normalization and to share that opinion with our Senators and Representatives, the Trump Administration and our fellow U.S. citizens.

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[1] Lemmongello, Trump thanks Florida at Orlando rally, Orlando Sentinel (Dec. 116, 2016).

[2] Claver-Carone, Obama’s Cuba policy makes bad situation worse, Miami Herald (Nov. 16, 2016).

[3] Pompeo, Rep. Pompeo Responds to Shift in Policy with Cuba (Dec. 17, 2014); Pompeo, Independent Journal Review: Mr. President, There Is A Reason No U.S. President Has Visited Cuba for 88 Years (Mar. 21, 2016).

[4] Carden, The Real Reason to Worry About Gen. Michael Flynn, Nation ( Nov. 18, 2016); Totten, How Trump’s General Mike Flynn Sees the World, World Affairs (Nov. 30, 2016).

[5] Schoen & Smith, Why Rex Tillerson would be a disaster as Secretary of State, FoxNews (Dec. 13, 2016); ExxonMobil says not to cooperate with Russia’s Rosneft in Cuba, Prime Bus. Net (May 29, 2014). Tillerson’s close relationship with Sechin is covered in MacFarquhaar & Kramer, How Rex Tillerson Changed His Tune on Russia and Came to Court Its Rulers, N.Y. Times (Dec. 20, 2016) and Kashin, Rex Tillerson’s Special Friend in the Kremlin, N.Y. Times (Dec. 22, 2016).

[6] Assoc. Press, Cuba to attend security conference with US for first time (Jan. 12, 2016); U.S. Dept Defense, Department of Defense Press Briefing by General Kelly (Mar. 12, 2015); Lockhart, A Conversation with General John F. Kelly, SOUTHCOM Commander (Oct. 15, 2015); O’Toole, Here’s What America’s Longest-Serving General Most Fears, Defense One (Jan. 11, 2016).

[7] Ordońez, Trump’s been inconsistent on Cuba. Will Castro’s death make a difference? McClatchy DC (Nov. 26, 2016).

[8] As always I invite comments pointing out errors of commission or omission. No similar searches were done for Ryan Zinke (Secretary of Interior), Rick Perry (Secretary of Energy), Andrew Puzder (Secretary of Labor), Ben Carson (Secretary of Housing and Urban Development), Tom Price (Secretary of Health and Human Services), Betsy DeVos (Secretary of Education), Scott Pruitt (Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency), Linda McMahon (Administrator of Small Business Administration), Seema Verma (Administrator of Center for Medicare and Medicaid), Stephen Miller (Senior Advisor to President for Policy), Gary Cohn (Director of National Economic Council), Mick Mulvaney ( Director of Office of Management and Budget) and Don McGahn (White House Counsel).