Written by 
Bret Stephens: Happy New Year, Gail. Donald Trump will be president again in a couple of weeks. Is there any news on the horizon that gives you cause for optimism?
Gail Collins: Well, Bret, the holiday season is always a great time to reunite with friends and family. Happy to look back on that. But as for the near horizon, I have a feeling you’re looking for something a little more … political.
Bret: Either that, or the third season of “Squid Game.”
Gail: Besides, you’re the one who wants to discuss the possibility that Trump II won’t be the hair-pulling disaster we have every reason to expect it to be. So take it away.
Bret: I made a New Year’s resolution to stay positive about Trump II — at least until reality smacks me in the face, probably by Jan. 21. So here goes: deep cuts to wasteful government spending; an extension of the 2017 tax cuts; the defunding of federally sponsored D.E.I. programs, which are counterproductive and divisive; a conclusive end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions; the release of all of Israel’s hostages in Gaza and the end to Hamas’s terror state in Gaza and Hezbollah’s in Lebanon; more domestic energy production; a truly secure southern border; the sale of Greenland to the United States — which is not such a crazy idea, so long as it’s voluntary — and Canada as our 51st state.
OK, I’m kidding about Canada; I ask only for the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. But my main hope is that Democrats come to grips with all the ways they fell short last year and figure out how to be a competent opposition party. What do you think should be the main lessons learned?
Gail: We all know the Main Lesson Learned was that many, many, many Americans are unhappy about the cost of living. One quick way to improve things would be a tax cut for the middle and working classes, combined with a hike for the wealthy. No way we’re gonna give everybody, including billionaires, a reduction without skyrocketing deficits.
And the money we save by not cutting taxes further for Elon Musk and his buddies can be used, in part, to fund programs that help struggling workers — better schools for their kids, plus quality early education for the little ones, saving parents from the endless crisis of balancing work and child care.
Bret: It’s good to see intellectually honest Democrats, like James Carville, publicly acknowledge that all of their happy talk last year about the success of Bidenomics wasn’t working with voters squeezed by higher prices, higher rents and higher financing costs. There’s so much voter anger over that, just as there is anger at the way the Democrats misled the public about Joe Biden’s fitness to serve a second term — or maybe even a first.
Gail: I’m not going to divert us into another one of my speeches about the many achievements of the Biden presidency, from access to affordable health care to environmentalism. Tax reform, I must admit, hasn’t been one of the top 10.
Bret: Democrats are also seen by many voters, including me, as the party that brought us a drug crisis in Oregon, chronic shoplifting in San Francisco, crazy people on the subways of New York, millions of illegal immigrants overwhelming public services from Chicago to Yuma, Ariz., teachers’ unions more interested in protecting their members than in educating students, and a world that’s much more threatening today than it was when Biden took office. The Democratic Party that wins is one that, like Bill Clinton in 1992, figures out how to stand for public order and orderly change, not disorder and decay.
Gail: Looking forward to arguing with you on nearly every point there. But first, I want to ask you about some of the political dramas of the week. How do you feel about Mike Johnson’s survival as speaker of the House? Although I’m sure I’m going to be complaining about Johnson endlessly over the next two years, I have to admit that I hated the idea of his being destroyed for having kept the government running.
Bret: Totally agree. It’s nice to have something approaching semiregular order in the House after the antics of 2023. But it’s also going to be strange having someone like Tom Massie, the isolationist libertarian representative from Kentucky who was the only Republican to vote against Johnson, as effectively the second most powerful member of the House because he’s the most likely to be a swing vote. When American politics is this closely divided and polarized, fringe figures like him get too much power.
Gail: When there’s one swing vote, the chance of it being a crazy person is very high.
Speaking of crazy — OK, I’m going back to Trump. There’s been so much nutty talk about immigrants lately. When a terrorist from Texas plows through a street full of people, our president-to-be implies — totally incorrectly — that he’s an alien. We’ve got a lot of cold winter ahead, and I expect him to blame immigrants for the temperature.
The new administration is of course going to keep them out, except maybe unless they have some special skills Elon Musk could use for his businesses.
Bret: We’re going to need to devote a whole conversation to Elon. I’d just like to point out that I was anti-Musk before it was cool.
Gail: You and I agree, I think, that the economy would take a terrible hit if there weren’t immigrants around to do the work they do, whether it’s a high-paying job or a low-paying one. Just recently talked with a teacher whose school had a roof that was caving in that the leadership couldn’t find anyone to fix — except a team of immigrants with all the necessary skills and ardor.
What’s the next administration going to do? Any predictions on how it’ll work out?
Bret: Immigrants are both proof of America’s greatness and a large piece of what makes America great: It’s a credit to us that millions of people want to come here; and it’s a credit to them that they bring so much energy, ambition and imagination to the economy.
But another large piece of what makes America great is the rule of law, and it’s not right that so many people have flouted it to get here. I’m not in favor of mass deportations of illegal immigrants. But we need to secure the border, know who’s in the country, require them to pay fines as a penalty for breaking the law, immediately deport anyone with a criminal record, and create much better incentives to encourage vetted immigrants to arrive here legally. Do you disagree?
Gail: We could let anybody drop in for the weekend and just stay.
Just kidding. If we had an incoming president who wanted to actually make the immigration system better, you and I would of course be ready to debate sensible ways to tighten the laws. But forgive me for my lack of optimism.
Bret, one major story in the week coming up is the funeral for Jimmy Carter. I’m kind of a fan. Your take on our former president?
Bret: That one mustn’t speak ill of the dead. What made you a fan?
Gail: Well, he certainly wasn’t perfect. But I’d say championing desegregation as governor of Georgia and leading the way on environmental issues like climate change puts him on a higher rung than many other major politicians. And his later years working for world peace earned him a Nobel Prize — plus he set a great example with his hands-on work to provide housing for the poor.
Bret: All true. He was honest and upright and lived according to the values of his faith, which is more than can be said for certain of his successors. And, as a bonus for people like me, he deregulated the airlines.
Which reminds me of something a whole lot more mundane: What do you think of the congestion pricing rules that came into effect for the lower part of Manhattan on Sunday?
Gail: It’s pretty clear that it’s a good idea in principle — make it a little more expensive for people to drive into Manhattan, and use the revenue to improve mass transit services. Gov. Kathy Hochul, originally a fan, squashed a much more expensive plan, perhaps to satisfy Democrats in the suburbs. Now the election’s over and sanity can prevail.
But I haven’t had a car for years — you’re a driver who lives outside the city. Give me your take.
Bret: To me, it seems like just another progressive brainstorm that sounds good in theory — encourage people to use mass transit; reduce smog and road congestion; use the money to fund public infrastructure — but will just be another tax that will fall hardest on working-class people who, for one reason or another, need their cars in Manhattan. Fareed Zakaria had a terrific column last week in The Washington Post pointing out that New York state’s budget is more than twice that of Florida’s, and taxes are much higher, but it’s hard to argue that New Yorkers get more for their tax dollars. Maybe the state should tax less and govern better, rather than constantly raising taxes in a way that drives people out of the state.
Gail: We need more time to do a true New York vs. Florida argument. The debate’s coming at us like leaves falling off palm trees. Looking forward.
Bret: At any rate, I’ll continue to drive into the city. I’ll also continue to urge our readers not to miss the best journalism of the week, which leads me to C.J. Chivers’s long, important and spellbinding report on Ukraine’s drone wars against Russia’s invasion army. In addition to serving as a terrifying window into the future of warfare, it contains the best prose I’ve read anywhere in quite some time. One example:
Prorok flew the second quadcopter, which carried a fragmenting anti-personnel submunition salvaged from a Soviet-era cluster bomb. He steered it to the tree line and searched, a mechanical vulture seeking weakening men, then maneuvered it slowly under the canopy of a woodlot green in the bloom of Ukrainian spring. On the second pass, the less wounded Russian appeared onscreen. Hearing the drone, he ditched his peer and bolted. Prorok chased him for about 20 meters, overshot, then turned and buried the drone’s nose into the dirt. “I hit two meters away from him with that heavy munition,” he said. “That is guaranteed to kill.”
Ernie Pyle and Martha Gellhorn have a 21st century peer. Glad he writes for us.