Michael Wolraich's blog

Dagblog is going static, baby

Michael Wolraich — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 19:06:35 +0000

Dear friends, readers, and curious bots,

Once upon a time, there were things called blogs. You could write whatever you wanted it in them, blathering joyfully about life, the universe, and everything until your Netscape browser crashed. Then someone invented "comments," and it all went to hell. Trolls and spammers and flame-warriors rampaged through the blogosphere, turning once peaceful websites into blistering battlefields.

Amid the chaos, three small-time bloggers known by their nom de plumes, Deadman, Articleman, and Genghis, decided to try something different. We set up a new website where bloggers and commenters were required to abide by rules of civility.

We called it dagblog, because DAG was an acronym for our pseudonyms, and it sounded kind of cool. More importantly, the url was available. Then we invited all our blog-friends to come frolic. You can see their handles in the column just to the right.

We wrote a lot, mostly about politics but also art and literature and life and whatever thoughts bubbled out of our cunning little brains. Dagblog was a publishing platform but also a community, and I count many of its members among my friends even though I only met a few of them in person.

But the world kept turning. Twitter happened. Babies got born. Jobs changed. A few cherished members of the community passed on. Most drifted away. The website has been dormant for several years.

The hosting costs are expensive, and the php code is ancient, so it's time to shut things down, But don't worry, I wouldn't disappoint the hungry AI bots by letting all this lovely content disappear. Dagblog will live on as a static website. You can still navigate the site and peruse the blog posts. You just won't be able to comment or post new material.

Meanwhile, I'm still writing--in case you haven't noticed the shameless book plugs all over the site. I was lucky to be able to use dagblog to launch a writing career. As of this post, I've published three nonfiction books and numerous op-eds on platforms like the Atlantic and Rolling Stone that I could only dream about when I first started blogging. It's been an incredible ride, and I'm grateful to everyone who encouraged me along the way.

If you need to reach me or just want to say hi, you can contact me on Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn, or my personal website, https://michaelwolraich.com.

All the best,

Michael Wolraich, a.k.a. Genghis

Topics:

Potpourri

COMING SOON: THE BISHOP AND THE BUTTERFLY

Michael Wolraich — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 22:49:30 +0000

Hello dagbloggers! Anyone still here? (I mean, besides artappraiser and PeraclesPlease, bless you both.)

If you have visited dag lately, you might have noticed some new marketing material in the margins. Yes, I have exploited my power as the last remaining founder of dagblog to shamelessly plug my new nonfiction book, The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz, coming to a bookstore near you on February 6!

The book recounts the 1931 murder of a prostitute and blackmailer named Vivian Gordon in the Bronx. The sensational homicide case induced Governor Franklin Roosevelt to expand a state investigation into corruption in New York City. Led by Judge Samuel Seabury, the investigation ultimately forced Mayor Jimmy Walker to resign and precipitated the downfall of Tammany Hall.

Those of you who have followed my writing career know that it has been a while since I published a book, almost nine years in fact. The pace of my writing was hampered by a baby (nearly 8 years old now) and a pandemic, but the primary obstacle was the publishing industry. My previous books sold around 4,000 copies each, which seemed like a lot to me, but editors weren't impressed by my "track." I wrote and shopped around three book proposals before finding a publisher for the fourth, recorded here for posterity:

Lincoln's Banker: How Jay Cooke Conquered Wall Street and Beat the Confederacy
We the Cowards: How Americans Lost Their Nerve
Hunting Heisenberg: Inside the Secret Mission to Stop the Nazi Bomb

I received offers for a couple of them, but they were very small offers from very small publishers. I didn't take them, not because of the money, but because I feared that I'd sell even fewer books and then have even more trouble selling my next proposal. There's nothing wrong with small publishers, but they don't invest in marketing or publicity, and the media gatekeepers tend to ignore them, which makes it very difficult to sell books unless you're not a self-promoting genius, which I am not. (FTR, the big publishers don't invest much in marketing these days either, but if your book gains some traction, they have the resources to back it.)

The publisher who bought my fourth proposal, Union Square & Co., is also small but a bit bigger than the others, and it's owned by Barnes & Noble. That doesn't seem to have made much difference though. As far as I can tell, Union Square & Co. is completely siloed from the bookseller, and the marketing/publicity support, thus far, has been skeletal. When speaking with independent publicists, one of which I hired, I was warned that it would be difficult to get reviews/press since the publisher isn't well-known.

Nonetheless, I'm delighted to say that the early response to The Bishop and the Butterfly has been outstanding. The book received a stunning starred review from Publishers Weekly that compared it to Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (which has sold millions of copies). PW reviews a lot of books, but a starred review is a huge honor. Then the Chicago Review of Books included it in their list of Most Anticipated Books of 2024. The book has also received some stellar blurbs from prizewinning/bestselling authors, some whom didn't know me at all when they agreed to read the book. You can see the full list on my website, michaelwolraich.com.

There is even bigger news in the pipeline, but I'm afraid that I can't disclose it yet. Keep an eye on the book reviews, and wish me the best! I plan to post an update here when the book comes out. I'll also be doing some events in NYC, one in the Boston area, and possibly a few others, which I'll post about. For more regular updates, you can follow me on Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, or (sigh) the app formerly known as Twitter.

Finally, if you have any interest in narrative nonfiction, history, or true crime, or if you know anyone who does, or if you just like me a little bit, please pre-order a copy Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books-A-Million, Bookshop or any other seller.

I miss you all!

Topics:

Personal

Time is Not on Biden's Side

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 20:39:56 +0000

Joe Biden looks great on paper. Polling at over thirty percent, he dominates his Democratic rivals by fifteen points or more, and he crushes Donald Trump in head-to-head polls. He has half-a-century of political experience, and his middle-class Scranton roots will appeal in Pennsylvania and other rust-belt swing states. Firmly in control of the centrist vote, he can sit back while his opponents squabble over the left wing.

But he’s unlikely to become the Democratic nominee for President.

Given Biden’s resume and name recognition, there’s no mystery why he’s the frontrunner. The question is, why isn’t he further ahead? The answer is immediately apparent if we step back for a moment. Yes, Biden has taken control of the center with a carefully choreographed strategy to stay to the right of his rivals. His only real competition for centrist Democrats is John Hickenlooper of Colorado, now polling at 0.5 percent. But this lack of competition suggests that center may not be such a great place to be this year. The combined polling for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the two most liberal candidates, is only a couple of points behind Biden. When one of them drops out, it’s easy to predict where their supporters will go. Meanwhile, almost all the other candidates have also been driving to the left, which means their supporters are also unlikely to sign up for a centrist candidate who proudly defends the status quo. As some of the more liberal candidates drop out, Biden’s lead will shrink.

That’s not the only reason Biden’s lead is artificial. His campaign also benefits from a big name-recognition boost that will not last. With the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, most primary voters know little to nothing about his rivals. That will change once the presidential debates start, the field narrows, and the primaries kick off. Back in June of 2007, Hillary Clinton dominated her lesser-known rivals by similar margins but lost her lead as the primary election heated up and voters began to pay attention.

Biden’s mid-Atlantic roots are also less helpful than they might seem. Though the heartland tends to be more conservative than the coasts overall, Democratic voters in those states are more anti-establishment and often more liberal than their coastal counterparts. In 2016, Bernie Sanders outran Hillary Clinton across a swath of Great Plains, Upper Midwest, and Northwest states. The fact that he was a Brooklyn-born, Vermont-based Jewish socialist did not seem to bother them. (Nor, I might add, were Middle Americans put off by a rich, philandering New York real estate mogul in the general election.)

Finally, Biden is not that adept a politician. When he hits an obstacle, he stumbles, as we’ve already seen in several mini-scandals this year, including his response to the hugging criticism, his reversal on the Hyde Amendment, and his ill-conceived remark about cooperating with segregationists. Back in 1988, a relatively minor plagiarism scandal derailed his presidential campaign, and his 2008 campaign was hobbled by gaffes. No wonder his staff has been keeping him out of the spotlight this year. But sooner or later, he will have to step out, and his past performance does not inspire confidence about how he’ll fair when he does.

So yes, Biden is riding high at the moment, but let’s not be overawed by his poll numbers. The advantages fueling his lead will not last, and that lead isn’t large enough to cushion the fall. Perhaps all the other candidates will implode, leaving Biden the only man standing, but I wouldn’t count on it. Time is not on his side.

Topics:

Politics

A Warning from 1992

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 27 May 2019 01:58:56 +0000

Lately, I've been thinking about where things went wrong. Donald Trump is the culmination, not the genesis, of America's nationalistic trend. I suspect that the turn came, ironically, at the moment of the West's greatest triumph, when Gorbachev embraced western values of democracy and capitalism, and the Soviet Union disintegrated.

Exploring the era, I came across this insanely prescient essay from 1992. I've never been a fan of David Gergen, but damn, he nailed this one. The article is firewalled, so I'll share a few of his predictions.

Staggered by an economic downturn that has taken a deeper psychological toll than expected and frustrated by a paralysis in its politics, the United States toward the end of 1991 turned increasingly pessimistic, inward and nationalistic...Insistent cries came along that the nation should embrace a new philosophy of putting America first: turn a hard, flinty eye toward economic competitors, said its advocates, and curtail the long tradition of generous idealism in foreign policy.

In a world where the outlook changes as often as the weather the question arises whether we shall ever again see a replay of early 1991, America the ascendant, or if that was the last gasp of a great nation visibly and sourly slipping. Will the United States during the 1990s still seek to build a new international regime, or will it slink away into a new isolationism? Will it remain an agent of openness and change, or will it close both its wallet and its borders?

While it remains rich, the country will think and act as if it is poor, choosing not to accept as idealistic and expensive a role as it has played in international affairs over the past 45 years. Absent a direct challenge to its national interest Washington will be more reluctant to assert its leadership in quelling dangerous conflicts...In its economic relationships, especially with Asia, the country will be tougher and more demanding. The standard by which policies will be judged will be much less of "What's in it for the world?" than "What's in it for us?"

In short even though the political candidates who espouse "America First" are unlikely to beat George Bush in 1992, their influence will linger. America seems destined to scale back its traditional role of international leadership even as it asserts a harder-edged policy of self-interest. It will be a superpower, but a most reluctant one. And if it fails to resolve its internal crises the face it turns toward the world will become very surly indeed.

Moreover, despite America's claim that it gave birth to the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s, other nations had to drag the Bush administration into a more ambitious campaign against ozone depletion. Indeed over the past two years America has been widely criticized in Europe and Japan as a major obstacle to a treaty on global warming.

Even in international trade, where the United States was for forty years the principal advocate of a liberal regime, recent trends have been worrisome. President Reagan was a strong apostle of free trade, but a 1989 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that during the 1980s most industrialized nations--including Japan--moved toward lower barriers, while the United States had the worst record for erecting new ones.

The political turning point came in November when a little-known Democrat in Pennsylvania shellacked the state's best-known Republican in a Senate race that was widely seen as a referendum on the Bush administration. Emphasizing a theme of "taking care of our own," Democrat Harris Wofford scored heavily with a television advertisement that said: "We shouldn't put American jobs on a fast track to Mexico or a slow boat to China." Wofford's victory traumatized the White House and convinced Democrats in Washington that they could frontally attack Bush on foreign policy. Democratic presidential contenders, tapping into growing economic fears, denounced the president for spending too much time on foreign affairs while neglecting domestic problems. Their speeches were reminiscent of Congressman Richard Gephardt's call for a new economic nationalism in the last presidential campaign. That appeal met with only limited success in 1988 but in recessionary times was striking a deeper chord within the populace.

Meanwhile the president faced a growing rebellion on his right flank that also spelled trouble in foreign affairs. Patrick Buchanan, a conservative journalist who once worked for Presidents Nixon and Reagan, declared his candidacy against Bush for the GOP nomination with a thunderous appeal for a new isolationism: bring home U.S. troops; stay out of foreign wars; eliminate foreign aid; end support for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank; treat Japan and Europe as economic predators and concentrate on "America First." David Duke, a Louisiana extremist who has become a permanent (and embarrassing) candidate for Republican office, also began to challenge President Bush with appeals to underlying racism and nativism. Neither man will defeat the president, but they will give greater legitimacy to fears and prejudices seething below the surface.

The most striking changes in American public opinion are the growing fears that the United States is rapidly losing its economic dominance and that Japan is overtaking it. When CBS asked respondents in 1989 which country would be the number one power in the world in the next century, 47 percent named the United States and 38 percent singled out Japan. When CBS-New York Times surveyors posed the same question in October 1991, only 25 percent chose the United States and 58 percent named Japan--a 41 percent swing in only four years.

While most Americans tend to place primary blame upon themselves for their reversal of fortune and profess admiration for the Japanese, they also believe that the Japanese and others are getting ahead through unfair economic practices. As a consequence, they are demanding that their government become less assertive in protecting others and more assertive in protecting the United States, especially its economic interests.

Both the will and the capacity of the nation to undertake new commitments, even ones embedded in multinational arrangements, will diminish sharply if the U.S. economy stagnates during the next five years. There is thus some urgency to move ahead in laying the foundations of a new enlightened foreign policy while the public will still support it. But there is even greater urgency to address the internal crisis of the United States.

Unless the nation embarks upon a comprehensive program of domestic renewal, the United States within a few years could become so deeply mired in its own troubles that its politics will turn even more embittered, xenophobic and inward. The specter of neo-isolationism that raised its head in late 1991 will then be but a precursor of worse to come, as reluctance to act as a leader turns into outright refusal, and international politics becomes a bare-knuckled brawl.

Topics:

Politics

World Affairs

How Far Will Trump Go?

Michael Wolraich — Thu, 02 May 2019 16:05:05 +0000

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump famously invited Russia to hack his opponent’s email. He later claimed that it was just a joke. But when Donald Trump Jr. was told that Russia’s “crowd prosecutor” had dirt on Hillary Clinton, the younger Trump replied, “I love it,” and set up a meeting between the campaign leadership and Russian emissaries. Though nothing apparently came of this meeting, many have wondered why no one from the campaign reported Russia’s operations to Homeland Security.

Well, President Trump now runs Homeland Security. We should be wondering what he’ll do when Russia tries to get him reelected in 2020.

This is not a hypothetical question. U.S. intelligence agencies have publicly stated that Russia may conduct disinformation campaigns and “hack-and-leak operations” to interfere with future U.S. elections. A senior Homeland Security adviser who coordinates election cybersecurity likewise warned, “We continue to expect a pervasive messaging campaign by the Russians to undermine our democratic institutions.”

According to a bombshell New York Times report last week, former Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen was so worried about Russian interference that she tried to coordinate a high-priority governmentwide strategy to protect the 2020 elections. But the White House resisted, and her efforts failed. Chief of staff Mick Mulvaney reportedly told security officials that Russian interference “wasn’t a great subject and should be kept below [Trump’s] level.”

The Times casts White House intransigence as driven by Trump’s insecurity about the legitimacy of his 2016 election. That in itself is outrageous, but it’s not the real danger. What happens next year when the President is briefed about a new Russian plot to assist his campaign? We’ve already seen that he and his family were willing to accept Russian help in 2016. We’ve already seen Trump try to obfuscate Russian hacking by blaming the Chinese, the Democratic National Committee, and an imaginary 400-pound hacker. We’ve already seen him and his family belittle Russia’s attacks. We’ve even seen his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, claim, “There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.”

So what happens in 2020 if Trump, down in the polls, learns that the Russians are trying to help him win? Consider that he, his family, and his company might even be facing criminal prosecution after he leaves office. Given the stakes, how far would he go to assure his reelection? It would not be necessary for the campaign to coordinate with Russia. As president, he could simply use his executive power to thwart Homeland Security’s counterintelligence response, allowing the Russians free rein to conduct their operation.

The real threat revealed by the Times' report is that the President of the United States may use his office to help a hostile foreign power subvert our democracy. Worse, it tells us that he is already doing so.

Topics:

Politics

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Legacy of Fighting Bob

Michael Wolraich — Sat, 19 Jan 2019 12:33:16 +0000

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fascinates the press and electrifies progressives, but some Democratic colleagues just want her to pipe down and behave. One anonymous Democratic rep told Politico, “She needs to decide: Does she want to be an effective legislator or just continue being a Twitter star? There’s a difference between being an activist and a lawmaker in Congress.” According to the article, Ocasio-Cortez’s colleagues are particularly dismayed by her history of backing primary challenges to Democratic incumbents, and they warn that she will have “a lonely, ineffectual career in Congress if she continues to treat her own party as the enemy.”

If Ocasio-Cortez does start to feel lonely, I urge her to visit the Senate Reception Room at the other end of the Capitol. There’s a man she should meet. His portrait hangs on the wall, the old guy with the bow tie and the enormous pompadour. Few remember him these days, but Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin was a political sensation in his day, loved by the press, hated by his Republican colleagues. They loathed him for his radical ideas, his outspokenness, and his disloyalty to the party. President Theodore Roosevelt called him “a shifty self-seeker” and “an entirely worthless Senator.” In 1907, a journalist memorably described him as “the loneliest man in the United States Senate.”

Yet Bob La Follette’s insurgency against the Republican Party was extraordinarily effective. His passionate crusade against corporate power transfixed the press, inspired the public, and lit the spark that ignited the Progressive Movement. Many of his conservative detractors were eventually thrown out of office and replaced by progressive allies who worked with him to pass landmark legislation: income taxes, labor law, women’s suffrage, election reform, environmental protection, and corporate regulation. Decades later, the Senate recognized him as one of the five “most outstanding” senators in American history and hung his portrait on the wall. If Ocasio-Cortez hopes to make an impact in Washington, she might follow Fighting Bob’s example. Who knows, maybe her portrait may one day grace the Senate Reception Room too.

Read the full story at the Daily Beast

Topics:

Politics

How Robert Mueller Outfoxed Donald Trump

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 12:50:29 +0000

Special Counsel Robert Mueller faces a unique challenge in his investigation of Russian influence during the 2016 election. In addition to gathering information and prosecuting criminals, he has had to avoid getting fired by his resentful, mercurial, and unscrupulous commander-in-chief. Fifteen months into the investigation, he appears to have done a masterful job. By manipulating and distracting Donald Trump and his team of lawyers, he has not only preserved his job, he has maintained complete autonomy and seeded a cluster of spinoff investigations that will be nearly impossible for the White House to stifle. And despite Trump’s insistence that he’s “totally allowed” to intervene whenever he chooses, he won’t dare make a move this close to the midterm election, which means Mueller’s investigation will be protected for at least three more months.

How has he done it?

Read the article at Daily Beast

Topics:

Politics

Tariffs: the Time Bomb That Could Shatter the GOP

Michael Wolraich — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 19:17:05 +0000

“Tariffs are the greatest!” President Trump crowed on Twitter on Tuesday morning. If that represents a break from contemporary Republican orthodoxy, it’s a message other GOP presidents once embraced. Trump has previously quoted William McKinley declaring that tariffs made Americans lives “sweeter and brighter and brighter and brighter.” (For the record, McKinley only said “brighter” once.) And after Congress passed the Tariff Act of 1909, William Taft declared it “the best bill that the Republican party ever passed.”

But the voters disagreed, vehemently. In the next two elections, they obliterated the GOP’s congressional majority, crushed Taft’s reelection hopes, and sent the party into a tailspin. Tariff policy was one of the most divisive issues in American politics, because its costs and benefits were unevenly distributed. Protectionist policies offered windfalls to large corporations while burdening small businesses and farmers with higher prices. That stirred bitter resentments in less industrialized, agricultural regions, fueling North-South discord before the Civil War, and inflaming Midwestern populism in the early 20th century, splitting political parties in the process. If Trump continues his protectionist his course, it could happen again.

Read the full story at the Atlantic

Topics:

Politics

Trump's Recess Scheme

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 15:41:05 +0000

Until recently, I believed that President Trump's only option for firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller was a Nixonesque Saturday Night Massacre in which he fired everyone down the chain of command until he reached someone obsequious enough to do his bidding. This may be possible in principle, but it's a "nuclear" option likely to turn even Republican allies against him.

There is another way, however. Trump's recent contretemps with Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggest that he's working on an alternative scheme to rid himself of that troublesome special counsel. If he can hound Sessions into resigning, Trump could then appoint an obedient, non-recused attorney general to shut down the investigation without technically "firing" anyone. There's a catch, though. Attorney general appointments require Senate confirmation, and even this timid Republican majority won't let Trump appoint whomever he wants.

If the Senate is in session, that is. As Rachel Maddow reported yesterday, Trump can legally appoint a temporary acting attorney general without confirmation while the Senate is in recess. And guess what? The Senate is supposed to go into recess next month.

#Maddow explains how Trump could replace Sessions without Senate confirmation. Terrifying. pic.twitter.com/jupXGiPXFo
— Sean Colarossi (@SeanColarossi) July 25, 2017

If Sessions does conveniently resign during the August recess, there is still a way for the Senate to stop Trump from appointing whomever he likes. If Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sends a single senator to bang the gavel in an otherwise empty chamber every few days, the break will not be legally long enough for a recess appointment.

Alas, McConnell may not be willing to openly help Trump take down Mueller, but there is no reason to expect that he would actively try to stop it. If Trump executes this scheme, Republican senators will publicly condemn the appointment, but they will say that there is nothing they can do, the President has the legal authority to make a recess appointment.

After that, we enter the unknown.

Late update: CNN reports that Democratic senators are planning procedural moves to prevent a recess appointment. If they're successful, I will be happy to be corrected. H/t Barefooted

Topics:

Politics

Someday we'll find it, the Putin connection...

Michael Wolraich — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:51:43 +0000

The AP drew another line in Trump's connect-the-dots puzzle today. We already knew that former campaign chair Paul Manafort had worked for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians. Now we know that he secretly worked on behalf of the Putin regime as well.

Manafort's intermediary was Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who was "among the 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis," according to U.S. diplomatic cables. In 2005, Manafort pitched Deripaska on an audacious plan to "greatly benefit the Putin Government." Building on his work for Ukraine, he proposed to expand Russian influence in other former Soviet Republics by lobbying "the highest levels of the U.S. government — the White House, Capitol Hill and the State Department." Deripaska ultimately awarded Manafort a $10 million contract, paid not to his public consulting firm but to an obscure corporation registered out of Manafort's home.

In short, Trump's campaign manager was a paid foreign agent who secretly represented Russia's interests. Yet there was no contact, we have been told, between the Trump campaign and Putin regime. Right.

Let's look back at the timeframe, specifically March 2016 when Manafort joined the Trump campaign...

3/19/16: State-backed Russian hackers penetrated the email account of John Podesta, chair of the Clinton campaign.

3/28/16: Nine days after the hack, Trump confirmed to the New York Times that he had hired Paul Manafort, who became the unpaid chair of the Trump campaign.

3/31/16: Twelve days after the hack, Trump met with foreign policy advisors at the new Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., where they discussed the Republican Party's position on arming Ukraine against pro-Russian rebels. According to advisor J.D. Gordon, Trump personally opposed this language in the RNC platform because "he didn't want to go to 'World War Three' over Ukraine."

Perhaps this is all just coincidence. Perhaps Manafort cut ties to Putin before joining the Trump campaign. Perhaps Trump's sudden specific interest in the GOP's Ukraine position was just the whim of a mercurial mind. Perhaps former MI6 agent Christopher Steele's allegations that "the Trump team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue" and that "This was managed on the TRUMP side by the Republican candidate's campaign manager, Paul MANAFORT," are fabrications.

It's possible that Manafort and Trump are perfectly innocent. But is it plausible?

www.michaelwolraich.com

Topics:

Politics

World Affairs