Wednesday, March 02, 2016
What to do with nominee Trump
Contemplating Trump’s delegate lead--the fact that he’s won
2/3 of the state contests so far, that he performs best in states
where the voters skew moderate and the South is largely spent already--I can only come to
one conclusion: It’s hard to see a scenario under which Trump is not the GOP
nominee at this point.
This puts me squarely in the position of having to choose between
Trump and Hillary, exactly where I told Mike I’d hope never to be. So now, I’m going to have to do more than
reflexively throw up in my mouth at the sound of his name, I’m actually going
to have to contemplate if the good outweighs the bad of a Trump candidacy.
Believe it or not, I’ve felt right along there are a lot of
things I’ve liked about the Trump candidacy.
They can be summarized as follows:
- Moderates the party on social policy
- Moderates the party on trade policy (maintaining the flexibility to be hawkish on trade policy is a key starting point for any negotiation—and he understands “positioning” and the process of negotiations better than most)
- Wants to be a foreign policy realist and not a neoconservative (I say “wants to” b/c all we have to go on in are his inclinations; he doesn’t seem to actually know enough yet to BE a realist)
- Is willing to pursue goals that he feels are worthwhile regardless of political convention
- Is willing to speak to the cultural sensitivities of the silent majority: e.g., it’s OK to have a Christmas tree up in your town square in Kansas without the Supreme Court pissing in your cornflakes
- Expressly reaches out to, and bridges, the divide between the GOP and working class voters, offering the possibility of a positive political realignment for the country, and a move away from perpetual class warfare between the parties
The negatives of Trump we’ve gone over too many times to
restate, but the most pertinent are his lack of accountability and
transparency, past organizational/business failures, lack of personal ethics
and overreliance on litigation, his “might makes right” philosophy that is
fundamentally dangerous when married to the power of the Oval Office, willingness
to send dog whistles to the most bigoted and xenophobic extremes of the
populace, and his personal crudeness and the reshaping of our political
discourse that he has brought about.
Now, it has to be said, I’m believer in rules, a believer in
process and systems, and Trump is winning under the rules of the game as they
were laid out.
It also has to be stated that I believe it is in the
national interest for the GOP and it’s governing principles to win. As a result, my starting point has to be
support for the party nominee, regardless of whether it’s my first choice. I’ve never been a believer in “taking my
ball and going home” just to prove a point.
So absent some grave and serious reasons, I would support Trump.
Of course, there could be grave and serious reasons. I have every reason to believe he will be
the most corrupt, self-dealing President of our lifetime, because that’s how he’s
carried out every other endeavor in his life.
But we’ve had various degrees of institutionalized corruption inside our
government for decades, and in that sense Trump is just more obvious about it,
than truly new.
Where Trump could set this country back, irrevocably, is
with entitlement spending and tax policy.
In the past he’s advocated a wealth tax and hiking tax rates on upper
income workers. If a Dem president
suggested these policies, the GOP would oppose it to the gates of hell. A Republican president who was willing to
offer these policies, however, would have an almost limitless ability to move
forward. He merely needs to co-opt a
third of his caucus to do so, and most Presidents carry far more weight than
that in their own party. Entitlement
spending already stands to bankrupt the country, and with his admiration for
single-payer health care, the pace of our fiscal destruction could ramp up
considerably under his watch.
The second way he stands to irreparably damage the country
is the destruction of the GOP, both its ideological compass (policy), and its
PR image. There’s no doubt that a large
majority of the country finds him repugnant, based on his fave/unfave
polling. That doesn’t mean he can’t get
elected, but it does mean that people will be voting for him for reasons that
have nothing to do with liking or admiring the man. How will he wear on these people over his 4
or 8 year stint in the national spotlight?
How does that impact the viaibility of the GOP in the future? Let’s envision a few different scenarios.
Good case: he improves the GOP’s prospects by reaching out to
new voters. He keeps rule-of-law
republicans from walking away by maintaining some engagement in the process of
politics, and forgoes ruling by edict/executive prerogative. He makes a truce with ideological
conservatives, who think he’s a fraud, but can live with him b/c he’s at least
better than the Dems, and seems to be maintaining a governing coalition.
Bad case: he gets elected but is a failure. Despite promising to Make American Great
Again it turns out he can’t. He is
unable to turn “make it great” into a cogent set of policies, or where he can
turn them into policies, finds that he is so divisive that he can’t get
anything enacted into law. He operates
primarily through executive action and bureaucratic rulemaking, but his
policies produce little actual gain to the masses. The economy is not fundamentally
reordered. Growth continues on its
current track, as one would expect (that is, low, and on pace with our slow
growth in productivity and population). Trade
wars with China and other developing economies lead to price increases for the
US consumer without a commensurate increase in wages. Things
turn out to suck about the same. All
those people who were new to the GOP are turned off and go away, just like the
20-something Obama voters of 2008. But
in the process, the GOP has given up its claim to the high ground on
originalism, rule of law, adherence to the constitution, reducing the overall
size of government, and fiscal stability.
Worser case: The bad case scenario, but tack onto it an
egomaniacal insistence on getting his way, so brash steps are taken that are legally crazy. For instance, the nullification of Congressional
legislation or judicial rulings. Or
something that’s crazy from a foreign policy perspective, like invading northern
Mexico to extort payment for his wall (#NoLosing).
Because he’s all about the “No PC talk” and
“straight talk,” Trump follows through on his campaign promises regarding
deportations. He has armed swat teams,
if not the military, rounding up 12 million illegals. The internet is awash in cell phone
pics and videos of senior citizens and small children being marched off at gunpoint, etc.
Newly empowered white nationalist groups
resort to “protest marches” against affirmative action, “loose” immigration
quotas, and other policies that are objectionable to them. Some of these “protests” mutate into violent
mobs assaulting minorities. Trump winks
it away as “a local law enforcement matter,” and legitimizes the groups by
saying their objections need to be heard.
The compounding effect of all this crazy becomes the
property of the GOP, ensuring decades of election fodder for Dems. "Trump" and "Republican" become terms so toxic, that it
makes Jimmy Carter look like a good guy to be affiliated with.
Now these good, bad, and worser cases all seem plausible to
me. That’s why I’m absolutely frozen in
place trying to figure out if I need to take a moral stand, such as this #NeverTrump
movement. Could a sizeable group of
Republicans who are on the record, contra-Trump, give the party something to fall
back on? Something to at least point to in the
post-Trump world to say, "this was the true remnant." To claim institutional consistency.
Or should I presume he’ll be practical and not crazy, cling
to best case thinking, and hope he could actually be an effective leader, in
spite of all the personal behavior that seems to indicate otherwise.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
On Scott Walker and his "college diploma" problem
Over at Race 4 2016, the astute SouthernDoc argued that back-and-forth over Walker and his college dropout status is indicative of an age-old divide in US politics:
The Walker college degree issue is really a proxy for one of the great recurring fights in American politics: Hamiltonian elitism vs. Jacksonian populism. Who should govern and who governs best? Do we rely on the professionals, specialists, and highly educated who are overwhelmingly the products of elite and established families to lead us or do we turn to those who rose out of the mass of society through initiative and personal merit even though they often lack both refinement and structured learning.I disagreed as follows, and welcome your thoughts:
Monday, November 24, 2014
The Call of the Woods
As I shuffle down the road to work in my truck, my gaze wanders to the woods through which this asphalt scar has been cut.
My body will sit at a desk, but my mind will stalk silently through the forest. As my animal eye spots trails and cover, my mind and my domain expand through the quiet beyond the range of an office, to cover all the trees and boulders I can see.
Might it be, that this time, I will be granted that beautiful piece of this expanse to feel the thrill, to admire, to kill - to consume, so that it may become part of me and me of it.
Alas, my reverie is rudely broken by a blinking box demanding my attention, trapping the call of the woods in anticipation for a few more days.
My body will sit at a desk, but my mind will stalk silently through the forest. As my animal eye spots trails and cover, my mind and my domain expand through the quiet beyond the range of an office, to cover all the trees and boulders I can see.
Might it be, that this time, I will be granted that beautiful piece of this expanse to feel the thrill, to admire, to kill - to consume, so that it may become part of me and me of it.
Alas, my reverie is rudely broken by a blinking box demanding my attention, trapping the call of the woods in anticipation for a few more days.
Monday, August 11, 2014
What happens next?
Recent months have brought us a steady grind of bad news in the global arena. Order seems to breaking down, with increasingly authoritarian regimes taking increasingly belligerent actions around the globe.
To whit:
1) Russia annexes Crimea
2) Russia masses troops on Ukraine border and foments unrest in the Eastern part of the nation. Europe and the U.S. seem at odds in formulating a response.
3) Former elements of Al Qaeda in Iraq, since reformed as ISIS or ISIL, proclaimed a new caliphate, and have successfully taken control of large swathes of territory in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.
4) ISIL proceeds to demand conversions of Christians or they will be executed.
5) Prime Minister Erdogan takes on a new office and has taken a more fundamentalist tone. All the pieces seem in place for him to roll up more authority. Meanwhile, he has taken a much more belligerent stance with respect to Israel, and repeatedly has deployed naval vessels to supply Hamas.
6) The Chinese have accelerated talks with Moscow to create a non-dollar currency regime. They have also ramped up nuclear capabilities and production with an eye towards developing a second strike capability that would put them on par with Russia and the U.S.
As the Obama presidency winds down, and these authoritarian regimes feel the weight of their "window of opportunity" closing, which of the following seem plausible, possible, or likely:
1) Iran announcing a nuclear weapon capability.
2) Iran directly intervening to protect the Shiite majority in southern Iraq against ISIL advances.
3) A Turkish incursion into northern Iraq to prevent Kurds from forming a viable nation state.
4) An ISIL-like group consolidating authority in Libya and/or Afghanistan.
5) China invading Taiwan.
6) North Korea, supported by the Chinese, invading South Korea.
7) Russia invading Ukraine
8) Increasingly belligerent military maneuvers by China and Russia, such as flying nuclear bombers near US airspace (as we have seen recently).
To whit:
1) Russia annexes Crimea
2) Russia masses troops on Ukraine border and foments unrest in the Eastern part of the nation. Europe and the U.S. seem at odds in formulating a response.
3) Former elements of Al Qaeda in Iraq, since reformed as ISIS or ISIL, proclaimed a new caliphate, and have successfully taken control of large swathes of territory in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.
4) ISIL proceeds to demand conversions of Christians or they will be executed.
5) Prime Minister Erdogan takes on a new office and has taken a more fundamentalist tone. All the pieces seem in place for him to roll up more authority. Meanwhile, he has taken a much more belligerent stance with respect to Israel, and repeatedly has deployed naval vessels to supply Hamas.
6) The Chinese have accelerated talks with Moscow to create a non-dollar currency regime. They have also ramped up nuclear capabilities and production with an eye towards developing a second strike capability that would put them on par with Russia and the U.S.
As the Obama presidency winds down, and these authoritarian regimes feel the weight of their "window of opportunity" closing, which of the following seem plausible, possible, or likely:
1) Iran announcing a nuclear weapon capability.
2) Iran directly intervening to protect the Shiite majority in southern Iraq against ISIL advances.
3) A Turkish incursion into northern Iraq to prevent Kurds from forming a viable nation state.
4) An ISIL-like group consolidating authority in Libya and/or Afghanistan.
5) China invading Taiwan.
6) North Korea, supported by the Chinese, invading South Korea.
7) Russia invading Ukraine
8) Increasingly belligerent military maneuvers by China and Russia, such as flying nuclear bombers near US airspace (as we have seen recently).
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