Month: March 2016

I’m suffering from a severe case of debate fatigue.  My only other observation is that it can get very tiresome hearing all of the wonderful new things both candidates (but mostly Sanders, of course) promise without any discussion of the corresponding costs, and how they are to be allocated.  Everything has a price; not everything is worth the price.

I noted in one of my first blog postings that the most important attribute for a Republican Presidential candidate is swagger.  This has proved more prophetic than I could have anticipated.  It appears that at least 40 percent of the GOP electorate is willing to ignore even dramatic rhetorical deviations from orthodox party positions as long as the candidate repeatedly shows his willingness to kick the butts of anyone they perceive to be their enemies (both foreign and domestic).  In other words, the sizzle has proven to be the steak (Trump Steaks, to be precise) in this case.

The GOP establishment can never forgive Trump for displaying for all to see that a plurality of the Republican electorate doesn’t want limited government–it wants swaggering government.  They will no longer be able to convince themselves, or anyone else, that all of those faithful white GOP voters in the Deep South are small government advocates crying out for more tax cuts and deregulation.  That will be one of the principal legacies of the Trump campaign.

There once was a Texan named Ted

Who loved dirty tricks, it was said.

His campaign tried lying

That Marco was dying

He’d best put that rumor to bed.

Yeah, I bet Obama is really disappointed that he won’t get to spend any quality time with everyone’s favorite world leader.

“I believe in the kingdom come

Then all the colors will bleed into one.”

U2, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”

 

Ezra Klein thinks Donald Trump is a liar.  In yesterday’s Vox.com, he pointed out the fundamental inconsistency between Trump’s seemingly humane statements during debates about health care and his actual “plan” to replace Obamacare, which he accurately characterizes as a warmed-over and less generous version of a generic Republican proposal.

As I watched Trump’s harangue (I wouldn’t dignify it by calling it a speech) amidst his water, steaks, and magazines last night, it became clear to me that Trump would respond to this allegation by reminding us of his personal awesomeness.  Consistency is the standard by which little men are judged, but gods resolve contradictions in ways that the rest of us cannot hope to understand.  And so we have the Trinity, and Trump’s Obamacare plan.

The truly scary thing about this routine is the possibility that Trump actually believes it himself.  What if he gets elected, threatens to impose the 35 percent tariff, and Xi and Abe don’t bow down to him, as he promises?  What’s Plan B?  I don’t see one.

Are we actually going to turn over custody of the nuclear codes to a man who might well threaten to use them as a negotiating tool?  As Mark Jackson would say, come on GOP–you’re better than that.

         Romney Calling

Romney calling to the undecided folks.

It’s really me, guys.

It isn’t a hoax.

 

Romney calling to the land of the sun.

The anti-Trump war

Has barely begun.

 

Romney calling to John Kasich land.

Come out and vote

Give your Governor a hand.

 

Romney calling to the rest of you all.

Do what you can

To stop us building the wall.

 

The Trump age is coming.

The voters in a trance.

The Dems sure will trounce us.

There’ll be no second chance.

We can’t let that happen.

It would be a crying shame.

One thing’s for sure.

You won’t have me to blame.

 

Romney calling. . .

 

Parody of “London Calling” by The Clash.

 

There are two (barely) conceivable paths to the nomination for Cruz.  The first would require him to effectively enter into a non-aggression pact with Kasich and Rubio, and campaign only in states he has a reasonable chance to win; the second assumes that the Kasich and Rubio campaigns will collapse in Ohio and Florida, that he will be the last anti-Trump standing, and that he can win a huge percentage of the votes after March 15.

To me, the former scenario is more plausible, but Ted apparently plans to campaign vigorously in Florida, which suggests that he is committed to the latter. Maybe he doubts, based on his unpopularity with the leadership, that he would be the choice of a brokered convention even if he had the second most delegates. Given the amount of firm support that Trump has, even in the face of a hail of negative ads paid for by rich establishment figures, I think he has made the wrong choice.

The MSM have tended to lump the Trump and Sanders campaigns together, but the real analogy is between Sanders and Cruz:  both are sitting senators with no following in their respective parties; both are running campaigns that are heavy on ideology, as opposed to personal awesomeness; both are relying on their ability to mobilize disaffected voters; and both have strong (but opposite) views about the role of the federal government in our everyday lives.

After the Flint debate, we know they have something else in common; they both despise “crony capitalism.”  How did that happen, and what does it mean?

For Cruz, a Conservative Libertarian, opposition to governmental support for business is an integral part of his political philosophy.  The outlying parts of his platform are his anti-immigrant stance and his objections to the TPP; you can probably attribute them to opportunism (or pragmatism, if you put it in a more favorable light).  In Bernie’s case, however, there can be no philosophical objection to entangling the state in business, so I can only attribute his views to a loathing of businessmen and a failure of nerve.  The most logical position for him to take relative to large businesses is nationalization, but he knows that is a non-starter, so he takes out his frustration on business leaders by trying to cut them down to size.

I don’t think either party gained or lost much from this debate.  The most interesting exchange came when Clinton accurately accused Sanders of sounding like Ted Cruz when he talks about governmental support for Boeing.  I’m working through the intellectual implications of that, and plan to blog about it later this week.

Marco’s stump speech, which by all accounts is extremely effective, always revolves around the fact that his father was a bartender, and his mother a maid. I call this persona “Horatio Alger.”

Horatio Alger doesn’t tap into the obvious anger of the GOP electorate.  As a result, Marco tried out a new character around the time of the New Hampshire debate.  This version of Marco looks very grim, spits out his words too rapidly, and talks in apocalyptic terms about the state of the country.  I refer to this persona, for obvious reasons, as “Cruz Lite.”

The whole point of the Trump campaign is to prove that he is a strong man and a winner; his obnoxious behavior during debates is intended to establish his dominance over his competitors.  Cruz Lite wasn’t an effective way of dealing with that problem, so for the Houston debate, Marco morphed into. . . Don Rickles!

Rubio is actually a surprisingly entertaining Don Rickles, and he managed to hold his own with Trump, for whom this approach comes naturally.  However, as they say on singing competitions, it’s out of his comfort zone, and it was damaging his image with more staid establishment voters.  As a result, it was fairly clear from his doleful opening in the Detroit debate that Marco wanted to ditch Rickles and stick with Cruz Lite.  As the debate got more personal and heated, however, Rickles reared his ugly head again, and Kasich was the primary beneficiary.

Cruz has had some success dealing with Trump’s dominance routine by being patronizing, and by cross-examining him.  This would appear to be a logical extension of his actual personality, not an act.  I think Marco needs to put an end to Cruz Lite and Rickles and find a persona that better fits his personality and permits him to maintain a greater degree of dignity.  If I were in his position, I would start the next debate by apologizing for the lack of decorum at the previous two, and icily ignore any opportunities to jump in a ditch with Trump from that point forward.

The senator from my home state.

His chances of winning aren’t great.

He hopes for a broker

To stop Don the joker

I’m guessing it’s far, far too late.

          The Liar and the Chokerman

(This should be the title of a Bob Dylan song)

The Liar and the Chokerman.

Both hold a Senate seat.

But neither is the favorite now

‘Cause Trump’s the man to beat.

 

The Liar and the Chokerman

Are not quite what they seem.

While both can boast a humble past

They’re both living our dream.

 

The Liar and the Chokerman

Are up upon the stage.

Though both have money in the bank

They’re both brimming with rage.

 

The Liar and the Chokerman.

You know which one is which.

To them we just don’t count at all.

They’ll only help the rich.

 

The Liar and the Chokerman.

Please say it isn’t true.

For neither one could give a damn

For folks like me and you.

 

The Liar and the Chokerman

Are heading for a fall.

But they still harbor heady dreams

That one will win it all.

 

The Liar and the Chokerman

Are getting near the end.

One thing’s for sure:  when they’re done

They won’t end up as friends.

 

The Liar and the Chokerman.

When’s it’s said and done.

When all the lights have been turned off

Trump will be the one.

The best estimates I have seen indicate that Sanders is advocating for a maximum effective marginal tax rate of about 70 percent, which gives rise to two questions:

1.  Is this rate historically large?  Compared to rates in the during the Eisenhower Administration, not at all.  However, we haven’t seen rates like this since the 1980’s, and capital is a lot more mobile now than it was then.

2.  How does this rate compare to those of other countries with reasonably similar economies?  It would be very high.  Recent experiments with “supertaxes” have been failures.  Realistically speaking, you could expect a large increase in tax exiles, with a corresponding reduction in the dynamism of the American economy.

In short, I have no problem advocating for a country that looks a bit more like Denmark, but this is a bridge too far.

The prevailing orthodox position on foreign policy within the GOP is neoconservatism, which could be defined as the belief that America must forcefully and visibly assert its belief in liberal democratic values, and that those values can and should be imposed by military force throughout the world, where necessary.  This position is completely consistent with the GOP’s view of itself as the butt-kicking Daddy Party, but is difficult to reconcile with its support of severe limits on federal power at home.

Trump doesn’t subscribe to any of this.  He doesn’t believe that American values can be applied universally, so, to him, there are no foreign policy conflicts between interests and values–interests prevail, period.  Furthermore, he doesn’t believe that America has any friends abroad; in his eyes, even our so-called “allies” exploit us on a regular basis.  He basically wants to renegotiate all of our relationships with everyone, using our superior military and economic strength as leverage, and then disengage with the world to the maximum extent possible.

Some of his specific ideas, such as “taking the oil” in Iraq and Syria, are too stupid to be worthy of serious analysis.  I don’t agree that it is practically possible for our foreign policy to be completely separated from our values, and I don’t think we can disregard the relationships (both positive and negative) that we have created with other countries over time.  However, I have to admit that I find his approach to be a bit of a refreshing change from what we have heard from Bush, Cheney, et. al. for the last 16 years; more focus on our interests would, in fact, be appreciated.

 

1. The Romney speech was vivid, accurate, and tactically obtuse, unless you assume that he is offering himself as an option for a brokered convention.  Trump voters view him as a loser and the very embodiment of the establishment.  If anything, the vehemence of his language will cause them to dig in even deeper.
2. Hillary, on the other hand, has to be delighted.  She won’t even need to hire a PR firm to do her commercials; she can just use edited versions of this speech, and the debates.
3. I agree that the moderators need to fact check answers that are given during the debate, but I don’t think it was even remotely evenhanded of them to run film of just one candidate’s flip-flops.  The role of the moderators should be to ask policy questions that cause the candidates to distinguish their positions, and to get out of the way.  All that notwithstanding, the Fox News panel makes for great TV.
4. If this had occurred six months ago, it probably would have been the end of the Trump campaign; he was on the defensive all night, and his weaknesses as a candidate were laid bare for all to see.  As it stands today, I don’t think it matters; the voters have already seen enough to make up their minds.  The only remaining question is whether we will have a decisive Trump victory and a walk-out by part of the GOP establishment, or a brokered convention and a walk-out by Trump.  We will probably know the answer to that in two weeks.