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I think it is fair to say that, while faith in Christian dogma is waning somewhat in this country, Christian ethics are still generally accepted.  A discussion of Christian ethics is far too broad for a blog post, but suffice it to say that they include humility, honesty, marital fidelity, compassion, charity, and a sense of fair play. The ultimate sanction, of course, is the Last Judgment.

Anyone who has seen Trajan’s Column and the various arches in the Roman Forum knows that pagans didn’t necessarily believe in keeping their light under a bushel.  That said, classical myths and literature make it clear that the Greeks and Romans understood that humanity was flawed and subject to the whims of higher powers;  the Greeks did invent tragedy, after all.  Narcissus, Achilles, Daedalus, Oedipus–the list of characters would go on and on.

The record unequivocally shows that Trump’s career is a negation of Christian ethics. What is more surprising is that, his business disasters in the 90’s notwithstanding, he doesn’t appear to have any pagan sense of vulnerability and tragedy.  To all outward appearances, he operates in a Nietzschean/Randian moral universe with himself in the middle as the Great Man in History.  I’m guessing that is what ultimately drove him to run for President.

This matters, because it means the normal sources of restraint would not apply to a President Trump.  Respect for the law?  After his comments over the last few weeks?  Patriotism?  He only pledges allegiance to his own greatness.  Christian or pagan ethics?  See the above.

Our system was set up to keep people like Trump in check.  Let’s hope the voters understand that.

 

The NYT and USA Today ran articles on Trump’s businesses last week which made it clear–to nobody’s surprise–that his fortune is derived largely from sharp practices.  From investors in casinos that he used as a personal piggy bank, to contractors he required to take unjustified haircuts, to “students” in Trump University, the story is essentially the same:  get people to trust you with the flash-and-dash of the Trump name, and then screw them over.

If you are one of the millions of Americans who think that the President should represent the values of your country, you have to blanch at the thought of a President Trump.  Trump will have a ready response to this line of reasoning, however;  he will say that the people who were foolish enough to trust him are “losers,” and that we should elect him because he can perform the same magic on other world leaders. In other words, Merkel, Putin, and Xi will be the next pupils at Trump University, and the whole country will benefit from his frauds.

Even if you aren’t troubled by the notion of electing a high-rent grifter as President, you need to know that this approach won’t work, for the following reasons:

1.  A successful grifter requires trust from the people with whom he interacts.  Trump is broadcasting his untrustworthiness in advance.
2.  A successful grifter also has to churn his victims.  That doesn’t work in politics. If you lie, say, to Xi, he will still be there when the transaction is over, and you will have to continue to deal with him on a daily basis.  Good luck with that.
3.  The world economy ultimately operates on the concepts of predictability and trust.  President Trump would be the antithesis of both.  He would make the markets go nuts.

             Still Crazy After All These Years

I met my old rivals on the stage tonight.

They weren’t too glad to see me

‘Cause they lost.

But I needed them beside me

As November’s getting near.

Still crazy after all these years.

Still crazy, still crazy

Still crazy after all these years.

 

I’m not the kind of man to keep my mouth shut long.

My insults make the news from night to day.

And I’ll do my best to keep my message ringing in your ears.

Still crazy after all these years.

Still crazy, still crazy

Still crazy after all these years.

 

Four in the morning.

Caffeine, tweeting.

Running while time stands still.

I never worry.

Why should I?

Clinton’s gonna fade.

 

Now I sit in my tower and I watch the herd.

I plan to be their master by next year.

But the only way I’ll get there is to pander to their fears.

Still crazy after all these years.

Still crazy, still crazy,

Still crazy after all these years.

 

Parody of “Still Crazy After All These Years” by Paul Simon.

 

This one doesn’t fit neatly into the usual left/right divide.  Consider this:

1.  It’s all about Islamic extremism.  Then why did he drive two hours to shoot up a gay nightclub, and why did his father say that gay people set him off?  Do we know for certain that he wouldn’t have done this if he had been a member of the extreme Christian right?  No, we don’t.

2.  No, it’s about hating gays.  Then why did he pledge allegiance to the Islamic State?  Can we be sure that he wouldn’t have found another target eventually even if he didn’t care about gays?  Once again, the answer is no.

3.  It’s about controlling assault weapons.  Having an assault weapon undoubtedly added to the body count, but it didn’t cause the massacre by itself.

Neither party should seek to benefit from this event;  it’s just an American tragedy, and should be treated that way by everyone.  As far as I’m concerned, there are only two lessons to be learned, and they aren’t in any way new:

1.  Having an armed guard doesn’t provide a guarantee that a guy with better weapons and the advantage of surprise can’t cause a massacre.

2.  You can’t stop everyone who wants to be a mass murderer in a free society that happens to be awash in weapons.  Fortunately, history tells us that the incentives for political violence ultimately fade away, either because they are eclipsed by other, more pressing issues, or because the futility of the effort becomes apparent at some point in time.

Another wack job with a gun.

The nation again has been stunned.

Each one of these nuts

Is a kick in the guts

But the battle has barely begun.

As a rule of thumb, as ideological differences between the two final candidates diminish, the likelihood of purely personal attacks goes up.  Since Trump views virtually all of his positions as just opening gambits in negotiations with other politicians and the public, you can expect the focus of his campaign to be on his personal awesomeness and the evils of “Crooked Hillary.”  In other words, it’s going to get really ugly, folks.

Trump probably thinks this kind of battle favors him, based on his affinity for bare-knuckle WWE-style politics, but he’s wrong.   Unlike “Little Marco” and “Lyin’ Ted,” the Clintons have been living with this for over two decades.  There’s nothing he can throw at her that she, and the entire American public, hasn’t heard ad nauseum.   What will be new, fresh, and exciting, on the other hand, will be daily exposes of his unscrupulous business practices and, shall we say, unconventional personal life.

My prediction is that, barring some unforeseen world event that turns things in his favor, Trump will not only lose, but his reputation will be left in cinders, and his business will never recover thereafter.  He will ultimately conclude that the joys of running for President as a carnival barker didn’t justify the risks to his brand.  And that’s just fine with me.

There once was a Donald named Trump.

His poll numbers were in a slump.

His party was beggin’

For a new Ronald Reagan

But he’s more like a new Forrest Gump.

 

Donald Trump and Paul Ryan are sitting in Ryan’s office.  Ryan is behind his big desk; Trump is in a small chair in front of the desk.

PR:  Do you know why you’re here, Donald?

DT:  To win the election!

PR:  And why else?

DT:  I don’t know.  Why?

PR:  Because, as the Republican nominee, you need to know what our party stands for.  We can’t have people thinking we’re just a bunch of racist thugs. We’re the party of Lincoln!

DT:  I’ve heard of him!  He was a winner, and he has a big monument in Washington!  When I’m President, I’ll be an even bigger winner, and have an even bigger monument!  It’ll be huge!

PR:  Whatever.  Let’s begin.  Where do we stand on abortion?

DT:  We’re pro-life, of course.

PR:  Why?

DT:  Who would be against life?

PR:  It’s not that simple.  We support the death penalty, a militaristic foreign policy, and cuts to domestic programs which benefit children and the poor.

DT:  Then what does it mean?

PR:  It means that a fertilized egg is a human being, and anyone who kills it is a murderer.  Of course, after it’s born, it’s on its own.

DT:  That doesn’t seem very logical to me.

PR:  Logic doesn’t enter into it.  It’s in The Bible.  What happens to women who have an abortion?

DT:  Why, they’re punished, of course.

PR:  No.  They’re victims of predatory physicians.  They need to be protected.

DT:  I thought you were encouraging me to treat women as equals, not children.

PR:  Don’t be impertinent.  What about climate change?

DT:  It’s a scam!  A hoax!

PR:  How do you know?

DT:  Who would know more about scams than I do?

PR:  You have a point there.  What about tax cuts?

DT:  I love them!  I proposed a huge one!  Everyone loves it!

PR:  What will it do to the deficit?

DT:  My tax cut will create such a large boom, the deficit will disappear!

PR:  Based on what historical evidence?

DT:  None.  It’s a matter of faith.

PR:  You’re catching on.  What about entitlements?

DT:  I’m entitled to be President, of course!

PR:  No, like Social Security and Medicare.  Why do we want to cut them?

DT:  Thinks for a minute.  Because we need money for my huge tax cut.

PR:  By George, I think he’s got it!

While most American politicians celebrate American exceptionalism (however they may choose to define it), Sanders and Trump, in very different ways, despise it.  For Bernie, the American affinity for limited government has led to a socioeconomic system characterized by rampant inequality, overmighty capitalists, and an inadequate safety net.  He thinks America should aspire to be more “European.”  Trump, on the other hand, believes that our penchant for spreading our values around the world results in our “friends” and enemies alike playing us for suckers.  If Trump wins the election, he will treat our values as being identical to our interests, much as, say, the Russians and Chinese do.

In my view, both of these critiques are horribly overblown, but both contain a kernel of truth.  I agree with Sanders that we need a somewhat larger and clearly more effective safety net, but I don’t believe we need to be as “European” as Denmark. There is room in the world for a society which tolerates a bit more inequality in exchange for more dynamism.  As for Trump’s realism, I would concur that, on occasion, we don’t ask enough of our allies in exchange for our financial and military support;  for example, what do we get from the Baltic states that justifies our commitment to go to war against Russia for them?  On the other hand, it is both practically and morally impossible for us to completely ignore our values in our dealings with the rest of the world, so public opinion would prohibit even a President Trump from doing so.

Trump will give a relatively restrained (for him) speech from a teleprompter at the convention.  It will be uninspiring and completely devoid of any serious intellectual content, but it won’t be overtly racist or outrageous, and there will be no Trump Steaks as props.  The GOP leadership, Fox News, and the WSJ will subsequently celebrate the belated arrival of the “New Trump.”  Euphoria will reign in the GOP camp, unity will be the order of the day, and Trump will get a substantial bounce in the polls.

Until, of course, Trump gets bored with his buttoned-down persona and reverts back to Captain Outrageous.  That should take about two weeks at the max.

Gerson has a column in today’s WaPo in which he laments the willingness of the vast majority of GOP leaders to support Trump in spite of his racism and innumerable other intellectual and moral failings.  To him, this is the beginning of the end of the “Party of Lincoln.”

Gerson is an intelligent and eminently decent man, but I wish he’d get real on this issue.  The GOP stopped being the “Party of Lincoln” when it turned its back on civil rights in exchange for the votes of bigots and electoral control of the Deep South in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  Trump didn’t create that condition; he merely exposed it in a way that has made it impossible for anyone to ignore.

Or, to put it another way, you can no longer say with any credibility that Trump and his supporters are just a racist, swaggering, authoritarian caricature version of the GOP created by liberals–they are the GOP.  How else could he get the nomination?

Yes, I know the truth hurts.  If Gerson can’t stand it,  he should go start a third party based on his ideals of freedom and limited government and see how many votes he gets.

During the early and middle 18th Century, the UK’s relationship with Europe was a highly-charged political issue.  The Whigs, by and large, felt that French aggression had to be addressed by sending large subsidies and armies to the continent;  this was particularly necessary after the Hanoverian succession.  The Tories, on the other hand, disliked the large expenses involved in this approach, were skeptical of continental entanglements with unreliable allies, and preferred to put money into the navy to fight the French over colonies.

Does this sound at all familiar?  Three hundred years later, it’s SSDD.

There is a 19th Century angle to this, too, that will be discussed next Friday.

So let us all speak against Brexit.

The vote is the week after next-it.

We’ll watch and we’ll wonder.

To leave is a blunder.

If it passes, can Cameron fix it?

Most of the commentators have analogized the Trump campaign to a reality show, which makes sense, based on his media background.  However, it appears to me that right-wing talk radio has been a much greater influence on Trump’s style: loud; angry; spontaneous; never apologetic; fond of conspiracy theories; loose with facts; and oozing with heavy metal testosterone.

That also sounds a lot like the WWE, which I will discuss another day.

Campaigning as Rush Limbaugh makes sense when you are dealing with an electorate that is effectively limited to a small number of right-wing activists. The problem for Trump is that about 80 percent of the general election voters, including many Republicans, would rather eat ground glass than listen to Rush. If he moderates his style, however, he will forfeit the “authenticity” argument against Hillary.  What is he to do?

That is the central dilemma of his campaign, and he clearly hasn’t figured it out yet.  My guess is that he will veer back and forth and hope to get the best of both worlds.  Expect to see lots of stories about “New Trump” and “Old Trump” in the MSM over the next several months.

 

There once was a Donald named Trump.

His fans were all down in the dumps.

He called out a judge

But then started to fudge.

His road’s full of potholes and bumps.

 

There once was a woman named Hill.

Her victory gave women a thrill.

The Bern’s come and gone

Now she’ll take on the Don.

If she won’t bash him daily, I will.