Cromwell

The origins of the GOP’s populist madness can be traced to the last few months of the 2008 campaign, when the Republican faithful were baying for Palin and essentially ignoring McCain.  Trump and Palin clearly appeal to a lot of the same voters.  How are they similar, and how are they different?

1. Clearly, both of them are right-wing populists with a grudge against the GOP establishment.
2. Both of them, in their respective unique ways, are effective communicators, at least with the far right.
3. Palin’s stock-in-trade is her pseudo-Jeffersonian belief that rural America is the “real America.”  She is openly contemptuous of urban voters and cosmopolitan culture.  Trump, on the other hand, is a creature of New York, and directs his ire at foreigners and elite politicians, intellectuals, and businessmen who fail, in his eyes, to stand up to them.
4.  Both of them have an unsophisticated critique of the American political system.
5.  Palin’s appeal is rooted in the Christian right.  Trump is a rakish Social Darwinian.
6.  Palin is a career politician.  She ran for VP on her record, not as an authoritarian.
7.  Palin has a history of taking on oil companies.  Trump’s populism occasionally meanders into attacks on big business, but his tax cut and deregulation program is in the mainstream of the GOP establishment.

On the whole, the differences are as compelling as the similarities.

Welcome to Trump analogy week!

What Trump and Joe McCarthy have in common, obviously, is a similar brand of opportunistic paranoid right-wing populism.  Their differences are as follows:

1. Trump has the style of a stand-up comedian.  You can be entertained by him even if you find what he says absurd or appalling.  McCarthy didn’t have that kind of charm; he just made your flesh crawl.
2.  McCarthy ruined the lives of a lot of innocent people.  Trump hasn’t done that–yet.
3.  If Trump somehow gets elected President, he will be in a position to do vastly more damage to the nation and to the whole world that McCarthy ever did.

Countless gallons of ink have been spilled speculating about what portions of Trump’s campaign are real, and what is an act.  Here is my working hypothesis:

1.  Thin-skinned, publicity-seeking narcissist:  Real.  He’s been like that all of his life.  Not even Meryl Streep can act that well.

2.  Social Darwinian:  Real.  Most of his ideology, if you could call it that, springs from his clear belief that life rewards the strong and ruthless (i.e., him), and punishes the weak.

3.  Mercantilist:  Real.  Trump equates trade to athletics and concludes that countries with trade surpluses are “winners.”  That is a deeply weird opinion, but there is no reason to doubt that he sincerely believes it.

4.  Bigot:  Mostly opportunist.  There is some evidence supporting the notion that Trump has been a racist all of his life, but I don’t find it compelling.  His immigration stance is based on a concept that worked for Mitt Romney in the GOP primaries in 2012; his law and order stance only emerged late in the campaign, and was stolen from Richard Nixon.

5.  Authoritarian:  Evolving.  There was no reason to believe that he didn’t accept democratic norms at the beginning of his campaign, but things are different now, due largely to the logic inherent in his candidacy, which, given his lack of qualifications and indifference to GOP values, had to emphasize his ability to get things done.

As everyone knows, Trump beat Marco Rubio decisively in the Florida Presidential primary several months ago.  Having decided, after much ado, to attempt to retain his Senate seat, Rubio is being challenged by Carlos Beruff, a wealthy developer who, quite logically, is running as a Trump clone.  He ties himself explicitly to Trump in his ads and proudly uses the same coarse language as the man on golf cart.

Rubio is ignoring Beruff and is running ads attacking Clinton and the Democrats. Unlike Trump, Beruff isn’t a celebrity, and he isn’t benefiting from any free media, so his campaign isn’t getting any traction.  It appears that Rubio will beat him decisively in next week’s primary.

The formula seems to be Trump minus celebrity status equals zero.

If you’re looking for an area in which Trump actually makes more sense than the mainstream of the GOP, this is probably it.

Ted Cruz wants to bring back the gold standard, and Paul Ryan can bang on and on about the declining value of the dollar, but the truth is that the dollar is extremely strong right now, and inflation is practically nonexistent.  The mainstream GOP view consequently only makes sense if you assume it is an effort to pander to elderly constituents who prefer to keep all of their money in the bank.

I don’t remember hearing Trump talk about the Fed during the campaign.  I know that he says that he “loves debt” and that he was pleased that the pound fell after the Brexit vote.  It would appear, therefore, that his Fed appointees would probably maintain the status quo, everything else staying equal.

               Assad the Killer

He went flying above Aleppo

With his barrel bombs and gas

And his Russian friends beside him.

Swore he’d kick the rebels’ ass.

 

The shattered population

Turned their tires into smoke

As the death fell all around them.

The ceasefire was a joke.

 

He gathered all his allies.

Iran; Hezbollah, too.

He told them of his big plans

And he asked them what to do.

 

They said “Just keep it up, man.

You’ve got millions more to kill.

The West won’t intervene, now.

They just don’t have the will.”

 

He went flying above Aleppo.

Assad, Assad.

What a killer!

 

Parody of “Cortez the Killer” by Neil Young.

On its face, you would think that the partnership between big business and a developer/salesman peddling a more extreme version of the Bush era tax cut and deregulation alchemy would be a marriage made in heaven.  And for some, it may be, but the overall picture is more complex, for the following reasons:

1.  As I’ve noted in the past, the victory of a chaos agent in November is likely to lead to a worldwide fall in the markets, and a recession;
2.  Any business that relies on exports, or uses overseas companies in its supply chain, will struggle to deal with Trump’s economic nationalism; and
3.  Trump will attempt to use all of the regulatory authority at his disposal to harass his enemies.  Don’t be surprised if he makes a point of regularly “inviting” unfriendly business leaders with  financial interests in foreign countries to the White House for Putinesque public reamings:  the bully pulpit being used by, well, a bully.

Keep your bags packed, Mr. Cook.

This could get really ugly, really fast.

Trump as a salesman believed with some reason that the only bad publicity was no publicity.  That approach carried him through the primaries because his strongest supporters viewed negative comments from the MSM as a badge of honor.  It isn’t working with a general election audience, and it definitely wouldn’t work with him as President.

Trump is notoriously thin-skinned and pugnacious.  He bashes the MSM on a daily basis, and bans prominent journalists from his campaign events.  There is no reason to believe that this situation would improve if he takes office.  You can anticipate that he would threaten libel actions on a regular basis, refuse to communicate with large segments of the MSM, call on his supporters through Twitter to harass reporters he particularly dislikes, and use his regulatory authority in every way possible to deal with journalists and media he views as his enemies.

Think Richard Nixon levels of animosity, only worse.

Violent crime is way down in this country, and the number of hunters decreases by the day, so it is fair to ask why the proponents of gun ownership have become increasingly passionate about the issue, and why gun regulation is such a political flashpoint.  I think I came up with the answer on my way to work today, when I was stuck behind a truck with decals of guns on its back window.

Gun ownership today, to a large extent, is about neither a rural lifestyle nor the practical need for protection; guns are just symbols for the owner’s angry rejection of societal changes which have caused the owner to feel disrespected. In other words, you (Mr. Sneering Cosmopolitan Democrat) may succeed in banishing the Christian God from the public sphere, and the white patriarchy may be on the ropes, but the gun lives, and, in fact, thrives!  So don’t tread on me, or you’ll face the consequences!

The religious right is supporting Trump even though his personal and business life has been the negation of their values because he has promised to appoint judges who oppose abortion and gay marriage to the Supreme Court.  Given his pro-choice past, it is conceivable that he would renege on this promise if he were offered a really good deal on something else that was more important, but that is unlikely to happen, so the promise should probably be taken at face value.

That much is obvious.  The more interesting question, to me, involves the extension of federal power, and how the Court would react to it.  If Trump truly plans to govern as a strong man, he is going to need a Supreme Court that will acquiesce to it.  Will the Republicans on the Court, who have spent the last eight years fighting for federalism against Obama, go along?

It depends.  While Alito and Thomas are reasonably accomplished jurists, on issues that have strong partisan implications, they almost always follow the party line. You could probably expect them to accept the Trump agenda.  Kennedy, on the other hand, is a principled conservative with federalist and libertarian leanings who does not necessarily follow the party line;  that would put him in opposition to the strong man.  The Chief Justice, while a clear partisan, worries about public perceptions of the Court, and has voted accordingly on occasion. Trump could not rely on him 100 percent of the time.

In short, the current Court with a Trump nominee sitting in Scalia’s seat would still present problems for the strong man.  Only the death or resignation of one or more of the left-leaning justices would enable him to govern in the manner he desires.

(This week, I’ll be focusing on the impacts that President Trump would have on American institutions)

Whether you think that Paul Ryan is the idealistic keeper of the flame of pure limited government conservatism, or just a charlatan who uses flim-flam and magic asterisks to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich, you have to admit that he stands for something outside of his own ambitions.  In that, he differs dramatically from Trump, whose only real ideology is self-adoration;  the two will mix like oil and water.  President Trump would undoubtedly find much more satisfaction in dealing with the wily, cynical Mitch McConnell, whose principal purpose in life is to keep the GOP in power no matter what it means to the country.

Nevertheless, Ryan is there, and Trump will have to work with him.  My guess is that the two would reach a “grand bargain” of sorts very early in the Trump Administration, to consist of the following:

1.  Congressional support for Trump’s protectionist agenda;
2.  Congressional support for additional funds for the military, homeland security, immigration enforcement, and the wall; and
3.  Trump’s support for the House GOP tax cut plan over his own.

The real question is what would happen to entitlements.  Trump has publicly pledged not to cut programs for the elderly, who are the most important part of his base, while Ryan and the House GOP are determined to do so in order to fund their enormous tax cuts.  My best guess is that Trump would do a 180 on this issue in order to get the rest of his agenda through the system and avoid looking like a pitiful, helpless strong man.  I could be wrong on that, however.

Let’s hope we never find out.

The Rio Olympics are done.

For two weeks we’ve had lots of fun.

We’ll wait for four years

For more drama and tears.

The countdown’s already begun.

I’m as nationalistic about sports as the next guy.  I can’t stand it when we lose the Ryder Cup, which is most of the time.  I can’t abide the thought of losing in international basketball–ever.  It bugs me when our sprinters aren’t competitive against the Jamaicans:  all except Bolt, of course, because he belongs to the whole world.

Why?  It isn’t because winning proves that America is somehow superior to any other country.  It isn’t because I have any compelling desire to put anyone down. It’s simply because sports, like other forms of entertainment, result in the viewer identifying with some, but not all, of the participants, and I naturally identify with the people from my own country, not knowing the back stories of everyone in the field.

If the Olympics make me feel bonded with, say, African-American female sprinters with whom I have little in common except our citizenship, is that a bad thing?  I don’t think so.

The Rio Olympics, last day.

Women b-ball, they truly can play.

Relay teams pick up gold.

Winning never gets old.

Expectations were met, I would say.

There is speculation in the NYT and Vox that Trump’s ultimate objective is not to become President, but to be a right-wing media star, based on his recent campaign hires.  Does this make sense?

Actually, yes.  While Trump’s reputation as an international businessman will be in ashes at the end of the campaign, his bona fides as a pugnacious nationalist celebrity will be beyond question, and there is clearly is a substantial market for his opinions.  He could establish a new TV network with a fairly minimal investment, hire a few paranoid right-wing talk show hosts, and race Fox News to the bottom.  The rest of the programming could be occasional commentary from the great man himself (presumably thundering about the GOP making compromises with Clinton to keep the government running) and infomercials for Trump steaks, et. al.

In other words, he could set himself up for the foreseeable future as Father Coughlin for the 21st Century and make money doing it.  It would be a lot more fun than being President.  If you’re Rupert Murdoch, Paul Ryan, or Mitch McConnell, and you’re trying to make the GOP look sane and respectable in the eyes of the general public after the debacle of 2016, it’s just about your worst nightmare.