Trump First Week Delights and Worries

There are a lot of pleased voters in the US right now. Many commentators and anyone who has lived through an American Presidential term knows that politicians promise a lot while campaigning and then walk back those promises once in office. Those who voted for Donald Trump were promised he would not only get tough on immigration, but include a southern border wall and large-scale deportations. Those who were skeptical thought he would be more hesitant once in office, and focus on expanding background checks, increasing the size of the border patrol, and cracking down on illegal immigrants who commit crimes (other than being here). Well, it seems Trump is determined to do what he said he would.

He has already issued an order for a physical wall to be built and ordered “sanctuary cities” stripped of federal funding. He also insists he will make Mexico pay for the wall. This was an act of pandering idioticy during the election; now, I do not even know what to call it. No self-respecting nation would pay for a wall in another country to keep its own people out of that country. Mexico will never agree to do such a thing. No one would. I suspect we as citizens are supposed to accept this inflammatory declaration as part of Trump negotiating with Mexico???

I am not even certain what part of this makes me angrier. I am a conservative, and though I did not support Trump I was prepared to be surprised and pleased once he was in office. There are plenty of things Trump and I would agree on. Trump could be focusing on the US economy, cutting US corporate taxes from their far-too-high 35% to a much more sensible 15%. He could be endorsing legislation for a tax amnesty to bring US corporate profits back to invest in this country. He could be rewriting the tax code with sensible rules reducing loopholes, eliminating the “double-dipping” tax rules that see US corporation’s overseas profits taxed twice if brought into this country, or adjusting the simply foolish bracket system that means that workers can lose money by earning more money based on an arbitrary income level. He could be cutting red tape. He could be investing his energy into getting his cabinet confirmed. He could be creating a successor to the Affordable Care Act before some over-enthusiastic fool in Congress repeals it without anything to replace it for the 30 million Americans who use it. He could be figuring out how he is possibly going to grow the military, border protection, a $15-25 billion dollar wall, massive infrastructure spending, and a big tax cut, without leaving America’s future generations in debt up to their eyeballs. These are the big issues. These are what he needs to solve. So why oh why is he spending his time influencing Mexico without making friends and insisting that three to five million votes in the Presidential election were fraudulent?

There are some people who think the border issue is critical, and those people will be very happy he is making it a priority. I also imagine there are a few people who believe, in spite of every bit of evidence being to the contrary, that there is massive voter fraud taking place, and those people will also be very happy. The rest of the country is going to fall into the “worried” category. Even if one believes that Trump had the right of it on every issue, the question of “priorities” must spring to mind.

I also cannot help but notice that the federal scientific community is being muzzled. It seems that the man who brought “alternative facts” into the mainstream is taking action to keep opposition to his policies from being able to use government-funding science and facts against him. It seems likely that Trump’s actions are either preparatory to either muzzling inconvenient scientific evidence or to a massive cut in US non-defense spending, including the gutting or elimination of multiple US federal agencies.

Well, it is just the first week. For everyone who is worried, I encourage you to internalize your concerns. That is probably the opposite of what modern sensibilities would espouse, but we all need to remember that what is happening is our responsibility as a people. It is not okay to dismiss it, or just try to forget about it, or to move away for four years until the country is “comfortable” or a “safe space.” Responsibility for the direction of this country belongs to every citizen. The same goes for picking a chief executive who can lead effectively. I am not ready to give up on supporting Trump as a President after less than a week, but I will be watching very closely. There are so many things that need to be done, and he could be the man to do it if he has his head on straight.

Here’s hoping.

Struggling With Trump vs Clinton

Don’t blame me for Donald Trump getting the Republican Presidential nomination. I said the man was a idiot. But he did win and now American voters have a choice: Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton. Joy.

Many (conservative) Americans are convinced that another Democratic Presidency would be a disaster for America. I believe that both liberals and conservatives bring important ideas and convictions to the political table. Thus my own feeling has been that after Obama a Republican President would be best for correcting the mistakes, excesses, and missteps of Obama, just as Obama in his first term did a good job doing the same vis a vis his predecessor in international affairs. I had hoped this person would be John Kasich. However, the Republican voters of this country have deemed that Donald Trump is the best man to represent them and their interests. So is Trump the right man for the job? Would Clinton really be a disaster if he is not?

Clinton first. The last thing this country needs is a Clinton agenda on gun control. Or Clinton stacking the Supreme Court with liberal judges. Or another dysfunctional relationship between the White House and Congress. She of course holds liberal views on abortion, LGBT issues, discrimination, and associated issues that can be broadly lumped together as the American Culture Wars. That is fine to some extent, but will be at best unhelpful in trying to protect freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Liberal victory in the current iteration of the Culture Wars has meant that those freedoms are under attack by a portion of the victors, and Clinton is not going to defend those freedoms. She will not help business much, but is also unlikely to harm it significantly. She is overly harsh on fossil fuels without having good alternatives yet.

More seriously, she is fit to be a reasonable but not brilliant leader of US foreign policy. She is experienced in this regard. However, she is opposed to free trade, which means that she would undermine the TPP, which is the new cornerstone of US free trade and Pacific economic policy. This opposition is a populist pander, though her liberal inclinations almost certainly weigh in and will in the future. It will harm the economy and American foreign policy.

Clinton will almost certainly raise taxes and increase money for education, equality initiatives, Social Security, healthcare, and other domestic spending targets. I would characterize her as a reasonable candidate who will fail to implement needed reforms to healthcare, Social Security, and other domestic expenses in favor of throwing money at them at the expense of businesses and the military. Her gun control position is most problematic, but her likelihood to preside over stifling of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and economic growth are also troubling.

Donald Trump is harder to nail down on the issues. As a naked populist, he appeals to the fears of the lowest common denominator of the electorate in order to accrue power. In my opinion, he is the closest thing to the opposite of George Washington to ever have a good shot at the White House. When considering Trump, it is most useful to examine his worldview and inclinations in order to understand his responses to issues and potential situations. He is very much a zero-sum believer and a practitioner of identity politics. His group is pro-choice so he is pro-choice and everyone who disagrees is an outside and an idiot and will see themselves subjected to identity politics and the sort of loathsome ideology of dehumanization that drives genocide. In Trump’s case the result is less dehumanization than a devaluing of the Other as meaningful contributor to the discussion or political debate, but the thought process is not dissimilar. Trump would be better placed in a therapist’s office than an oval one.

His foreign policy approach is execrable. He would do just fine playing the “Great Game” in Europe over a century ago, or as a king having his servants fawn over him, his domestic enemies beheaded, and his soldiers used as gambling chips to expand the territory under his personal rule. And by “fine,” I mean he would be comfortable with the situation. I do not claim he would do it with any skill or success. In the modern era, he has promised to destroy the international liberal order America has fought for over the course of over a century and replace it with some sort of mercantilist system. He has alienated every nation south of Texas with his attacks on Hispanics and Mexicans. He is about as subtle as a 9-year old throwing a temper tantrum, and his policies might as well have came from the same place. He promises everything to his insiders while being able to deliver nothing, save by claiming Mexico will pay to build a big, big wall – essentially, it is a magic wall, paid for by magic. Because if I was Mexico there is one thing I would never do, and that is pay for Trump’s wall. And Mexico, or at least its president, agrees.

Businesses would presumably benefit from a Republican business-background president, but Trump’s populist stance, anti-free trade positions, alienation of Muslims and Hispanics, and predatory intent towards America’s allies combine to convince me that a Trump victory would harm the American economy far more than it could help. Nor was he a particularly good businessman, though he is a skilled showman. His tribal and micromanaging approach to business would also prevent him from using good management practice to run the country. He can also be relied upon to utilize every tool at his disposal to punish his enemies and reward his insiders. At times it seems as if a crackpot would-be dictator has parachuted in from some Central European reality television show and Americans are too mesmerized by his total lack of self-conscience and commitment to saying whatever his first thought is to realize what an appallingly poor leader he would be.

However, he is the conservative candidate and there is no way around it. So Americans are given two mediocre choices to be President. Most Republicans have been falling into line. I have been considering it. Trump would be a horrible President in my opinion, but I have to acknowledge I could be wrong. Maybe the millions of Republicans who voted for him know something I don’t. Maybe he will be a savior for the party and put America back on the right path where individual rights and responsibility are maintained as core American values. Or decades of learning and observation are correct and he would be everything I fear him to be. Hilary Clinton will mean four years of pain for conservative values, to be sure. But I think there is a reason Trump is popular in Russia and North Korea. It is not because they think he is someone they can talk with, though – it is because he could wreck the global order of trade and rules and law. Maybe they could talk to him, but I doubt it.

So I am going to follow my conscience and reject Donald Trump. He is a populist, racist, egotistical blowhard who does not belong in the White House. I don’t want Clinton in there (again) either. I will vote for a third-party candidate. Yes, it will be “throwing my vote away.” Or will it? If it sends a message of rejection of Trumpism, then it will be worth it. If I had a 35-year old turtle and got it registered as a national candidate it would probably beat either Trump or Clinton. Over the next four years, I want to work on electoral reform. People deserve the government they get, and I very much hope the party of Lincoln is better than Trump.

A Plea To Republicans

Please stop voting for Donald Trump. The man is an idiot. He is hot-tempered, abrasive, vindictive, and a mediocre businessman. He is running well based on his ability as a showman. That is pretty useless once in office. His only real asset, in my opinion, is his ability to negotiate. That skill is of limited value to a President. Negotiations at this level last years, typically. No President is going to have much of anything to do with direct negotiations unless he cloned himself. In other words, he would be a bad chief executive.

Fortunately there is one man still running on the Republican side who combines praiseworthy leadership experience with sensibility worthy of an American President: John Kasich. Marco Rubio does not have the leadership experience; Ted Cruz is little better. Hillary Clinton would easily lead a government better than either. Where she would lead it is another question, but at least she would do so with reasonable success.

In my opinion, every primary vote for Trump and Cruz is a vote for Clinton in the general election. Rubio may be electable. But Kasich definitely is, and he is the best standing candidate with the skills to govern America. He is certainly the only one with a chance at reducing the partisanship that currently plagues the country, long shot that that may be.

However, just because John Kasich is the best person to govern the country in my opinion does not mean you ought to vote for him. I have not laid out a full analysis to support that.

But please, please stop voting for Trump.

A Surprising Need for Tolerance in America

This is all about tolerance. This is an unusual thing for me to write, and not just because I post so infrequently. I am going to do it by discussing something that is becoming the new “third rail” in American politics, homosexuality.

I am, unsurprisingly, a conservative. A sensible, practical, quite moderate conservative, but a conservative nonetheless. So it is, again, not surprising that I do not approve of homosexuality. The Bible is fairly clear in its condemnation of homosexual acts as sinful. Thus, I cannot approve of it.

I also tolerate it. It is not my place to judge others. The Bible is clear on that too. For all I know, any given homosexual couple could be avoiding those acts that the Bible warns against. Whatever. I would never inquire into such things, and it doesn’t matter anyway. Such things are between the person and God. I consider each individual as an individual, and that is as it should be. In addition the democracy I am a citizen of was founded, among other things, on tolerance. Even if one does not approve of another group, one tolerates it. That is an essential part of making a democracy work. There can be exceptions, of course, but this is not one of them.

That is my measured stance on the homosexuality issue. I am certain strongly conservative people as well as the overly politically correct will take issue with, well, any opinion that is not their own. Such is the lot of the moderate, even a conservative one. However, it seems that the politically correct crowd is the quite a bit more vocal one these days, as has been the case with Mr. Phil Robertson.

Phil Robertson runs a successful company making duck calls for hunters. This was apparently considered fodder for a reality television series by the cable company A&E, which produces a very popular show featuring Mr. Robertson and his family called “Duck Dynasty.” After Mr. Robertson spoke of his Christian and personal beliefs on homosexuality during an interview, A&E suspended him from production of its show, which will presumably end. That is their right as a company, just as talking about his beliefs was Mr. Robertson’s.

The problem is that this action signifies an existential conflict between the LGBT/Politically Correct community and any religion, group, or individual that does not fully approve of homosexuality. To the LGBT/PC crowd, tolerance is not enough. Acceptance is not enough. Only approval will suffice, and any lesser commitment is grounds for public condemnation and economic reprisals. That is the message of the Phil Robertson story. And that has me concerned, because it is a very big deal.

What happens when a group in a nation stops accepting tolerance, and in so doing, becomes intolerant themselves? The answer is repression, denial of human rights, denial of humanity, and taken to its ultimate form, genocide. This case is obviously not going to go anywhere near that far, but the repression of Phil Robertson by A&E at the behest of the LGBT community is also obvious. The letters of condemnation did not write themselves, and Mr. Robertson lost his job with A&E.

So, what do we do when a group in a democracy sets upon a path of intolerance? Just because this group has suffered from intolerance before is not an excuse. The striking out against others is unacceptable regardless of who it comes from. I will do what I can: I will call it out, and so I have. The PC crowd should recognize they are supporting intolerance. The LGBT groups who attacks Mr. Robertson should recognize it as well, and apologize. And A&E should give the guy his show back. Because if you want live in a free society you have to practice tolerance. Otherwise you have groups warring against each other in a battle for political power. That is a lot less pleasant, and people get hurt. Tolerance. That is the way.