A Jewish friend writes: Dear Luke,
I have many thoughts and opinions about the election. Here they are in no particular order. In October 2015 I wrote to a friend of mine in Israel that there were three reasons for Trump’s appeal: (1) immigration, (2) he did not appear to be bought and paid for by the big money interests who backed his opponents and (3) rejection of neo-con advisors and neo-con war and intervention.
I still stand by that although in flipping through the networks most of the pundits and anchors didn’t get into this.
Although Obama’s popularity is currently higher than Clinton’s or Trump’s, no one noted that in the two mid-term elections, Obama’s policies were soundly rejected. The 2010 election brought in big Democratic losses because of the way the Affordable Care Act was rammed through. The 2014 election can be seen as a rejection of the whole Obama agenda and in particular the attempt to enact amnesty and to reject the administrations sympathy for Black protests and Black Lives Matter.
Neither Obama nor the Democrats, nor for that matter the mainstream Republican establishment, paid heed to this.
This is the reason that Trump was able to seize on immigration. He ran against 16 other Republican presidential aspirants and all of them (with the exception of Ted Cruz) embraced amnesty and embraced a neo-con foreign policy. As Mickey Kaus pointed out, if the Republicans wanted to defeat Trump all they had to do was have one of their favorites – Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich – take on the mantle of immigration restrictionists and enforcement of existing laws before amnesty and they would have preempted Trump. But they couldn’t do that, either out of principle or because this position was anathema to their backers.
This election did much to undercut the understanding of how political campaigns should run. Jeb Bush had $100 million dollars which he thought would both scare away challengers and buy the necessary advertising to defeat anyone who didn’t drop out. That money was spent with no return. Will any political consultant in the future be trusted by a candidate who can raise that kind of money? I don’t think so.
The pundits all seem to have opined from their bubble. Some reporters like Salena Zito of Pittsburgh did give a feeling of the depth of the Trump phenomenon. Others such as David Brooks saw there was something out there and that the aggrieved whites needed to be listened to, yet he continued to write about them as snobbishly as ever, in the last week disparaging the gene pool of the Trump supporters. Others saw what was coming but were very careful about how they commented on it for fear of spoiling the narrative. Chris Matthews falls into this category.
The reality is that there are more persons out of the work force than ever before, that median incomes are down in actual dollar terms from where they were 20 years ago, that most Americans have no savings, that what savings they have earn a pitiful interest rate because the economy is so weak the Federal Reserve hasn’t raised interest rates, that life expectancy among whites is down, suicide is up, and deaths as a result of opiates and alcohol are way up.
Another interesting take away from the election is that voter suppression is a myth. Barack Obama said as much a couple of days ago when he said that despite any obstacles put in their way, anyone who really wants to will be able to cast a ballot. The Democrats had a huge edge in Get Out the Vote efforts. But this highlights a true weakness. The Democrats have played the identity card too far. But the coalition the Democrats put together did defeat McCain and Romney and almost defeated George W. Bush. Some of these groups that Steve Sailer refers to as “fringe” or as Larry Elder calls them “victocrats” apparently will not vote in significant numbers unless they are repeatedly contacted by the get out the vote personnel before the election and then a concerted effort including driving them to the polls takes place on election day (or for early balloting.)
What happened in this election is that these groups reliably turn out for the Democrats and vote for the Democratic candidate by an overwhelming percentage. The Democrats hadn’t been worried about the white vote because it was fragmented. This election because of the constant attack on whites and white privilege, along with the erosion of manufacturing jobs which has devastated so many small communities, along with the capture of so many entry level and low skilled jobs by illegal immigrants, along affirmative action hurting not only their own but their children’s school and job prospects, along with an administration that appeared to side with rioters over law abiding citizens as if those citizen’s “racism” excused the destruction of property and drop in property values caused by riots, led to the non-elite, non coastal white voters, who make up will over 40% of the national electorate, to view themselves as identity voters, see Trump as their champion and vote as a bloc. What is more significant is that these white voters didn’t need anyone to remind them that November 8 was election day or need anyone to drive them to the polls. This does not reflect well on those who only vote by virtue of the Democratic Get Out the Vote.
It is important to note that the vote was extremely tight in some states and Democrats will console themselves that demographic change is on their side. It is for this reason that Trump will have to place immigration enforcement as a very high priority. Trump has relied on Jeff Sessions and Steve Miller on illegal immigration and protection of American jobs. Some persons naively think Trump needs legislation to be able to enforce current immigration laws, but of course that is nonsense. He can put in e-verify, allow agents to institute deportation proceedings and enforce the border so that persons cannot come across, all without building a wall (although a wall was authorized when Hillary Clinton was a Senator)
In 2012 conservative bloggers thought they had successfully competed with the mainstream media which they perceived as backing Obama and unfairly criticizing Romney. The 2012 election showed that the main stream media retained sufficient power to swing an election.
This election shows the decline of the mainstream media influence and the rise of the internet regarding political campaigns.
The traditional media in the clearest possible terms demonstrated that there was no longer a distinction between news and editorial policy. That wall is gone and with it the credibility of main stream media reporters. Wikileaks only made it worse. I was watching CNN last night and every time Gloria Borger opened her mouth (and I have been aware of her as a reporter for at least 20 years and always thought she was a good) I kept going back to an email released where she mentioned to Podesta that she had just escaped a GOP hell.
I would not be surprised to see, after the outlets do some soul searching, a number of reporters either retired or reassigned to non political matters since their basic fairness has been called into question. If that doesn’t happen, readership and viewership will decline. Advertising dollars will wither away and there will be further media consolidation. But from this point forward at least half the electorate will no longer pay any attention to them outside sports and entertainment.
My personal viewpoint is that this election is important in order to reestablish the primacy of the rule of law and the principle that no man is above the law. This is why I find any teeth gnashing by Obama or his supporters about the eradication of any legacy he had by virtue of executive orders so satisfying. They violated constitutional principles when they were expedient setting a bad precedent. If Trump stops once he rescinds the orders he will be doing the country a great favor. If he issues his own executive orders then all we are seeing is continued precedent itching to be abused by either Trump or his successor.
Incidentally the same applies to enforcement of immigration law. Our current system rewards the rule breakers while making the law abiding wait in line. This is a complete reversal of how it should work.
So many of my Facebook friends and others are fearful of Trump. They think he is a fascist, a racist, and an anti-semite.
I have never thought this to be the case and have often taken issue with people who say or write these things without endorsing Trump or his policies.
Trump made a great acceptance speech yesterday, and what the traditional media had to say about it was that was a change in tone. Obviously they had not heard many of his speeches or read the transcripts. Trump has always said he wants America to work for everybody. He has reached out especially to the Black community. He had criticized Mexicans who come here illegally and said they include Rapists. This is seized upon as racist and xenophobic, despite the fact that in 1969 Mondale, Walter Reuther and Cesar Chavez marched at the border to protest illegal immigration. They were all union men and understood that illegal aliens undercut wages and bargaining position for American citizens.
In his 1995 state of the union address, Bill Clinton came out strongly against illegal immigration and the New York Times held to that view at least through 2000, so what has been the traditional liberal view on illegal immigration has become racist when espoused by Trump.
Apparently, it is now considered un-American and racist to think of protecting Americans from an influx of persons who want to enter the country illegally and to impose standards to make immigration be in the best interest of the American people as a whole.
As I wrote you earlier in the year, we will know much more about Trump based on his appointments. I think Obama has needlessly politicized and racialized the justice department. It looks like Trump is going to appoint Giuliani as his attorney general. This is not good since Giuliani actually has more authoritarian tendencies than Trump (which is not good in the chief law enforcement officer in the land) and rather than depoliticize the justice department, may politicize it in the other way. I wish Trump would break the cycle by having certain departments, especially the justice department operate in a non partisan way without a political or social justice agenda. We will have to see how Giuliani actually deals with department heads and what cases he chooses to prosecute.
The country is by and large governed not by legislators or the executive directly but by the administrative state. I doubt that Trump will change this by eliminating departments. But we will have a better idea when we see who he appoints to the hot button cabinet positions: Education since he has pledged to do away with common core and because Title IX is causing all the problems with schools having to adjudicate sexual harassment claims, Environmental protection agency, Interior and Agriculture because these all deal with public lands, oil leasing, endangered species, global warming. I presume that Trump will nominate more development oriented Cabinet secretaries and cut back on the regulations (often successful challenged, issued by the EPA). One kicker will be that Trump more than most presidents will be looking to enhance revenue. The federal government leases grazing rights, drilling rights, mining rights and timber rights often at a below cost basis. Trump might sell land or he might try to extract more revenue. Labor. Probably the most “radical” members of the cabinet become secretaries of labor. Right now its Thomas Perez. It was at one point Hilda Solis. Look for Trump to appoint a labor friendly secretary of labor who is not an extreme “leftist” and I don’t see him appointing a union busting Labor secretary despite the urging of the Paul Ryan wing of the party.
On the Supreme Court if you are concerned about a socially liberal Supreme court, than you probably dodged a bullet by electing Trump. Most liberals are concerned about the supreme court because it is the way that liberal social issues are enshrined in law after having been defeated legislatively or through referenda. Liberals seem to think that Roe v Wade will be reversed, same sex marriages will be banned under a Trump supreme court. I would bet a lot of money that doesn’t come to pass, because the right to abortion and same sex marriage are now so widely accepted. If you are concerned about first amendment rights and your constitutional protections in criminal matters, you had no better friend than Scalia. Liberals didn’t realize that Scalia was actually closer to liberal positions than the so called liberals. The liberal block on the courtt strongly defers to the executive branch and the administrative state, whereas the conservatives slightly less so. Both conservatives and liberals on the court usually side with businesses.
It is not clear who Trump would nominate. He put out a slate of conservative judges. I don’t think he will appoint them if he wants to do things administratively or through executive orders, because he will not want to risk those being successfully legally challenged. If he plans on governing as a prudential president and not push the envelope in using his powers, then he might appoint some really conservative justices along the lines of Scalia, Alito and Thomas.
Enough for now. Time will tell.
