Excellent and thought provoking piece
Some of this might be repetitive to some readers
Full disclosure on my R side choices temporally: Walker, Carly, Trump, no one, still no one, NOT HILLARY, and not Cruz under any circumstances.
Who I am: UVa 71, spent much of professional life in cardiovascular research, Genl Mgr of a research corp with heavy export proportion, now retired. Spent 12 years talking nearly every day with Muslims in the gulf.
FRANKLY.
Thesis: At this point in terms of actual governance there is scant OBJECTIVE difference ON THE GROUND between corporate republicans, and wall street democrats (IF ANY), big big business, and CERTAIN academic institutions
Where Trump is right: Border Security, and the objective failure of free trade as a benefit to the USA (I still like the idea but the results are INARGUABLE and WAAAAAY beyond automation compared to other nations)
BORDER: We have listened since the 80′s to politicians telling us on one way or the other that controlling the border is impossible. We can’t do it. Of course NOT controlling the border has been a benefit to large corporations, agribusiness, etc. and created a moral hazard for entities even as eclectic as a glatt kosher meat processing factory in the center of the nation.
Now there is someone telling the nation that what our intuitive sense was telling us along is correct. A border CAN BE SECURED.
Note that the MESSAGE carried by this conflates nicely (and maybe correctly as a principle) with terrorism and Islamism
TRADE: Free trade sounds great. But if you are a large corporation it means you sold off your human costs of labor to the cheapest labor cost in the world for the promise of cheaper goods for the consumer. But we did not get that. To the public we got a slower rate of increase in the panoply of LITERALLY third world products.
When I quiz free trade aficionados on their unlimited support for free trade today, I get smarmy answers about their children being safely ensconced in STEM.
HERE’S YOUR SIGN
There are PLENTY of these kinds warnings.
We have seen the march of not job loss, but CAREER LOSS, progress from labor, manufacturing, engineering, product design and now finally to R&D.
The single most important number in the economy is the disposable income in the pockets of the American middle class.
Is there ANYONE who thinks (now that real estate can’t be used to bolster that in the form of SOME kind of loan) that number has increased?
That number is the potential energy of demand, ingenuity, entrepreneurship and R&D risk taking. If there is no potential energy, the rest fails.
That number also represents the economic power that galvanizes military security. They are INSEPARABLE. Today though we have more and more demands chasing fewer and fewer resources.
THESE TWO REASONS, are why people are ready to take big chance on Trump.
What are the reservations? … well I have mine
Eminent Domain.
LIBEL: He seems to like the Erdoganish idea that if you attack him because you don’t like him, or have SUBSTANTIVE factual reasons to oppose his ideas, taking you out with soft power (hello Mr Obama) is not enough, and it’s time for litigation to silence you, and the object of the suit is not to win, but shut you up and ‘pour encourager les autres.’
CHARACTER: ???? Who are you Trump? Are you an achiever? Poker player? Charlatan? All three? Are you as Machiavellian as FDR inside the offices, pitting everyone against everyone? I have no idea, but I have a REAL GOOD IDEA about someone else…
HILLARY: a better lie detector test taker than Richard Nixon. Capable of self deception for self interest and blind to OBVIOUS corruption. Obama III on too much policy, and a CLEAR INARGUABLE representative of not just the ‘rigged’ financial system now (including free trade and it’s awful results) but the PAID representative of TBTF entities.
I can’t tell myself I support Trump, but it’s very easy to work very hard to oppose HRC.
Cruz… just google ‘Cruz Bickle’ and it’s easy to find the basic immovable reason why it’s impossible for an American who happens to be Jewish to vote for Cruz, and also then comprehend the ideas behind his support for Israel.
This nation has been going in a dangerous direction under BOTH parties for LONG TIME.
This is the perception of too much of the public, and the objective reality.
That’s why Trump (and almost Bernie).
Trump may turn out be a disaster, but since we have the modern version of James Buchanan, who also hates the word PROPERTY himself (you know, that FLAWED document?), the nation is simply READY to take that chance.
Hi Epa,
ReplyDeleteYou say the Federalist article is "thoughtful."
I'm not sure I agree.
Here's why:
Trump does not seem thoughtful. Of that there is no doubt. He shoots from the hip. He contradicts himself. His gut instincts lead him to reveal an underlying lack of substantive policy.
However, what is policy than a principle "backed up" by the steps to make that principle manifest in the real world.
Remember, those who criticize Trump are GOVERNMENT PEOPLE. They either get their paycheck from the government, or academia, or the media. They either get paid to work in policy for the government, or their paycheck comes from advertising salespeople.
The government, media, academia people have one thing in common. NONE OF THEIR POLICIES OR CRITICISMS OF POLICIES (if they are academics of media-types) HAVE EVER EFFECTED OR ACTUATED A PROFIT
EVER.
EVER.
EVER.
Trump is a businessman. Business is the enacting of policies (based upon vision/principle) for the purpose of generating a profit.
Therefore, Trump's policies have been proven to work.
The man knows how to do policy.
Government/Media/Academia people do not necessarily know how to do policy. They may, but they have never proven it.
In Government work, they use the phrase policy. It sounds magical. But it just means steps. In business, we may call it procedures, or just "this is the way shit gets done". There is little magical pretense in the business world.
Now on to the criticism that Trump's people simply want revenge. Trump has activated a portion of the electorate who have not traditionally voted. This is why he has more votes than anyone previously, even though he is dividing those votes up with more opposition than any previous candidate. Trump has brought in voters who have not previously voted. These people may not be nearly as articulate, but they have been excited by Trump's passion and ideas.
And here's the thing: I have never heard so many obnoxious "points" addressed to me by fellow conservatives on political of philosophical points since, well, EVER.
I am used to having people be obnoxious to me because most of my friends are Leftists.
But I am not used to Conservatives calling my candidate a clown, a dictator, an authoritarian, stupid, not Christian, etc.
Those who support Trump are labeled stupid, unwashed masses, ignorant, uninformed, assholes, moral reprobates, herd, crowd, hoardes, riotous, villagers with torches,
people come to our rallies and spit in our faces, call us murderers, say we have no love in our hearts, pepper spray our elderly and our children, say we are nazis, racists, homophobes, islamophobes, the worst fears realized, KKK,
etc. etc. etc.
What do you expect us to do when THIS is all we hear?
Have you ever heard anyone of these GOPers say anything nice, polite, or truly thoughtful about Trump?
I have not. Or perhaps, I should say, so rarely as to render such kindness forgettable as it is lost like a needle in a haystack.
Nichols is a policy wonk of long standing, and his resume contains among a lot of stuff - an FP advisor to senate foreign relations committee, etc and he is what I would consider, pretty much a hard liner- FOR AN INSIDER. So he wants to hear HOW Trump is going to contend with airstrips on all the islands that are being manufactured. Not 'I know how to deal with China'
ReplyDeleteThink of it this way .. if you are a regional sales manager, you formulate how each salesperson goes about beating the competition in your area. If you are the DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, you set the course and then you FIRE the regional sales managers who can't stay on course or keep up.
FDR is FAMOUS for getting the insiders to contend with each other VICIOUSLY, letting each think they had convinced him, and then using dependable CLOSE friends as possible sounding boards, but many times not and then in ISOLATION decide the course.
I **THINK** Trump is that kind of guy.
Nichols wants the tactics and anything short of that fails the 'expertise' test (in fact check out his coming book on Amazon)
He has several times lamented the way this campaign is conducted, but like you, what I see is conservatives who have STRATEGICALLY lost their mind in trying to apply the tests of Pat Robertson and Mitch McConnell in a Torquemada like intellectual process to determine C purity. But which in REALITY is a test to ensure continuance.
No matter what else is true, Trump is NOT the event which will change the R party. They may have to bow SOMEWHAT to his mandate if he wins, but when you see people in state legislatures, the house and senate, who will not acquiesce to campaign donors and their influence, or weaken in the face of the moral hazards of all that money and the power that brings <> ONLY THEN can there be a change. That's a much bigger problem.
Trump MIGHT be able to support such people if he gets 2 terms, and is alive to take the oath.
But we need the parties as they exist to GO.
A lot of very powerful entities will have to reassess their long term well being for that to happen, otherwise the threat to the system will result in civil violence. That means people like Lloyd Blankfein, and people who veto bathroom legislation restrictive by gender BOTH may see their persons threatened not by sick individuals, but by MOBS.
To Nichols I think Trump supporters are that mob.
Good explanation of why Nichols does not see in Trump what seems so obvious to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm sure that, were the question put to him that way, Trump would say, "I'm not going to tell China my strategy. What the fuck? Are you kidding me?"
As for Trump not being the guy, I'm not sure you're thinking this through. If Trump wants to build a wall and put a moratorium on Muslim immigration, that is going to cause a lot of panic and frenzied, chaotic action from the Democrats and Republicans. These are the issues they will not relent on.
ReplyDeletethat means war between Trump and them.
Who do you think would blink first?