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The Faster of Two Phoenixes
I have been a Republican since I was eight years old. Reagan was my gateway into the party, and I followed his presidency any way I could. When I was nine, I watched the nightly news and talked about media bias with my father who was a Reagan Democrat. I was not old enough to vote until the first Clinton election and I have voted Republican ever since. I even won $100 off of a liberal college professor because I bet that Newt Gingrich would take the House in 1994. I love the conservative movement and I have always worked to make the Republican party more conservative.
So that brings me to Trump. I supported Governor Scott Walker, Senator Marco Rubio, and then Senator Ted Cruz. I implored all my friends and family to vote against Trump and for whomever was most likely to win in a given state. But while I thought I was comfortable in the #NeverTrump camp, I’ve found that stance to be increasingly troubling. I can’t imagine not voting against Clinton and I feel that is my patriotic duty to oppose her at nearly any cost. And yet, Trump is also horrible.
A Trump presidency will be a crap shoot. Since Trump is in the race for himself and his only principles seem to be his own power and success, his presidency will be a mess. He will surely do some conservative things as president, but he will do liberal things as well, all based on what he calculates will benefit him most politically in the moment. We’ve already seen Trump “growing” and “changing” on some issues, and it’d be foolish for him not to court the Left where he can. Trump was built for triangulation between liberals and conservatives, and his goal will be to get people to believe they are “winning” through him.
The worst part of his presidency will no doubt be foreign policy, where Trump’s understanding of the world is narrow-to-non-existent, and his ability to understand non-American cultures is close to zero. He will likely make large, dangerous, and deadly foreign policy blunders. Which brings me to the last point Trump’s crimes: Trump will almost certainly commit crimes while in office. His sense of self-importance and the principle of his success trumping all other concerns will lead him as it did Nixon to commit crimes while in office.
In a way Trump will be like a third Nixon administration but with fewer principles. We will get a few conservative things, a lot of liberal things, and nothing will change for the better. Trump will never see limits to his own power and so will not tame the administrative state but will seek to increase presidential powers, thereby increasing his own power and do even more damage to the constitution.
Given these things, I’ve come to think that one of the more powerful arguments for a Trump presidency was that he could be impeached while Clinton will not: Clinton could murder Speaker Paul Ryan on 5th Avenue and still keep her job; Trump already has support problem. My bumper sticker for the campaign: “Vote Trump; he’s the one we can Impeach.” Not, admittedly, a very strong argument.
President Clinton, of course would be fearful, harridan of vengeance, hate-seeking her enemies through fair means and — more joyfully for her — foul. She would run the government as a criminal conspiracy to acquire power for herself and her cronies at the expense of all that is good and holy. The only upside to a Clinton presidency is that I think she might clear the very, very, very low bar of being better on foreign policy than either Obama has been or Trump would be. Considering all the down sides, that is very weak. So Hillary must not be president.
Given these two scenarios, I thought I had to stay in the #NeverTrump camp: I could not vote for a man whom I am certain will commit crimes and cost lives in foreign policy blunders just to win a few random conservative issues domestically, even the Supreme Court. It seemed the height of selfishness to do that to our country as whole for a few potential gains. So I was left with the fact that Trump could be impeached but that was not enough for me to vote for him.
But I have now found another reason to vote for Trump. A Trump win will likely destroy the Republican party much as Nixon did, but a Trump win will also destroy the Democrats. Just think about it. If Clinton loses to Trump, it will destroy the Obama/Clinton legacy and throw the Democrats directly into the arms of insane people. The Sandersnistas will go after the party leaders like a proverbial peasant mobs in the classic horror movies and the whole Democratic party infrastructure will burn down. The Democrats’ leaders are all in their 70s and they have no bench. The Republicans, however, have young governors, senators, and congressmen aplenty, and some of them will regain their credibility when we have to impeach Trump. So while Trump will wreck terrible havoc on the Republican party, it is actually placed better to recover than the Democrats are.
Contrast that with the situation if Clinton wins, leaving the Democrats in power for one or two more cycles while the Republicans recriminate each other.
In sum, with both parties destroyed — and the country suffering from terrible disasters — the Republican’s deeper leadership bench will help them recover faster than the Democrats. This is not what I would have wanted for the country. People are going to die and the disasters will be real and serious if either Clinton or Trump wins, but a Trump victory gives conservatives a better chance of picking up the pieces of the disaster than does a Clinton win. “So vote for Trump; after the disaster, we have a better chance of winning.”
So there you have it. Is that enough of a reason to vote for Trump or is my thinking completely flawed? Let me know what you think.
Published in General
Again no. As long as Clinton can dangle the dream of power in front of the Democrat factions they all remain loyal. This only changes if Hillary really blows it big time, which is possible. If she doesn’t melt down though the Democrat coalition holds until she is gone. There is no young minority candidate that will unite every faction we can dream one up but he or she must actually exist. I doubt there will be an Obama 2.0 just as there has not been a Reagan 2.0. Once Clinton is gone there is a vacuum of power in the Democrat party and no faction there knows who is actually strong enough to fill which means they will all try to fill it.
My scenario foresees a possible Democrat victory after a one Trump term but that person is more likely to be a Jimmy Carter figure and highly vulnerable to Republicans four years later. All these outcomes are dependent on actual events that we are just guessing at. But for me to believe that the Democrats will unify under a Trump Presidency I would have see some actual evidence of up and coming leaders in the Democratic party these people are not there. There are no Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Gov. Walker or Martinez etc. that the Dems can call up. All factions will hate Trump equally, except perhaps the actual construction dependent Unions, so that will give no faction a significant advantage. The old hands, the political pros and the experienced Democrats will all be tainted by an Hillary loss however and that is what will doom the Dems.
It shouldn’t matter who is President, but it does. That is because the Balance of Powers is out of balance. Sad to say, but neither Clinton nor Trump will move the Balance of Powers in the right direction. So fundamentally the Constitution is screwed no matter who wins.
There will be a winner and whoever does not win becomes a counterfactual. So you have a choice — be part of the group who elects Clinton or be part of the group who elects Trump (unless Bill Kristol has found a real unicorn). I doubt anyone who is a member of Ricochet will be proud over the long run of casting a vote for the winner. There will be a lot of counterfactual debating about how things would be better if…
Right, so if the Dems can’t reform anyway, why do we need Trump to blow them up? They’re taking care of that on their own.
I agree that it would be more fun to watch them cower in terror as Trump goes wreck-it-Ralph on them, but all elements considered…
47% voter for a socialist over her. They’re already rebelling. The R coalition held together under Reagan but bolted under Bush. Clinton’s gonna be their Bush.
If Clinton (a terrible candidate) can mostly unite them in the general, then basically anyone can unite them, especially running against an incumbent Trump.
In 2004 Barack Obama was a state senator. Every President’s first midterm election goes against their party. And we’re already facing Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and the Castro brothers.
His worst-case scenario, the things that he’s liked in the past, is longer wait times and an “assault weapons ban”. He’s turned from that, he says.
Hillary has not. Trump’s worst-case scenario is part of the planks in her platform, with even worse ideas added in for good measure.
May I say first that your article on the Federalist LGBT movements self destruction was a great piece of work.
Why we need to rush their destruction. Well if you watch the movies and TV you know that the villains often have the heroes at a disadvantage, the heroes seem doomed but the villain delays killing the heroes for a more elaborate and satisfying death. But in the extra time they have because of that the heroes escape. After 4 to 8 years the Democrats may find their way out of their current problems, they may develop a new farm team of leaders and when the fighting comes it is more controlled and constructive then destructive. A Hillary loss now hits the democrats when they are most vulnerable and we are guaranteed to do the maximum damage possible. Hillary winning gives them a chance at least, I don’t see how they will do it but they will have a chance, to get their house in order.
That still is not much of a case for Trump I admit and I am not convinced that even if my prediction is true that it makes it worth it to vote for Trump. However the damage his mere election will do to the Democrat party simply has not been discussed enough in my opinion and it is something we should all consider.
Corey Booker is factional candidate a Clinton coalition candidate, is Elizabeth Warren is also factional and the Castro brothers are empty shirts or they would be running now.
I know it is tempting to think anyone could unite the Democrats if Obama could but Obama do not just grow on trees. He was special and he will not be repeated.
Yes, yes all the Democrat factions will be able to gather around the table and chant in unison “We HATE TRUMP!” They might do that 50 or 60 times in a row even. However when it comes to running the party they will not agree on anything except everyone hates Trump. Everyone will say that if Hillary had just been more like their faction she would have won. No one will disagree on Trump all will disagree on who gets to run the Democratic party to take Trump on.
Finally Clinton and Bernie are both terrible candidates, Joe Biden would be a terrible candidate all the Dems have left are terrible candidates. That is my point. Hillary is a last hurrah for them.
I agree Trump will be better on guns then Hillary. However I am jsut asking have consider that Trump is likely to triangulate on guns that will lead Republicans to vote for gun control measures that the party now would not even contemplate. This will make gun-control a bi-partisan issue again which will hurt gun rights in the long term. Surely that is not as bad as Hillary presidency but it is still bad.
I am just not sure that is a strong argument for Trump even Bernie is better on guns than Hillary is.
Afternoon Brian,
You mentioned that the area of foreign policy gives you concern if Trump were president. I think even as unknown as he is, Trump will be less risky by far than Clinton.
Michael Hayden recently noticed on television that he would be surprised if Clinton’s server had not been hacked by our most sophisticated enemies. When the former head of NSA and CIA says he would not be surprised, that to me is spook language for he knows Clinton’s server has been hacked. If our enemies have hacked the Clinton server, they will have knowledge of our sources, Clinton tendencies, which countries she will defend, and they will push her into war risking choices. Russia will try to slice off part of the Baltic states and ask Clinton, the USA, and NATO, “what are you going to do for these non-strategic allies?” China in the South China Sea, Iran in the Mideast. They may miscalculate, thinking they have the book on her. Or, they may blackmail her, having obtained facts concerning the Clinton Foundation funding which would doom her presidency. They could then use the crisis of possible presidential impeachment to be aggressive while we were in effect leaderless.
Does anyone doubt Michael Hayden? Does anyone doubt that Clinton would sell out anyone to save her presidency?
Clinton, like Obama, does not admire America or believe that the past actions of America as a world leader have been moral. She would like to redress past mistakes, keep the USA from pushing other countries around, involve us in numerous multinational treaties, and bring Islam onto the main stage. Her natural drift is to weaken the USA, which makes our enemies more likely to be aggressive.
Another way that Clinton increases the foreign policy risks is by stripping the warrior culture from the Armed Forces and by replacing it with her leftist/feminist agenda. Given the way Clinton would weaken the Armed Services, and would be vulnerable to our enemies threats of blackmail, and her unmatched poor judgement concerning security, I think Trump who at least loves the USA would be less likely to get us into a war.
Not worried in the slightest. The NRA knows their stuff. If there is even a whiff of that happening, 4 million emails will go out from the NRA denouncing such a move faster than you can say “John Moses Browning”.
First on competency the Democratic party has run foreign policy before and it can do an ok job at it. Clinton is less likely to have aspiring novelists run her foreign policy shop. She also knows what the nuclear Triad is and has at least some general knowledge of other countries. She also has a predictable even if mediocre to bad foreign policy principles. It is only in this very low bar that Clinton seems better than Trump since Trump has none of this basic knowledge and while not inclined to failed novelists is likely as not to put another kind of inexperienced person in charge of his foreign policy.
On Clinton’s many flaws I think you are dead on. I will even agree with your last sentence I have quoted above if you say that Trump is less likely to get us into war on purpose. In that I think you are right. However I think the kind of mistakes he makes will get us into war or get innocent Americans killed unintentionally.
It does not seem to me that Trump even knows how ignorant he is on foreign policy questions and because of that he will back mistakes until their are terrible consequences.
Anyway in no way do I think that anyone should vote for Hillary just because she will be marginally better than Trump on foreign policy. That is a very low bar and you are right Clinton would endanger national security to cover her own butt from trouble. She did it during the Benghazi attack and she will do it again.
That is not a case for electing a know nothing like Trump to be president though is it?
I have great respect for the NRA and its effectiveness I just hope Trump has that same respect.
^Same argument applies to multiple issues.
This argument is my biggest fear for the Republican party with Trump. Since his rhetoric is so severe now he will be able to give cover to so many sell outs to the left. He could sell us out on immigration and the liberals would say, “My God even Trump says the border is secure and he is insane.”
In some ways Trump could move the conversation in the country left on some many issues that it will be a lot harder to move it back to the right no matter what we do. I mean ever cabinet member or Trump official will be a member of a Republican administration…
It might be a very tough narrative to fight.
Brief thought- why would a president Trump need to triangulate on guns?
Bill Clinton was forced to triangulate because his actual agenda was terribly unpopular.
Guns rights are not unpopular. Gun control is unpopular, bitterly so.
Trump would have no actual reason to do anything on the gun issue, because his side has won.
And if he is not actually on the side of gun rights, then he is he apparently working a grand scheme to keep his true feelings secret, because he knows that they’re controversial.
Sorry, but that just doesn’t seem like the guy I’ve been watching.
Corollary to the John O’Sullivan law: Candidates who are not actually right-wing will, over time, become left-wing.
Haven’t had time to read the comments. But yours was my thinking earlier too.
On consideration, this assumes Republicans and the media would do a better job restraining Trump than Democrats would Clinton. But I’m no longer so sure. After all he only needs a coalition just over 1/3 who are unwilling to impeach. That’s not so hard.
He protects himself from Democrats by picking a reasonably conservative VP and picking his battles shrewdly. By making a few alliances, and ensuring whatever makes Ryan mad enough for impeachment doesn’t make Pelosi mad too.
As for Republicans — deliver just enough of his core promises to keep talk radio and his fan base. He has shown that he knows how to pick battles where conservatives — if they really stand on conservative principle — seem to be taking the “politically correct” position. An attempted impeachment fight would be just the thing to keep talk radio and his fan base roiled up — and at this point do we really doubt but that they’d rally behind him?
Hillary Clinton actually doesn’t have the kind of blind loyalty Trump does — just the typical following of an established politician. Trump has a true cult of personality — built in part on anger, unmoored from any principle or reason. That is a very, very dangerous thing. He has shown his ability to corrupt Republicans already. They’ll keep following him.
Clinton would be always calculating, always careful, obsessing about the next election.
(cont.)
She is dangerous. She has a machine. But she won’t take risks for ideology. She’ll stay within the Overton Window. Republicans won’t feel any intimidation as they fight her — this is normal politics.
Trump has shown an unpredictable mixture of savvy shrewdness, impulsive incompetence, and overweening arrogance. He makes some unconstitutional threat or promise and we dismiss it thinking he doesn’t mean that, or funny, he can’t do that in America — I think we may be naive. He has shown in ample measure the boldness and arrogance to smash things we take for granted. It is clear he believes his followers will stick with him no matter what, and it seems he is right. If he wins — especially if he wins easily — we have only seen the beginning of his arrogance and confidence. He will think if he can win this election — this way — he can do anything. And so will everyone else. Democrats and Republicans alike will feel that politics as they know it is broken, and being politicians they will mostly go along with the new regime without knowing how it takes them.
This will be less the case if it is very close, and it is clear he won only because Clinton is — even in traditional terms — a worse candidate.
This doesn’t mean Trump will be worse. It just means I am no longer certain of that as to make it, for me, a reason to vote for him.
Hillary is grooming someone to take over from her—Chelsea. Doesn’t that give you nightmares? It does me…..
Aren’t we all glad they didn’t have more children? Imagine if Bill and Hillary had been as productive, children wise, as the Bushes or the Romneys. The horror….
You are right on about Clinton he was forced to Triangulate. No one will have to force Trump to triangulate that is the why he is built. Even on immigration Trump has never fought for immigration nor knows its details very well he has made rhetorical commitments only.
It is like Mark Kirkorian says you can put landmines on the border and machine gun nests and immigration hawks will applaud you for it as long as legal immigration becomes easy and cheap. So Trump builds his wall and then opens the border legally to millions of new migrants. Real border control advocates criticize him for that and he says with his usually lying and bluster, “How dare these losers criticize me! I said we could build a wall before these guys even thought about building a wall. Then they all said I could never build the wall but I did! Who are these losers, they don’t understand deals and how to get things done. They would still be arguing and writing little papers and there would be no wall. Now there is a wall!”
So he rallies the faithful with his wall talk the New York Times and Wall Street Journal write editorials about how Trump worked a much better deal than they expected and Trump wins. Everyone likes him a little more.
Gun control works the same way he lies about the issue, points out how his nominee to the Supreme Court is pro-gun and then compromises on gun-control. His faithful rally to his side “Look he saved Heller!” The New York Times and Washington Post write how surprising it is that some common sense gun-control measures are passed with Trump and Trump wins! Then every Republican candidate after Trump that is pro-2nd amendment will be accused, “How can you be so hard line on gun-control even Trump compromised on the issue…”
Trump has no principles that he needs to see vindicated he only needs to succeed on the metrics that he cares about. And the metrics that Trump cares about are not the metrics that you care about.
Well I don’t want to short change the evil that Trump could well do. I am not decided to vote for him. Tom Meyer seems to agree with your line of thinking as well. I would say that I do not think that Trump can make the elected Republicans feel as if they are winning with him. His supporters yes but the politicians? Not so much. The bitterness, the anger, the jealousy and pride of the politicians will all work against Trump. I imagine that Trump might very well be able to intimidate people very well but engender loyalty? Make sure Republicans stick to him when he is down and weak? No I don’t think so.
As for not making Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan mad at the same time. I think Trump will be like Nixon in this regard. Nixon solidified and entrenched the Great Society, he expanded the administrative state in dramatic ways and really didn’t give the left much to complain about domestically. However he remained a figure of near satanic evil and hatred for the left. Even modern leftists talk about how surprised they are that they agree with so many of Nixon’s policies when they look back on them. I think Trump will have a hard time convincing the Sandernistas to do anything but hate him. If the Democrats have a chance to impeach him and they refuse how will that politician survive the primary challenge? What Democrat will survive as a Trump supporter?
So impeachment remains viable but it depends on what kind of crime that Trump commits there are a lot of crimes he would most likely get away with so we are at the mercy of events there. Still I think there will be many, maybe not a majority, but many Republicans that want to distance themselves from Trump by year four of a Trump administration.
But what do you think about my main point that a Trump election will damage the Democrats as badly or even worse than it will damage the Republicans?
Are you sure?
I’ve said occasionally here that I’d be fine if with a big honkin’ amnesty as long as the border got secured.
I suspect that this would be a broadly acceptable compromise- with the caveat that the recent flood gets turned back.
I still remember a story from a couple years ago- some illegal in Arizona had been here working as a roofer for twenty-ish years, and had named his daughter Jennifer, because he believed in the country and wanted to remain. He was at a democrat rally, hoping for some sort of amnesty. Well, that guy got nuthin’.
People who want border security- we’ve got nuthin’ too.
At the risk of repeating my point about Trump and gun control, I see no reason why he couldn’t come up with a plan for congress to vote upon that would pass overwhelmingly- because it would give Jennifer’s dad citizenship, and it would give me a secure border.
But the globalists of the establishment won’t have that, so we get a festering political sore that never heals, only worsens.
Believing that, I’m perfectly happy to go with Trump, figuring he lacks the steely principles that have given us this idiotic impasse.
Secure border that lets in millions of legal immigrants is not a very good win. So we shall see. Just know that Trump is not guided by principle but by driving the “feeling” of winning and making as many people dependent on him as possible. That will occasionally lead to outcomes you or I or both of us will like. At other times it will feel like a horrible betrayal. Right now with how powerful the administrative state is a man with no principles is going to rolled by over and over again. But only time and Trump victory in November will tell.
Maybe not, but from my viewpoint the establishment is no better.
I note that Paul Ryan changed the law to allow yet more unskilled laborers into the country, even though this wasn’t asked for by anyone.
He apparently just did it because he is an open borders extremist.
With friends like that we have no need of enemies.
As you say, time will tell.
Mentioned in the Daily Shot truly I am a blessed man!