Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Confessions of an #AlmostNeverTrumper … And What Could Make Me Change My Mind
In one of my first posts for Ricochet, I outlined what I thought was the most important aspects of picking a president: understanding their core values and priorities. The presidency is a huge job where enormous amounts of information comes the way of the president who, being human, has only so much time and attention. That’s part of the reason why all presidents are ultimately a bit of a disappointment. At best, a president will only be able to accomplish a few things and those things need to be very important if the country is to benefit.
For an example of clear priorities, take Ronald Reagan. First, he had to arrest the economic free fall America was in after Carter, which he did by fighting inflation, tax reform, and giving confidence to the business community by breaking unions and asserting a steady economic hand. Second, he moved on to winning the Cold War by accelerating a military build-up at home while exploiting Soviet economic weaknesses wherever ever he found opportunity. After effectively winning, Reagan was able to turn his attention to ensuring that George H. W. Bush could succeed him and cement his legacy. To be fair, he only slowed (rahter than truly curtailed) the administrative state, and his judicial nominations were a very mixed lot. He also compromised on immigration, not grasping what the new immigration regime doing to the country, nor the effect his amnesty would have on the future.
The point of this brief summary is that — taking his presidency as a whole — Reagan moved the entire country and culture in a healthy way his legacy benefits us still to this day. For more proof, just think to the priorities of the first Bush, how he carried them out and the different outcome he achieve despite real competence and massive success at his priorities.
Which brings me to Donald Trump. I believe that Trump is, vaguely, a Republican rather than a Democrat in disguise. Trump’s politically incorrect rhetoric is genuine and — to the extent he panders — he finds pandering more palatable when it’s to Republicans and our interests than to Democrats and theirs. Second, it’s no coincidence that he saw the market opportunity on the Republican side. While Hillary Clinton had some of the Democrats’ most powerful interest groups wrapped-up, the Republicans manifestly and obviously did not have any leader that was connecting to the base in a powerful way. This provided Trump with a great opportunity to make headway and then win the Republican nomination.
With Trump now the presumptive nominee, we have to look at what his core. For his whole life, Trump has been driven by his own success. This shows in the way he treats vendors, old women that stand in the way of parking his cars, the students at Trump University, and his branding deals that got him his money even if the venture was a failure. In a businessman and a showman, this is not necessarily a bad trait and Trump’ success does somewhat speak for itself.
My problem is that this desire of Trump to simply win for his own benefit continues while he is a presidential candidate and the face of a movement. His primary advisors are his own children, and he shows great reluctance to change his behavior for the benefit of anyone else. Since this campaign is about him, why should he change for anyone else? The RNC and other Republicans are far more likely to change for the benefit of Trump, not the other way around. So what if the RNC did not do the primary GOTV operations for the presidential campaign? They will do so now because they must change to suit Trump, and it suits Trump to have the RNC do GOTV.
As far as I can tell, Trump is still operating on the principle that the presidency is about him and it is about him winning. If Trump wins, that will be his core principle. Everything will be about Trump winning, what makes him feel like he wins, what makes him feel like he is having a legacy. This negates Trump’s main talent of making making deals because what we want from a great negotiator is the achievement of the right goal; great negotiation toward a bad goal is not a good thing.
Take Reagan and Gorbachev at Reykjavik. Our president walked away with nothing and — in doing so — won the Cold War. Everything in Trump would have screamed for him to make a deal and bask in the glory of having done so. Where would we be today if that happened?
There are also the matters of experience and ideology. The president receives way too much information for any one man to process, so it must come to him pre-filtered. Trump has neither the ideology nor the experience in politics and global affairs to help him navigate through all that he doesn’t know, and will not know when to push advisors, ask for more options, or how to get a view outside of his own bubble. The people he trusts and respects are not more knowledgeable in these areas that he is, so it’s likely that the winner of these arguments will be whomever best stokes Trump’s ego and makes him feel like his option is the “winning option” for Trump.
This also limits the benefit of having Republicans fill the posts in his administration. Lacking a solid ideology, Trump will judge his appointees by how they make him look. This means there will be little real reform and, if someone really tries to do something good, Trump will not know if he should back him or not.
One thing we know for sure is that Trump is not winning when he limits his own power and ability for action. That means the executive will continue in his imperial ways; if you like the Obama Administration that way, you are going to love a Trump Administration.
A Trump Presidency based on Turmp’s core principles will lead to a great deal of failure, many liberal victories, a few conservatives ones, a terrible foreign policy, and a likely rise in corruption given the need to get Trump’s ear to make anything happen. Conservative victories will be accidents and, when the Democrats roll Trump, he will be extremely hard to resist. His mistakes will color the entire Republican party and his foreign policy mistakes will most likely be huge.
On the other hand, a Trump Presidency means we beat the Democrats, which has it own advantages.
Trump has no loyalty to any ideology, which means he has no commitment to any hard position, even on immigration; from what I have seen, Trump will deliver us the Senate Gang of Eight bill, albeit slightly modified, and his rhetoric on border security will give him cover to follow his instincts of a big business guy who likes cheap, imported labor. There is really no downside for Trump in doing a deal like that.
I see a Trump Presidency that would be just as disastrous as Clinton’s, though disastrous in differet ways. Moreover, these failures will come home to roost on our barn, leaving the Democrats clean to elect a far-left ideologue without the Clinton baggage. That would not be a victory.
So how can I can my mind be changed? I need is evidence that Trump’s core principles align with mine. I would need to see evidence that Trump is acquiring experienced hands that he actually listens too, and that he is honing his knowledge on policy so he can bring conservative reforms. I would need to see him willing to sacrifice his own instincts for the betterment of the Republican/Conservative movements. In essence, I need evidence that he is willing to sacrifice for the good of the country even if it means that he is not personally “winning.” Until I see that, voting for Trump is just voting for a disaster every bit as much as voting for Clinton would be.
Even if Trump changed, I’d hardly be an enthusiast and would never expect him to be a great president. I could, however, accept that he actually is the lesser of two evils and that his presidency — while not being good — would good enough to earn my vote.
Published in Politics
Did you read about her having the Marines change their uniforms four times when they were supposed to be saving our guys in Libya? That was beyond stupid.
If you want to see holier-than-thou conservatives, look no further than the Trump supporters. People have been told they don’t love America and want poor people to die because they are insufficiently supportive of Trump. Apparently, supporting capitalism is now considered a bad thing among Trump supporters because we now have the prospect of a central planner as awesome as Trump who is willing to step up and run the economy for us. Capitalism is ok, but not as awesome as a Trump-run centrally-planned economy.
But to you, people that think Trump is less than awesome are the “holier-than-thou” conservatives.
Let’s agree to disagree.
“This isn’t a decision between Trump and mother Teresa, it’s between Trump and Hillary And she’s worse.”
******
This. Trump isn’t perfect, not by a long shot, I GET that. But Hillary is a million times more venal & malevolent in her black, pointed heart. She will only serve to tear us apart even yet more, this I fully believe, from SCOTUS to economic policy to cultural divides, not to mention her pathological lying on eeeeverything. I flat-out don’t understand these “neverTrump” types – in their case, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
I like what he says about regulatory reform and tax reform but regulatory reform is a mantra like “waste fraud and abuse”. Regulatory reform needs skills and knowledge to know what you fighting about and way. Every regulation repealed, endangers someone, while the benefits are often indirect. Taking on Regulatory over reach is popular in the abstract and loathed in the implementation. I do not think Trump has the skills to pull of this most difficult but necessary tasks.
The bulk of his speech is about making everything we buy much more expensive, limiting our export growth, and turning back one of the greatest innovations of the modern world. Not a great way to make us wealthy.
A failed Trump presidency gives us a far worse situation then a Hillary win now. If you believe that Obama has done a bad job and that many problems are going to manifest themselves with a vengeance when he is gone then having Trump there to deal with those problems will only discredit all of the Republicans in the eyes of the public. Hillary will do all the evil that you say. And it will be painful but she will not be able to successfully deal with all the problems that Obama left her either and she will most likely discredit the Dems in the eyes of the Republic and very likely will make them a rump regional party in the states. That will be good for us if we put someone competent up in 2020.
A Trump win or a Hillary win will be a mountain of pain and disappointment we have to look to what will serve us best in the next election.
To see Trump really hustling to raise money for his campaign and the Republicans in general, working to take turn out very seriously. Seeing Trump really reaching out to Republican opponents and modifying his tone. See a working relationship develop between Trump and some really solid advisors. Watching him modify and improve his policy positions, developing a legislative program with Ryan that Trump seems to understand and can articulate.
Having him turn away from his family as his principle advisors for his campaign and his policies. These are just some examples of the evidence that would start to convince me that Trump realized the awesome responsibility that becoming President entails that he is working to be able to be at least a mediocre President.
No one is guaranteed to make the right call. Everyone makes mistakes but there 12 of so candidates for the Republican nomination that were far more likely to get things right than Trump is. They had better self awareness of what they don’t know and/or much more experience a making the kinds of calls we are talking about here. Trump could be a major league batter that will transform the league right out of High School. But if he is such a talent I have not seen evidence of it so far.
Simple libel.
The leader over all! The enemy is evil, principles and real positions are not necessary. Our leader will do the things we imagine he will do no need for evidence or a track record. The other guys are evil! Just hate them and now that our Leader is great. This is what Trumpers sound like to me and that sounds a lot like Democrats…
Brian Wolf
“A failed Trump presidency gives us a far worse situation then a Hillary win now. If you believe that Obama has done a bad job and that many problems are going to manifest themselves with a vengeance when he is gone then having Trump there to deal with those problems will only discredit all of the Republicans in the eyes of the public. Hillary will do all the evil that you say. And it will be painful but she will not be able to successfully deal with all the problems that Obama left her either and she will most likely discredit the Dems in the eyes of the Republic and very likely will make them a rump regional party in the states. That will be good for us if we put someone competent up in 2020.”
A Hillary win now, quite the contrary Brian, will undoubtedly mean a consolidation of power and another Hillary win in 2020. We will have had 16 years of intensely partisan progressive socialistic government that will have filled the courts from bottom to top with college professor “lawyers” and stuffed fellow zombies shoulder to shoulder in the 5th estate of administrative government. We will have an emasculated military incapable of defending our country. The Republican Party will be a shadow of itself (actually a shadow of the Democrat Party) if it exists at all. This country will be Mexico Norte for all extensive purposes. America will be nearly done.
I missed this the other day, but Trump is now completely backtracking his long-time promise to deport all the illegals.
His promise to deport 11 million people was always impossible, but now he is criticizing Obama for deporting too many people!?!
I’ve long predicted Trump would move so far to the left after the convention, his supporters would suffer whiplash. He will probably wind up far to the left of Hillary by November.
Question for the ardent Trump supporters who don’t think we are allowed to criticize Trump, are we allowed to criticize him for being to left-leaning or is that off the table too?
A-Squared
“Question for the ardent Trump supporters who don’t think we are allowed to criticize Trump, are we allowed to criticize him for being to left-leaning or is that off the table too?”
You act as if someone has prevented you from criticizing Trump. That’s about all you do, no offense intended. Los mismos con los otros personas aqui en Ricochet.
So we can all agree, neither you nor I nor Trump is perfect. Hillary, o t h, wow, now there’s someone beyond reproach, Right?
Context would provide more perspective, but it wasn’t included for some reason. I was referring to the Bush family, Romney, McCain (maybe he’s not a nevertrumper?) George Will – the counterparts to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, VDH, David Horowitz… not everyone who is a Nevertrumper as you are implying here by omitting context of the thread and the rest of my comment. And I suppose I should add “in public” as a conditional, although it should be obvious.
These folks never attack the left with any gusto, and it says something about their political orientation. Not that they are themselves leftists but they don’t understand the threat and are poor leaders as a result.
I have been told by many people that I should not criticize Trump. Has that prevented me from criticizing him, obviously not.
The only person that can convince me to vote for Trump is Trump and I don’t have a very high bar. Being told I don’t love my country unless I vote for Trump is not persuasive, neither is pointing that he has an R next to his name.
I would undoubtedly spend less time criticizing Trump if his supporters would spend less energy telling me I shouldn’t criticize him. Nothing would make me happier than if everyone on both sides stopped commenting in Rico about Trump.
He’s noting that deportations happen and they aren’t criticized by the press. He’s making deportation mainstream, a fact, not some boogeyman dystopian future some portray it to be.
I thank God that we finally have a candidate who at least gets handling the media right and fights back, creates new narratives and refuses to dance to their tune.
And it was mostly reporters and enemies who extrapolated about the deportations, as they did with Romney, driving him to say they will “self deport” which didn’t help him.
You can’t let the media bully you and Trump doesn’t.
There have been no promises from him that he will actually deport 11 million people en masse, and I doubt his supporters believe it would happen anyway. They want to hear strong convictions, policy comes later, like now.
He produced a list of 11 likely SCOTUS nominees if he is elected. What else do you want? He is not a small government conservative., we know that. He;’s a Democrat at heart. But a conservative one. They might be right. He may be crazy. But it just might be a lunatic we’re looking for.
The GOP has done nothing but pay LIP SERVICE to constitutionally-limited government
And now, the primary voters have abandoned supporting constitutionally-limited government, so the party leaders can stop paying lip service to it.
Publishing a list that someone else created does not convince me, but Trump could easily convince me by acting like the list actually corresponded with his views on government. His economic independence speech went the other way. It reads me to like he believes the government should plan the economy, which is the exact opposite of a constitutionally-limited government and it demonstrates clearly that he would not government that way.
I’m not asking for much, but apparently I’m asking too much for some around here, where too much means asking anything other than having an R next to his name.
If the Republican party believes a centrally-planned economy will work just fine as long as there is a Republican running it, I’m out.
Wrong.
He said he could do in 18 months.
I live in the people’s republic of Oak Park IL. My congressman accepted an award from the Communist Party of the USA. A few months later, he won re-election with almost 81% of the vote.
Oak Park voted 82% for Obama in 2012, a significant decline from the 84% that he got in 2008. (source)
My vote hasn’t mattered in the 15 years I’ve lived here.
No direct quote for that at the link. Apparently someone recorded him on a conference call to Alabama Republicans (link behind a paywall or dead) saying something about that quite some time ago in the heat of the primary battle. That isn’t a “promise”. That isn’t a policy position. If it was there would be more quotes. Many months have elapsed and there are no reports this plan and policy of mass deportations.
Trump is usually pretty blunt – and repetitive. So I guess all his followers will be disappointed because they all went to that WSJ article (with no direct quotes) and then linked to the audio of an obscure phone recording as their proof that Trump was gonna deport.
Very Purple Florida.
The Republican party and the country will be in the same shape with because of somewhat difference circumstances after a Trump presidency. At the Presidential level incompetence does not beat evil. It just makes the nature of the disaster different.
I have believed for a very long time that Trump will give us the Gang of Eight bill style immigration reform while using his campaign rhetoric as cover. His instinct is to hire cheap illegals and those instincts will win out over any rhetoric. When criticized for it he will simply say, “Me? For illegals me? Listen when everyone and I mean everyone was for free and open borders with no restrictions on immigration I said we needed a wall. This bill gives us a wall. Don’t talk to me about the losers at NumbersUSA or Center for Immigration studies they only became concerned about immigration after I raised the issue.”
And so it will go.
Romney and the Bush family never have gone after Clinton with gusto? Really?
As for their campaigns yes they made many mistakes and one of Romney’s mistakes was not really going after Obama and CNN after the second debate. But throwing a good insult and disrespecting Clinton like Trump does is very emotionally satisfying for me. I like what he does to her and if I were to advise Hillary and I would advise her to run to run like He– from any debate with Trump. That does not make him a good leader either. Nor able to be President. If we were voting for the person best able to insult Hillary and be able to dig his hands as deep in the mud as he needs to go to smear here I would vote Trump in heart beat. But if that is all we wanted in a President I think Ann Coulter is far superior to Trump.
But a President has to do more than just insult and scare Hillary. He has to lead a nation that is what Trump doesn’t seem able to do.
Fine. Here is an interview where is asked if he stands by his promise to deport 11 million illegal immigrants and he says “…yes, they are going to be deported…we have to get them out.”
I could find more, but I don’t have the time today. You can keep going here.
What about here He will have a special deportation force
Or what about here
Or what about here
Or here video evidence
here on video he calls his plan realistic
Do we need more evidence?
The OCD pedant in me cannot resist. goldwaterwoman’s response is a complete non-sequitur. “Plain common sense” isn’t an ideology, but a possible artifact among like-minds.