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The Pivot
It looks to me that Trump will now turn on the naysayers in the party. It couldn’t be more deserved. He tried to play nice, but they are refusing to support him. After the 50 national security neo-cons penned a letter denouncing him, and other GOP stalwarts are playing games trying to undermine him, Trump will now use them to differentiate himself from failed Republican policies and attract a new coalition of voters.
From yesterday’s speech:
When we talk about the insider, who are we talking about? It’s the comfortable politicians looking out for their own interests. It’s the lobbyists who know how to insert that perfect loophole into every bill. It’s the financial industry that knows how to regulate their competition out of existence. The insiders also include the media executives, anchors and journalists in Washington, Los Angeles, and New York City, who are part of the same failed status quo and want nothing to change.
Every day you pick up a newspaper, or turn on the nightly news, and you hear about some self-interest banker or some discredited Washington insider says they oppose our campaign. Or some encrusted old politician says they oppose our campaign. Or some big time lobbyist says they oppose our campaign.
I wear their opposition as a badge of honor. Because it means I am fighting for REAL change, not just partisan change. I am fighting – all of us across the country are fighting – for peaceful regime change in our own country. The media-donor-political complex that’s bled this country dry has to be replaced with a new government of, by and for the people.
The leadership class in Washington D.C., of which Hillary Clinton has been a member for thirty years, has abandoned the people of this country.
I am going to give the people their voice back.
Think about it. The people opposing our campaign are the same people who have left our border open and let innocent people suffer as a result.
The people opposing our campaign are the same people who have led us into one disastrous foreign war after another.
The people opposing our campaign are the same people who lied to us about one trade deal after another.
Aren’t you tired of a system that gets rich at your expense?
Aren’t you tired of big media, big businesses, and big donors rigging the system to keep your voice from being heard?
Are you ready for change?
Are you ready for leadership that puts you, the American people, first? That puts your country first? That puts your family first?
Fasten your seat-belts.
Published in General
No. Let me see if I can clarify.
The great danger of studying the past is that we will draw the wrong lessons. This happens because we all bring our own biases with us and tend to look for those things that confirm those biases. The problem is made worse when studying outliers, and Obama is definitely an outlier. Say what you will about him personally, he has a rare combination of personality, speaking ability, and deep backing. People can’t grasp how extraordinary his election has been, it’s too weird. We cannot admit that we lost to this guy in no small part because he was a better candidate and outflanked us at every turn – that’s too personal an admission for people. Romney was the better (i.e. more moral and honest) guy! How could he lose?
So we look away from the personality and persuasion abilities of Obama as we cannot understand them (easier to claim betrayal than admit our guy was as charismatic and persuasive as a daisy – nice but meh), and instead focus on what we can understand – his logistics. Ground Game! Ground Game! It’s all about the Ground Game!
Or with Trump – he learned the persuasion part well and has ignored the logistics. He’s overextended now, though, and overplayed the personality bit.
You need both to win it though.
Columbo, Ryan and I go way back here, this is nothing more than arguing over a few beers after work type talk. You can’t see it, but Ryan is shaking his head and laughing while I’m trying to flag the barkeep for another round. Nothing serious, nothing angry.
Besides, mecha godzilla IS fantasy. Now Mothra OTOH…
Here is a serious question for Trump supporters. Do you think Trump as President will increase or decrease the power of the President during his term in office?
He strikes me as a guy who wants to centralize the power of government under him, not share it with Congress or anyone else. Why am I wrong?
Decrease. Think how diminished the office was after Nixon.
You are talking about after, I asked during.
Even so, I disagree. Is the power of the Presidency weaker now than it was during Nixon’s administration?
Well then, I am to be corrected. A good illustration that it is best not to butt in on a conversation not involving one’s self.
It’s much greater, in no small part because presidents from Reagan onwards have increased the power (far too much). I do think that Trump would be severely hamstrung by a hostile Congress, and that would be a good thing. Congress needs to rein in the exec, and I don’t think they’d be able to do that for Hillary – no public backing.
No worries. Besides, a lot of these conversations do turn into cage matches and it’s not always easy to tell the normal putdowns between friends from the genuine “you lookin’ at me funny?!?” stuff.
I disagree. The way I see it playing it out is that Trump massively increases executive power, and the Republicans go along with it because Trump has an R next to his name. FWIW, I think it is laughable to believe that a Republican congress will stand up to a Republican president. At best, it is wishful thinking.
One of the many outcomes of that will be that Republicans will severely weaken their argument against a powerful executive (proving they are just opposed to a Democrat powerful executive), and all the power that Trump accrues to the Executive will be inherited by the next Democrat President, who will be able to cause much more harm than Hillary will.
Now, a Democratic congress would rein in a Trump presidency, but I think Trump would be more happy to work with a Democratic congress than a Republican one.
I think two things in particular drove the growing power of the executive branch. One was clearly the progressive project of the administrative state and the rise of the bureaucracies. Our mechanism of the Administrative Procedures Act was developed by Democrats to manage a Democrat project to be overseen by Democrats. At this moment it is being overseen by Republicans who can only pull back on the power granted to the bureaucracies by going through the legislative process that requires a president’s signature. Reforming the APA is a low profile change that very few talk about but which is essential for us to stop the slip into a post-Constitutional governance.
The second was the Cold War and the need for the President to act quickly and decisively. This aggregated a lot of authority and decision-making that would previously have been more deliberative and consultative. That needs to be relooked at.
I can’t crystal ball what a Trump Presidency looks like when it comes to Congress. I think he starts with GOP Congressional support, but with a body of skeptical members. Unlike Democrats, Republicans have a more fractious caucus and I think by his personality he will face a split in his support. But I also think Trump is unmoored from a party base. I could very much see him being opposed by Republicans in Congress on something and then announcing that he is now an Independent (like Bloomberg did in NYC and Chaffee did in RI). I think he would happily cut deals with Democrats all day and night and since he doesn’t have a core ideology it depends entirely on how you think he views his political self interest and objectives.
After 20 years of watching the Democrats maneuver all over the map and alternately condemn and vigorously defend the same conduct, I have little trust in a bi-partisan Congressional consensus to restrain Trump as an executive.
Only if Trump refuses to negotiate with Democrats would they support constraining or impeaching him. If he helped further their agenda, then they would act to block the Republicans.
Unfortunately there’s no knowing which of us is right until push comes to shove. Till then we’re both just spitballing. Man but I’m sick of this election, no matter who wins we’re all worse off.
Agreed on all counts.
Back to the main topic: Is Manafort’s departure a campaign re-alignment or is Trump just letting go of dead weight?
In a separate point I was skeptical of Bannon because I think he will just reinforce Trump’s worst instincts and double down on the Let-Trump-Be-Trump strategy. With Trump also getting ahead of Clinton and Obama to get to Louisiana, are we instead seeing a more serious and disciplined campaign?
I think it’s too early to tell, but being able to exploit media events helped give Trump a leg up during the primaries.
What do you mean “we”?
In my book Trump fails on experience, knowledge, honesty, integrity, temperament, judgement and electability.
Let’s pretend that Trump can win. In that case he would almost certainly keep both houses of Congress. Given how badly many folded for him after winning the primary, what makes you think there will be an ounce of resistance left after he takes the Oval Office? Some, like Lee and Sasse, might hold out, but I wouldn’t count on too much pushback.
Manafort is being let go because of his shady ties to the Russian Oligarchy.
Except for the fact that the polls showed Republican voters, not to mention the general electorate, favor a path to citizenship.
Columbo, I consider Skip a friend, and he knows that. Did you intend your comment to Jamie in the same light? If so, I would happily retract my assertion that it seemed unduly hostile.
not to mention the fact that there are very few people who, like Ball and maybe Ann Coulter, believe that anything short of a wall and mass-deportation amounts to amnesty.
I understand Columbo’s initial comment, though… if I referred to you as “skippy” to be a condescending jerk, that would be pretty ridiculous. Perhaps it is more of a PIT-appropriate nickname.
It may also have something to do with his great-grandfather’s involvement in the Garfield assassination.
One of my biggest problems with Trump is that I think he is not tough enough on immigration, eg, he is for touch-back amnesty and brags about the great big huge door his wall will have in it. If too many unskilled immigrants is the problem, Trump is not the solution (though I concede he will keep out anyone who is muslim, which is a net positive even if only 0.5% of those he kept out is a potential terrorist).
Recall, Trump called Romney “mean-spirited” for advocating self-deportation.
You are so, so right. The Washington D.C. establishment types and those who receive their marching orders from them do not care as they want the status quo to continue, even if it means electing a Democrat and changing the focus of the Supreme Court for a lifetime.
He has stated repeatedly that he wants to return the Departments of Education and Environment back to the states.
Then you are saying this was an impossible election from the beginning, even though there are many reasons to think otherwise, including 8 years of Dems in power, myriad Obama failures, the world on fire, Hillary’s corruption, Republican victories at all levels in 2014, etc.
It is easy to overestimate Trump’s persuasive power with the half (give or take) of the electorate that lean Democratic. The large majority (very large) of these people, from what I can tell, think very poorly of Trump, and do not consider him competent to be president. Most are unpersuadable, though they might have been persuadable by someone like Rubio or Walker, candidates who come off as competent and reasonable.
Water under the bridge, sadly.
The great thing about this conspiracy is that if you’re cool enough they will let you in on it. I got my secret decoder ring in the mail last week, and I couldn’t be more excited.
Flarb njekk oigyl 5q! Right, guys?!
Say that about my mother again and I’ll punch your lights out!
Be sure to drink your ovaltine