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Time for Trump to Resign
The nearly four weeks since President Donald Trump’s inauguration have been the most divisive period of American politics since the end of the Second World War. The sharp lines that everyone is drawing in the sand pose a serious threat to the United States. On the one side stand many conservatives and populists who are rejoicing in the Trump victory as the salvation of a nation in decline. On other side sit the committed progressives who are still smarting from an election in which they were trounced in the electoral college, even as Hillary Clinton garnered a clear majority of the popular vote.
As a classical liberal who did not vote for either candidate, I stand in opposition to both groups. And after assessing Trump’s performance during the first month of his presidency, I think it is clear that he ought to resign. However, it important to cut through the partisan hysteria to identify both what Trump is doing right and wrong in order to explain my assessment of his presidency to date.
On the positive side is the simple fact that Trump won the election. What is right about Trump is what was wrong with Clinton—her promise to continue, and even expand, the policies of the Obama administration. The day after the election, it was clear that none of her policy proposals would be implemented under a Trump presidency, coupled with a Republican Congress. As I have long argued, there are good reasons to critique the progressive world view. Progressives believe that reduced levels of taxation and a strong dose of deregulation would do little or nothing to advance economic growth. In their view, only monetary and fiscal policy matter for dealing with sluggish growth, so they fashion policy on the giddy assumption that their various schemes to advance union power, consumer protection, environmental, insurance, and financial market regulation—among others—only affect matters of distribution and fairness, but will have no discernible effect on economic growth. In making this assumption, they assume, as did many socialists and New Dealers in the 1930s, that it is possible to partition questions of justice and redistribution from those of economic prosperity.
In taking this position, they fail to account for how administrative costs, major uncertainty, and distorted incentives affect capital formation, product innovation, and job creation. Instead, today’s progressives have their own agenda for wealth creation that includes such remedies as a $15 minimum wage, stronger union protections, and an equal pay law with genuine bite. But these policies will necessarily reduce growth by imposing onerous barriers on voluntary exchange. The fact that there was any economic growth at all under the Obama administration—and even then, it was faltering and anemic—had one cause: the Republican Congress that blocked the implementation of further progressive policies and advanced a pro-growth agenda.
Sadly, both President Obama and his various administrative heads pushed hard on the regulatory levers that were still available to them. And so we got a Department of Labor (DOL) decision to raise the exemption levels under the Fair Labor Standards Act from just over $23,000 to just over $47,000, in ways that would have disrupted, without question, several major segments of the economy for whom the statutory definition of an hour does not serve as a workable measure of account. Thus, at one stroke, DOL compromised the status of graduate students, whose studies and work are often inseparable; of tech employees, whose compensation often comes in the form of deferred stock payments; and of gig workers, who are employed by the job and not the hour. At the same time, the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board has taken steps to wreck highly successful, long-term franchising arrangements, by announcing henceforth that the franchisor may on a case-by-case basis be treated as an employer subject to the collective bargaining obligations of the NLRA. These, and similar decisions, are acts of wealth destruction, and they offer one powerful explanation, among many, for the decline in the labor participation rate to its lowest levels since World War II.
The misguided opposition to the Trump administration extends far more broadly. I was an advisor to the MAIN coalition (Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now) in the now successful effort to undo the roadblocks that the Obama administration put in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and still find it incomprehensible that any administration could engage in a set of collusive rearguard actions to block a pipeline that met or exceeded every government standard in terms of need, safety, and historical and environmental protection. The handwringing of the Obama administration over the Keystone XL pipeline was equally inexcusable. Two expertly crafted executive orders from the Trump administration removed the roadblocks simply by allowing the standard review processes of the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies to run their course. Nonetheless, virtually every initiative to deregulate that comes from the Trump administration is greeted with howls of protest, whether the topic be healthcare, banking, brokerage, or consumer protection. Yet these very deregulations explain why the stock market has surged: collectively, they will help revive a stagnant economy.
Worse still are the attacks on the integrity and independence of Judge Neil Gorsuch from most, but not all, progressives. Georgetown University’s Neal Katyal should be singled out for his praise of Gorsuch as a person and a judge. Unfortunately, the vast majority of progressives, like Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, wail that Gorsuch is not a mainstream judge, is not sufficiently supportive of progressive ideals, and, most critically, is not Judge Merrick Garland. The United States sails in treacherous waters when members of either party think that any judge appointed by the opposition is not fit for service on the United States Supreme Court unless he publicly denounces the President who nominated him for that high office. I have long believed that any nominee should be judged on his or her record, without being called on to play rope-a-dope before hostile senators who only wish to bait, trap, and embarrass the nominee.
It seems clear that if President Trump went about his job in a statesmanlike manner, the progressive counterattack would surely fail, and a sane Republican party could gain the support of a dominant share of the electorate for at least the next two election cycles, if not more.
Yet there are deeper problems, because President Trump’s anti-free trade agenda will hurt—if not devastate—the very people whom he wants to help. Extensive trade between the United States and Mexico is indispensable for the prosperity of both countries. The looming trade war threatens that win/win position. The notion that the United States should run positive trade balances with every country is an absurd position to take in international economic relations, lest every country has the right to claim the same preferred status for itself. Yet it has never occurred to Trump that a negative trade balance amounts to a vote of confidence by other countries that it is safe to invest in the United States, allowing the United States to create new industries and new jobs. Nor does he understand that any effort to be successful in the export market requires importing cheap components from foreign firms—an oversight evident from his ill-conceived executive order calling, whenever legal, for American pipe on an American pipelines. If our trade partners retaliate, the current stock market surge will take on a different complexion. The Dow may be high, but the variation in future prices will be high as well. If Congress thwarts his anti-trade agenda, the domestic reforms should yield lasting benefits. If Congress caves, or if Trump works by aggressive executive order, the entire system could come tumbling down.
Speaking of executive orders, the President’s hasty and disastrous order dealing with immigrants has vast implications for America’s position in the world. In a global economy, the United States cannot afford to let petty protectionism keep the best talent from coming here for education and staying later for work. I, for one, believe that his executive order exceeds his executive powers. Others, like Michael McConnell, disagree. But no matter which way one comes down on its legality, nothing excuses its faulty rollout, petty nationalism, exaggerated fears of terrorism, and disruptive economic effects. The Trump administration agenda desperately needs to be rethought from the ground up by a deliberative process in which the President relies on his Cabinet.
So the question remains: does Trump remain his own worst enemy? My fears are that he is too rigid and too uneducated to make the necessary shift to good leadership. By taking foolish and jingoist stances, Trump has done more than any other human being alive today to bring a sensible classical liberal agenda into disrepute. Then there is the matter of his character. The personal moral failings of the President include his vicious tweets, his self-righteous attitude, his shameless self-promotion, his petty resentments, his immoral flirtation with Vladimir Putin, his nonstop denigration of federal judges, his jawboning of American businesses, his predilection for conspiracy theories, his reliance on alternative facts, and his vindictive behavior toward his political opponents.
Hence, I think that there is ample reason to call for Trump’s resignation, even though I know full well that my advice will not be heeded. And this welcome outcome will not happen so long as the attack against him comes solely from progressive Democrats. Sensible Republicans should focus on the threat that he represents to their plan, and recall that the alternative is no longer Hillary Clinton, but Mike Pence. I think that Pence is unlikely to abandon the positive aspects of the Trump agenda, and there is some reason to hope that he will back off Trump’s suicidal positions on trade and immigration, and put a stop to the endless train of uncivil behaviors demeaning the office of the President. Some miracles happen, but a Trump transformation will not be one of them. Unfortunately, his excesses could power a progressive revival. Would that I had the power to say to Trump, “You’re fired!”
Published in Law, Politics
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Maybe, just maybe, one can be a conservative and still think Trump is wrong.
And a few have been among the worst. One has to question his judgement.
If only it were so simple as right or wrong. This is not a discussion about merits but rather personality.
@rightangles
I KNOW Angels has better things and people to see and do than worry about the speechifying of a Yale pocketsquare
This statement would be a lot easier to take seriously if this exact phenomenon hadn’t been repeated over and over long before Prof. Epstein crossed the resignation line.
It’s a lot like the protests on the left. We don’t take them seriously because we all know they’d be protesting John Kasich just as vehemently. Similarly “pundit hate” has become the norm among hardcore Trump supporters, so you can’t blame the skeptics, even the ones who agree Prof. Epstein is wrong on the merits, for seeing this as just more of the same.
Thanks a lot for makin me spit out my coffee
That’s not what Ricochet is for. If you want to say, “He’s wrong because he hurt my feelings,” then go to Tumblr.
To turn an expression of satisfaction in the choice of a VP into the actual recommendation that the president resign in favor of the VP is ludicrous.
More likely the potential customer just moves along.
No but it makes one wonder that if the Pence selection spoke so well of Trump because he chose someone more conservative than himself, why would conservatives have a problem with Pence taking over.
Because having the president quit would simply feed the leftist madness. If chaos is your goal, great.
No one gets it right every time, no matter what he or she believes about the purity of the motives and the rationality of the argument. At least, I’ve always found that to be true.
And there is nothing wrong with questioning a person’s judgment on a particular matter. Once again, none of us can claim perfection on that score either (I don’t believe).
I have some very dear friends who have bats in their belfries about certain topics. I very much value their advice on other subjects, though. I don’t have to agree with them about everything, nor do I feel obliged to label them, in toto, as fools, or question their sanity, just because they disagree with me on a certain matter.
That’s the way I live my life, anyway. And I’d like to think I treat my online friends the same way.
No ad hominem or pundit hate. Just recognition of the elitist ego that mirrors the Left leadership. Epstein even included the Leftist meme regarding the popular vote as a significant item so we now know ‘not my president’.
I agree with this, but it’s one thing to think he’s wrong and another to join forces with the Left by contributing to the constant drumbeat designed to undermine him. I didn’t vote for him in the primaries, but no matter who had won the nomination and the election, I would have stood behind him and supported him whether it had been Cruz or anyone else. This degree of needing to proclaim one’s anti-Trumpism has gone over the line and is now in the category of helping the Left, and I do not condone it.
I agree with Rick Poach that “The backlash against such perceived elitism is what got Trump elected in the first place.” Even so, no, not even Ricochet’s lawyers believe fellow Ricochetians are yahoos who read at the third-grade level. Many of us have high IQs, in a wide diversity of professions, and I doubt we have to fear that Rico-Contribs believe they’re talking to low-IQ, uneducated people.
Why won’t Epstein just let this go? I don’t know. I don’t agree with Epstein on this matter, either.
But I think the cultural tension between “elite” and “non elite” (a real tension, which should be handled better) is not nearly as simple as “Your elite pedigree means you must unwarrantedly think of me as a moron.”
The resignation of the President would have much farther reaching consequences than simply Pence taking over.
No ad hominem or pundit hate here. You just did your customary thing. Instead of addressing the point that yes process matters and impeachment is the process, you jumped on an observation about Clinton and the Dems. Works better if you stay on point and away from sidelights.
I am with you Rick. Funny thing is, Prof Epstein makes the case for actual failed policies of the previous administration over a number of paragraphs and yet, somehow, the good professor never once authored a post where he declared that former President Obama ought to resign.
He reserves that recommendation for for someone he considers to be a boor. Case in point.
Funny thing is, those exact same behaviors were present in the previous administration. I guess, however, that Former President Obama’s academic pedigree make up for that, at least in Prof Epstein’s mind.
True — it’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you. There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.
Hi Jamie. I don’t think I’m ‘internalizing’ … I think my reading of the OP is quite accurate. Example …
Professor E says: “President Trump’s anti-free trade agenda will hurt—if not devastate—the very people whom he wants to help.” Ok. I understand that he disagrees with the policy. But that’s not his point. He is using this as an example of why Trump should resign from office. He is asserting that the the policy itself is disqualifying. Well… The policy was not Trump’s little secret. It was a central tenet, if not THE central tenet, of the Trump campaign. If that policy is, in fact, disqualifying, then the good Professor’s problem is not with Trump. His problem is with those who voted to elevate that policy to the Oval Office. It would be a non-issue if Trump were not President.
His entire argument is constructed in a similar fashion. So it is abundantly clear that his rebuke is not to Trump but to those who saw fit to put someone so manifestly unfit in the office.
And I think civil discourse is always possible. Certainly we are being civil here.
Actually, they do. See here.
So what are we allowed to say? Is there any criticism of him allowed that isn’t, “contributing to the constant drumbeat designed to undermine him?” Because, the merits of this particular OP aside, the answer I’m getting seems to be, “No.” There appears to be no criticism of Trump that will not be met with that accusation.
We were told that we should prefer Trump to Clinton because we could hold his feet to the proverbial fire, yet every attempt to actually do so is met with the charge that we’re trying to undermine him.
There were more comments on this thread than this particular one. Weak tea.
His administration just dealt effectively with an ethical failing of his NSC Adviser. I think that is good. Compare and contrast with the tarmac meeting between FP Obama’s AG and the spouse of an individual under investigation.
I think his immigration pause was poorly thought out, worded and executed – he needs to fix it.
I think the drumbeat of hysterics is beyond ridiculous and far outweighs anything that President Trump has done.
[redacted]
Of course, one of the reasons I disagree with the OP, but I don’t see that argument being advanced here in the comments much.
I guess it depends on how you go about holding his feet to the fire. Does this mean force him to break his campaign promises or help him to “achieve” his promises in a way that is useful not harmful?
In any event he should resign after one month is not holding his feet to the fire. It is just breaking stuff and throwing tantrums.
I don’t say people aren’t allowed to say things. I just say that some who are supposedly on our side, and who, as Mencken said, buy ink by the barrel, are going out of their way to undermine him publicly and to a wide audience. And there’s an element of “Look at me, my anti-Trump credentials are in order and look how shiny they are.”
That’s too good!