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What If Trump Turns Out to Be a Great President?
Frankly, I had assumed the outcome would be otherwise. I don’t think my reaction to the 2016 election result was atypical among conservatives. I was delighted to dodge the bullet to the heart of the nation’s well-being that was Hillary Clinton. But I assumed Donald Trump would have no coherent agenda other than to try not to be Obama or Hillary and that he would likely step aside in 2020 after an ineffectual if not entertaining four years. Trump did not appear to have much of a policy compass or vision.
It never occurred to me that Trump could be highly successful or even a great president. His demeanor suggested that greatness was not to be his destiny. He often seems to share the same tendencies toward venality and petty vengefulness that characterized the Johnson and Nixon presidencies but with far less skill (and regard) for inside-baseball politics than those two. I assumed the bureaucracy would eventually tie Trump down as they always do with outsiders and perceived enemies and that they would stalemate any serious attempt at policy change.
Democrats and GOP NeverTrumpers convinced themselves the results would be dire. After the election, they issued a collective bipartisan heavy sigh and struck a noble pose waiting for the imminent invitation to deliver their I-told-you-so’s. Trumpian failure would inevitably unfold in an Aristotelian character-based tragedy in stark contrast to their own prescience and virtue which would leave them in a place of honor and adulation, gazing with mock sadness at the ashes of Trump’s presidency.
How many times have the anti-Trump faithful worked up the mock sorrow, the heavy sighs, and deep breaths getting ready for I-told-you-so’s, only to be disappointed? Mueller fizzled badly. The disastrous trade war with China morphed into an economy-boosting deal. The soaring humanitarian crisis at the border has faded as did the war with Iran. And the impeachment is a travesty. The prayed-for divine comeuppance just never arrives. Is there such a thing as Schadenfreudenus Interruptus?
It appears that without a very efficient use of expert opinion or intellectual depth, Donald Trump has repeatedly moved to sound and effective decisions on what seems like gut instinct. Can greatness emerge from that? Napoleon once said if he could choose, he would pick generals who were lucky over those who were known to be smart and competent. Did America do something like that in 2016?
Virtually every expectation (certainly mine) about the consequences of electing President Trump was wrong. The economy is spectacular. Most of the dictatorships to which Barack Obama bowed and scraped are now teetering on collapse and/or internal rebellion. The border crisis is abating to a degree no one thought possible. Only entrenched Democratic machines prevent even greater economic and social benefits for our most disadvantaged citizens from accruing faster. We have achieved energy independence. Elsewhere, Brexit and the Merkel idiocy of open borders have ended the myth of a bureaucratically managed nirvana delivered by elites.
Looking forward, what would a world be like in which the stranglehold of incompetent self-serving elites, dictators, and Marxist dinosaurs is broken everywhere and innovation, growth, and trade accelerate to bring about as yet unimagined material well-being around the globe?
Obviously, there is much unknown about the events leading up to the election and what will transpire over the following four years, but the prospect of a truly great presidency is now a distinct possibility. What then for Never-Trumpism?
The weird thing about Never-Trumpism is that it is not merely a position about candidate preference but became a kind of identity with a vested interest in Trumpian failure. For many, the reflexive condemnation of Donald Trump was not a policy difference but something personal, a way of asserting one’s own aesthetic and moral superiority to Donald Trump (or some caricature of him). Americans have always developed and expressed strong aversions to candidates and incumbents but with the understanding that voting is often a choice of the lesser of two bad policy choices. But to declare that one would vote for a candidate antithetical to all of one’s values just because his/her opponent is Donald Trump is unusual and kinda weird.
Twenty years from now, if Trump is remembered for ushering in a new economic golden age, the rollback of wars, the fall of oppressive regimes and substantive government reform, will elderly NeverTrumpers still be saying, “Yes but those tweets ..and he was so rude …and what he said about…” to their incredulous but wealthy grandchildren?
Published in General
I don’t see it that way. Our military is constrained and controlled by civil authority. They certainly recommended courses of action to win and end the war. It was the civil authority that told them what their objectives and mission was. In Afghanistan they were told to build a corrupt theocratic government and were not asked to “win,” however you might define it. That has been the problem, and it was not caused by the generals.
For a counter example, MacArthur was fired, rightfully, for trying to win a war contrary to Truman’s policies. The military is not allowed to exceed the president’s orders. MacArthur was not allowed to risk war with China (mores the pity) and the military was not allowed to act to risk the corrupt government being toppled or enflame Islamic militance.
Well, many of the same people doing that are the ones virtue signaling for things like $15 an hour minimum wages on other businesses. The H1B imports into the tech and/or media industries are getting more than that, but they’re not getting as much as what similar workers who are American citizens would have to be paid, and who are available, because some have been let go of jobs and forced to train their lower-cost replacements.
So it ends up not as an instance of “Jobs American workers won’t do” or even “Jobs American workers won’t relocate to do at that salary“, but instead is “Jobs American workers will do, but we don’t want to pay that much, and don’t want to outsource this particular work to other countries.” Either outsource the jobs to India, or shut up telling smaller businesses or big companies in other business sectors how much they have to pay their workers, and supporting politicians who support those plans, even when sales volumes can’t justify those higher wages.
Italics mine.
If we are going to talk about the entire value proposition we need to include the entire value proposition.
Plus, employers can stifle complaints and requests for higher wages merely because the threat of being fired has much more negative consequences for the H1B employee and their family.
Yes, and they don’t sue for for frivolous claims either.
Good point. You’re right.
But, I have this vague memory of Obama retiring a bunch of generals and promoting new ones more to his liking — men (and women, I suppose) who would accept a commission to “build a corrupt theocratic government” and didn’t mind not winning. If you had been a general and had been told, it’s not about the winning, but about making friends by being nice and giving the enemy everything he wants, would you have stayed on the job? I can see doing it to save as many American lives as possible under the idiotic policies of these jackasses, but I don’t think that’s who Trump had briefing him, other than Mattis.
The military under Clinton and Obama was a forum for experimenting with their social theories.
Exactly.
Well, that’s probably one reason I wasn’t a general!
Building the corrupt governments was a Bush policy.
I think the concern is that the H1B visa holders will lower American wages.
Yes, but only until they qualify for their PR.
Think of it like the NFL Draft. Once they get to PR (for all adults in the household) that is like earning free agency.
Plus, these people have skills – in my experience I have met Comp sci Phd’s who wait out the intro period and then move on.
And? Is that worse than having no wages? Wages should be based on value, and in an international market, that would be the value. Arbitrarily keeping people out of the country, who are peaceful and employed, would not raise wages, it would move jobs. We’ve already seen that.