It should be evident, I enjoy expressing myself and giving my opinions about matters that are of interest to me and should be to most others who profess to be good and informed citizens .
In Wednesday's local paper the following was printed on the editorial page and written by a man whom I do not know. He wrote: "While I enjoy the columns from Tom Barton and Dr. Mark Murphy and others, after reading the letters to the editor from Dick Berkowitz, I respectfully suggest including him as a regular columnist. I think he is highly talented and intelligent. His subtleties are amusing and highly provocative. His style is professional. Dick Ellis, Savannah"
I would like to thank Mr. Ellis for his unsolicited endorsement but do not have his address.If any of my memo readers can send me same I would be forever grateful.
Though I will not comment on Mr. Ellis' "keen/insightful observations" I admit to being flattered and appreciative.
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Glick on our State Department. (See 1 below.)
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More commentary regarding the CFPB. Understanding the power play involved about forming this agency is very instructive on a multitude of fronts.
First of all, it demonstrates how Obama and Warren have disdain for our Constitution under the guise of helping the "little man.".
Second, it demonstrates how Democrats believe more government control of our economy is healthy.
Third, it demonstrates how Obama arranged to control successor administrations by reason of the legislation he initiated. It is as if he seeks to rule from the grave, which no doubt he does. After all, he said he wanted to transform America and now that his initiatives are being dismantled he is seeking to influence and manipulate from the sidelines. In fact, he is setting out on a far ranging "diplomatic"trip . Unlike both Bushes, Obama has taken a page from Carter who, after leaving the office in disgrace, became a meddlesome former president.
Fourth, what is happening with CFPB is instructive because Trump will have to decide about future Obama roadblocks that will be more difficult to handle and the article in 3 below is connected.
Fifth, and perhaps most important of all, this agency proved it was incapable of carrying out it's mission because it failed to detect the Wells Fargo over reach (See 2 and 2a below.)
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This is a very incisive article about Trump's the effect on foreign affairs and trade relations because of his nationalistic attitude and personality.
I support much of what Trump's policies seek to accomplish. However, I also understand who is behind the implementation is critical. FDR, in poor health, got sold a bill of goods at Yalta because he underestimated Stalin, G.W looked into Putin's eyes and thought he had taken the measure of his soul, and so it goes.
There is nothing inherently wrong with nationalism. That said, nationalism can be carried beyond its usefulness because we live in a world of many nations and must recognize our policies must be an integral part of those of others. Neither does that mean we must roll over nor allow ourselves to be bested. We have every right to lead from strength because of who we are and that gives us some leverage. When we fail to use this leverage we cannot blame others for taking advantage of us.
As in the article by Robert Zoellick, I too I am concerned that Trump's ego allows him to be played and, when he realizes this, he might overreact.
Right now N Korea's Kim is thumbing his nose at Trump as that nation's leaders have since Bush 41 and those who succeeded him until Trump. Trump has placed a lot of reliance on his friend - China's leader Xi. Trump does have some leverage because of China's concerns but what happens when Trump learns China is not going to do our bidding and, as has happened, N Korea and Iran are getting chummier because of Obama's naivety. Trump's declarations will prove dangerous if found to be empty and if he means what he implies then an attack on N Korea and eventually on Iran is inevitable. Are American's/the world prepared for this? What happens if Trump does not act? Bullies understand power and action. They have no intention of being deterred by empty threats, meaningless words and feckless diplomacy.
The time for diplomacy, in my opinion, has passed and the time for action is here but then, I am a "hawk" from the sidelines so what do I know. (See 3 below.)
And
The other side.
Hanson does not tackle Trump and his foreign policy initiatives but gives a clear explanation why Trump rises above the negative chatter. In essence, Hanson suggests Trump's policies overcome/outmatch his quirkiness.
Tobin's CNN riposte hits a responsive chord as well. CNN Is the outgrowth of the brilliance of "The Mouth From The South,",Ted Turner's Channel 17. Turner was a genius when he was involved in television and made the Atlanta Braves a national favorite. Ted Turner is also an impetuous liberal and his imprimatur, obviously, continues to this day. As the former husband of "Jane F" who could conclude otherwise. (See 3a and 3b below.)
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I have given a lot of thought to this sexual harassment issue and why Democrats seem to be so prevalent and engaged in this malevolent activity.
Perhaps it is because they enjoy screwing their fellow citizens.
Now that elites, Democrats, politicians of all parties and Hollywooders have to be more restrained and discrete protstituion may make a come back.. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1) State Department making a laughingstock of the US and President Trump
By Caroline B. Glick
But if the State Department’s extraordinary about face on the PLO’s mission in Washington is an indication of what passes for US diplomacy these days, then perhaps Tillerson should just shut down operations at Foggy Bottom. The US would be better off without representation by its diplomats.
Last week, in accordance with US law, Tillerson notified the PLO’s Washington envoy Husam Zomlot that the PLO’s mission in Washington has to close within 90 days because it has breached the legal terms governing its operations.
Specifically, Tillerson explained, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas breached US law when he called for the International Criminal Court to indict and prosecute Israeli nationals during his speech before the UN General Assembly in September.
Tillerson explained that under US law, the only way to keep the PLO mission in Washington open is if US President Donald Trump certifies in the next 90 days that its representatives are engaged in “direct and meaningful negotiations” with Israel.
The PLO didn’t respond to Tillerson with quiet diplomacy. It didn’t make an attempt to appease Congress or the State Department by for instance agreeing to end its campaign to get Israelis charged with war crimes at the ICC. It didn’t put an abrupt end to its financial support for terrorism and terrorists. It didn’t stop inciting Palestinians to hate Israel and seek its destruction. It didn’t disavow its efforts to form a unity government with Hamas and its terrorist regime in Gaza.
It didn’t join Saudi Arabia and Egypt in their efforts to fight Iranian power and influence in the region. It didn’t end its efforts to have Israeli companies blacklisted by the UN Human Rights Committee or scale back its leadership of the international boycott movement against Israel.
Last week, in accordance with US law, Tillerson notified the PLO’s Washington envoy Husam Zomlot that the PLO’s mission in Washington has to close within 90 days because it has breached the legal terms governing its operations.
Specifically, Tillerson explained, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas breached US law when he called for the International Criminal Court to indict and prosecute Israeli nationals during his speech before the UN General Assembly in September.
Tillerson explained that under US law, the only way to keep the PLO mission in Washington open is if US President Donald Trump certifies in the next 90 days that its representatives are engaged in “direct and meaningful negotiations” with Israel.
The PLO didn’t respond to Tillerson with quiet diplomacy. It didn’t make an attempt to appease Congress or the State Department by for instance agreeing to end its campaign to get Israelis charged with war crimes at the ICC. It didn’t put an abrupt end to its financial support for terrorism and terrorists. It didn’t stop inciting Palestinians to hate Israel and seek its destruction. It didn’t disavow its efforts to form a unity government with Hamas and its terrorist regime in Gaza.
It didn’t join Saudi Arabia and Egypt in their efforts to fight Iranian power and influence in the region. It didn’t end its efforts to have Israeli companies blacklisted by the UN Human Rights Committee or scale back its leadership of the international boycott movement against Israel.
The PLO certainly didn’t begin “direct and meaningful negotiations” with Israel.
Instead of doing any of these things, in response to Tillerson’s notification, the PLO lashed out as the US. Abbas and his advisers launched an all-out assault against President Donald Trump and his team of Middle East envoys led by his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and his senior negotiator Jason Greenblatt.
PLO-controlled media outlets published a flood of stories which trafficked in antisemitic conspiracy theories against Trump and his Jewish American advisors. The PLO media renewed its allegations that Kushner, Greenblatt and US Ambassador David Friedman are more loyal to Israel than to the US.
Abbas’s media outlets also escalated their criticism of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE for their focus on combating Iranian aggression. These regimes are selling the Palestinians down the river, the PLO outlets have proclaimed, as Abbas’s flacks have insisted that the PLO will not accept any regional peace.
Relations between Arab states and Israel, the PLO insists, cannot be fostered so long as Israel fails to capitulate to all of the PLO’s demands.
In commentary published at the Gatestone Institute website, Palestinian commentator Bassam Tawil alleges that the Palestinian rejection of the requirements of US law and its assaults against the Trump administration and Sunni Arab states may serve as a pretext for another Palestinian terror campaign against Israel, which will be justified as a response to an American-Israeli-Saudi-Egyptian plot against the Palestinians.
Given that the US is a superpower and the largest state financier of the PA, not to mention the foundation of the PLO’s claim to legitimacy on the world stage, the US might have been expected to respond harshly to the PLO’s threats and slanders. But then, that isn’t the State Department’s way of doing things with the PLO.
Rather than shrugging their shoulders and acknowledging that Abbas and his comrades have absolutely no intention whatsoever of abiding by the terms of their mission’s operations in Washington and shutting it down, the State Department began to stutter.
Obviously we wish to continue our good relations and our position as mediator between the Israelis and the PLO.
Obviously we wouldn’t wish the PLO any harm and really, really don’t want to close down its mission in Washington.
It’s just that we have this stupid law and we have to follow it, State Department officials insisted.
And then, less than a week after Tillerson sent his letter to Zomlot, the State Department beat a hasty retreat from its earlier decision to actually abide by US law when it comes to the PLO.
Saturday, The Hill online newspaper reported that the State Department had changed its mind. It is no longer interested in following the law. Instead, it has rewritten the law. Now, it’s fine for the PLO to operate in Washington while trampling US law. It just needs to pretend it isn’t doing what it is doing.
According to the State Department spokesman who revealed State’s about face to the media, the PLO mission can continue to operate, but its operations must be “related to achieving a lasting, comprehensive peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
And if they aren’t, well, under this new interpretation of the law, the State Department can pretend it hasn’t noticed.
Two questions arise from the State Departments reversal. First, how does this decision advance the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians? And second, how does this decision impact the Trump administration’s bid to realign the balance of forces in the Middle East away from Iran and toward the US’s Arab allies, led by Saudi Arabia? The answer to the first question is straightforward. By empowering the PLO to continue to breach US law – with the full expectation of continuing to receive US assistance to the tune of more than $500 million a year – the US has made itself a laughingstock. Neither Hamas nor the PLO will take the US seriously. Any pressure the US attempts to apply toward the PLO to moderate its stand toward Israel will be ignored by Abbas and his cronies in the PLO and Hamas alike.
The Palestinians have taken the Trump administration’s measure. By beating a hasty retreat from its initial decision to stand with the law against the PLO, the State Department has told the PLO that the Trump administration is a paper tiger, at best.
They can get away with publicly trashing Trump. They can get away with antisemitic attacks against Friedman, Greenblatt and Kushner. Abbas and his deputies can get away with their war to delegitimize Israel in the West and harm its economy through their boycott campaign.
And the PLO can finance terrorism, sign a unity deal with Hamas and side with Hezbollah in Lebanon against Saudi Arabia.
The Trump administration will do nothing against them. Instead, in the face of this contemptuous slap in the face to the US, Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Ramallah next month and have his picture taken with Abbas the “moderate” leader and peace partner.
This then brings us to the second question of how surrendering to PLO threats will influence the US’s regional position. As Tawil reported, Al Quds, a Palestinian paper that reflects the views of Abbas and his associates, blasted the Arab League for focusing on Iran at its most recent foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo.
“The meeting ignored the Palestinian cause,” the paper complained.
“We are facing new Arab alliances against Iran, all under American pressure.
This will have a negative impact on our cause,” it warned.
For more than a generation, the State Department, and through it US Middle East policy as a whole, have been captivated by the myth that nothing can happen in the Middle East without Israel first capitulating to PLO demands.
Today, 17 years after the PLO rejected statehood and peace at Camp David and in so doing, made clear that no Israeli capitulation short of national suicide will satisfy it, and with the Sunni Arab world now eagerly working with Israel to defeat Iran and its proxies, it is clear that it is time for the US to cut the cord on the PLO.
By reversing course on closing the PLO mission, and groveling to the threatening PLO, the State Department made a laughingstock of the US and President Trump. The decision to reverse course should itself be reversed, in accordance with US law and in the interest in restoring what it is still possible to restore of US credibility in the Middle East.
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2) Seven Days in November
After 241 years, the United States experiences its first coup attempt.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
It would be hard to exaggerate the absurdity of events now overtaking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—and, if they weren’t so laughable, their dangerousness.
Let’s revisit the history of this peculiar new agency. It was created largely at the behest of Harvard Law professor and future senator Elizabeth Warren as part of the sprawling Dodd-Frank legislation.
The agency was set up to be funded directly by a levy on the Federal Reserve, operator of the nation’s monetary printing press, independent of the federal budget process or congressional appropriations.
In a Putinesque move, Ms. Warren removed herself from consideration as the agency’s head and encouraged President Obama to appoint one of her protégés, Richard Cordray.
Ms. English immediately launches a lawsuit to nullify President Trump’s presumed power, under a separate law, the Vacancies Act, to name an acting director to replace Mr. Cordray. Now if Ms. English can prevail in court and Senate Democrats can block a new appointee after Mr. Cordray’s term expires next year, presumably Ms. English can remain acting director as long as she wants, with power to name her own successor.
Voilà, an agency of the federal government becomes the dynastic possession of Ms. Warren and her designated cronies. Vladimir would be impressed.
All this might seem harmless given the agency’s limited powers, restricted mostly to policing the disclosures of financial institutions in their dealings with consumers. But is it?
Recall that one of the new agency’s first priorities under Mr. Cordray was to go after auto dealers, though Dodd-Frank explicitly excluded them from the agency’s oversight.
Recall that he sought not to regulate their disclosures but to ban a practice that he and other activists decided they didn’t like, namely dealer-negotiated interest rates on car loans, though the agency had no authority to do so.
It is not possible to overstate the cynicism and opportunism of what followed. Because he can’t regulate auto dealers, he targeted banks that finance auto dealers. Because auto dealers are forbidden from collecting racial data on borrowers, the upstream lenders can’t know the race of borrowers. Yet Mr. Cordray charged them with disparate impact based on so-called Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding, which assigns borrowers to a racial category based on their names and zip codes, though the method is not designed for such purposes and known greatly to overestimate the number of African-Americans in the U.S. car-buying population.
Even this does not do justice to the disingenuousness of the agency’s method. Any person identified as having a black-sounding name who paid a higher rate than the average of people with white-sounding names was deemed to have been a victim of discrimination, never mind that many people with white-sounding names also paid a higher rate.
The agency also got its desired results by deliberately overlooking the fact that dealers have different business models, with those who specialize in low-end cars tending to make most or all their profit from the dealer interest-rate markup.
By such means the agency fabricated—there is no other word—evidence of racial disparity in auto lending to shake money out of lenders, without effective court appeal, because the agency was able to hold necessary approvals the banks sought from other federal agencies hostage until the banks settled. That’s not all: Part of the proceeds were then distributed to activist groups that supported the CFPB’s creation and mission.
It’s no accident that in a previous column about all this, we called on the government to apply the RICO Act against itself. So before you completely dismiss an opportunity for fanciful paranoia, consider that a slow-motion coup attempt is under way in Washington. Think about the nature of the people who gave rise to the CFPB in the first place. Think about a leadership that, months after the agency was founded, concocted the auto-lender shakedown.
Remember how even small agencies under long-lived leadership can grow to be immune from political accountability, becoming arbitrary powers unto themselves. Think of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover.
Happily, the courts are overwhelmingly likely to protect us from the power grab of the Warren junta, as the U.S. District Court in D.C. started to do Tuesday. Even the CFPB’s own top lawyer rejected Mr. Cordray’s claim of authority to determine his successor. The courts are certain to find that, no matter what the CFPB statute says, a president retains his authority under the Vacancies Act to name an acting director. Democracy will be saved.
2a)
A Drama Queen Loses Her Head
The woman who put the acting in acting director is deposed.
By The Editorial Board
More hilarity ensued in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s game of thrones Tuesday when the acting acting director Leandra English got her head handed to her by a federal judge.
After doing photo-ops with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Ms. English continued pretending to be the CFPB acting director. But by the day’s close, the drama queen was formally deposed. Federal judge Timothy Kelly denied Ms. English’s petition for a temporary restraining order to block Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney from serving as the real acting director. President Trump appointed Mr. Mulvaney on Friday under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act after Richard Cordray resigned and anointed Ms. English.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel affirmed the President’s authority to appoint Mr. Mulvaney. And even CFPB general counsel Mary McLeod affirmed this legal interpretation in a memo to staff on Saturday.
The opinion “confirms my oral advice to the Senior Leadership Team,” she wrote, which suggests that both Mr. Cordray and Ms. English were aware that their political stunt was illegal but went ahead anyway. So the supposedly noble Mr. Cordray was setting up his young protégé to be embarrassed.
Ms. English called up former CFPB senior attorney Deepak Gupta, who filed the lawsuit for her as an individual. To obtain a temporary restraining order, she’d have to show she would suffer immediate irreparable harm from being usurped—beyond the humiliation she’s inflicted on herself. She couldn’t and now must decide whether to continue as deputy under the real acting director or quit in embarrassment.
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3)
The Peril of Trump’s Populist Foreign Policy
His style of deal-making prizes uncertainty and brinkmanship, without a plan for what comes next.
One of America’s senior statesmen predicted earlier this year that Donald Trump’s hunger for success would push the president toward a more traditional foreign policy. I countered that it depends on how Mr. Trump defines success. We now have an answer: Mr. Trump’s foreign policy reflects his instinct for political realignment at home, based on celebrity populism.
Populist movements feed off grievances and impatience with traditional politics. Frustrations—whether generated by economic distress, social displacement, or cultural challenges—fuel skepticism about institutions and elites. Challengers (who want to become the new elite) attack traditional leaders as out of touch, incompetent and corrupt.
Mr. Trump rallies his supporters by proclaiming the three presumptions of populism. First, it professes to reflect the will of a scorned people. Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables.” The will of the people is intolerant of the give-and-take of pluralism and disdains the identity politics of the Democratic Party.
Second, populism finds and blames enemies, domestic or foreign, who thwart the people’s will. Mr. Trump has mastered insulting such scapegoats.
Third, populism needs “the leader,” who can identify with and embody the will of the people. Like other populist leaders, Mr. Trump attacks the allegedly illegitimate institutions that come between him and the people. His solutions, like those of other populists, are simple. He contends that the establishment uses complexity to obfuscate and cover up misdeeds and mistakes. He claims he will use his deal-making know-how to get results without asking the public to bear costs.
Mr. Trump’s foreign policies serve his political purposes, not the nation’s interests. He says the U.S. needs to build a wall to keep Mexicans at bay—and Mexico will pay for it. He asserted he would block Muslims from coming to America to harm us. His protectionist trade policies are supposed to stop foreigners from creating deficits, stealing jobs, and enriching the corporate elite. Mr. Trump also asserts that U.S. allies have been sponging off America. The U.S. military is supposed to hammer enemies and not bother with the cleanup—even if the result, for example in Syria, is an empowered axis of Iran, Shiite militias, Hezbollah and Bashar Assad’s regime.
The president’s emphasis on discontinuity—breaking things—demonstrates action while disparaging his predecessors. He pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but the other 11 countries are proceeding without the U.S. He wants to destroy the North American Free Trade Agreement and strangle the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement; he also is threatening the World Trade Organization’s rules and system for settling disputes. His style of deal-making prizes uncertainty and brinkmanship, which risks escalation, without a plan for what comes next.
Mr. Trump’s foreign policy represents a break from postwar presidents of both parties, reaching back to Harry S. Truman. Other presidents led an alliance system that recognizes U.S. security is connected to mutual interests in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. Past presidents believed that the U.S. economy would prosper in a world of expanding capitalism, governed by adaptive rules and practices that matched America’s competitive and dynamic markets. Over time, U.S. foreign policy strove to expand human rights, liberty and democracy. Mr. Trump dismisses this U.S.-led international system as outdated, too costly and too restrictive of his case-by-case deal-making.
The 70-year-old U.S. foreign policy architecture has been grounded in institutions. But Mr. Trump disdains America’s intelligence agencies and is dismantling the State Department. His foils at home are the courts, the press, a clumsy Congress beholden to antiquated procedures, and even his own Justice Department.
Mr. Trump’s recent trip to Asia reveals that foreigners have taken his measure. They play to his narcissism. He in turn basks in their attention, diminishes his own country by blaming past presidents, and preens with promises of great but unspecified things to come. Other countries are preparing for a world in which they can expect U.S. demands but can no longer rely on American leadership.
The president’s need to project an image of personal power—for his domestic audience and his ego—makes him more comfortable with authoritarian leaders. Presidents Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte have noticed, as has part of the Saudi royal family. Democratic leaders, accountable to public opinion, face a more complex choice: They can keep their distance and risk Mr. Trump’s ire or try to manipulate him through frequent attention, royal treatment, golf and courtship of the family.
Yet Mr. Trump’s ride on the populist wave—and the foreign policy that matches his politics—faces a big obstacle: Most Americans do not agree with his approach. Significant majorities prefer the fundamentals of the foreign policies Mr. Trump is deconstructing, according to a 2017 survey of American adults from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Sixty percent say alliances with Europe and East Asia either are mutually beneficial or mostly benefit the U.S. Record numbers say international trade is good for consumers (78%), the economy (72%) and job creation (57%). Some 65% support providing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, and only 37% characterize immigration as a critical threat. All these numbers have shifted against Mr. Trump’s positions since the election.
Elected Republicans face a moment of decision. Voters with a very favorable view of Mr. Trump are moving toward protectionism and against alliances and immigration. Mr. Trump’s Republican Party pits nationalism against America’s internationalism, whereas for 70 years GOP leaders saw them as two sides of a coin.
Democratic leaders face a challenge as well. Their voters, especially younger ones, increasingly support trade, according to Chicago Council data. Democrats will need to decide whether to compete with Mr. Trump’s isolationist economic nationalism or offer a new vision of American leadership.
Mr. Trump’s foreign policy represents a change of type, not simply degree. Previous populist impulses in the U.S. ran their course, creating opportunities for adaptation, not simply disruption. Patriotic Republican and Democratic leaders must challenge Mr. Trump’s foreign-policy destruction. Political defeat is not the same as ideological defeat. The debate over ideas is just beginning.
Mr. Zoellick is a former World Bank president, U.S. trade representative and deputy secretary of state.
3a) Trump’s Fate
Plenty of people in ‘flyover’ country like not only Trump’s message — and actions — but also Trump, the loudmouth messenger.
By Victor Davis Hanson
The political verdict seems out on Trump’s current political future.
His supporters have won four special congressional elections. Yet, more recently, Republicans lost more local and state offices. Pundits argue about the degree to which these surrogate campaigns are referenda on Trump’s future.
Trump still polls between 39 percent and 42 percent approval, occasionally higher in supposed outlier surveys. Yet most concede that such polls did not in the past, and do not in the present, fully account for the “Trump Embarrassment Factor.” That is the strange phenomenon of a sizable minority of Trump voters — including Democrats and independents — proving reluctant to express support even to anonymous pollsters. Ask independent or moderate Republican voters whether they really voted for Trump: If they hesitate for more than three seconds before they answer, they probably did.
Registering dissatisfaction with Trump, the person, is also not the same as stating a preference for Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or Kamala Harris in a two-way presidential poll. Trump may be off the ballot in 2018, but in 2020 he will be opposed one-on-one by a real, progressive candidate.
Trump’s fate in the 2018 midterms — aside from the fact that first-term presidents always seem to lose congressional seats after about two years of exposure — and his reelection in 2020 supposedly hinge on whether Trump’s popular message trumps the unpopular messenger (more on that below).
If the economy grows at over 3 percent or even more from the last quarter of 2017 to November 2018, if unemployment dips below 4 percent, if the stock market holds at its record levels, if business, consumer, and corporate confidence keeps soaring, if illegal immigration continues to plummet, if construction and manufacturing stay on the upswing, if Trump’s national-security team brings a new deterrence to foreign policy without a war with North Korea or Iran, and if energy production reaches ever-record levels, then voters will put up with a lot of Trump’s downsides.
And that “lot” supposedly can include mercurial firings, continuous tweeting that results about every three weeks in a detour spat with some obnoxious nonentity, some ungracious comment about a rival, or an indiscretion that is perceived to be another embarrassing straw on Trump’s sagging camel’s back.
Or Trump’s message may overshadow the hemorrhaging from Robert Mueller’s leaky “collusion” charges. (The Javert investigation unfortunately will end only when the police are policed and Congress learns exactly what Mueller was or was not doing during his tenure in the Obama administration when the Clintons, with assumed exemption, finessed special-favor deals with foreign interests, including and especially Russian uranium concerns, and exactly what the complex relationships were between the self-righteous James Comey, the FBI and intelligence communities, the FISA courts, the unmasking and leaking of classified intercepts of private-citizen communications, and the Steele smear dossier.)
Besides tensions between the Trump record and the Trump persona, what other factors will play out in the next two critical elections to decide Trump’s fate?
A lot depends on whether the Democratic party continues down its suicidal path of income redistribution and identity politics (embracing illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, Black Lives Matter, the Colin Kaepernick take-a-knee movement, the Antifa alliance, the new iconoclasm, and other polarizing issues that turn off two out of three Americans). Assassination chic — hanging, dismembering, blowing up, decapitating, or stabbing Trump — got old quickly. In their Pavlovian hatred of Trump, mainstream reporters have exposed their bias and nearly emasculated themselves as progressive political allies of the Democrats.
Trump conceivably could be the first president to be elected twice without winning the popular vote. For now, he has overturned the conventional wisdom about the new demography. His die-hard opponents live in states that he probably would never have won anyway; his fervent supporters live in swing states where their votes count more.
So far, Trump’s base seems as firm as his opponents’ base. Before 2016, the conventional wisdom was that Republican presidential candidates (who had not won 51 percent of the popular vote since 1988) were increasingly doomed, given that they supposedly had lost for good old battleground states such as Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while they were fading in purple Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina.
The conservative message purportedly did not resonate with the new demography-is-destiny voters and supposedly turned off the old working classes as being nothing more than a rich man’s agenda. But while Democrats boasted about turning even more red states blue, Trump, termite-like, stealthily ate away the very foundations of the Democratic party. Its preachy environmentalism, ever-larger government, “I got mine” elitist snobbery, static economic growth, and polarizing identity politics fueled by supposed “white privilege” (shrilly blasted by those who enjoyed it, against those who did not) turned off the irredeemable and deplorable clingers.
The spate of current sexual-harassment scandals should have weakened Trump, given the crude Access Hollywood sloppy talk and the 2016 campaign accusations. But, more likely, the wedge issue has been somewhat nullified by the exposure of a virtual army of sexual predators among Hollywood’s progressives, Washington’s mainstream liberal reporters, and prominent politicians. And the tsunami of scandals has perhaps also weakened the entire narrative of progressives as feminist defenders in the so-called Republican war on women.
The Republican Never Trump movement is divided, because it is all but impossible to offer a coherent alternative to Trump’s conservative agenda, which is 90 percent doctrinaire. Never Trump predictions — Trump would govern as a squishy liberal, or appoint David Souter–like justices, or tank the economy, or discredit conservative ideology — have so far not panned out, at least if one follows what Trump has done rather than what he has said. In ironic fashion, Trump has learned politics more rapidly than his politically seasoned critics have learned to critique Trump. At year’s end, comparing careers, Trump could reasonably claim that he is better off than his worst critics.
Lastly, there are always the unplanned and unknown events that warp elections— an optional war that turns ugly, a 2008-like financial meltdown, some sort of scandal or indictment, or abject failure to pass either Obamacare repeal or tax reform.
But for now, the odds are more likely that in 2018 the economy will continue on a historic upswing rather than fall into a recession. Before Trump, we were told that unemployment could not in peacetime dip below 4 percent, that 3 percent annual GDP growth was a relic of a bygone age, and that the Dow Jones Industrial Average could not much exceed 20,000. That may all be discredited wisdom in 2018, and Trump may well finally get credit for the near-historic upsurge.
One final note: Mystery still surrounds the outlier Trump. Most concur that the upside of his message counters the downside of his personality. Supporters supposedly agree that his petty repartee and insistence on hammering back at even the most pathetic journalist or inane jock are both time wasted and proof of unfortunate narcissism and self-absorption. “If only Trump would not tweet” or “Can’t he just shut up for a while?” is the conventional wisdom among his reluctant supporters.
But is the above orthodox diagnosis quite right?
Voters may say that they find Trump puerile and repellent while in private enjoying that he is as petty as they are and hits back at those who long ago needed a smack. That disconnect could explain why polls are now less relevant and why those who voted for Trump can fudge and mislead about their politics more than Trump himself does. Trump’s take-no-prisoners style may serve some people’s vicarious need to push back against the progressive trajectory of the country, in a way that voting for a Cruz or a Rubio in the primary did not.
We pundits talk about being “presidential” and “elevating the office” over the lowest common denominator of the mob. Perhaps. But what if after $20 trillion in debt, unwon wars in the Middle East, the 2008 meltdown, nuclear missiles 20 minutes from Portland and San Diego, and a country without borders and torn apart by race, the proverbial people do not want an aspirational president who leads only to more such lofty aspirations? What if they instead prefer someone who is in some sense unpresidential or at least anti-presidential, if being status quo “presidential” got us where we are?
Perhaps half the country wondered whether Bill Clinton’s alleged assaults or George H. W. Bush’s sneaky photo-gropes were part of being presidential and post-presidential? Or they asked whether Washington was any less immoral because it frequents the Four Seasons rather than the Motel Six? Stylistically or politically, what exactly would acting un-presidential these days consist of — politicizing the IRS, allowing the VA to decay, surveiling, unmasking, and leaking communications of U.S. citizens, or inviting into the White House misogynistic and profane rappers whose lyrics are about hating the police?
If that analysis is even partly true, it may be that it was not just Trump’s conservative populist message but also Trump himself, the unique populist loudmouth messenger, who won the Electoral College. Trump prevailed not only because he appealed to the concerns of flyover country, but also because he voiced these concerns in a way that no other Republican would have.
In other words, the very manner in which Trump agonizes our elite is also precisely what may still energize half the country — the half that lives supposedly nowhere but in electoral terms is very much somewhere.
READ MORE:
Democrats in 2020: Old Leaders Refuse to Leave
Both Parties Seem Determined to Lose in 2020
Hillary Clinton, 2020 Candidate — in Her Own Mind
Democrats in 2020: Old Leaders Refuse to Leave
Both Parties Seem Determined to Lose in 2020
Hillary Clinton, 2020 Candidate — in Her Own Mind
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, released in October from Basic Books.
The network responded to President Trump’s gibe by portraying it as the home of hero journalists, but that doesn’t answer questions about its biased reporting and panels.
During the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, Fox News was a constant and public focus of his disdain. Yet the negative attention didn’t daunt the network, which largely took the abuse as validation not only of many of their viewers’ desire to hold the administration accountable but also of journalists’ traditional mission to keep the party in power honest. But now that another news channel is in the crosshairs of Obama’s successor, the response is very different.
After months of attacks from Trump on what he terms CNN’s “fake news,” the president finally seemed to hit a nerve when one of his tweets over the holiday weekend targeted CNN International: “.@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!”
Rather than take it in stride, CNN responded with an orgy of self-congratulation. In a video lead news anchor Wolf Blitzer first presented on his midday show, the network proclaimed itself as the home of journalist heroes braving bullets, natural disasters, and angry mobs to bring the news to the public.
CNN International correspondents like Ben Wedeman and Clarissa Ward testified to the risks they run pursuing stories. War correspondent Christiane Amanpour not only boasted of the bullets she had dodged but mentioned a colleague who took a bullet in the face covering the conflict in Bosnia.
This Is All Beside the Point, CNN
While CNN’s efforts to highlight its achievements were as truthful as Trump’s gibe was hyperbolic, their riposte also didn’t speak to the reason so many on the Right have no problem with the president’s attack. The network generally remains a good source of up-to-date information on natural disasters, terrorist incidents, and wars, which accounts for the uptick in their ratings during such crises.
But as anyone who watches CNN daily knows, its political reporting regarding the Trump administration, panels of talking heads, and some of its prime-time hosts betray an obvious leftward tilt that is hard for even the network’s most dedicated fans to deny. In the age of Trump, CNN is a channel with an agenda to oppose if not actually “resist” the administration. That’s why liberals like CNN and Trump feel entitled to attack it, knowing full well that many who back him agree with the general meaning of his barbs, if not every detail.
To acknowledge CNN’s bias is not the same thing as condoning the labeling of everything they do as “fake news.” Just as liberals won’t acknowledge the solid news reporting done by Fox News correspondents and hosts like Brett Baier, who are primarily interested in the news and not purveyors of opinion, it would be wrong for conservatives to deny that a lot of what CNN produces is valuable.
Sure, There Are Fair Points to Critique
The timing of Trump’s latest brickbat aimed at the network was also bad since it coincided with the Russian government’s latest effort to crack down on foreign media that report about the Putin regime’s human rights violations. CNN’s attempt to claim Trump endangered its reporters was as hyperbolic as anything the president says since neither Vladimir Putin nor any other foreign dictator needs any encouragement from Trump to launch physical attacks or deny freedom to the press. Mere criticism of the media, even of the harshest variety, is not comparable to what happens in Russia, but it is nonetheless bad optics for Trump to invite the comparison.
The constant refrain of “fake news” has contributed to a political culture in which liberals and conservatives tend to view everything they read, hear, and see as a form of political propaganda. In our bifurcated media culture, that means many in the audience judge the validity of news solely by whether it confirms their pre-existing biases.
We saw the toxic nature of such constant accusations when James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas provocateurs tried to execute a sting against the Washington Post. While O’Keefe’s efforts to expose the depraved cynicism of Planned Parenthood executives were successful, what is being reported as his attempt to plant a false story about Roy Moore committing a sexual offense — presumably to then debunk it and demonstrate the Post’s eagerness to defame a conservative — backfired. Rather than feed the conservative narrative of media bias that has allowed the Republican senatorial candidate’s defenders to dismiss the accusations against him, O’Keefe wound up highlighting the reliability of the Post’s investigation.
But even if we concede that, like the Post’s scrupulousness in seeking to verify its stories on Moore, CNN and its international reporters generate a lot of accurate news stories, that doesn’t get the network off the hook for much of its programming bias against Trump.
CNN Is Essentially an Anti-Trump Pile-On
Since the inauguration, CNN has largely given up any pretense of objectivity about the Trump presidency. Its panels of commentators heard throughout a typical day rarely contain even a token Trump supporter to balance liberal critics and conservatives who also despise the president. Most news stories about Trump come in as an outrage a day featuring whatever outrageous tweet or utterance (on Monday it was his ill-timed reference to Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahantas” during a ceremony honoring Native American World War Two vets).
But early on the network’s reporters and on-air personalities decided that they were not prepared to treat anything the president did or said as defensible or even a matter of opinion. Most CNN discussions of Trump consist of reporters, guest commentators, and hosts agreeing with each other about the awful nature of whatever he has done or said. They frame most stories about Trump and his administration as an outrage about which decent people cannot agree to disagree.
Were this limited to the network’s opinionated hosts, especially those in prime time like Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon, who compete with the even more liberal personalities on MSNBC as well as the conservative talkers on Fox, it might be considered defensible in this hyper-partisan age. But the same spirit extends into the work of its on-air reporters, who might otherwise be expected to give us, as the graphic behind Blitzer on Monday proclaimed, “facts first.”
Example Numero Uno: Jim Acosta
A prime example is CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. He routinely frames his reports as accusations against Trump, generously sprinkling his negative opinions about administration policies in with the “facts” he reports.
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4)Two more Democrats are being drawn into the recent avalanche of tawdry scandals: Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) and Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
Grijalva reportedly approved a disgruntled senior staffer's $48,395 "severance package" after she accused the Arizona Democrat of frequently showing up to work drunk and creating a hostile work environment.
The accuser has not been named but worked for Grijalva for just three months before getting the hefty payout, which is being described by the media as "hush money" to get her to drop her embarrassing complaint. Hardworking taxpayers like you and I made this settlement possible.
In a statement, Grijalva admitted to the payoff but categorically denied that any sexual harassment occurred. He did not comment on whether or not he arrived at the office drunk.
Green, meanwhile, has been accused of sexual misconduct by a former staffer, Lucinda Daniels, nearly ten years ago. According to The Hill, Daniels accused Green of sexual assault back in 2008 but later withdrew her complaint after the indignant congressman sued her.
Green admitted that he and Daniels had an affair in 2007, but insisted that there was no criminal activity. Both Daniels and Green released an unprompted joint statement, saying they "regret [their] former claims" and have since "maintained [a] respectful relationship" as "friends."
Green also added that, unlike in Grijalva's case, no money changed hands.
The spotlight has been on members of Congress to defend their behavior in recent weeks. Both Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) are facing accusations of sexual harassment by multiple women.
Speaking specifically about Conyers, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refused to say whether or not she believed his accusers and claimed Conyers "has done a great deal to protect women" over his congressional career.
But as criticism has mounted, Pelosi seems to have rethought her answers.
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