Well, I was wrong and I was wrong loud. I'm the Dick Morris of 2016.
The best analysis requires the best data, and it will be weeks before we have that. Right now it looks like not enough Clinton voters turned out to match a groundswell of support for Trump in the corridor across the Great Lakes. I expected her to lose Ohio but Trump winning Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are going to prove to be enough to win the presidency. When all the votes have been counted, Trump will have lost the popular vote by about one million ballots. Right now, Trump appears to have won Wisconsin with right about the same number of votes that Romney got four years ago. But Hillary Clinton is about 250,000 votes behind what Obama got then. Donald Trump seems to have also won Michigan and Pennsylvania with right about the same vote totals that Romney got. It's early, but it looks like Clinton failed to get her voters out in those three states and that's why we will have a Trump presidency.
We will have time to figure out who didn't turn up and why. But the most important thing to start thinking about are the consequences of this election. They are real and some of them are immediate. I'm sure I will think of more as the days go by,
Ten Things That a Trump Presidency Means for America and the World.
1. The Iran Deal will be torn up. Iran will be allowed to resume its nuclear program and the west will have no access to inspect those facilities. At some point Trump may use this as an excuse to make war, but not right away.
2. Antonin Scalia will be replaced by a conservative rather than by the extremely centrist Merrick Garland. I don't think Trump cares much about the Supreme Court and I'm sure he will be told that fear of a moderate court is what inspired a lot of people who did not like him to vote for him. I think he will give those people a candidate they agree with. He or she will just have to kiss a lot of ass in the screening interview.
3. ISIS has a new propaganda talking point. The Crusaders just elected a man who doesn't even want to allow Muslims in to his country. We will find out if having a president say the magic words "Radical Islamic Terrorism" causes ISIS and like minded groups to wilt. Call me skeptical for now.
4. It is now the official policy of the United States government that Climate Change is a hoax perpetrated by China to disrupt American manufacturing. The Paris Accords will be moot and we're going to see a whole bunch of environmental regulations ripped up.
5. At some point next year the Congress will repeal Obamacare. The Democrats will fight to save some of the most important protections, and they will probably succeed in saving a few things. The GOP will agree to some watered down continuation of the requirement to cover people with preexisting conditions. But the subsidies and the individual mandate will be gone. The fight will be over whether states can keep the Medicaid expansion. I think the Republicans will be afraid to take this away, but I'm sure they will dilute it.
6. At some point next year the Congress will pass massive tax cuts and the overwhelming majority of these cuts will benefit very wealthy people. Those coal miners won't have to worry about pesky safety regulations restricting their work condition but at least the Estate Tax will be abolished for them.
7. Immigration policy is about to become a lot less thoughtful. Trump has to come through on some version of building a wall and deporting lots of people. Spoiler alert: Mexico will not pay for the wall but there will be very real pain felt by young Americans who were brought here by undocumented parents. The GOP establishment will try to blunt this, but Trump does not owe them much. This is going to be ugly. And we're going to stop taking refugees from Syria. We will contribute to the horrible humanitarian crisis there rather than helping it.
8. There will be a bunch of dumb protectionist policies put in place. Trump will pass some symbolic law that punishes companies for moving jobs overseas and he'll create a new tax shelter that allows those companies to move money back to the United States without paying taxes on it. This won't affect many people in the real world, but he has to have something to point to when people ask him what he did about all the countries he claims are "stealing" from us because we run trade deficits with them.
9. The implements of the federal government will be used to settle the president's political scores. He will try to pass some slapdash attempt to make our libel laws more like those of Britain. He will grant access only to favorable media outlets and he will use the bully pulpit to get into insult contests with figures great and small.
10. The new school of political science thought will be personality based. They will say that W., Obama and Trump were all charismatic figures who defeated candidates that were less likable and more bland in the alternative. Someone or other will run for the Democratic nomination in the style of Donald Trump. Mark Cuban comes to mind. Maybe Michael Moore will run too. We will never expect candidates to disclose their tax returns or delineate complex policy proposals again.
Unless, of course, this presidency is a disaster. It's entirely possible, and I would say likely that the idea of electing a man bereft of experience and lacking a single idea more serious than "Make America Great Again" will be discredited in short order. We'll know by the midterm elections if not sooner. I suspect Trump will get the typical honeymoon and score some early successes on easy stuff next year. Americans won't really form a lasting opinion of him until he responds to a significant crisis. That will come sometime during 2017.
The American people were asked to choose between a career politician with some sketchy advisors and a propensity for secrecy and an ignorant, semi-literate rage monster with the temperament of a four year old and the knowledge base of a high school sophomore of middling intelligence. The choice our electoral system made between them disheartens me as an American citizen, but I know the hurt is so much worse for people who are Muslim, Latino, recent immigrants or have been the victim of a sexual assault. It looks for the moment that there are more people afraid of what a changing world meant to their own future than were concerned about the well-being of such marginalized groups. We overlooked so many warning signs and condoned some genuinely horrific behavior yesterday. This is not a pretty day in our history. And we have voted for worse yet things to come.
Showing posts with label Hillary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hillary. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
What to Expect When You're Not Expecting Much: Preview of the Vice-Presidential Debate
The only conventional thing about the 2016 race is that both major party nominees picked safe, solid, dull running mates. Trump chose Pence to shore up his bona fides with the Christian conservative base. Hillary chose Kaine to put Virginia out of reach and to strengthen her ability to reach Spanish speakers. By November 9th, Tim Kaine will know the name of every morning DJ on every Spanish language radio station in the country. That same day, Mike Pence can begin to daydream about being a top tier contender for the 2020 Republican nomination. But first they have a job to do tonight.
Pence's first job is to stop the bleeding. At the start of the first presidential debate, Predictwise.com had the race at 68% Hillary, 32% Trump. Eight days later it's up to 81% Hillary, 19% Trump. Almost every poll since the debate has moved in a Democratic direction, and the news this week has been about Trump (probably) not paying income taxes for 18 years and his ill-considered comments implying that getting PTSD has something to do with a lack of strength. (For the record I think that off-the -cuff comment was less egregious than some of his other gaffes this year, but it will hurt him with some demographics that he can't afford to lose.)
Pence has to convince people that voting for Trump is not insane. He must be the voice and face of reason. I expect that he will use words like "conservative" and "responsible" a lot. He will also hit the high notes when trying to scare people about refugees from Syria and the "dangers" of the world we live in. He can lean pretty far to the right, because that's where his credibility is deepest and even far-right is better than the unstable mess of a half-personality at the top of his ticket.
Kaine is playing with the lead and he's on his home turf of Virginia. He's also a pretty cagey debater and I expect him to be very well prepared. A couple days ago the Republican party released a video implying that Kaine was some how to blame for the crimes committed by his clients when he was a public defender. I'm very curious to see if Pence brings that up because I remember watching one of the debates when Kaine ran for governor of Virginia. His idiot opponent, George Allen, brought up this line of attack and walked right into a trap. Tim Kaine's response was that anyone who loves to lecture people about the Constitution ought to know that it includes the right to counsel and that any lawyer given that role has a duty to zealously represent their client, no matter how serious the crimes they are charged with. If this comes up tonight, I expect Kaine to throw the name John Adams back in Pence's face.
I hope that Kaine at least goes after Pence on two important points: one is the disastrous decision to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana. There were real consequences to that decision including a spike in HIV transmissions and (of course) unwanted pregnancies. Kaine should also raise the issue of Climate Change to show that even a potty-trained Republican can't be trusted to tell the truth aobu the most important issue facing our long term future.
But I don't think either candidate will be especially aggressive. Pence knows that Kaine is loaded for bear on the issue of being a public defender. His target is Hillary. The GOP web site prematurely updated to show that Pence won tonight's debate about 2 hours before it began. Those talking points list that Pence won on the economy and by highlighting Hillary's scandals. So that's the game plan. Trump was actually coherent on trade during the first 15 minutes of the presidential debate. We'll probably get more of that, especially since Kaine was a TPP supporter up until being chosen by Hillary. So we'll get that and probably a lot about emails and at least one Benghazi for old time's sake. Kaine will defend her, and I expect he will leave a very good impression on the viewing public.
This won't matter much. In 2016 all of the celebrity rests on the top half of each ticket. Tonight will be a fleeting glimpse of a world run by boring but generally competent people. The insults will be few and the inspiration rarer still. That probably means a small audience and almost no movement in the polls. But fear not, we're just five days away from the 2nd Hillary-Trump debate.
Pence's first job is to stop the bleeding. At the start of the first presidential debate, Predictwise.com had the race at 68% Hillary, 32% Trump. Eight days later it's up to 81% Hillary, 19% Trump. Almost every poll since the debate has moved in a Democratic direction, and the news this week has been about Trump (probably) not paying income taxes for 18 years and his ill-considered comments implying that getting PTSD has something to do with a lack of strength. (For the record I think that off-the -cuff comment was less egregious than some of his other gaffes this year, but it will hurt him with some demographics that he can't afford to lose.)
Pence has to convince people that voting for Trump is not insane. He must be the voice and face of reason. I expect that he will use words like "conservative" and "responsible" a lot. He will also hit the high notes when trying to scare people about refugees from Syria and the "dangers" of the world we live in. He can lean pretty far to the right, because that's where his credibility is deepest and even far-right is better than the unstable mess of a half-personality at the top of his ticket.
Kaine is playing with the lead and he's on his home turf of Virginia. He's also a pretty cagey debater and I expect him to be very well prepared. A couple days ago the Republican party released a video implying that Kaine was some how to blame for the crimes committed by his clients when he was a public defender. I'm very curious to see if Pence brings that up because I remember watching one of the debates when Kaine ran for governor of Virginia. His idiot opponent, George Allen, brought up this line of attack and walked right into a trap. Tim Kaine's response was that anyone who loves to lecture people about the Constitution ought to know that it includes the right to counsel and that any lawyer given that role has a duty to zealously represent their client, no matter how serious the crimes they are charged with. If this comes up tonight, I expect Kaine to throw the name John Adams back in Pence's face.
I hope that Kaine at least goes after Pence on two important points: one is the disastrous decision to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana. There were real consequences to that decision including a spike in HIV transmissions and (of course) unwanted pregnancies. Kaine should also raise the issue of Climate Change to show that even a potty-trained Republican can't be trusted to tell the truth aobu the most important issue facing our long term future.
But I don't think either candidate will be especially aggressive. Pence knows that Kaine is loaded for bear on the issue of being a public defender. His target is Hillary. The GOP web site prematurely updated to show that Pence won tonight's debate about 2 hours before it began. Those talking points list that Pence won on the economy and by highlighting Hillary's scandals. So that's the game plan. Trump was actually coherent on trade during the first 15 minutes of the presidential debate. We'll probably get more of that, especially since Kaine was a TPP supporter up until being chosen by Hillary. So we'll get that and probably a lot about emails and at least one Benghazi for old time's sake. Kaine will defend her, and I expect he will leave a very good impression on the viewing public.
This won't matter much. In 2016 all of the celebrity rests on the top half of each ticket. Tonight will be a fleeting glimpse of a world run by boring but generally competent people. The insults will be few and the inspiration rarer still. That probably means a small audience and almost no movement in the polls. But fear not, we're just five days away from the 2nd Hillary-Trump debate.
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