Milo on my Mind

For some reason, the name Milo Yiannopolous has been appearing lately on my Facebook feed. I guess he's in the news a lot now that Donald Trump is president-elect and Steve Bannon is his chief advisor and Bannon is affiliated with Breitbart.com and Yiannopolous is apparently the technology editor at Breitbart so of course social media would be all a-flutter.

I've been remotely aware of Mr. Yiannopolous but not enough to have formulated an opinion about him. I know, for instance, that Twitter has censored him and that college campuses are banning him. Both of these should be enough to commend him. Then again, the rumors, the hearsay. Alt right! White nationalist! Racist! Bigot! Homophobe! (well, scratch that last one. See BBC interview, below). Maybe I should back away slowly . . . .

Anyway, the other day, on two separate occasions, I saw Facebook postings of a year-old article by Milo (the same article, coincidentally, about women studying science and math), accompanied by reactions ranging from sneering dismissal to consternation to outrage. Curious, I decided to read that article, as well as a few others. And as I did, something began to dawn on me. The guy was yanking our chains. He was making outrageous statements almost matter-of-factly. Isn't this one of the characteristics of irony? Saying one thing, meaning another? For instance, in the article about women and math, he wasn't attacking women. He was attacking something else, political correctness, the hypocrisy of social engineering. Where Facebook people saw misogyny, I detected satire.

But then I began to doubt myself. What if Mr. Yiannopolous was, in fact, serious? What if he really did think women didn't belong in the sciences (for instance) or on the Internet (for another instance)? What if these Facebook folks were right and I was wrong?

Fortunately, I belong to an online community collectively known as Ricochet, which bills itself as "the leading place for civil discussion of the center-right and beyond." As a dues-paying member, I have the privilege of initiating a conversation about whatever's on my mind. Today, Milo was on my mind. What better place to learn more about him than on Ricochet.

So I created the post, "Explaining Milo," which includes at last count 144 responses from the Ricochet community. Judging from the responses, I think my initial impression, that he's a satirist, is accurate. And while I'm not quite ready to label him a modern-day Jonathan Swift, I do think he's a provocateur. Many of the commenters on my post seem to agree, though there's some debate as to the efficacy of his approach.

It occurs to me that most people, both right and left (but predominantly those on the left), in taking Mr. Yiannopolous oh so seriously, may be missing the underlying significance of what he's actually saying. Maybe we need to stop freaking out for a moment, unplug our sensitive ears, and listen.

Explaining Milo (Ricochet)

The More Things Change . . .

Before I started this blog, I maintained another blog, which I called Ahem (dumb name, I know. The very first entry explains it). 

I maintained the blog between October 24, 2008 and January 1, 2013. Obviously those dates are significant from a political standpoint: The presidential elections of 2008 and 2012 get quite a bit of attention.

I'm linking a couple of my responses to President Obama's re-election in 2012. 

A Terrible, Horrible, Mistake (Election Day, November 6, 2012) 

Because (The Day After, November 7, 2012).

As you can tell, I was devastated. But what's interesting (to me) is that my reactions are really not much different from the reaction I'm hearing from people this week. Maybe not as over-the-top. And it wouldn't have occurred to me to protest. And I didn't curse (I don't think. Maybe once). But the emotion, the despair...

Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes.

"The People Have Spoken--the Bastards"

Yesterday, Election Day in America, I boycotted Facebook, the assumption being that the Hillary people, already insufferable in their giddy expectation of her inevitable coronation, would be even more so the day of her coronation. And though I was never a fan of Donald Trump and agreed with all critiques of his character flaws and his shortcomings, I was never going to vote for Hillary Clinton, no matter how much the Hillary people chided and scolded (and chide and scold they did, day after day, ad nauseam). 

So all through the day and into the evening on November 8, 2016, I cut a wide swath, not only boycotting Facebook, but also Twitter and radio and live TV and chat rooms and even my phone, not even wanting to see a notification. Instead I watched an episode of "Blacklist", and then a repeat of "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives." When that was finished, I glanced at the clock. It was only 8:30. Damn. Now what. 

So I finally relented and texted a couple of my political junkie friends. 

"Just checking in," I wrote. "What's happening out there?" 

"Turn on your T.V.!" they said. 

And then, of course, the shock, the surprise, the unexpected, the bizarre. 

And before the night was over (well, technically, closer to the wee hours of November 9th), not only had Donald Trump won the presidency, beating his opponent 279-228 in the Electoral College (though losing in the popular vote by 200,000, last I heard), but the GOP also retained majorities in both houses of Congress.

This is no small matter. We (Republicans) had been bracing ourselves for months for losses from top to bottom. The gloom that had settled over many of us, the demoralization, the resignation, was beyond palpable. As election day neared, Trump at best had a 35% chance of winning the presidency, though all the so-called paths to an Electoral College victory were razor-thin. Not only that, his impending loss was supposed to hurt GOP races in the House and Senate and governorships and state legislatures, all the way down ballot. In other words, Election 2016 was supposed to be a tsunami of defeat, a once-and-for-all repudiation of and end to the Republican party. 

So yes, most of us expected the worst, were resigned to the worst, maybe even believed we deserved the worst, especially those of us who were already frustrated and disappointed about the situation. We had lined up our best and our brightest, a deep bench, indeed, including my personal favorites, Marco and Carly. But one by one they fell, knocked ruthlessly aside or, in some cases, stepping nimbly aside, until there was only one man standing, and that man was Trump, Trump the buffoon, Trump the narcissist, Trump the con, Trump the boor. We seethed with resentment because this was supposed to have been our year. So many of us were weary of Obama's executive overreach, his condescension, his divisiveness, and Hillary Clinton was such a weak and beatable opponent. Any of those 17 candidates could have beaten her. Anyone, that is, but Donald Trump. We knew that. We of all people understood that. What is he doing on that stage? Get rid of him now!

Which is why, watching last night's remarkable events unfold, one can only marvel in disbelief at an outcome that never even occurred to us. A Clinton win was a given. The best many of us hoped for was that the GOP would retain majorities in Congress in order to keep her in check. But Trump won. The GOP held on to their majorities in both houses of Congress. I don't know how it happened. This is for historians and pundits and analysts to explain. All I know is that yesterday, for good or for ill, was a political earthquake. And it's becoming clear that, while Donald Trump may not have been our first, our second, even our 17th choice, in the end it appears he was possibly the only one out of that distinguished crowd of 17 who had the chutzpah, the ego, the stomach, the nerves of steel, to take on the formidable Clinton machine and the media who openly and unapologetically supported her--and beat Hillary Clinton at her own game. 

So now, today, The Day After, I venture cautiously back into Facebook, not to contribute, but to listen. And not surprisingly, there's a lot of rage. Here's a sampling: 

"I am pissed beyond measure at the 59,479,296 of you who voted for Trump. With your votes, you supported racism, nativism, sexism, and ableism. You showed that you don’t value education or science. You demonstrated a complete lack of regard for people who aren’t as fortunate as you. Your votes threaten our liberty and undermine the social progress we’ve made in recent years. Your votes embarrass me and disgust me."

"I'm so beyond disappointed in the U.S. We have a disturbingly large number of vile citizens. I don't care about myself. I care about the millions of souls that are in great danger. The millions of lives about to be shattered into so many pieces based on the horrific views and actions of Donald Trump."  

"I find that seeing Trump and his followers win caused a deep sorrow in my heart, that evil had triumphed over good. Yet I must remember to put my future in God's hand and worry about a day at a time. And secondly it is good that there are others out there who have not been taken over by evil."

"This is so tragic and I cannot agree or believe that God's heart is not broken for his people, all people. Tonight, I am grieving for my previous friends, loved ones and strangers of all people groups who are wounded and reeling. I am grieving for myself."

What I find interesting about these comments (and I'm guessing these are the milder versions) is that it doesn't really even matter that it was Donald Trump. Substitute any Republican name and the reaction would be the same. As I recall, the left demonized Mitt Romney in 2012 (pretty sure Hitler's name came up). This time around, they detested Ted Cruz, were repulsed by Carly Fiorina, loathed Mike Pence. In other words, it's not who beat Hillary Clinton. It's that she was beaten. Hillary Clinton could have lost to any one of the candidates and the anger would be no different. Sure, Donald Trump made it pretty easy. His defects are so obvious, so pronounced, it was child's play to wield him as a club to shame and hector and browbeat conservatives (at least, this conservative) into silence and embarrassment. This is who your party has nominated? Are you saying you'll vote for this monster? 

Sometimes Facebook feels like a grade school playground, bullies running roughshod while the rest of us cower in the shadows and eat our lunches. At first glance, it seems the shaming works in that it shuts most people up. It's not worth getting ganged up on. But I can't help but wonder if the shaming might be counterproductive. Because, when asked, or, more to the point, when polled, who would admit that they'd vote for "this monster"? Tell the pollsters anything but the truth. As Jim Geraghty of National Review wrote this morning, admitting that even he had gotten the numbers oh so wrong: 

"Pollsters have had off years before, but there has never been a colossal ten-car pile-up like this in the polling industry. The entire industry needs to scrap everything they know about the electorate and start over. One of the giant questions they must address is whether we now live in an atmosphere of such far-reaching and stifling social disapproval of politically incorrect positions that a significant portion of respondents no longer feel comfortable expressing their actual beliefs to a pollster. There really was a silent majority."

So. Election day arrives. The silent majority emerges from the shadows and casts its votes. And the world goes mad.

There's been a lot of soul-searching on my "team." Maybe those on the left who are so enraged, who regard those who voted for Trump with such contempt, should do some soul searching of their own. Yes, a silent majority spoke, but what did they say? Surely Clinton's loss cannot be laid at the feet of 59 million people. An election is a job interview. Hillary Clinton applied for the job and came up short. It's happened before, and it will happen again. To accuse close to 60 million people who didn't offer her the job as being bigots or racists or misogynists is a cop-out. The way I see it, Hillary Clinton and her party have no one but themselves to blame. Love him or hate him, Donald Trump did what he needed to do. His victory was an apparent repudiation of everything Hillary Clinton represents: leftism writ large, executive overreach, political corruption, cynicism, abuse of power, condescension, arrogance. Those who voted to give Donald Trump a chance are taking a gamble. This could blow up in their faces. But to damn them? 

Let the soul searching begin, America. But let it also begin in the sacred halls of progressivism.

"The people have spoken--the bastards."

(Democratic politician and strategist Dick Tuck, 1966)

The Pros, The Cons: Clinton v. Trump

Wall Street Journal editorial board's analysis of two deeply flawed candidates. Each article is worth reading, but I took the trouble of identifying the salient points (categorized pro and con, as I see them) for each candidate. 

"The Costs of Clinton"

Pros: 

• Might be willing to work with Republicans across the aisle.
• Has shown more respect for America's role in maintaining global order than Trump has.
• Is more hawkish than Obama.

Cons: 

• Would continue President Obama's "progressive march to a French-style welfare and regulatory state" (higher taxes, entitlement spending, subsidies and price controls in ObamaCare, regulations on businesses, enforcement of "liberal cultural values on schools and churches").
• Result of this approach is more years of slow economic growth.
• Less restrained by the courts and more progressive judicial domination for years.
• Foreign policy failures include misjudging Putin ("reset"), support for the nuclear deal with Iran, withdrawal from Iraq, abandonment of Libya.
• More entitlement spending means less spending on military and defense.
• Has a "penchant for secrecy and political paranoia," evidenced most recently in her decision to use a private email server for official business and her subsequent refusal to release records.
• Scandals past and current, including pay-to-play structure via the Clinton Foundation, reflects the problem she has with "blending public office with private gains."
• If elected, she would likely be investigated by Congress for these scandals, so her administration would be hamstrung from the outset.

"The Gamble of Trump"

Pros: 

• Political disruption ("a broken Washington needs to be shaken up").
• His policy impulses are geared to liberate the U.S. economy to faster growth.
• Trump could get a faster start on governing by adopting economic reforms that the GOP-led house has already drafted.
• Trump could fill the Supreme Court seat with a conservative justice. 
• Trump is committed to rebuilding U.S. defenses.
• He is more "aggressive against the Islamic terror threat" than Obama has been.
• Checks and balances in Washington would constrain any "authoritarian" tendencies some fear in a President Trump.
• Likewise, an "awakened" media would "dog his Administration with a vengeance."

Cons: 

• Trump does not have a "coherent and firmly held word view formed by decades of reading and experience."  
• It's hard to predict how Trump would respond to "shocks and surprises" that all presidents face. 
• Trump's position on trade ("a zero-sum game" that America is losing) could cause a recession.  
• His politics are "almost entirely personal, not ideological." 
• Trump's behavior during the campaign has been characterized by "harsh rhetoric" that has alienated and offended women, minorities, and younger voters.
• There's no assurance Trump will keep his promises to change Washington. Angry or disappointed voters could end up repudiating the GOP in 2018 and return us to an "all-progressive government" in 2020. 
• The populist impulses that have emerged from Trump's candidacy can be dangerous when "rooted too much in ethnicity or class."
• Despite his assurances that he wants to build U.S. defenses, he is a "rookie" in world affairs and would be "unusually dependent on his advisers--if he listened to them."
• His "bromance" with Putin is troubling, and Trump's "instincts to retreat to a Fortress America could invite more aggression," not only from Russia, but from China and Iran, as well.

Conclusions

"The case for Mrs. Clinton over Donald Trump is that she is a familiar member of the elite and thus less of a jump into the unknown, especially on foreign policy. The case against her is everything we know about her political history.  

"The Wall Street Journal hasn't endorsed a presidential candidate since 1928, and if we didn't endorse Ronald Reagan we aren't about to revive the practice for Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump. Yet one of them will be the next president. The choice comes down to the very high if relatively predictable costs of four more years of brute progressive government under Hillary Clinton versus a gamble on the political unknown of Donald Trump."