"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."

It's Not Her Fault!

I'm waiting--in vain, no doubt--for the intellectually honest people of the left (or is that an oxymoron?) to speak frankly and objectively about their candidate. Those of us on the right have been quite frank about "our" candidate. I would expect no less from the left.

Instead, what I'm hearing is par for the course: it's a witch hunt, it's a Republican conspiracy, it's the Russians, and now, the latest, straight out of, you guessed it, academia: "Email-gate is a bitch hunt, but the target is not Hillary Clinton. It’s us."

Ah, yes! The gender card! Before that, the race card! It's never about their guy's malpractice, their gal's malfeasance. The left has become a cliche, and the few good people I know on the left should say so. But...dollars to donuts, they won't.

Prove me wrong, gentlemen and ladies of the left! Let's see whether you're even capable of self-scrutiny.

"Hillary Clinton's Emailgate is an Attack on Women," by Robin Lakoff

  

"The only reason the whole email flap has legs is because the candidate is female. Can you imagine this happening to a man? Clinton is guilty of SWF (Speaking While Female), and emailgate is just a reminder to us all that she has no business doing what she’s doing and must be punished, for the sake of all decent women everywhere. There is so much of that going around" (Robin Lakoff, Professor of Linguistics, U.C. Berkeley).

A Civil Conversation About Incivility? It's Possible!

The following is an actual Facebook conversation that took place over the course of a few hours on a leisurely Saturday afternoon in August between me and someone I know indirectly (the husband of one of my Facebook friends) but had never met.

The subject had to do with the life-sized nude statues of Donald Trump, created by an anarchist art collective called INDECLINE, that started popping up in several U.S. cities during the month of August 2016. 

One of my friends shared a funny article about the statues. A friend of hers responded by saying the statues were “stupid and un-funny” and wondered whether people would be laughing if a similar statue were displayed of Hillary Clinton. 

I happened to agree with the self-described “party pooper” and ventured into the conversation: “No possible way someone does this to any other candidate, but particularly Hillary Clinton,” I wrote. Someone else concurred, asking if this was free speech "going too far."

That's when Aaron entered the fray. Here's the ensuing conversation. 

Aaron: I'm not understanding something about the reactions here. How is this statue free speech going too far? Saying that it isn't right because "how would you feel if it was Hillary?" shows implicit bias in the judgment of the work. The fights against sexism, racism, ableism are about equity, not equality. When Hillary or any other candidate makes the kind of social gaffes that have come to characterize Trump's campaign, then they are fair play for this kind of ridicule too. Is the statue un-funny, crass, and poor taste? Sure, but that would seem to be the point, reflecting your reactions back on the subject. If Trump can get away with disgusting things like calling out a judge as unfit because of his heritage, or using loaded gender stereotypes to attack female journalists all under the protections of free speech then this certainly should be protected too. Don't make the mistake of conflating your sensibilities with what is protected as speech under our constitution; something I personally find far more unfunny than this statue or the parks department's cheeky response. 

 Me: Fair enough. My only thought here has to do with how people would respond to an over-sized, butt-naked, flabby-bellied, dimply-bottomed, saggy-breasted Hillary Clinton statue with goggly-oggly spectators taking photos and posting them far and wide on social media. Not only would the feminists be outraged, there would be "hell to pay" for whoever the perpetrator was. Politics played dirty (tit for tat?) is fine until a woman is the target (unless, of course, the woman is a Republican, I guess). That's my beef. 

 Aaron: I would agree that someone erecting a statue as you've described would cause outrage. But "tit-for-tat" I think misses my point about the difference between equity and equality; fairness versus sameness. I would have a hard time finding a fair reason Hillary should be depicted as you've describe, but regardless whether I agree or not, I can see a valid argument for the statement the Trump statue makes based on the behavior of the candidate. I think it is completely valid to debate if it would be fair treatment to put up a similar statue of Hillary on the merits of the piece and the statement it makes. What I do not think is right, is doing so just because they did it to Trump. 

 Me: If I'm understanding you correctly (making a distinction between fairness versus sameness), my response would have something to do with examining the thing that makes one type of vulgarity (Trump's) different from another's (Clinton's). Those who find Trump distasteful (Republicans included) have no argument with your point that he deserves this humiliation. Yet what is distasteful about Trump on one level, many find distasteful about Clinton at a higher level. Crude, crass, boorish behavior is bad and should be called out, maybe mocked and satirized. But abuse of power, dishonesty, corruption, not to mention what many of us believe to be abhorrent views about abortion, is, at least in my view, equally distasteful, perhaps even more so. It's easy to deride Donald Trump and say he deserves it. But Hillary Clinton also deserves derision. The distinctions may not be "equal," but in my view, it's "sameness" by analogy, if not equality. Not sure if that makes sense. Hope I haven't offended.   

In either case, I fail to see how full-bodied disproportionately exaggerated over-sized anatomically incorrect nude statues of the objects of our derision helps the debate. All it's done is plunged us several meters deeper into the gutter. And fair or not, my guess is, now that the door has been shoved wide open, we can expect more of the same. Because "tit for tat" is unfortunately how the game is played.

Aaron: I agree with you here. I don't think it helps advance debate either and would rather the collective discussion focus on issues and finding common ground. I think the door has been shoved open but I think I would disagree with you about who did the shoving in this case...Perhaps I am naive, but I believe we can play the game how we choose and tit-for-tat isn't the only way to engage in political circus. What ever happened to "turn the other cheek"? 

 Me: Disappeared with all the other Biblical ideals. 

 Aaron: That may be... but that is getting into a whole other topic. I want to say thank you. I've found this discussion helpful in clarifying some of my own thoughts and I feel like I have more insight to other opposing perspectives. Even though we don't agree on these issues, being able to have a lively back and forth that doesn't devolve into insults and name calling is refreshing. 

So true, Aaron, and well said. I hope we (collectively) can do better, learning how to listen to and maybe even respect people who have different outlooks on life. 

Whose Sorrow is More Important?

A word about the Donald Trump/Khizr Khan kerfuffle.

While in no way excusing Trump's deplorable response to Mr. Khan's speech at the Democratic Convention, and in particular, what he said about Mrs. Khan, I find it extraordinarily disturbing (albeit not surprising) how the left-leaning mainstream media are responding to this situation. Here's how Gary Bauer, former Under Secretary of Education and Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Ronald Reagan, put it in his daily End of Day report, which I subscribe to:

The same TV networks that have ignored the parents of American heroes who died in Benghazi in part because Hillary Clinton ignored their pleas for better security were quick to give the Kahns a big platform. Mr. Khan was a guest on CNN's State of the Union. Mrs. Khan has an op-ed in this morning's Washington Post.  

In contrast, Pat Smith, mother of Sean Smith, who was murdered in Benghazi, was treated like dirt because she attacked Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump. MSNBC called her speech offensive and called Khan's memorable. Chris Matthews said, "I don't care what that woman [Pat Smith] up there, the mother, has felt. Her emotions are her own." The Washington Post actually "fact-checked" Mrs. Smith's heartfelt plea for justice for her son.

Double-standard much?

Credit Where Credit is Not Due

Ugh. I'm so tired of people attributing to Barack Obama characteristics or contributions which are not true. Take, for example, the Nobel Peace Prize which was awarded to President Obama in 2009. The man was elected in November 2008. What had he done in less than a year other than give a few good speeches? Now, here we are, six years into his administration, en route to paving the way for Iran to have a nuclear bomb in less than a decade that is likely to set in motion an arms race in that region (see "A Perverse Consequence" in The Weekly Standard here, for example). Meanwhile, the monsters of Islamic State are busy carving out a swath of destruction in their pursuit of an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. Their most recent conquest: Ramadi in Iraq, easy enough for them since Barack Obama, in his eagerness to withdraw troops from that region, left a huge vacuum. The barbarity, the atrocities, the rapes, the slaughter...this is Obama's legacy, "peace" prize notwithstanding. 

Speaking of speeches, that's another good example of attributing accomplishments to Obama that don't exist. He's supposed to be such an amazing orator. I have heard one amazing oration--the one he gave at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. I actually remember watching him speak that night and saying to no one in particular because no one was nearby, he's going to be president someday. Yes, that was an incredibly powerful speech. However, nothing since then compares. Indeed, I can barely stand listening to him. Besides his unbearable propensity to pontificate, his speeches are punctuated by as many "uh's" as there are "I''s" and "me's."  

This photo essay in yesterday's Los Angeles Times is another good example. In almost a throw-away line, the author includes Obama with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela as a "sunny example" of civil rights leader. King, certainly! Mandela, of course! Their contributions to civil rights are easily recognized and extensively documented. Not so Mr. Obama's. In fact, as the first African American president, he has actually made race relations in America worse, not better. Personally, I think we're now a more racist country, not because "whites" hate the idea of a "black" president which his detractors love to say with little evidence to back it up, but because this black president has cynically promulgated the idea of "us" against "them," not only in a racial sense but in a socio-economic, classist sense.

Promoter of international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples? Mesmerizing orator and rhetorician? Notable civil rights luminary? Barack Obama is none of the above, and then some. Yet left-leaning Democrats, so loyal to ideology, seem practically incapable of recognizing the fraudulence of these putative attributes. 

Next up, Hillary Clinton, another politician of the worst stripe, queued up and ready to exploit the loyalty of those who will want to see her elected for no other reason than that she's a Democrat and she's a woman, regardless of the fact that she is unscrupulous, dishonest, manipulative, shady and probably corrupt. 

Identity politics (first race, now gender) and not qualification, coupled with social media and an electorate of diminishing intellect, could very will be the undoing of this beautiful experiment we call America.

Stop Rewriting History, Democrats

Iraq is back in the news, and not surprisingly, so is George W. Bush. Anything happening in the Middle East today is Bush's fault. 

Frankly, I'm weary of the way the Dems try to re-write history. 

In case they've forgotten that many of their key players were worried about Saddam Hussein back in the late 90's and supported George Bush's attempts to topple him in the early 2000's, here's a small refresher.




Oh, and while we're on the subject, let's not forget that as recently as 2010, the Obama administration was quite pleased with the way things were going in Iraq. Mr. Biden again: 





Peter Wehner, writing in Commentary Magazine, says the following: 

A fair-minded reading of the facts, I think, shows that when Mr. Obama was sworn in, the Iraq war had more or less been won. Things were fragile to be sure. But the errors that were made during the occupation of Iraq following the fall of Saddam, which were extremely costly, were corrected in 2007. That was when President Bush made what is in my estimation his most impressive decision. In the face of enormous political opposition, with the nation weary of the war, Mr. Bush implemented a new counterinsurgency strategy, dubbed the “surge” and led by the estimable General David Petraeus. It resulted in startling gains.  

By the time the surge ended in 2008, violence in Iraq had dropped to the lowest level since the first year of the war. Sectarian killings had dropped by 95 percent. By 2009, U.S. combat deaths were extremely rare. (In December of that year there were no American combat deaths in Iraq.) Iraq was on the mend. Even Barack Obama, who opposed the surge every step of the way, conceded in September 2008 that it had succeeded in reducing violence “beyond our wildest dreams.”

"What Kind of Iraq Did Obama Inherit?" (Peter Wehner, Commentary Magazine, June 19, 2014). 

Enough, Democrats. Enough of the lying, enough of the blaming, enough of the dissembling, enough of the petty politics, enough of the demonizing. Your party and your leader are taking America down a terrible path. If George W. Bush made mistakes in his attempts to deal with unspeakable evil, at least he was man enough to face them and courageous enough to correct them. 

Now it's your turn. Man up, Mr. Obama. If necessary, ask the good people of the other party to help you and advise you. The time to stop playing politics is now because the evil menacing us today eclipses the evil Mr. Bush faced back then. It's time to set aside your ego and your narcissism and your arrogance. The future of our country, and perhaps even the world, are at stake.