Home » “He’s not Hillary” as a pro-Trump argument

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“He’s not Hillary” as a pro-Trump argument — 52 Comments

  1. It’s “Gorsuch”. Spelling Bully is back! Bwahahahahahah!

  2. Your final paragraph sums up my thoughts exactly and I get weary of people that in my opinion purposefully dismiss the ‘not Hillary’ response. I would add a g) his cabinet selections have been for the most part exceptional also.

  3. Neoneocon sums up my thoughts. As with any POTUS, I will judge Trump by his actions, not his words.

  4. h) Reversed a bunch of last minute regs via the CRA as well as telling his administration to look at every program to ensure that it follows the authorizing law.

    Slightly off topic – a continuing resolution is in the works that appears to give the Ds everything that they want and little of what Trump wants. So, does a president have to spend all of the money that is allocated?

    There was a hiring freeze for 90 days and there are many open positions at the executive level, so the funds have not been spent. Do the departments lose these monies on September 30? Can they use the funds for something else within that department? Is it carried over for the next year?

    Although I know the budget process for a business, I realize that the process for a governmental agency is even stranger.

    Any opinions?

  5. I didn’t intend a full argument on the merits of Trump with my comment, but it is a big point. I’m actually quite happy with Trump, but two things bother me.

    1. He hasn’t been able to get through major legislation. Things take too long. I blame Ryan and McConnell for some of that.

    2. His loose and contradictory talk always get him in trouble. One day it is we are looking at a major conflict with North Korea and the next day Kim is a smart cookie.

    I love his Cabinet and all of his action. When he gets his tax and infrastructure bills passed, then look out.

    As time passes, he will become more effective. Even more so after this Russia thing turns out to be a farce.

    The point of my comment was to contrast where we are with Trump as POTUS instead of Hillary.

  6. As others have cited, I think that his cabinet appointments are first rate. (and I think that Nikki Haley was an inspired choice for the UN). I am concerned that there seems to be a lag in filling the second and third tier appointments. He needs his own hands-on leaders in the bureaucracy. I am not sure why it is taking so long. If you listen to the likes of Schumer, and the talking heads, it is due to lack of focus; but, like everything they say I take that with great skepticism.

    I have the sense that his rhetorical style seems to result in him promising more than he can deliver. Would like to see him pare down the rhetoric and let the results speak for him.

    I generally like him better as President than as a candidate. There is much more to him than I gave him credit for, even though some of the blemishes are still rather glaring.

    I do believe that he loves the country; and that he is determined to serve the country well.

    All of the 100 days hoopla is simply a mindless media construct. This is not a sprint. The issues he faces are not simple ones; nor is the structure of government conducive to quick response.

  7. “Better than Hillary” strikes me as the minimum requirement for a conservative president, not an omnibus justification for anything he does.“ — Jonah Goldberg

    Ah but the binary choice we were faced with was NOT between a leftist and a conservative. It was between a leftist and a populist/nationalist.

    To measure him against a conservative metric is to mislabel him. Fiscally, Trump is an opportunistic capitalist. Socially, a moderate liberal. Trump is a nationalist on National Security issues.

    By any calculus and, for all his flaws, Trump the populist is far better than Hillary the ‘progressive’ (leftist).

  8. One more thing. No way that Rubio or Cruz could have beaten Hillary. We needed an outsider to get that blue collar Dem vote that only Trump could get in PA, OH, FL, NC, WI and MI.

  9. He may have given us a new generation of conservative voters by taking down Michelle’s school lunch regulations. Republicans should make use of this in subtle ways.

    I also like his cabinet. One thing that is driving me crazy is the way some commenters on other blogs are going after Ryan. Did they really think it would be easy to herd the cats from NJ, NY, and the conservative caucus? I can’t even herd my single cat.

  10. Cornhead:

    On this blog I have argued with people before who assert what you’re asserting about how Trump was the only one who could have won. I’m not going to get into it again; it would be a waste of time to keep having the same argument over and over.

    But it is a matter of faith and/or opinion on the part of those who keep saying it. I disagree, particularly regarding Rubio. I believe he would have won handily. He was a very appealing candidate and did far better than Trump in all the polls. Now, polls aren’t everything, but they are good for that sort of comparison. Rubio would have cleaned Hillary’s clock, in my opinion, winning the electoral and popular vote.

    We will never know, of course.

  11. Wonder if the “He’s not Hillary” line didn’t get legs last week after Prof. Reynolds’ line: “He’s doing an A+ job of not being Hillary Clinton”. That might have stuck.

    Thing is…

    Trump may have been the only person of the time who could hold the media up by their own duplicity for all to see. The net effect of this can’t be overstated. Given how much the media went in the tank to cover for Hillary adds an entire dimension to the “He’s not Hillary” statement, which may not be obvious on the face of it.

    Today, I can’t think of anyone else who could have accomplished this (and I didn’t really see it coming as well as others did). My intellectual self would certainly have preferred Carly or Cruz, but I also can’t help but think the press would have managed to humiliate either of them early in any theoretical term.

  12. expat:

    It is my observation that a great many people just parrot what they hear, left and right, without thinking all that much about it. Ryan became the favored talk-show (and many blogs) whipping-boy several years ago for whatever flaws the GOP has—and it certainly has them, as does he, but not to the extent a lot of people complain about, and to a large extent people are also ignoring the difficulties of his task.

  13. If you’re pro-Second Aandment, “he’s not Hillary” does carry some weight.

  14. Maybe Rubio could have won. I’m very doubtful that Cruz could have won.

    But had Rubio won the nomination and then the Presidency, on immigration it would have been business as usual. And, that is just a delayed death sentence for the America we support. Immigrants who wish to assimilate are highly welcome, parasites are not.

    Even without the wall, illegal immigration has plummeted. I’m highly doubtful that would have happened under Rubio.

    There certainly are other mortal threats to the American Republic but none more so that unrestricted illegal immigration. An incurable virulent cancer kills just as surely as does a bullet to the brain.

  15. The media are so busy hating on Trump that they don’t see all he has done. Things like opening western lands to exploration, approving off shore drilling, putting together a strong administration, appointing a SC justice, meeting personally with leaders from all over the world, taking the leash off the military, supporting the police, and reducing school lunch regulation have largely been ignored. A guy who only sleeps four hours a night gets lots of things done.

  16. Mr Frank,

    I beg to differ. I suspect that the media is well aware of all that Trump has done. It’s just that they are adamantly opposed to, “opening western lands to exploration, approving off shore drilling, putting together a strong administration, appointing a SC justice, meeting personally with leaders from all over the world, taking the leash off the military, supporting the police, and reducing school lunch regulation”.

    They only hate Trump because of what he is doing, acting as an obstruction to the agenda they embrace. If he’d stuck to crony capitalism and continued to donate to the democrats they’d have happily tolerated him as a bombastic dilettante.

  17. GB don’t forget the often side splitting ridicule he has subjected them to…..why that is Hillary’s MO ala Sol Alinskey.
    ” Use ridicule it is your greatest weapon, there is no defense against it” And if you try to refute the ridicule you look like a wimp who can take it!

  18. Liz: “Although I know the budget process for a business, I realize that the process for a governmental agency is even stranger.
    Any opinions?”

    My knowledge is of the Defense department, but I assume all government agencies are nearly the same. As a squadron we had assigned a certain amount of money to pay for consumables – av gas, flight suits, jackets, gloves, parachute cloth, etc. When the end of the quarter came up, if we hadn’t spent all that money, we were given less. I can tell tales of flying long hours boring holes in the sky and issuing flight suits/jackets/gloves/sun glasses/etc. in order to burn through the money. Does it make any sense? Only if you are in a huge, complex, non-responsive bureaucracy. Could our money be cut even if we spent our allotted funds? Yes, it could. It all depended on how successful the SECDEF, our service secretary, and head of our branch was in arguing for funds from the Congress. There is an unending struggle for money at all levels of government. That is why it is so hard to cut spending.

    Lots of excellent comments about Trump.

    What is off putting is that he does not speak as a politician speaks – carefully measured words to create just the right impression on the target audience. That alarms people who want to think that their elected representative is smarter than they are. Also, he is no great student of history, politics, or economics. What he knows he learned from watching TV and actual meetings with politicians and bankers. What he has is “street smarts.” What he learned in the rough and tumble of big time real estate and reality TV is what he brings to the table. I often think I know more about some issues than he does because he doesn’t sound highly educated and informed. In spite of that, I’m comforted by the caliber of his cabinet. I’m thrilled by the appointment of Neil Gorsuch. I’m enthusiastic about his energy policy.

    I agree that Paul Ryan has been criticized by people who have no idea how hard it is to lead a band of individualists (which is what the Repubs are) to come together in compromise. The herding impulse does not come as easy for Republicans as it seems to for Democrats. I predict that both healthcare and tax reform are going to continue to be difficult for the GOP to come together on. The Dems know this and that is why they will stay united in steadfast opposition. More hard times ahead for healthcare and tax reform. I hope I’m wrong. We’ll see.

  19. I like Donald Trump, and I’m so happy that he is President. I don’t expect perfection, and my ideal candidate does not exist. But Mr. Trump (and his policies) are a refreshing change from what has been the norm in recent years. Just his presence alone has been enough to reduce illegal immigration.

    Of course, there is some blundering around, and there never will be a smooth progression to anything in this political system. I don’t mind settling for some of what I want, when the alternative (the modern Democrat Party) means getting nothing of what I want, and instead more of what I don’t want.

    As for Senators Cruz and Rubio, they may have done better in the popular vote margin, but still failed where it would have mattered, in the electoral vote count. Who else but the glorious Mr. Trump would have prevailed in PA, the Midwest, and the Great Lakes states?

    In the meantime, let’s not forget just how much FUN the primaries and general election were in 2016. Aren’t we supposed to be able to have fun with politics? (Not having fun means it’s a sign that the government is too big and doing too much.) Who cares about this whole “First 100 Days” nonsense? We still have another 1359 wonderful days remaining in the noble and illustrious Mr. Trump’s first term!!!

    https://howlonguntiltrumpleaves.com/

  20. By far the best part of Trump’s first hundred days, and there are many good and great parts, but the best is that they were not Hillary’s first hundred days.

  21. I think a lot of people who started out being ‘Never-Trump’ Republicans and others decided at the last minute to hold their nose and vote ‘Not-Hillary’ and now some have shared with me how pleased they are with what has done so far.

    Trump being Trump is always going make waves just like he did this past weekend when he took his game on the road instead of sitting down with his enemies and being roasted in a blast furnace on national television in D.C.

    Trump has conversations going with leaders of other nations in a manner that appears to be working building relationships and given time the might be some problem solving. I can’t imagine any other contender being able to move past the press and keep using his own game plan, assuming there is one.

    While the Democrats are floundering in their own stew of special interests and causes I have been seeing the almost ‘Never Trump’s who climbed on board at the last minute switching from he’s not Hillary to maybe this guy can actually get some things done. As said above, our expectations were low and we love seeing the anguish of the Democrats as they try to squash every success of the Republicans and they take their screams to the streets.

    It will be interesting to have this discussion in three years when a track record, of success or failure has been laid down that can actually be measured as done or lost deals.

    Thank Goodness the Bush family has been done in with the final nail in the coffin whacked by W. on election day when he should have kept his mouth shut and he did not do that. I was always pulling for W. when he was in office and his desire to please the Democrats and the press frustrated me because they continued to pee on his head every day. For better or worse, Trump will pour it back on his attackers as fast as they dump it on him and I suspect he will do that for the rest of his term.

    I have some very smart women friends including a Social Security Judge, an ex-wife CPS and others who, prior to November 7 were already celebrating their woman president. In conversation when I would bring up the fact that that Hillary might not win I might as well have been saying the sun will not come up tomorrow because they had a done deal with their winner. They were delighted Hillary was running against Trump because he was such a ridiculous candidate and their Hillary was the smartest, most qualified woman who ever lived.

    Some times I have to be careful and not chuckle and gloat when I am around nice dear old friends who had trouble breathing for the rest of the month of November when enough ‘Never-Hillary’ votes were cast.

  22. If the standard of the first 100 days is not the ridiculously low “He’s not Hillary” but rather “did he do what he said he’d do?”, I think Trump has had a pretty bad go thus far, whether you take him literally or seriously or both. How many of his promises (except for the commendable nomination of Gorsuch) has he kept?

    I don’t know why more people aren’t alarmed when he says things like “Being President is harder than I thought it would be” or “No one knew how complex health care could be”.

    And to those who think HRC trafficked in Saul Alinksy tactics (she certainly did) – Trump is a master at the insult game that is the key to Alinksy-ism. That’s his go-to tactic anytime anyone opposes him.

    I think character is destiny. Maybe I’m wrong. But Trump has cr@p character and I don’t expect him to be successful as a President. I’ve been plenty wrong before and perhaps for all of our sakes I’m wrong now.

    But the bar sure has been set awfully low.

  23. jj: Your description for DoD spending sounds like what I expected but it is disheartening. It took me several years to get department directors at a hospital to budget & report their expenses correctly. But, I had to introduce different concepts as well as backing them up when needed.

    With respect to his method of speaking, I think he is speaking to his target audience when he speaks/tweets – and that is the average worker. Remember that he has been having many listening sessions with a wide variety of people and they all seem to come out of those meetings very impressed with Trump. So, his meeting personality probably adapts to the level of required sophistication.

    One of Trump’s promises was to reduce the size of government and I wonder if some of the departments are looking first internally for promotions. But the major cuts will have to be for programs that will not be subject to whatever union rules are in place.

    I did read that the VA actually fired a hospital administrator – http://www.ktbs.com/story/35297710/director-of-shreveports-va-medical-center-ousted

  24. I haven’t seen everything Jonah’s written, but from what I have he’s turned into a real jerk stuck on the word, but not the spirit of, “conservative.” There is a monster-sized dying economy that Trump has to turn around, reinvigorate and rebuild. Any conservative worth his salt would understand that. And any conservative worth his salt would understand that if that isn’t fixed, nothing else matters. Nothing. Our economy is running on empty fumes in many parts of this country and we should be thanking God that someone with Trump’s talent and recognition of just how bad the problem is at the helm, because if anyone can turn it around, it’s him.

    Jonah”s also a sore loser for refusing to recognize all the good that Trump has been able to do despite a Congress that, in most instances, might as well be majority Dem (excepting Gorsuch). Just rolling back all the Obama last-minute regs, opening gas and coal mining, Keystone, the VA, our military etc., etc., etc., that counts for a lot in my book.

    And I’m especially proud of having a president who honors our workers, our LEOs, our military, our small business people, etc. at our White House, instead of POS like Hollywood stars and Beyonce and her noxious husband and worse.

  25. Liz: “Remember that he has been having many listening sessions with a wide variety of people and they all seem to come out of those meetings very impressed with Trump. So, his meeting personality probably adapts to the level of required sophistication.”

    That seems to be the pattern. Of one thing we can be sure, he is doing the work. I know few 71 year old men who can put in the hours he does.

    Irene: “There is a monster-sized dying economy that Trump has to turn around, reinvigorate and rebuild. Any conservative worth his salt would understand that.”

    Just so. And yet, Wall Street and the media are hardly mentioning that the fourth quarter was a real stinker. We could actually fall into a recession if his tax reform doesn’t happen fast enough. Would that energize the GOP to come together and get things passed in Congress? We can only hope.

  26. J.J.:

    One thing the long, arduous, tiring campaign season does is tend to self-select for people willing to put in those hours.

  27. Hi Neo…on the Rubio or Cruz instead of Trump vs HRC

    I’ll quote you in part: “…it is a matter of faith and/or opinion on the part of those who keep saying it. I disagree, particularly regarding Rubio.”

    Of course your disagreement is equal parts faith/opinion too, and you are honest enough to ultimately admit that. But Rubio could not carry the R voters; Trump did. Everything outside of that is hocus pocus. You don’t win your heat, you don’t race in the finals.

    And polls schmolls…That 6 months later you still hear about Trump’s “surprising” win is all we need to know about polls. Who in the usual bubble predicted a Trump win? And anyone who did was hooted out of the room.

    I’ll agree with those who say, If it had not been Trump, it would have been HRC…and it wouldn’t have been close.

  28. Irene:

    Actually if you read that essay of Goldberg’s linked in this post, you’ll see he gives Trump quite a bit of (albeit grudging) credit. Here are some quotes:

    That said, I’ve been mildly surprised by a few things about Trump’s performance so far – and most of them were pleasant surprises. Most of his appointments have been good and a few have been great. I think there’s a lot of hype to his executive orders, but there aren’t many I don’t support. In short, he’s doing better than I thought he would. But this is a remarkably low bar. It’s not quite like saying that Greta is the “sexiest East German weightlifter alive” or “this is the most exciting show on C-SPAN” but it’s not that far off. Still, I hope there are many more pleasant surprises in the days to come. We only have one president at a time, and so there’s really no choice but to hope he continues to learn on the job and that his team of Sherpas can help him with the climb.

    Goldberg’s trying to be cute there with the C-SPAN joke, but it’s also clear that Trump has been quite a bit better than he expected him to be, and he’s willing to admit it. He even hopes he continues to do well.

  29. @Neo

    Jonah lost me when National Review recommended sitting out the election, or alternatively not caving to Trumpism (wouldn’t that mean effectively voting for Clinton?) because of their “conservative” values.

    I’m sick to death of all these “intellectuals” who, having watched this country trashed since at least Clinton (NAFTA and repeal of Glass-Steagall), are too refined to get their hands dirtied.

    Sacrificing the good for a forever illusive perfection. You’d think they would’ve grown out of that by now.

    Which isn’t to say you can’t defend conservative principles vociferously. But when the choice comes down to two candidates, and one of them is Hillary Rodham Clinton, it’s time to face reality, and join the team so she is not elected for the good of our country.

    I actually laughed when you wrote, “[Jonah] even hopes [Trump] continues to do well.” Were you being tongue-in-cheek? Talk about setting a low bar!

    …..
    My husband keeps reminding me that at some point all politicians disappoint. True enough. And I’m sure we’ll have some doozies with Trump. But I’m just so thankful for Tillerson, Ross, Kelly, Mnuchin and Mattis that almost everything else is icing on the cake.

  30. Many folks convinced themselves that trump was acceptable, LONG before it became a so-called “binary choice”.

    Because trump was so mutable, the only argument they had that held any verifiable truth was “He’s not hillary”.

    It was hardly clear then, and still not much clearer now that he actually will be, ultimately, better. To make a sound judgement on that, we’d have to know his governing philosophy – which, with his latest twist and turns, is still up in the air.
    .

    Seriously!

    In any other aspect of life, if a man comes to you and says only he can solve your problem, that he is the best, the smartest, the greatest, etc. and he gives you a 100 day commitment to show you he means business, what kind of assessment would you make of him if he failed to deliver most of it?

    Would it be comforting to you if he said, “well gee, it is a lot harder than I thought!” and points to others for blame? And, tries to divert your attention with lies, or half truths, at best?

    Nowhere else in real life would you be okay with that whole picture. You’d have readily kicked him out on his butt.

    Yet, some of the same folks who pointed to trump’s 100 day plan as proof of anything wrt trump, are the same ones who now laud how he has “grown” in the job with his changes of position and readily exonerate him on any failures.
    .

    Of course, the ONLY response that can “comfort” anyone is “he’s not hillary”!

    It is because nobody really knows if trump will be better for us in the long run. They know trump is a wilda** gamble. They know he fell far short of what he “promised”. They know he cannot be trusted to hold any one position for very long. They earnestly hope and pray he will be better, and not some disaster.

    “He’s not hillary” is an excuse, an excuse not to hold him accountable. Maybe it is a fear that we give power to the dems if we point out the truth, IDK.

    At this point, the more we rely on it, the more it is just a blue vs red team argument, as the basis for it will long become irrelevant to the situation at hand, and both sides know it.
    .

    Yes, I hope and pray trump is a success.

    But it is in conservative terms that I measure that success by, a standard, until 2016, I used to believe most on the “right” held also.

    On that basis it is a mixed bag, but there have been some good things. On that basis, some of his reversals are also good thing (but they are reversals, nonetheless, which should inform us about who we are dealing with).

    At this point, most disappointing is that he hasn’t expanded support beyond his base. He has not cultivated trust.

    However, why would he, if we keep giving him blank check support where he can say or do anything, since “not being hillary” is good enough for us?
    .

    Our choices are no longer “binary” now. clinton is gone, trump is in. That is over. Now it is up to us to hold our elected reps’ feet to the fire, and that includes trump.

  31. In the prior thread Bill said this:

    I don’t know if I’m deranged, but I still wake up some mornings and have to remind myself that, yes, in reality, the lying, adulterous, non-conservative, conspiracy theorist, schoolyard insult artist, walking conflict of interest, ignorant, thin-skinned and self-regarding narcissist, making himself even richer than he was before off of his new position, is actually President.

    You aren’t deranged, Bill. That would be Trump. I like to think of him as Don Quixote and Reince Priebus or Bannon as his Sancho Panza. If we’re witnessing a novel unfold it doesn’t have to make sense.

  32. BigMaq – we’ll said.

    The Other Chuck – it’s nice to know I might not be crazy 🙂

  33. I am still ecstatic with the reality of President Trump. Yet, others of his supporters are upset with the slow pace of change.

    Think about a 100 car railroad train. And a 3 mast sailing ship. Or a very large truck. And a giant cruise ship. Or – in this day and age – a spacecraft.

    None of those can immediately be put into ‘reverse’. Momentum or inertia in the wrong direction must slowly and steadily be bled off. Eventually the leviathan will be halted.

    And THEN the direction can be changed.

    The quote from Churchill seems relevant:

    “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

  34. Good Grief!

    Enough of the handwringing. All you’ll get is chapped hands.

    In other news, Trump’s recent EO – An order meant to affirm local control of school policies, and examine certain Department of Education regulations and guidance to determine their compliance with federal law.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/28/list-trumps-executive-orders.html

    Which ones are inconsistent with conservative principles. Oh, that’s right. Real conservatives want a smaller federal government. If you bother to read the list, you might recognize a pattern of reducing federal control and moving it back to the states and individuals.

  35. “Ryan became the favored talk-show (and many blogs) whipping-boy several years ago for whatever flaws the GOP has–and it certainly has them, as does he, but not to the extent a lot of people complain about, and to a large extent people are also ignoring the difficulties of his task.”– Neo

    My opinion of Republican leadership will improve when the House returns to regular order in appropriations.

  36. Not-Hillary might be a lousy yardstick, but it was the one we had.
    That said, what if Trump does well? It would be as if global cooling started next week. Lots and lots of personal and VERY public spleen might start refluxing.
    I note further up that presidential adultery, not that we have any so far this administration, is now a bad thing.
    Trump. Is there anything he can’t do?
    This October, it will be one hundred years we’ve been trying to convince the dems that Russia is a bad guy. Now, now, they’re believing it. Trump. Is there anything he can’t do?

  37. When you see how Trump relates to real people, miners, construction workers, farmers, factory hands, and they to him, you have to wonder how the Democrats are ever going to be in the majority again. Their only hope seems to be a mass amnesty of illegals and immediate citizenship and I just don’t see that happening.

  38. Their only hope seems to be a mass amnesty …

    The popular vote went to Clinton by almost 3 million. The voting patterns of millennials strongly suggest a demographic shift is one or two elections away from giving the Democrats an overwhelming majority. And even without a mass amnesty more and more children born here of illegal and legal immigrants will come of voting age.

    Perhaps my perspective is skewed by having watched first hand what has happened in California. It isn’t only the demographics. The march through the institutions has been relentless here. The state colleges and universities have become indoctrination centers filled with little soldiers sent them from the public school system, little more than a liberal kindergarten run by tenured incompetents.

    Even if Trump achieves the goals he set out while campaigning, especially the revival of industry and accompanying job growth, the damage done to the minds of upcoming generations is a fiat accompli, and his successes if any won’t reverse that.

  39. Cornhead Says:
    May 1st, 2017 at 3:28 pm
    I didn’t intend a full argument on the merits of Trump with my comment, but it is a big point. I’m actually quite happy with Trump, but two things bother me.

    1. He hasn’t been able to get through major legislation. Things take too long.
    ** *
    One answer to that observation
    http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/05/02/reviving-original-washington-awesome-possibility-deplorables-revolution/

    I wrote a couple of days ago about the structural gap that opened up in Washington, D.C. with the inauguration of Donald Trump.

    Trump didn’t come into town plugged in to a political network: a fully integrated industry for ramming through major policy legislation in Congress. And although many Republicans on Capitol Hill have been plugged in to such a network (i.e., they could reactivate their live circuitry if it would make a difference), the network can’t operate to do hard things — like repeal Obamacare — if the president himself isn’t sitting at its apex.

    For most legislation, the president just has to be accessible to the network. That’s typically through his aides, and probably some of his cabinet and agency heads. The president doesn’t have to be a creature of the network, as Obama basically was.

    But for the really big things — again, like repealing Obamacare — it does take active participation by the president and his staff. He has to be able to wield the network, not just take questions from it at crucial waypoints. …
    Obama didn’t have to do the work of putting pressure on Capitol Hill himself. What Jim Messina did was make sure that the industrial lobbying organizations had a free hand to do the work for him.

    THAT’S what is not happening in Trump’s Washington.

    It’s not about failures because Trump is bad at it. It’s about this not happening at all.

    To put it together clearly: that’s the structural reason why a Republican majority in Congress has found itself unable to simply repeal Obamacare. Republicans are flailing to do something big, without the structure for it. They’re trying to have a cattle drive without the professional cowboys and the foreman.

    Think about that. Even if Trump were plugged in to the usual-suspect network, the network itself doesn’t “know” how to put pressure on legislators to roll back big government. It only knows how to be an organizational steamroller for big government.

    Democrats and the media see all this as a big “Gotcha!” for Republicans. The tone of the mockery about Republicans being unable to repeal Obamacare tells you everything you need to know. It looks decisive, to their eyes, that the GOP has failed so spectacularly at trying to operate without the network.

    Add the Obamacare failure to the border-wall failure in the latest continuing resolution, and it sure looks as if those stupid Republicans have entirely let down their most dedicated voters — because the Deplorables were stupid enough to elect Trump. Now it’s amateur hour, and Republicans are stuck without a network for getting Big Legislation done.

    Indeed, the remnants of the network are still operating in the background, convincing some Republicans that it will hurt them in 2018 if they participate now in repealing Obamacare, or building the border wall. It’s that network that’s putting pressure on the waffling Republicans, and siphoning off their votes one by one.

    The network is winning, right?

    No. That’s what your eyes need to learn to see. The media, and the leading Democrats, know only how to see it in those terms themselves. But you don’t have to.

    What your eyes should see is the promise of a Washington functioning without the network – or at least, with the people’s elected representatives back in the driver’s seat.

    What we have here, with a broken, non-functional mechanism for Big Legislation, is a kind of opportunity we haven’t had for at least 100 years, and maybe even 200. This is bigger than individual pieces of legislation, and current policy issues. It is, as the president says, yuuge.

    This is an incredible opportunity to do exactly what needs doing: learn again how to get legislating done without the legislation-industry network.

  40. “The voting patterns of millennials strongly suggest a demographic shift is one or two elections away from giving the Democrats an overwhelming majority

    …the damage done to the minds of upcoming generations is a fiat accompli, and (trump’s) successes if any won’t reverse that.” – The Other Chuck

    Two things:

    1) If we continue to think that groups of people are somehow inherently unpersuadable, and treat them that way, it (this inevitable “demographic shift”) becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

    2) And, yet, looking at this country’s legislatures, GOP are near a peak in holding positions of power. Domestic migration over the last many years have seen an out migration from dem dominated states to GOP dominated ones. Why? Could it be that GOP governments are more successful at creating environments that give people what they want?

    BTW, most of that migration is young families, a significant slice of the demographic you worry who are “irreversible”.
    .

    Like Neo, people can change their minds, despite their upbringing / social environment.

    We don’t need EVERYONE to change their minds, we just need to swing a few percentage points more to our side to consistently win elections.

    What has been a problem is the GOP / conservatives have not been selling their ideas well, and they have done a poor job of reaching beyond their base.

    Perhaps they’ve been too reliant on the “white majority”? Hence, the fear of “shifting demographics”?
    .

    “The popular vote went to Clinton by almost 3 million.”

    Right. In an election that had one of the lowest turnout for either party’s candidate, as a percentage of eligible voters.

    The margin was extremely thin in those swing states, and the swing voters there are not bought into conservative ideas (but trump is not a conservative and wasn’t selling those per se, he was more selling himself and rode a wave of discontent with resonant themes).

    They were p*ssed at the dems they used to vote regularly for. clinton was a uniquely bad candidate, and strategically ignored that region and constituency for much of the election cycle (e.g. “Deplorables”).

    Like obama, trump is probably going to be an anomaly in swinging voters, something that will be hard to replicate and win with by a successor (notwithstanding a critical strategic error by the dems – e.g. continue to be led by their more radical elements).

    That is very difficult to translate into a sustainable position. If each party were to give up on their core ideas, and turned populist, then it becomes all about personality, as that is the only differentiator.

    We also see how the non-conservative aberration that is trump within the GOP is affecting the ability to put the full force of the GOP majority in Congress behind him. It puts them in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position – not only in their personal political situation, but in the overall branding of the GOP.

  41. “Trump didn’t come into town plugged in to a political network: a fully integrated industry for ramming through major policy legislation in Congress. And although many Republicans on Capitol Hill have been plugged in to such a network (i.e., they could reactivate their live circuitry if it would make a difference), the network can’t operate to do hard things — like repeal Obamacare — if the president himself isn’t sitting at its apex.

    . . .

    THAT’S what is not happening in Trump’s Washington.

    It’s not about failures because Trump is bad at it. It’s about this not happening at all.”

    This is a fairly tortured excuse for Trump’s inability to get his agenda through a GOP-dominated Congress.

    Look, he campaigned on being the Master Negotiator.

    He Knew how Washington Worked.

    He was confident it would be easy.

    Of course it’s not easy. I am not suggesting that we throw Trump under the bus at this point. But making excuses for him isn’t really moving thing along.

    He has the Congress. He has (I suppose, if you don’t blink to fast) an Agenda. He just, thus far, hasn’t been very good at getting said Agenda through Congress, even though he’s supposed to be a Master Negotiator.

    All the “nose-holders” said they would “hold his feet to the fire”, and they were glad the press would finally “hold his feet to the fire”.

    Very little of the things promised, by the nose-holders or Trump himself, are happening.

  42. Big Maq: “We also see how the non-conservative aberration that is trump within the GOP is affecting the ability to put the full force of the GOP majority in Congress behind him. It puts them in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position — not only in their personal political situation, but in the overall branding of the GOP.”

    Good analysis.

  43. Will America be better off having Trump as president instead of Hillary Clinton?

    YES.

     

    P.S. During the campaign I often wore a T-shirt with an image of Trump and the slogan, “He’s Not Hillary.” My only mistake was that the slogan should have been, “Vote Trump. He’s Not Hillary” to eliminate any ambiguity. Of course, here in self-immolating California, where Hillary beat Trump by over 4.2 million votes (or way more than the entirety of Hillary’s popular vote edge), it didn’t matter.

  44. “Ira Says:
    May 3rd, 2017 at 1:15 pm

    Will America be better off having Trump as president instead of Hillary Clinton?

    YES.”

    Yeah … though there are no guarantees with regard to actual performance, where would the country be now with regard to Supreme Court appointments – were Hillary elected as some here preferred?

  45. Big Mag:

    Neo, and a few others posting here, are the rare exceptions of people who manage to keep open and inquisitive minds through adulthood. The famous Jesuit saying, Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man, is very true. Young people through their 20’s are persuadable. After that, not so much. I don’t have to delineate the cultural and educational brainwashing conservatives are up against because you know it. By far the worst is that young people aren’t being encouraged to think for themselves. Reason and logic – what? “That’s old school.”

  46. @Chuck – I very much get it that culturally, conservatism seems to be the minority (though one has to wonder how far back that is, given the choice of media today, and a seeming resurgence in some entertainment displaying conservative themed – e.g. “Blue Blood”), and that college campuses seem overrun by repressive leftism.

    But, we don’t we don’t need to “win” everybody over – electorally, we are really not at all that far behind.

    And, we don’t “win” them over by sitting by and convincing ourselves they are unpersuadable, so giving up hope, and don’t bother trying.

  47. “Yeah … though there are no guarantees with regard to actual performance, where would the country be now with regard to Supreme Court appointments — were Hillary elected as some here preferred?” – DNW

    Right. That was a HUGE win.

    Remains to be seen what the “price” is, performance not being guaranteed and all.

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