(no subject)
Nov. 9th, 2016 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI think the thing I want to say this morning is that Donald Trump is not scary because he is planning to round up all Muslims tomorrow or anything. He is scary because he is a compulsive liar and we wake up this morning without any clear idea at all of what a Trump Presidency will look like.
He faces a Congress that supports a broad conservative agenda, but that does not like Donald Trump very much. Paul Ryan has called Trump a racist several times, Mitch McConnell barely offered him any support, and a number of Republican Senators and Congressmen have repudiated him. It is unclear what the constraints they will impose on him will look like. It's unclear that they will be able to recover enough unity of purpose to constrain him in any significant way. But on the other hand, they have in Mike Pence a strong and cooperative conservative waiting in the wings. It's hard to believe, but one suspects that the threat of impeachment is the major power that the Republican Party holds over Trump at the moment.
On the other hand, I think even with the addition of another conservative justice, the Roberts court is capable of and likely to constrain some of the most terrifying of Trump's campaign promises. The worst of Trump's threats against immigrants are unconstitutional and there is no debate between conservative and liberal jurists on this question. Trump may have the ability to temporarily violate our decency, but the institutions of American democracy are strong enough to ultimately uphold the constitution over the whims of a would-be authoritarian leader. I believe that very strongly.
Obamacare is likely dead- the question is whether Trump attempts to destroy it in some unthoughtful way that crashes the American economy and ruins lives, or if he can actually muster the attention span to partner with Paul Ryan and unwind it in a reasonable, sane way. I cannot predict that, but I can summon a little, tempered optimism. Obamacare was deeply flawed and broken, and there is the potential for something better to replace it.
Are we going to get a wall? Of course not, there's no way in hell Paul Ryan is going to approve an appropriation that large for something that stupid. And there's no way in America as America is constructed for Trump to build the wall without Congressional approval. But as I've been saying for months, that's not exactly the point. The point is that Trump is going to threaten to do various terrible things, and he may try to carry out some of them, in order to so scare the Mexican government that they will do do more work to keep illegal immigrants out of the US. It will probably not work, but who knows, I've never been able to make sense of anything Trump does. And even if it doesn't work, the bluster will play well to the people who elected Trump, the ones who feel so powerless in the face of the changing world that they've been screaming out for someone to do something drastic to fix America's problems. It doesn't matter if we get a wall, the mere fact that he'll try for something so grand and stupid is why they voted for him.
Drastic is rarely good. That is the cornerstone principle of my conservatism. But drastic is where we live now. Welcome to Donald Trump's America.
He faces a Congress that supports a broad conservative agenda, but that does not like Donald Trump very much. Paul Ryan has called Trump a racist several times, Mitch McConnell barely offered him any support, and a number of Republican Senators and Congressmen have repudiated him. It is unclear what the constraints they will impose on him will look like. It's unclear that they will be able to recover enough unity of purpose to constrain him in any significant way. But on the other hand, they have in Mike Pence a strong and cooperative conservative waiting in the wings. It's hard to believe, but one suspects that the threat of impeachment is the major power that the Republican Party holds over Trump at the moment.
On the other hand, I think even with the addition of another conservative justice, the Roberts court is capable of and likely to constrain some of the most terrifying of Trump's campaign promises. The worst of Trump's threats against immigrants are unconstitutional and there is no debate between conservative and liberal jurists on this question. Trump may have the ability to temporarily violate our decency, but the institutions of American democracy are strong enough to ultimately uphold the constitution over the whims of a would-be authoritarian leader. I believe that very strongly.
Obamacare is likely dead- the question is whether Trump attempts to destroy it in some unthoughtful way that crashes the American economy and ruins lives, or if he can actually muster the attention span to partner with Paul Ryan and unwind it in a reasonable, sane way. I cannot predict that, but I can summon a little, tempered optimism. Obamacare was deeply flawed and broken, and there is the potential for something better to replace it.
Are we going to get a wall? Of course not, there's no way in hell Paul Ryan is going to approve an appropriation that large for something that stupid. And there's no way in America as America is constructed for Trump to build the wall without Congressional approval. But as I've been saying for months, that's not exactly the point. The point is that Trump is going to threaten to do various terrible things, and he may try to carry out some of them, in order to so scare the Mexican government that they will do do more work to keep illegal immigrants out of the US. It will probably not work, but who knows, I've never been able to make sense of anything Trump does. And even if it doesn't work, the bluster will play well to the people who elected Trump, the ones who feel so powerless in the face of the changing world that they've been screaming out for someone to do something drastic to fix America's problems. It doesn't matter if we get a wall, the mere fact that he'll try for something so grand and stupid is why they voted for him.
Drastic is rarely good. That is the cornerstone principle of my conservatism. But drastic is where we live now. Welcome to Donald Trump's America.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-09 04:44 pm (UTC)Someone else I know voted for Trump under the rationale that he thought Trump and Clinton were both horribly awful, but that Trump would be reined in by this very threat of impeachment, whereas Clinton was likely more unimpeachable at this point.
I worry, more than all the things you've talked about, about foreign policy and Trump having access to nuclear weapons. It's not even that I don't know what he would do! It's that he has a very consistent pattern of not having any self-control and being extremely unhappy with people baiting him. I guess I can always hope that his staff take the red buttons away from him and that he doesn't actually realize when foreign leaders are baiting him.
Agree with drastic rarely being good. I was hoping for a split President/Congress for just that reason (specifically President Clinton and Republican Congress). Instead we get... this. Well, we'll see what happens, I guess.
(but oh gosh am I glad that the founders of the US were wise enough and distrustful enough to put everything in place so that one demagogue can't ruin everything. I hope.)
(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-09 05:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-09 05:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-09 05:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-09 05:36 pm (UTC)Sigh.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-09 07:15 pm (UTC)I think Trump being President means Netanyahu's leash will be longer, which is probably not the same thing as "good for Israel". That said, I think either candidate was going to represent an improvement in US-Israel relations- Obama and Netanyahu had a really terrible working relationship.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-16 04:44 am (UTC)I'm glad to see your thoughts on the Supreme Court - it's what I've thought/hoped but as a Brit I don't know what I don't know. I really hope you're right about the Republicans. Two years ago I'd have had more faith in their ability to put country before party; hopefully now the election's over they'll be more willing to face him.