March 13, 2019--He's Just Not Worth It

In truth I had mixed feelings when Nancy Pelosi said that impeaching Trump  would be "horrible for the country" and that she would not be willing to go through it unless there is "overwhelming and bipartisan justification."

In a wide-ranging interview with the Washington Post, she also said that "impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling . . . I don't think we should go down that path because it divides the country." And," she added, "He's just not worth it."

One part of me has been relishing the prospect of Trump's impeachment. Considering the harm and divisiveness he has engendered I was eager for his comeuppance. I wanted retribution. I wanted to see him in the dock in the Senate. I couldn't wait for him, his grifter family, and his flimsy financial empire to be brought down.

But knowing that Speaker Pelosi for decades has been about the smartest political operative in Washington and is as adept at running things as was Tip O'Neill, calming down from what I at first felt was capitulation, I gave what she said more thought.

I am now seeing her strategy as more brilliant than not.

When Bill Clinton went through impeachment and trial in the Senate, rather than losing the support of the American people, his approval ratings soared. As each day of his trial proceeded he became more and more popular. Many in the country felt that the Republicans were overreaching. Of course they were, and politically Clinton benefitted.

Even though she called Trump "unfit" to be president, Pelosi is concerned that this time it would be the Democrats who would be accused of being obsessed with impeachment and Trump's poll numbers would rise. 

As House Tea Partier Jim Jordan claimed untruthfully, from the first day of Trump's presidency Jerry Nadler, then the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, was talking about the need to impeach Trump.

Pelosi doesn't want to see her Democratic colleagues, by ignoring history, fall into the same trap.

She feels the best way to deal with Trump is to allow the Mueller report to lead the way. If it describes high crimes and misdemeanors and includes enough corroborative evidence to justify impeachment and even prosecution, with other evidence gathered by hearings in the House, she and the Democrats at that point, perhaps with some Republican support, could return to the subject of impeachment.

Until that time, she argues that Democrats in the House should get on with their legislative agenda, showing the electorate why they should vote in 2020 to allow Democrats to retain control of the House, compete for leadership of the Senate, and most important, defeat Trump himself at the polls.

So, I am with Pelosi.

One final point. My favorite part of what the Speaker said to the Post is how she concluded her remarks--

"He's just not worth it."

What a subtle, devastating putdown. And how appropriate for a women to say that about an overbearing man.

How many women, stuck in destructive relationships, have had this thought? 

Too many.

But the bells and whistles this will set off among women will hopefully motivate more of them to vote this time than did in 2016 when, inexplicably, more than half the women who voted, in spite of the Access Hollywood tape and many other affronts, voted for Trump.

In that sense women elected him, but with Pelosi clearing the way, women will have the chance in 19 months to send him packing.

February 5, 2019--Executive Time

Remember during the 2016 campaign how Trump made a big deal out of all the time Barack Obama was away from the office playing golf? How during his eight years as president, Trump ranted, he played 333 rounds? If elected Trump promised he would be "so busy working for the American people that he won't have time to play."

Fact checking shows that a little more than two years into his presidency Trump has already played golf 156 times. If he is reelected (heaven help us) he is on a trajectory to play about 600 rounds, nearly twice as many as Obama.

The cost thus far to taxpayers for all the back and forth to mainly Trump courses in Palm Beach, Bedminster, NJ, and Trump country clubs near the White House has been about $86 million. 

Extrapolated to eight years, this will swell to nearly $345 million. About four times as much as the cost of Obama's trips. Quite a piece of change.

Trump also criticized Obama for all the times he flew back and forth on Air Force One to vacation in Hawaii. Especially how much that cost. In fact, while president, Obama visited Hawaii fewer than a dozen times. Trump in just two years has already been to Florida more often then that.

Is there a scent of hypocrisy about this?

Also, do I sense a hint of racism? You know, how black people are lazy?

Then yesterday, AXIOS got their hands on and posted Trump's day-by-day schedule for the past three months. It shows him to be mainly alone when in Washington, spending more than 60 percent of his waking hours engaged in what his staff calls Executive Time. 

Time when Trump watches TV (presumable mainly Fox News), tweets, and talks on the phone to cronies who serve as informal advisors and enablers. These include Fox personalities such as "Judge" Judy, Laura Ingraham,  and Sean Hannity.

His meetings are mainly with the chief-of-staff and tend to last less than half an hour. He rarely has policy meetings with cabinet members or senior staff. He can barely sit still for more than a few minutes when he receives his daily national security briefing. Briefers are told to use charts and not words and to avoid including anything that might make him angry. Especially assessments of global threat with which he disagrees.

Picking up the AXIOS story the New York Times, Washington Post, as well as commentators on CNN and MSNBC have been expressing outrage that Trump is so off the case.

I have a different view. 

I welcome this. The more Executive Time he indulges in means there is less time for him to do the traditional work of being president. In other words, the less harm he might otherwise do if he followed a more conventional presidential schedule. 

It was felt by many that workaholic (and golfer) Bill Clinton and micromanager Jimmy Carter got in trouble by being so obsessed with minutia that they lost sight of the big picture issues that are the preferred purview of chief executives.

So, I say, let's stop criticizing Trump for lying around all day in his pajamas glued to the TV and Fox & Friends. The alternative could be worse. 

September 4, 2018--Negative Partisanship

This weekend's series of tributes to John McCain caused me to wonder again why so many conservatives and, especially, Donald Trump feel animus toward the late senator from Arizona. 

It wasn't because he was such a maverick and voted solidly against Trump's agenda. In fact, with notable exceptions (among a few others his thumbs down vote not to repeal Obamacare) he voted for at least 90 percent of the legislation supported by Trump.

And, I recalled, Trump savaged McCain early in the 2016 campaign, well before it was known who would win the nomination. He mocked McCain for what can only be viewed as heroism during the Vietnam War, a war that Trump did all he could to dodge. Perhaps, I thought at the time, Trump was jealous of McCain's unstinting courage. Trump knew in his heart that McCain was a hero while he was a blowhard coward.

I also thought at the time, well before Trump loomed as the frontrunner, that taking on McCain in this gratuitous way would doom his changes. Candidates traditionally drop out of contention for doing a lot less. But not Trump. There is little that is political traditional about him. His people stuck with him and he rolled inexorably toward the White House.

More surprisingly, it appears that the vast majority of Republicans detest McCain and are even comfortable mocking his service.

So I continue to be puzzled about why Trump is so bulletproof. A recent article in the Washington Post, "Republicans' Anger at McCain Speaks Volumes About Tribal Politics," offers some additional insights.

From the article--

Over the past few decades, Americans have fled to the political poles, leaving fewer in the once vibrant and decisive middle. Increasingly, those partisan voters are being driven more by fear and loathing for the opposition party than admiration for their own party’s leaders--a phenomenon that political consultants call “negative partisanship.” 

Today, partisanship has a “stronger influence” on voters’ behavior than at any time since the 1950s, Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster, two Emory University political scientists, wrote recently. One result: Any act of compromise with the enemy--or opposition party--is greeted with anger and derision.

The article includes a few quotes from conservatives who hated McCain. They offer a glimpse of the intensity of their fury--

“Sorry, phony, fraud and a traitor,” Shawn Halan, a Southern California real estate agent, wrote in a social media post. “He was a pathetic egomaniac bent on fighting conservatism and did it as a pretender!” 

“Faux conservative,” added another supporter of President Trump. 

“We can admire his service in Vietnam, but also realize he was a scoundrel and backstabber as a politician,” wrote a photographer based in the New York area. “I don’t mourn.”

Negative partisanship it is.

March 5, 2018--Trump: "Pure Madness"

Saturday night I violated Rona's 7:30 PM rule--No Internet surfing after 7:30--and paid the price. 

I didn't sleep much after reading the Washington Post's, "'Pure Madness': Dark Days Inside the White House as Trump Shocks and Rages."

Based on 22 interviews of White House staff and Trump friends, some of them on the record, it paints a deeply disturbing picture of Trump--

At times angry and increasingly isolated. He fumes in private that just about every time he looks up at a television screen, the cable news headlines are trumpeting yet another scandal. He voices frustration that son-in-law Jared Kushner has few on-air defenders. He revives old grudges. And he confides to friends that he is uncertain about whom to trust. . . 

Friends are increasingly concerned about his well-being, worried that the president's obsession with cable commentary and perceived slights is taking a toll on the 71-year-old. "Pure madness," lamented one exasperated ally.  

Retrired four-star general Barry McCaffrey said the American people--and Congress especially--should be alarmed. 

"I think the president is starting to wobble in his emotional stability and this is not going to end well. Trump's judgement is fundamentally flawed, and the more pressure put on him and the more isolated he becomes, I think his ability to do harm is going to increase.

There's more, but this should offer a flavor of the full article and an indication as to why I tossed and turned Saturday night. His "ability to do harm" made me think, of course, about where next and what--North Korea? Nuclear war?

"Pure madness" is not the best orientation for a president in an increasingly dangerous world.

Before my attempt to sleep a friend called, all excited.

"Did you see the piece in the Post?" I said nothing. "Very exciting, no? He's going down! We got him! He's unravelling, which is great. I'm so excited. I think it's terrific that they have him and his family in pincers. The sooner they take them away in handcuffs or, in his case, a straight jacket, the better."

I continued to say nothing, letting him go on and he eventually hung up, laughing gleefully.

The call was disturbing for reasons I at first did not fully understand. Why was I not also feeling gleeful? I have been coming to despise Trump since early in the campaign and later enjoyed watching and chronicling his decline as Robert Mueller and his investigators pressed closer to Trump's inner circle, his family of grifters, and especially Trump himself.

So the report in the Post was good news, no?

Yes, but also, I came to feel, no. 

The "yes" is obvious--Trump has been a political and cultural disaster, driving wedges of fear and hatred between Americans. Along racial lines. Along gender lines. Along religious lines. And of course he has taken the lead in coarsening political discourse, whatever little of it that remains.

The "no" case, less so. On a personal level I do not enjoy seeing any form of human suffering even, as in Trump's case, when deserved. And so to see him being driven literally mad has not given me much pleasure. OK, I admit, some.

And I have been enjoying the spectacle of his political implosion. The more things that contribute to that the better. He brought this and more upon himself. To be destroyed by the forces he himself largely unleashed seems Aristotelian, Shakespearean, Freudian. 

At some highest level of human retribution the self-imposed form of being held accountable is most just and satisfying. It also, in political terms, suggests that even when fully tested the "system" has the capacity to work.

Nothing that new here. 

But then why the continuing rub and agitation?  The sense that something extra-dangerous is happening? The very things I was feeing most satisfied about--the ways in which retribution was wicking out--after reading the Post article felt as if the very devolution of that reckoning has been contributing to the danger.

How, I wondered, would pushing Trump over the edge, watching, gleefully or not, as he approached the edge of his own capacity to survive, why was it feeling as if these facts themselves were contributing to making things worse, more dangerous?

His decline into pure madness increased the likelihood of Trump doing additional harm. Back to that.

By 2:00 AM Sunday morning I came to feel we should be focusing on how to help Trump no longer be president.

I use the passive voice intentionally. To suggest that it no longer primarily should be about seeking to remove him from office, from invoking the 25th Amendment to pressing for impeachment. Since the Republicans control Congress all of these strategies are likely to fail. It is thus urgent to find other strategies that lead to not having Trump any longer serving as our president. A subtle distinction.

About this I have not as yet formulated many things to suggest to contribute to this. But, I am coming to feel that the ceaseless attacking may no longer be effective. Perhaps it is having the opposite effect. He is digging in deeper, doubling down.

I sense we are not any longer helping by spending hours each day eager to pounce on, comment about, or make mocking reference to his every unhinged tweet ("Alec," not "Alex" Baldwin). 

No matter how satisfying it feels, inciting him will only contribute to his further unravelling and the likelihood that as he is further isolated and cornered he will, as General McCaffrey warns, do more actual harm.

Let things topple under their own weight. They already are and they will continue to do so.

And so we should encourage "Alex," as much as he tickles us, to put aside his version of Donald Trump and let things run their current course. 

In many ways the Trump presidency is already over. Where it isn't, however, where as commander-in-chief he can act unilaterally, dangers lurk. Thus we should seek ways to not inadvertently contribute to unleashing them.

March 2, 2018--Rona Predicts

I like making predictions, Rona hates to. I like uncertainty, she likes things to be based more on facts. And so this morning when she said she had a prediction, I shut up to hear what was on her mind.

Hope Hicks.

We had been reading the WaPo story about why "Hope Hicks Resigning Matters."

She is the Trump whisperer, the only one, perhaps including daughter Ivanka, who can talk sense to him and thus her loss is a big deal to Trump and maybe even America.

At least that's the thrust of the Washington Post story.

"My prediction," Rona said, "is that she has no intention of leaving. She's upset that Trump is angry with her, maybe even yelled at her for confessing to a congressional committee that, for his benefit, she sometimes tells "white lies."

"Humm," I said.

"It's more like a lovers' quarrel. You have a disagreement, you have a fight, and one or the other packs a bag and threatens to leave."

"Sounds a little familiar," I said.

"It's more a threat than a plan. So expect to see her remaining in the White House, sulking and pouting, until he makes it up to her. A traditional guy Trump's age might think that flowers or chocolates would do the trick, but I suspect Hope will want something more. What that might be I wouldn't begin to know, but a box of Godivas for a 29-year-old who barely eats so she can remain model thin won't get the job done. You can predict what might work," Rona said, "But I'm predicting she's not going anywhere. Notice, she didn't resign. She said she plans to resign. That's very different." 

And then added, "Mark it down. You heard it here first."

January 26, 2018--Trump vs. Obama

Donald Trump launched his political career by savaging Barack Obama, beginning with the birther racism to accusing him of being a stealth Muslim to doing all he could first as a candidate and now as president to discredit and dismantle everything that was accomplished during the Obama eight years in the White House. 

It is as if Trump wants to nullify Obama's presidency (more racism) and delete his name from history. To make it as if Obama was not president. Forget that--to make it so that he never existed. 

For Trump's most ardent followers this is the definition of how to make America great again: Purge the country of people of color and anyone who is not Christian. Actually, not a Protestant. 

If one is looking for the Trump policy agenda all that is needed is to take out a list of Obama's achievements and invert them. Voilà, the Trump agenda is revealed. For example, most recently, most dramatically Obama-annihilating, Trump allowing all states bordered by our oceans to license oil companies the unfettered right to drill.

Try as Trump might to pull off this campaign to overturn Obama's record and place in history, the facts, assuming anyone is interested in them, present a very different picture.

Case in point, a recent Joe Scarborough op-ed column in the Washington Post, "The Damage Trump Has Done, Documented."

Drawing on data about the state of the economy from a January article in Forbes Magazine, not exactly a Bernie Sanders endorsed publication, "Trump's Economic Scorecard: One Year Since Inauguration," Scarborough compares how the economy fared during each presidency.

Most self-vaunted is the run up of the stock market. Trump claims there is no better evidence that his economic policies are working and that this is in contrast with the "failed" Obama record. During the first year of the Trump presidency the run-up in the Standard & Poor's average was a noteworthy 19.4%. But, though he never fails to reject the idea that he inherited a heating-up economy from Obama, the market did even better during Obama's first year--rising on the S&P an astonishing 23.5%.

In regard to jobs created Trump's numbers were lower in 2017 than in any of the first six years of Obama's presidency. And the unemployment rate declined faster under Obama than during Trump's first year in office.

The budget deficit last year was $666 billion, whereas it was a declining $585 a year earlier under Obama. And the national debt, a favorite target of conservatives, is now accruing at a more rapid rate than during the years of the Obama administration.

Then the trade deficit, an important indicator of economic health, was worse last year than in any of Obama's eight years.

There are things to criticize when it comes to the Obama record about the economy (for example the unrelenting growth in the gap between the wealthy and middle class), but things with Trump in regard to the economy, acknowledging its early achievements, are for the most part not as noteworthy as during the Obama years. 

One thing is certain, President Obama's record, which, in spite of Trump's obsessive assault on it, continues to endure while we may soon see the dismantling of the Trump presidency itself. And over time we will also see how history regards each of them. The outline of that, regardless of the Trump posturing, is already clear.

June 27, 2017--Jack Again: Trump's Intelligence

OK. One more from Jack and then tomorrow, I promise, back to Midcoast stories--

Trump's Intelligence

Never previously, but this time, two days in a row, Jack showed up at the Bristol Diner.

I said, "Long time, no see." I admit that though he almost always manages to get under my skin, I was happy to see him. Maybe I was in a masochistic mood. Or confused about the state of our politics. Closer to the truth, how Democrats are faring these days. Not good.

"Did you see that piece in Friday's Washington Post, 'How Can You Still Doubt Trump's Intelligence?'"

"I did in fact see it. By one of their conservative opinion writers, Kathleen Parker, and so . . ."

"'And so' nothing. Just being a conservative doesn't mean you're always wrong. Even to people like you who claim to be interested in honest dialogue between those who disagree with each other. You always talk about the need to be open minded and civil."

"The Post piece was civil, I'll grant you that, but it dealt only with Trump allegedly outsmarting former FBI director, Jim Comey. Trump may or may not have won the day with him but that doesn't speak to his larger state of mind or ability to be an effective president. In fact, though he may be good at putting people down--ask Little Marco and Low-Energy Jeb about that--but about the things that presidents need to know, I see very few signs of intelligence."

Ignoring me, Jack said, "The title of the Post piece says it all. My boy may be getting battered and even at times shows signs of unravelling, but there's no denying he's sly as a fox. Call it political intelligence if you will. My favorite current example is not how he helped four Republicans win four special congressional elections, but, as Parker said, how he managed to snooker Comey with that talk about how he had their conversations on tape. That dominated the headlines at the same time Comey was testifying to Congress and became as much the story as what Comey had to say. If nothing else, Trump knows how to change the subject and dominate what you guys call the 'narrative.'"

I repeated, "That doesn't prove he's particularly intelligent. Let's agree to disagree about that. I think Comey did pretty well, but for me that's not the meaning of life. What special counsel Robert Mueller eventually comes up with is much more important than how Comey did the other day."

"OK, let's disagree about that but how about what your Maureen Dowd wrote last Sunday in the New York Times, 'Trump Skunks the Democrats'? Let me read some of it to you--

The Democrats just got skunked four to nothing in races they excitedly thought they could win because everyone they hang with hates Trump. 

If Trump is the antichrist, as they believe, then Georgia was going to be a cakewalk, and Nancy Pelosi was going to be installed as speaker before the midterms by acclamation. But it turned into another soul-sucking disappointment. . . . 

Democrats cling to an idyllic version of a new, progressive America where everyone tools around in electric cars, serenely uses gender-neutral bathrooms and happily searches the web for the best Obamacare options. In the Democrats' vision, people are doing great and getting along. It is the opposite of Trump's dark diorama of carnage and dystopia--but just as false a picture of America.

"I saw that," I said, "and agree with most of it. Liberals, most Democrats have been out of touch with voters who should be, who have been their constituents. We have become isolated and smug. People feel this and hate it. And us. Of course not all of us," I added, "But enough to win national and local elections. Especially local elections. I've been writing about this for years."

"Which brings us back to Trump," Jack said.

"Yes and no," I said, "He won, that's true, and it showed a certain kind of intelligence. But he's done nothing but stumble when it comes to the being-president part of the equation. For politics I give him an A-, for the rest of it, straight Ds."

"And," Jack said, winking, "I thought the old professor in you would give him Fs."

"OK," I agreed, "All Fs." This time I did the winking.

April 26, 2017--Voters' Remorse

Liberal friends and I have been thinking recently that Donald Trump has sunk to such a level of ineffectiveness that his supporters must be drifting away from him and that some even might be regretting that they didn't vote for Hillary. That they have buyers' or voters' remorse.

But a report of two recent polls about this published late last week in the Washington Post reveals just the opposite to be true--the voters with remorse are almost all Clinton people.

How to figure.

Read this and weep--

According to a Pew poll, Trump voters by more than 5-to-1, 38%, say they are more pleased than expected with his performance as president whereas only 7% say he performed worse. Further, all who voted in November say that if the election were held again Trump, not Hillary, would win the popular vote by four points.

These findings are confirmed by a Washington Post-ABC poll which shows that just 4% of Trump voters say they would vote for someone else. Someone other than Hillary. But 15% of Clinton's voters say they would abandon her if the vote were held today. Again, few would switch to Trump. And she, as compared with Trump, has done nothing since November 8th that would drive people away. Yet another Hillary Clinton conundrum.

In both cases these switching voters would opt now for one or another of the independent candidates.

In regard to how Trump supporters view him, 62% say he is doing better than expected while an astonishing 33% say he is doing "much better" as president.

These findings parallel others that we saw during the campaign. Trump's support is so strong among his base that no matter what he says or, now, does does not matter. He is more than another Teflon president--he's bullet proof.

This needs to be a wake up call for Democrats and others who oppose him and do not want to see him reelected. It may feel premature to be thinking about 2020, but Trump is, having already formed a reelection committee.

Among the lessons to glean from this is that things are not entirely as they seem.

Believing that Trump is out of his depth, ignorant about the issues, lacks the intellectual discipline for the presidency, and will have difficulty getting anything through Congress, assuming this is not enough to assure that his support will erode and make him easy to defeat in four years. Anyone counting on this needs to think again.

He is a political phenomenon that defies all the rules and conventional wisdom. He is our first asymmetrical president. And we had better figure out ways to deal with him and that. Or we're looking at eight years of Trump.

May 23--Fear On the Left

Again we're being inundated with nuanced columns as well as rantings all claiming that if Donald Trump figures out how to get elected president, this assures that fascism is coming to America.

This concern is mainly from pundits on the left but not exclusively. For example, neo-con Robert Kagan, one of George W. Bush flacks who contributed significantly to bringing preemptive war to Iraq, in a recent column in the Washington Post, summed it up in his title--"This Is How Fascism Comes to America."

In addition to worthwhile insights, Kagan's speculation is that Trump's supporters are so riddled with fear and rage that they do not care about traditional policies or politics (they have no interest, for example, in reforming the Republican Party) and in their fear-stoked blindness are wanting to turn the government of the United States over to a crypto-fascisit who has no policies to present but only the promise that as a classic fascist strongman he will eliminate the deepest threats to America--immigrants, Islamic terrorists, economic stagnation, and the like. Just as Mussolini did in Italy in the 1920s.

Kagan goes even further, comparing a potential Trump presidency to the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and with a whiff of innuendo suggests that Trump's supporters seem apocalyptically like those attracted to Stalin--

They [their followers] praise the leader's incoherent speeches as the beginning of wisdom, hoping he will reward them with a plum post in the new order. There are those who merely hope to survive. Their consciences won't let them curry favor so shamelessly, so they mumble their pledges of support, like the victims of Stalin's show trials, perhaps not realizing that the leader and his followers will get them in the end anyway.

With Trump we're apparently so far along the road to fascism that we should already be worrying about show trials. What a fevered imagination Kagan has.

Not to be outdone, former governor of Massachusetts, Bill Weld, running for vice president on the Libertarian ticket, is so worried about Trump's immigration policy that he crossed a big line during his first interview last Thursday. According to the New York Times he worried that "I can hear the glass crunching on Kristallnacht in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vienna."

Godwin's Law in full flower.

Here's what I do not understand--

Why do many progressives feel it is permissible for critics to label Trump supporters as so paralyzed by fear that they are willing to turn their lives over to a potential autocrat while at the same time not acknowledging their own fears?

It is true that many Americas are fearful. Understandably. A glance at hot spots and threats around the world validate that as do economic dislocation and uncertainty in the homeland. But then the Kagans and Welds of the world are just as fear-plagued. About different things of course, but they are fear-driven nonetheless.

And much of this fear, both on the right and left, is not objectified, but speculation-based. Which is fine, but it should be labeled as such. Again, on all sides.

We do not in fact know what a Trump presidency would be like nor for that matter Hillary Clinton's. Presidents and Supreme Court justices once in office have a long history of surprising us.

Take Dwight Eisenhower as one example. He was represented in the liberal media as a bumbler uninterested in the presidency, more interested in playing golf with his chums than leading or governing. But, among other things, at the height of the Cold War, at least eight times his cabinet and the Joint Chiefs pushed for a preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Thankfully, eight times Eisenhower demurred. And at the end of his eight years in office, this former Allied Supreme Commander warned about the growing power of the "military-industrial complex." A warning still well-worth heeding.

Ronald Reagan was also thought to be a lightweight. Showing no interest in policy much less specifics,  whatever one otherwise thinks of him, he was a transformative president. Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign said that and was roundly criticized by fellow Democrats, with Hillary Clinton leading the charge.

Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, two vice presidents who assumed the presidency, also were misunderstood and underestimated. Who thought at the time that the haberdasher from Independence, Missouri would turn out to be a forceful and effective leader and who knew that LBJ, a political operative from South Texas (and a corrupt one at that) would transcend his background and public record to become the most progressive president of his or perhaps any era.

Before rushing to judgement this time, it might make sense to defuse the rhetoric and take Donald Trump on on the issues where he is severely deficient and vulnerable. It is hardly necessary to give into one's own fears, and out of that, make up fantasies about "the road to fascism." Things are bad enough as it is.

Robert Kagan

May 6, 2106--Mea Culpas

With Donald Trump the almost certain GOP nominee many are twisted in knots.

First among them are leaders in his party such as Paul Ryan who worry that he will bring about the apocalypse--not the biblical apocalypse the crazies on the right are awaiting but the more immediate, secular one that means difficulty getting reelected or fear that unpredictable Donald will mean that there will be no more business as usual and thus it will be the end of their prerogatives and lobbyist and consultant cash flow.

Also pulling out their hair and offering mea culpas are the political journalists who got it wrong, who until almost the last minute proclaimed (read hoped) that someone, anyone other than Trump would be nominated.

Nate Cohen, who writes the "Upshot" column in the New York Times, a political-junkie, numbers-guru of sorts yesterday wrote a confessional article whose title said it all--"What I Got Wrong About Donald Trump."

It easily could have been a one-word column--"Everything."

The most important thing missing, what is really at the heart of his and many others' problem, is his failure--acknowledged by David Brooks--that he spends all his time in New York or Washington, hooked up to the Internet, and thus has not talked to actual Trump supporters. Especially those who do not fit the conventional algorithms.

I just spoke with one yesterday morning--a friend from Maine who is a lifelong liberal and feminist who whispered on the phone, "You know, he makes a lot of sense."

Cohen's data do not capture people like my friend who do not fit the familiar paradigm, and do not show up among the demographic categories in most of the suddenly obsolete polling formats.

He should be talking to her and asking her why Trump makes a lot of sense to her. Then he'd have something insightful to write about.

Having mentioned David Brooks, though he got it right when he confessed that he and his media colleagues need to emerge from their cultural cocoons and talk to their metaphorical neighbors if they want to understand what is roiling the electorate, he too has some more confessing to do.

Having fessed up to his own social isolation, he needs to deal with the fact that he's another pundit who proclaimed that there is one thing he can guarantee in this confounding political year--that "Donald Trump will never be nominated."

This suggests he is still living within the Beltway.

Maybe for the general election he'll get out more. If he doesn't he may miss the next chapter's storyline--though Trump as of right now is trailing Hillary Clinton by 10-12 percentage points, back last June/July among the 17 GOP aspirants, he was at two percent.  Forty percent now must be looking pretty good to him.

My take on the general election campaign that has already broken out is that Trump will do much better than expected among women; he will manage to dramatically expand his base by getting many more white men than usual to vote--thereby enlarging the demographic pie chart of voters; and if he names someone like Susana Martinez, Republican governor of New Mexico, to be his running mate (Wiki her to see how compelling she might be) as a result, as well as by throwing in a few pivots, if he attracts 30-35 percent of Hispanic voters, come November things could look pretty complicated.

Oh yes, then there's the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who said he'd "eat" his column if Trump is nominated. He is now soliciting recipes for how to roast, stew, or fry newsprint.

Seeking Recipes

August 7, 2015--Friday at the Bristol Diner: Tony Said

He said, "I don't care."

"You mean you'd vote for someone who won't tell you what he'd do about immigration?"

"I told you," he said, beginning to get heated, "I don't care. I really don't."

Jack, who was sitting opposite Tony, stared at him.

"It's his biggest issue. His political claim to fame."

"How many times do I have to tell you, I don't care.

"Or what he would do about the Middle East." With that Tony turned to the window and started humming.

"Can you believe this?" I asked Jack who shrugged and shook his head.

"You're from New York, right?" Tony turned back to us. I nodded. "You remember that skating rink in Central Park?" It didn't register at first. "It was an ice rink. The city owned it."

"It's coming back to me," I said, knowing now where this was headed.

"There was some sort of a problem with it. The cooling system. It made slurry, not ice. For years. I forget how many, the city kept trying to fix it. Spent millions. Maybe over five years but still no ice. My boy, Donald Trump, The Donald, said he couldn't take it any more. He said he'd fix it and pay for it himself."

"I remember that," Jack said.

"Again, I don't remember how long it took. At most a few months. That was years ago. As far as I know the ice machine is still working."

"It is," I admitted.

"So now you know why I'm for him. He knows how to get things done."

"You don't care what those things are that you believe he can get done? Like what he would do to 'get things done'," I made air quotes, "with the 10 million illegal immigrants who are here--hundreds of whom I assume mow the grass on his golf courses?"

"I know he got in all sorts of trouble when he said the Mexicans here are murderers. That was ridiculous."

"And so?"

"And so, as I said, I don't care. Don't get me wrong, we should figure out what to do with all the illegals--most are doing work that none of us would want to do. Like pick lettuce in the hot sun. And I believe that Trump would figure that out."

"You mean like fixing the ice skating rink?" Jack asked.

"I know they're not the same thing. I'm not that deluded."

"So what are you then?" I said, "It feels as if you drank the Trump Kool Aid."

"Maybe I did, but let me put it to you another way--The other candidates, from both parties, have all sorts of position papers about immigration and education and the environment. But we know that once they get into office they never get done what they promise to do. Maybe in their first year or two a new president can get a few things through Congress. Whatever you think about those policies. But after that all those position papers and their speeches about this or that mean nothing. And then we're left with a president who can't get anything approved and who has to fall back on whatever ability he has--forgive me, she or he has--to get things done."

"Like what?" Jack asked. "Give me an example or two of what Trump could get done after he realizes he can't get anything through what will for sure continue to be a gridlocked Congress?"

"Well, first of all, as someone who knows how to get things done on a large scale, the people he hires--appoints--to say the Cabinet: the secretary of state, of the treasury, health, education would be the same kind of get-it-done people he hires to build his hotels and casinos and condos and golf courses. People, who if they don't get the job done, get fired."

"You mean people like his daughter, Ivanka?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Yeah, like her. Like Kennedy appointing his brother attorney general. remember that? Though with that I suspect you didn't have a problem." He winked, knowing he had made a good point. "Look, no matter who wins, Democrat or Republican, no matter how much they cut the budget, there's still lots of money around to do things with. Like rebuild the infrastructure. Not all the money you or I might like, but enough to make at least a bit of a difference. Wouldn't you admit that for doing that--fixing our roads--Donald Trump would do a better job than Jeb Bush or your Hillary?"

I couldn't disagree with that. "But what about foreign policy?" Jack asked, "You'd trust him to be commander in chief? He doesn't even know where Iran is on the map."

"First of all you don't know that. You're just being partisan. We need to get away from that--making everything partisan--and focus on fixing things as best as can be done. Like our southern border which is still like a sieve after decades of politicians promising to fix it. Again, who would you prefer to work on that? Bush? Walker? Rand Paul? Ben Carson? Or Trump? I vote for Trump."

"That's clear," Jack said with a sigh. "Before I have to leave, here's more ammunition for you."

"I'm all ears."

"I forgot where I read it earlier this week, but some columnist for the Times or Washington Post said that Trump is the first post-policy candidate."

"A what?"

"Post-policy. He was making your point. That it doesn't matter what his so-called polices are. Or even if he has any. All that matters is what people believe about him. Like you--you believe he can get things done. You're not interested in the specifics of what that means. Just that you believe he can. That a lot of people are fed up with 10-point plans to fix our education system or white papers about creating jobs. Trump is attractive because he gives you and many others the feeling of competence and a certain kind of hope for a better future, a better America."

"Now you're talking."

December 8, 2014--A Conversation About Race

Every time there is an outrageous example of how the justice system in America works differently for white people and people of color, political leaders, the press and clergy say that we have to have a serious, dispassionate national conversation about race so that we can at long last overcome our still fraught racial history.

This call was raised after the OJ Simpson trial when it was obvious that whites and blacks experience the justice system almost as polar opposites--the vast majority of caucasians saw him to be guilty of homicide while blacks in overwhelming numbers cheered the jury verdict.

For a week or two after the verdict a version of that national conversation occurred; but here we are again, nearly 20 years later, with two grand juries--one in Ferguson MO, another on Staten Island--failing to indicate two white police officers who killed unarmed black men. Again there are street demonstrations, 24/7 media coverage, and renewed calls for that discourse about race.

But before we can even get started talking across the racial divide, people are criticizing New York City mayor Bill de Blasio (who has a biracial son and daughter) and Barack Obama (who is obviously African American) either, as in the case of the former, for "throwing the police under the bus" (as ludicrously claimed by the president of the NYC patrolman's union) or, as in Obama's case, for not speaking out passionately or personally enough.

The Washington Post over the weekend wrote explicitly about this--"N.Y. Mayor Bill de Blasio Spoke Bluntly On Race, Policing in Ways Harder for Obama."

Yes, the mayor spoke bluntly--actually he was more compassionate than blunt--praising the vast majority of police officers who protect citizens black and white while calling for the need to retrain them in the appropriate use of force and then "spoke from the heart" as a father of a dark-skinned son who sports a huge Afro while Obama spoke more professorially, less as a black man and father of two daughters.

Obama may have tempered his remarks out of concern that they might interfere with his Department of Justice's investigations of both cases, exploring whether or not the victims' civil rights were violated though they will be difficult to press since the DJ would have to prove intent. He may have wanted to avoid the legal storm that arose after Trayvon Martin was killed when he, with emotion and truth, said Trayvon "could have been me."

Yes, any President needs to tread carefully when talking about on-going criminal investigations, but surely there must be ways, there must be appropriate words for our first African-Ameircan president to speak publicly about race in less than his usual dispassionate way. For him, if you will, to testify about what it is like, what it feels like to be a black man in America and the father of teenage children who must worry when his children are out and about, even with Secret Service protection. And how he must have residual fears about his own safety when in public. Fears exacerbated by the fact of his skin color.

I understand that during his first term, for political reasons alone, he did not want to come off sounding like a "black president." He was and is the president of all the people, even those who disagree with and even despise him. Further, considering the underlying racism so pervasive in America, he did not want to give bigoted whites the excuse to have their views confirmed that he is the proverbial boogie man (epithet intended)--a militant Angry Black Man.

But now, with the last midterm elections over (and lost) what continues to hold him back from truly speaking his mind and leading the long-overdo conversation? He has nothing significant to lose. Now more than ever we need his perspective and passion.