Short takes on a busy day

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the aftermaths of this election is that there’s so much to absorb, and so much to think about, that I could read and write 24 hours a day and only cover a small fraction of it.

Today I have a particularly busy day, and so the 100+ posts I would otherwise write will have to wait for another time. Today I’ve already published one longer post, but for this present post I’m just going to do a series of quick takes on topics I’ve been thinking about and might cover more fully another time.

Consider this also an open thread for post-election chatting.

—When I flip around the cable news channels, I see that the transition is being discussed a lot. Here’s a website I haven’t hardly begun to explore, but it looks very interesting. It’s fun to speculate on who our favorite draft picks would be for the new government.

—I really wanted Hillary to lose the popular vote, too. It looks right now as though that won’t happen. I believe the Electoral College is a good system, and is congruent with our being a republic and not a pure democracy. But it’s easy for me to say that when it just so happens that the two times the loser won the popular vote in my lifetime, the Republican was the winner. I think that a disparity between the popular and electoral votes makes for a more difficult sense of division among the people, and the sense of division is already enormous enough.

—People on the right, even many of those who fully supported Trump, are still pinching themselves. Funny post here.

—The color purple.

Election 2016: it all started with Obamacare

The New Neo Posted on by

Some say that Trump won the election because Hillary was a terrible candidate. And that certainly had more than a little to do with it.

Some say it was mostly a class thing—that is, a white underclass thing, and that Trump knew how to appeal to this group that had felt abandoned. Also true. But that group was hardly the only one voting for Trump.

I say that it was Obamacare that was the turning point, although it took a while to play out. Fact is, a government (and a party, for that matter) can’t go on forever without being responsive to the will of the people. That’s what “elitism” is about, really, not about money or education or race. Unresponsiveness.

So, it began with Obamacare, which was a Democratic endeavor, and the Democrats’ failure to understand or to heed the lessons of the election of Scott Brown, a man chosen in the blue blue state of Masschusetts for the express purpose of stopping Obamacare.

When Brown was elected, you may recall that the Democrats didn’t listen. I can’t seem to find the articles right now, but I recall that they ignored the warning, saying it was an artifact of a special election in which most people didn’t vote.

After that it was full steam ahead for Obamacare through reconciliation, since now they couldn’t pass it any other way. After Obamacare was passed, Brown ultimately couldn’t sustain his own senator status, either. But in the end, the fairly moderate Republican known as Scott Brown ended up supporting Donald Trump this year.

The Democrats treated the passage of Obamacare as a huge victory for them. But they forgot that tremendously transformative legislative efforts—Medicare, Social Security—do best when the American people are behind them. And by “American people,” I don’t just mean a plurality or a bare and razor-thin majority, I mean a clear majority with support and input from both parties. That could have happened with Obamacare if the Democrats were willing to meet the Republicans in the middle and design something that had elements of what each party wanted.

Instead, it was Democrats’ choice to pass a bill that was already unpopular in its details, that would affect a vast number of Americans in a very up-close and personal way, and to do it by lying and by unusual parliamentary procedures. Then it was Democratic politicians’ choice to say—and for many of them to actually believe, I think—that an unwieldy system with a poor design was going to work well enough, or their propaganda was going to be successful enough, that people would grow to love it or at least like it.

That’s not what happened. Instead, the Tea Party movement began. But the anger wasn’t just limited to the Tea Party. It was widespread, and it was reinforced in other ways by other actions by politicians.

The election of Donald Trump was determined by many things, but I think the largest thing was that anger, an anger which had crystallized in the story of Obamacare’s passage. It is fitting that the legislation has Obama’s name on it in popular usage (although not officially), because it was with his election that the Democratic Party decided that ignoring the will of the people wouldn’t come back to haunt them.

Now it has come back to haunt them. One of the factors I don’t hear too much about in the election of Donald Trump was that not long before Election Day a lot of people read that their Obamacare premiums were about to rise an average of 22%. This was not a fact that was susceptible to being propagandized away. It was not an abstraction; it was and is a stark and very personal reality.

You might call it the revenge of Scott Brown.

So if you’re going to pass transformative legislation without the people behind you, you better make sure that reality doesn’t rear its ugly head someday.

[NOTE: This ignoring of the people was hardly limited to Obamacare, by the way. Illegal immigration was another important example. But Obamacare came earlier, and the announcement of the hike in premiums right before the election almost certainly fanned the flames at a crucial time.]

Post-election: now the work begins

The New Neo Posted on by

I mentioned earlier that Trump’s victory speech was good and hit the right tone. I have no idea whether he can sustain that tone, and what’s more whether he can follow it up with successful action. But when Trump walked onstage to give the speech, I thought I noticed a different and more somber look in his eyes. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, but I believe I saw it. And it makes sense that a person would feel the weight of the office descend on him or her, now that the prize is won and the competition with other contenders is over.

Before the polls closed yesterday, I was having dinner with a friend who’s a liberal Democrat. She worked for Hillary and voted for Hillary, but she wasn’t a fervent Hillary admirer. None of the returns had come in yet, but we were talking about the election and the possibility of a Trump victory. I didn’t think it likely but I was definite that it was a possibility, and not a distant one, either. She and I agreed that a Clinton presidency would probably be more predictable in terms of her behavior as president, and that a Trump presidency would be more unpredictable.

And then she surprised me by musing, “But I’m almost hoping he wins, because I’m very curious what it would be like. It would be exciting.”

And I agree. Of course, “exciting” is a double-edged sword. And I don’t think most Hillary supporters would agree with her sense of adventure.

One prediction I make is that Obamacare will really be thrown out. The GOP needs to come up with a very detailed plan for replacement, because now they have the power to do it. There will also be a fairly quick reversal of some of Obama’s executive orders on illegal immigration. As for the rest, I do not think there will be mass deportations, nor will there be banning or deportation of Muslim immigrants. There is much fear about this among those populations, though, and that fear is very understandable. I think, however, that Trump and the Republican Congress will not be fulfilling the most extreme version of his campaign rhetoric.

That’s my belief, and that’s my hope. Whether it is reality remains to be seen.

This reversal in the GOP’s fortunes gives them an amazing opportunity, one that has occurred seldom for them since the days of Calvin Coolidge. It’s an awesome opportunity and an awesome (in the deeper sense of the word: “inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear”) responsibility. I hope they’re up to it. If they are, they could change a lot of minds about what Republicans stand for.

Right after an election it’s possible to imagine that things will be okay, and that all those pleasant words about the future will come true. Trump is no exception. I’ve always said that if he wins, I’ll hope that he’ll show his better side, and be a better president than I expected, based on his campaign. So, I’m prepared to do just that.

I did it with Obama, and it only took a couple of months for him to disabuse me of the idea that it was going to be okay. It would be wonderful if this time it works out a great deal better.

And then there’s the stock market

The New Neo Posted on by

Financial markets were shaky last night with the news of the Trump victory, but guess what? At least for today, all is well and the Dow is up 200 as I write this.

This is just the beginning for Trump, of course. Everyone has known that one of the Trump drawbacks and pluses is his unpredictability as chief executive in the most powerful office in the world. Unpredictability can be frightening, particularly to financial markets, but it also represents opportunity. The world awaited with bated breath Trump’s first speech after his win. He scored high with me on that, and apparently with the people who put their money where his mouth was. The speech hit exactly the right tone.

A speech, however, is just a speech, and a first one at that. The next six months or so will tell a very important tale (as they did with Obama). Who Trump will choose as advisors will be the first indication—that and his demeanor in public statements such as his speech last night (actually, this morning, but who’s counting).

With most winners of a presidential election, a sober and presidential demeanor is a given. With Trump it’s not, and therefore his demeanor takes on a heightened importance, because it can either reassure people or further alarm them about what’s in store.

Miscellaneous musings, post-election

The New Neo Posted on by

My first thought: wow, what a ride.

My second: boy, am I tired. I was up till 7 AM although I went to bed quite a while before that. Just too much “seething cranium” to sleep. So whatever thoughts follow might be a bit more disjointed than usual, and if so, I plead exhaustion.

I am glad it’s over, as I said I would be. But I know that now begins that long hard slog through actual governing, and all the events that can throw even the most well-intentioned administration a curve. The GOP is firmly in control of the presidency and both houses; now they have a chance to show what they are made of and what they can accomplish. I hope (as I said I would hope, if Trump wins) that Trump’s better nature (and the GOP’s for that matter) is firmly in the ascendance, and that the gravity and responsibility of the office helps him always function from that better and wiser nature.

We (and he, and they) will need all the help we can get, from fate and luck and the deity, to get through and try to heal the awful divisiveness of this nation, and the conflict in the world.

On a much lighter note, Melania Trump will be the first foreign-born First Lady since Louisa Adams. I predict some rather nifty fashion from Melania, and the ability to wear it with the grace of the model she once was.

Hillary Clinton’s political career is probably over. That’s just fine with me, and most of America. The Democrats need some new blood.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s retirement plans are probably on hold for the next four years.

Trump won most of the swing states but usually by just a little bit, so his victory was broad but not deep. That indicates that whatever was happening was happening across many areas of the country, although the west coast and New England were markedly immune. It also indicates that the remarkable divide, nearly 50/50, within the American electorate continues. The popular vote margin is razor-thin (Trump is ahead as I write this but just barely, and it’s been changing hands throughout the early morning), as it was in 2000 and 2004. But I take nothing away from Trump: he worked hard, and he won.

I think that Trump’s victory as well as that of the Republican Congress tells the tale of what can happen when a party in power (the Democrats) muscles through policies and legislation that the majority of the American people don’t support. It can be done, but the people do not appreciate it. Not at all.

Trump has an unusual opportunity: a fully Republican Congress to go with his victory. George Bush had much the same thing between 2003 and 2006, and one of the things that angered a lot of people on the right was that he and they didn’t use it to further many conservative causes. My prediction is that this time it will be different, and in particular that the nuclear option will be used to facilitate Trump’s judicial appointments, much as the Democrats did with Obama’s when they controlled the Senate in 2013-2015. The Democrats don’t have a leg to stand on if they try to object when the Republicans do it now, but just watch the Democrats attempt it.

A lot of people are saying the polls were wrong. Well, they were wrong in that they were not exactly right, but they weren’t really far off in terms of the built-in margin of error. People often ignore the margin of error when they look at polls, but after the tightening of polls that occurred after the Comey letter, there were many close states that entered margin-of-error tossup territory. The average and the average over time, however, did point to a Clinton victory, and that turned out to be wrong.

White evangelicals went for Trump about 82% (I heard that on the news in the wee hours of the morning); I would imagine it had to do with abortion. Trump got 46% of the late-deciders to Clinton’s 44%, and that may have given him a slight edge over poll predictions.

If Trump can sustain the tone of his victory speech, and follow it up with the actions that he promises (or even half of them), protect liberty, and help keep this country safe, I will be more than pleased to praise him.

Call it for Trump, call it a night, call it an election for the century

The New Neo Posted on by

Although networks have not formally called the election yet, Hillary Clinton has just called Trump to concede the race, and Mike Pence is speaking, with Trump about to speak.

The fat lady is singing up a storm, telling Hillary Clinton it’s over. And not just Clinton herself, but the Democrats’ hopes of gaining control of the Senate. This is one that will be analyzed and discussed for a long, long time. So get used to hearing a lot more jaw jaw.

Trump supporters are happy, and “happy” probably doesn’t even begin to describe it. Hillary supporters are in mourning, and most are very scared as well. As for me, I’ve said for a long time that I would be worried for the country whoever wins. And I am worried, for so many reasons, including the poisonous atmosphere that has been building for years.

I’m happy about the GOP win in Congress—that was very important to me, and it was important for the GOP to have held the Senate if there was to be any chance of Trump’s promised conservative SCOTUS appointments being approved.

Those rust belt states were the key to Trump’s victory, as many projected

I’ll have a lot more to say about it tomorrow, but right now it’s over and out. Goodnight, and may God bless America. We’ll need it.

Trending Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

11:12 PM

Fox just called Florida for Trump, and that’s why I decided to start a new thread. The reason? Florida is absolutely key to any chance of a Trump victory, and Florida was close.

When elections happen, there are trends for close states. So far, the trend is Trump, and Florida is the evidence.

It’s not over, but something is happening. That “something” seems to be the deep dissatisfaction with both the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton herself. That is true whoever wins. And it was something all of us who follow politics have been aware of for many many years.

Nail-biter.

As I’ve said many times, I’ll be unhappy whoever wins. That’s not because I’m a gloomy sort, it’s because I think both candidates were and are dreadful. One thing I’m happy about, however, is what looks increasingly like a Republican hold on the Senate, although it will be close.

A long time ago—back in August of 2015—I wrote this about the Trump candidacy:

From the start of Trump’s rise in the polls I’ve taken him very seriously as a phenomenon. I haven’t understood those who casually asserted “He’s never going to win the nomination.” I’ve long thought he could, because the force of that appeal is obvious, and he’s somehow made himself immune to being criticized for anything he says…

If I were one of the other Republican candidates I’d be very very scared.

That turned out to be correct. But what I wrote right after that turned out to be correct, too:

And if I were one of the Democratic candidates I’d be scared, too.

Well, as I write this on Election Eve, I think the Democratic candidate is very very scared. Whoever ends up winning.

I’m scared, too, and I was going to be scared whoever won. I see the country as more deeply and bitterly divided than ever in my lifetime. I see our elected officials as being worse than those who have gone before in so many ways I cannot even list them. That does not change with a Trump victory and a Hillary loss, nor does it change with a Hillary victory and a Trump loss.

12:21 AM

On Fox, a pundit (I don’t know her name) just said that, of the people who thought neither candidate was qualified to be president, about 69-70% went for Trump. Interesting.

If some of the states still outstanding end up with razor-sharp margins, there could be recounts and doubt for quite a while. It will also be very disturbing to the nation if (as happened in 2000), one person (in this case, Clinton) wins the popular vote and one (in this case, Trump) wins the electoral vote. But our system always includes that possibility.

The markets are way down.

Chris Wallace asks, “Has there ever been a president that’s been a bigger shock?” Answer: “no.”

1:27 AM

Toomey has been projected to be the winner in the Senate race in Pennsylvania, which means that the Senate will remain in Republican hands.

Election night

The New Neo Posted on by

7:53 PM

We’re in the thick of it, folks.

How are you doing? I’m wishing I was a drinking woman, that’s how I’m doing.

Everything that was projected to be close is looking pretty close so far.

8:09 PM

I am extremely concerned that the Republicans hold the Senate. There hasn’t been any indication yet of how the close races are going.

8:14 PM

I had barely typed the sentence right above this one when I saw that Fox has called Florida for Rubio. Which to me is very good news.

8:27 PM

Young defeats Bayh in Indiana. This isn’t exactly a surprise—it was expected—but it was a reversal in that Bayh was initially expected to win.

8:48 PM

The closeness continues.

9:00 PM

I’m noticing that there are a number of states (for example, Florida) where a Republican senator has already been projected as the winner and yet Trump is neck-and-neck with Hillary and the outcome in the presidential race is still a toss-up. I’m also noticing, in the comments section of some pro-Trump blogs (such as Ace’s, for example), that many of those who support Trump but are feeling nervous about the possibilities of a Trump victory are already launching “stab-in-the-back” salvos at the NeverTrumpers. In other words, the present disparity between totals such as those for Rubio and those for Trump in Florida are blamed on betrayal from Republicans not voting for Trump. However, it could just as well be the result of Trump’s failure to appeal to independents. Or it could be due to Trump’s failure to reassure more people in his own party about his character, reliability, judgment, knowledge, and veracity.

9:08 PM

Looking at the Florida figures and their continued closeness, it occurs to me that the last thing we need is a repeat of Florida in 2000.

Then immediately after that it occurs to me that such an event might be a completely fitting cap to this crazy crazy election. It’s also congruent with the way the nation has seemed to be split so evenly and so bitterly for so many years.

It also occur to me that, so far, the polls have been within the margins of error, except for the Rubio vote, which was predicted to be closer. It’s still early, of course.

9:53 PM

Listening to Fox, I heard them say something curious: that no one expected it to be this close at this point.

Which makes me think: what??? Ever since the time of the Comey announcement, it became clear that it could become very very close, at this point or at any other point or even at the end point. In other words, that this one could turn out to be a squeaker.

Although I have continued to think Hillary more likely to win than Trump, any strong feeling I had about that evaporated around the time of Comey’s letter and was replaced by uncertainty. Apparently, the Fox newscasters didn’t share that uncertainty.

Virginia has just been called for Hillary Clinton. Not a real surprise.

The Fox people also were just discussing whether Trump could win the electoral vote and lose the popular vote. The answer is: of course he could, and this has long been discussed as a real possibility.

10:10 PM

Burr, Republican from North Carolina, wins his seat. That is an excellent sign, because this one was thought to be at risk.

10:26 PM

Fox just called Colorado for Hillary Clinton, and Ohio for Trump.

These were both hotly contested states, but both were leaning towards the people who eventually won them. So this is not what you’d call a surprise, nor does it really indicate the eventual winner (Romney won Ohio in 2012). But Ohio is a big big win for Trump; no question about it. Ohio was pretty much a necessary ingredient in a Trump win.

10:50 PM

Fox calls Wisconsin for Ron Johnson, beating Feingold. Another Republican victory in a race that was considered close.

North Carolina for Trump.

There can’t be a whole lot of joy in the Clinton camp right now. I think it’s going to come down to Florida. Deja vu?

10:55 PM

If Trump wins and the Senate remains Republican (the House is already projected to remain Republican, too), it would underscore how unhappy the country has become about the Obama years.

11:00 PM

I am starting a new thread.

Transformation, anyone?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an attempt at some light and entertaining distraction today: another transformative makeover.

Not all that much was done, actually. It’s fairly subtle. A slight haircolor change and some more makeup, although not a ton. But you probably wouldn’t recognize this as the same woman, much less the same woman on the same day:

This is one of the sentiments that got us here

The New Neo Posted on by

I found the following comment on a thread at Legal Insurrection:

…[I]ts hard to get excited or even care about who controls the Senate. I can expect a Dem controlled Senate will be firebreathing and ram through whatever they want. But I can also expect that the GOPe will talk talk talk about doing a bunch of things and then cave in the “spirit of bipartisanship” as they sell us out for more Donor Dollars.

Shorter: The Dems will spit in my face, but at least I can see it coming. The GOPe will shiv me in the back while I am defending them.

Those days are over.

This cynical stance of false equivalence, this “if they don’t do what I want, then they’re just as bad as the opposition or really worse” attitude is what might get us a Democratic-controlled Senate to go with a Hillary Clinton president, to give her just what she wants.

I can’t remember how long ago I first encountered this “They’re all the same, but the GOP is worse because they’re back-stabbers” sentiment. But I think it was already present when I first started blogging, back in the Bush days (2004-2005). At first, it was something you saw only every now and then. But during the Obama years, it grew and grew and grew, until during the 2012 campaign I found myself fighting against it more or less constantly in the comments section (that year it had to do with both Congress and presidential nominee Mitt Romney).

In the four years since then, it has only grown, and has borne fruit in the Trump candidacy. Whoever is the victor tonight in the presidential contest, it seems obvious to me that the makeup of Congress (the Senate in particular, since that is most at risk) would be key. If Trump were president, they are needed to keep his agenda from being blocked, so if you believe in his agenda you should care very much about Congress. And if Hillary is president, Congress is obviously the way she could be blocked.

When I write “blocked,” I don’t mean completely or magically, or in every instance and every way. I mean far far more than would ever occur with a Democratic Senate. And yes, although there are some ways in which the GOP members of Congress were disappointing, the GOP-controlled Congress did block Obama’s agenda in many important ways. To deny that is to believe a destructive, emotionally-satisfying myth.

Why did both parties nominate the most abominable candidates available…

The New Neo Posted on by

…so that we have been left with a roller-coaster ride of a race to the bottom?

It’s a real question, and I’m not sure of the answer, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with the fact that we’ve sunk a lot lower as a society than we used to be—culturally, spiritually, morally, and educationally. And that last part is despite the fact that the trappings of education are better than ever: more people spend more time in school, and fancier schools at that, than ever before.

But a diploma does not an educated person make.

Or a wise one. And I don’t see a lot of wisdom flowing these days.

As for the status of the polls and predicting this election, there has been a tightening. This almost always happens close to the election. It’s also not just hard to know, but impossible to know, how turnout will go, and turnout is vital.

Personally, I would really like neither of these people to become president. I realize that’s not an option. There will be no joy in Mudville for me about the presidential race returns this evening whatever the outcome, although I suppose I can look on the bright side: if she wins, at least it’s not him, and if he wins, at least it’s not her.

I believe, however (as I’ve said before) that Hillary will most likely win. I have believed that since the moment it became clear to me (back in March or April) that Donald Trump would most likely be the GOP nominee.

As Rich Lowry writes in National Review:

The country has clearly lowered its standards in this election, and Donald Trump’s madcap candidacy provides evidence of that almost every day. But Hillary’s nomination was itself an offense against American political norms and an incredibly reckless act. And the Democrats were supposed to be the party acting rationally. Clinton effectively locked up the nomination in June and wasn’t cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the FBI until July. What if she had been indicted? Would Democrats have run her anyway?

Lowry then points out another thing I’ve been thinking myself, which is that at least the GOP bigwigs didn’t choose Trump; he was the product of a populist wave. But the Democratic “elites” chose and supported Hillary from the start. So Hillary was a case of the party favorite winning the primaries as well, although Sanders gave her a run for her money. Trump, on the other hand, was a populist phenomenon that went against the wishes of the party, although quite a few came onboard with Trump in the end as the only alternative to her left standing.

So, here we are: Election Day blues

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s very beautiful and sunny out. A perfect late fall day.

It’s even rather warm for this time of year. A perfect Election Day.

The sky is blue. My mood is blue. I predict that our next president will be blue, initials HRC.

I am hoping that the Senate will buck the blue trend and remain red.

I will be planning to comment on the election results this evening. I invite you to join me.