How long has it been since the 2016
presidential formal primary season began?
Only since August when the first GOP “debate” was held? Why does it seem that we have been enduring
the chaotic food fight and the new indoor world record for platitudes,
sophistry, pandering, and demagogic bluster for at least a year or more? The
dismal process has exposed this election’s stable of candidates as one steeped
in mediocrity. The Democratic version (October)
came with the not uncommon media exercise of tossing around the phrase “coronation”. But then a strange combination of reality and
unforeseen anger at “the way it's has always been” forced the “front runner” to
adjust her message. Her challenger,
whose promised “revolution” is so described
by virtue of his 1960’s protest mentality that it has excited young
voters who thought it was something new. This unexpected momentum
began to give the Democratic establishment stomach pains but Hillary was
up to the challenge. Not being
encumbered by an integrity compass, she simply changed her message to a kind of
Sanders “socialism lite”. “You want to
give young voters free college and tax the “greedy rich” to pay for it? Well then so do I.”
A virtual tie in the Iowa Caucuses brought on
unfamiliar feelings of desperation in New Hampshire. So Hillary brought out the
“big guns” like ageing feminist Gloria Steinhem. Whoops! Telling young women that their
enthusiasm for the Bern was just driven by hormones because that’s where the
young men were, was only exceeded in utter dumbness by another wrinkled version
of feminism, Madeline Albright’s threat that those failing to support a “woman
candidate” would find themselves in hell.
Now that’s an inspirational message that’s hard to beat as an election
slogan. But Hillary had an even “better”
one up her sleeve after a sound defeat in New Hampshire and going into the
South Carolina primary. Counting on
South Carolina’s large black population, Hillary brought racial politics and
group pandering to a new level, even for her.
“The
whole nation is infected with systemic racism!” she declared. The evidence of course was irrefutable to the
liberal mind and those who have been fed a steady diet of victimization: “black
criminals are being sent to jail!”
“Black men who have dropped out of high school can’t find jobs!”
But
you can’t knock success, even in the world of pandering. Sander’s message of class warfare delivered
by an “old white man”, didn’t appeal as much to South Carolina’s black voters
as Hillary’s racism meme and she won big.
So
the dismal promise marathon between an old radical with an old message and the
ever self-entitled legacy presidential candidate goes on. Super Tuesday’s and subsequent primaries and
caucuses has Hillary sitting on a substantial lead but still short of “inevitability”.
On
the other side, we are witnessing a cringe inducing meltdown of the traditional
electoral process in which candidates offered a mix of policy preferences with
a feel good optimism that the perceived ills of society would be fixed by their
leadership. Despite differences in political philosophy and programmatic
emphasis, these past contests have been characterized by a level of personal
respect for both the opposing candidates and the dignity of the institution for
which they were all candidates. Terms
like “gravitas”, “statesmanlike”, and “presidential bearing” were frequently
mentioned in media discussions of the participants.
Those
days are apparently gone. The 2012 “circular
firing squad” that destroyed Mitt Romney’s chances in the general election was
not heeded and the current display resembles something just short of a bar
fight and reflects badly on all the candidates but especially on the front
runner, Donald Trump. It seems highly
unlikely that Trump’s advisers are behind his school yard behavior and overt
and ugly hostility to individuals, groups, and policies, as a “tactic”. Surely defiance in the face of massive
opprobrium on the part of the media and members of both parties, would be seen
as potential political suicidal by seasoned political advisors. So the inescapable conclusion is that Donald
Trump as an individual is deeply flawed in terms of building human
relationships, intellectual inquiry and analysis, and respect for traditions,
institutions and people with whom he is unfamiliar. This is the very antithesis
of leadership.
By
steering the debates, both on and off the stage, into these obnoxious depths,
Trump has dragged the other candidates down into his disgusting realm, thus
poisoning the entire process. How then
is he able to maintain his level of support across regions and demographics?
Some
say they like what he says even while disapproving of his demeanor. Others simply enjoy his cage fight hostility
to the “establishment”.
So
the pro-Trump narrative has two different threads. One is that Trump is the answer to what they
perceive as the disassociation of the Republican Party from its true
conservative roots and its slide towards the neo-liberalism of the Democratic
Party. These critics make a credible
argument with respect to the abandonment, acquiescence or compromise to ever
increasing federal spending, intrusion of the government into the lives of
individual citizen, over regulation of private businesses, and a level of
internationalism that seems to some as overreach based on its indirect impact
on U.S. national interests.
Conservative
political philosophy with its emphasis on individual liberty and small
government, they point, out has nothing to do with the prevailing emphasis on
“social conservatism” and the religious based issues of abortion and gay rights
which are playing such a large role in the contest. Concentration on these socially divisive and
irreconcilable issues is indeed a distraction from fundamental conservatism and
weakens the appeal of conservatism as a broad based political philosophy.
However
ideological purism from any point of view is undesirable since it becomes too restrictive
in an ever more complex political and economic environment and must therefore
reject reality to maintain itself. Thus
21st Century conservatism must grow and adapt while preserving its
foundational premise of individual liberty and limited government.
The
other pro-Trump narrative is simply that government, aided by the political
class of both parties, is corrupt, self-serving and out of touch with ordinary
citizens. Trump, it is felt will “go
into the ring” with these forces and break down the barriers to input by the
citizenry. This is the “anger”
explanation which is real. Trump voters
are angry with economic redistribution policies, the accelerating destruction
of an identifiable American culture by the failed logic and process of multi-culturalism
and its handmaidens, a failed immigration and border policy and, the absurd
proliferation of political correctness, all promoted by the political power of
narrow interest groups.
These
Trump voters are not concerned with saving or remaking the Republican Party but both
of these pro-Trump arguments are flawed in some important respects.
Those
who believe Trump can be the leader who will guide the Republican Party back to
its conservative roots are wrong.
Nothing Trump has said in the campaign, an indeed much of his political
past, indicates an ideological commitment to such a path. Trump is a tactician,
who has adopted populism as an election strategy. He is playing on the feelings
of voters that they are merely pawns in the contest for power between political
elites, which includes the other “establishment” candidates in the Republican
primary contest.
These
more analytical Trump adherents are willing to minimize the enormous gap
between what Trump says he will do, the specifics of how he will do it, and
what he is actually capable of doing as President. They are also willing to
forgive his extraordinary personality defects which make him incapable of
leadership in any context other than public forums of disaffected groups. A President Trump would find himself in a
very lonely White House with few friends or political allies in the Congress
who are necessary to rebuild the Party or pass any conservative or Trump policy
agenda.
The
“angry” bloc of Trump supporters, if he is successful, will see their anger
satisfied in the debates between Trump and Hillary but even if he is somehow
elected President, further satisfaction will disappear quickly as he is
rendered ineffective by the political isolation that will surely follow.
The
danger for both sets of “believers” is of course the likelihood that his “over
the top” hostility to any but the cheering crowds before him will hand the
presidency to Hillary as moderate Republicans simply opt out and the “anyone
but Hillary” voters hold their noses and move into the “anyone but Trump” camp.
The
instinctive desire one feels to see their political opponents pummeled has
limits of propriety and tradition which Trump has far exceeded. The election is largely in the hands of self
-described “independent” voters. Such voters, although made up of “leaners”
towards one party or the other, have, by definition, open minds, but it would
take a extraordinary degree of “openness” for these uncommitted voters to
accept the excesses of Trumps behavior to consider him fit for the world’s and
nation’s most important office.
Thus
voters are seeing the sad spectacle of a failure of the electoral system. After eight years of passive incompetence and
the absence of leadership in the White House, the choices are likely to be “the
lesser of evils”. We have a legacy candidate without personal accomplishments whose
celebrity candidacy is built upon her marriage to a former president and the
political value of her chromosomes. Her vision for the nation is essentially a
vision of her own status and power which she disguises as “progressive”
policies depending on which group she is talking to and
what her opponent is saying that seems energize the voters which she can then emulate.
Her
opponent may well be the most offensive, least qualified presidential candidate
in history. Even if all the present and former candidates in both parties are
considered, only one has the experience, demeanor and accomplishments that
would normally be seen as required for the office of the President. That would
be former Congressman and current Ohio governor, John Kasich. But the electoral process has been taken over
by the media and the result is a absurd hybrid of a reality show and a
political version of “Judge Judy” in which Kasich lacks the “excitement factor”.
So called “debates” are a combination of
standard stump speeches, and accusations proffered by the other “debaters’ and
the self-important moderators who wish to enter the debate to demonstrate how “tough”
they are as ‘journalists”. These questioners seem to relish their role as
instigators by encouraging the personal attacks with their he said, she said, questions.
This “info-tainment”
process elevates the entertainment component over the policy component,
encourages the participation of under qualified candidates, and produces repetitive
results largely based on style over substance.
A
flawed system needs to be changed if flawed candidates are to be avoided. The
chances are not encouraging.
1 comment:
Amen
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