Viewed in isolation, the
presidency of Donald Trump must be like being married to that hot younger woman
with an effervescent personality that is also a lunatic and has a major
drinking problem. There are days when it’s
hard to imagine having more fun. And
then there are days when I imagine you wake up and decide that you just can no
longer go on like this.
Last week was one of those
weeks. Trump hit a trifecta.
After getting off on the right
foot in his response to the Parkland shooting by talking about the real
issue—mental health, Trump began to backtrack.
He hinted that he might consider doing away with bump stocks by an
executive order. Then Trump egregiously
announced his willingness to “take the guns first, go through due process
second.” During the Obama
administration, I recoiled at Obama’s “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone,”
approach to governance, as he stretched the boundaries of executive powers as
far as he could reach without going through the legislative process. Trump threatened (but so far has not acted)
to do the same.
Then, Trump’s imposition of
tariffs on steel and aluminum sent shudders down my free trade spine. Sure, I’ve heard some of the
rationalizations: that the Chinese don’t
play fair, that the tariffs will have a nominal effect on GDP, that it is
important for our national security. People
like Laura Ingraham and Charles Payne who are ordinarily counted as
conservatives defended Trump on the imposition of tariffs. But almost all serious free market economists
revolted against it. This is crony
capitalism at its worst and while I have some sympathy for getting tough on
China, we save not had this kind of protectionism in decades and the entire weight
of the evidence pushes against such measures.
This is a tax on consumers and consumers of steel and is a partial
offset to the tax relief given to business.
Worse, it sets a global tone and invites retaliation. The effects may not be felt immediately
because we are currently in a pretty strong global recovery, but they will be
felt. Paul Ryan’s last ditch effort to
get Trump to back off failed and that is yet another worrisome sign---that
Trump will not listen to cooler heads.
Finally, Trump’s reaction to Xi
Jinping’s success in getting rid of term limits in China was breathtaking. While it was taken out of context, and apparently said in jest, it gave fodder to all those that claimed that
Trump had totalitarian instincts:
“He’s now president for
life. President for life. No, he’s great. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some
day.”
As
someone who reacted strongly to Thomas Friedman’s column when he displayed admiration
for the Chinese political system because that “gives them the ability to solve
big problems,” I cannot today countenance an irresponsible and anti-democratic
statement like that out of Trump, even if he was kidding. The media stand ready to pounce on Trump for any statement that gives credence to any of the narrative labels it has created for him-- totalitarian, racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic. Trump needs to avoid giving up softballs like that. After his "locker room" comment, it was as if Trump were caught on camera leering at some young woman, commenting, "Gee, look at the rack on her." After harboring hopes of liberalization, three important countries have swung the other way-- Russia, Turkey and China. Others like Venezuela, are a complete mess. In a world that seems to be slouching ever closer to totalitarianism, that kind of messaging is simply abhorrent and should not be joked about.
One top of it all, Trump’s communication director Hope Hicks
resigned last week, creating even more turmoil in a White House experiencing
continuous churn.
There is no coloring it any other way-- last week was the
worst of his administration, if you are a Constitutionalist, a conservative or a libertarian.
But not to be outdone, Progressives worldwide gave us an
entire litany of absurdities to scratch our heads over.
- · Barack Obama, in a speech in Boston asserted that “Government workers work harder than private sector workers.” Try saying that sentence out loud while keeping a straight face.
- Democrats are now using survivors of the Lakeland massacre to raise money. The party that supports Planned Parenthood (remember auctioning off baby parts?) is now leveraging grief and death to fill its coffers.
- The New York Times published a 9,000 word essay on the economic collapse in Venezuela and does so without actually using the word “socialism” in it.·
- Apparently learning nothing from Zimbabwe, over 25 years after the end of Apartheid government in South Africa, the South African Parliament voted to take land away from whites. Another Venezuela in the making.
- Notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan has met with member of the Congressional Black Caucus and confirms that DNC Vice Chair Keith Ellison was a member of Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.
- Democratic utopian state California now has a 20% poverty rate and is ranked dead last in quality of life. Take that, Mississippi.
- · Democratic leader Chuck Schumer voted against a Trump judicial nominee purely on the basis of his skin color. Take that, Martin Luther King.·
- Angela Merkel finally admits there are “no go zones” in Germany after years of denial. Take that, rule of law and liberal democracy. You are now subordinate to the new laws of multiculturalism.
- Barack Obama decided to skip Billy Graham’s funeral (as he did Antonin Scalia’s). Any bets on whether he will attend Al Sharpton’s?
- With many legislators (and some retailers already doing it) clamoring to raise the age at which you can buy a rifle to 21, it will now be the case that an 8 year old can decide his (or her) gender and get hormone treatments, but a 20 year old returning from a tour in Afghanistan won’t be able to buy a rifle at Dick’s.
- For the second year in a row, a transgender won the state girls’ wrestling title in Texas.
- · Today, we learned that Facebook actually surveyed some users if they thought an ‘adult man’ should be allowed to request ‘sexual pictures’ from a 14 year old. This prompted me to ask whether Anthony Weiner had gotten a seat on the board of directors of Facebook.
It was a harder argument to make after last week, I think.
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