I guess my reaction to the second debate is similar to my reaction to the first. Trump impersonates a wonk pretty well. He is good at coming out with facts that sound impressive, whether true or not. Hillary was not good enough at calling him out when he spouted nonsense. His behavior was more restrained this time, i.e., he did not make obviously clownish faces and the like. I actually thought he had a good point when he pointed out that there are no good guys in the Syrian civil war, and that arming rebels is not a good idea, given what they turn out to be. Very true!
Still wouldn't make me trust him with the Presidency, though.
Sunday, October 9, 2016
A Very Brief Comment on Trump and the "Pussy" Tape
The whole business about Trump and the "pussy" tape positively cries out for an Onion headline: "Donald Trump Caught on Tape Acting Like Donald Trump. Everyone in an Uproar."
Trump and Corruption
I want to discuss a little the idea held by some people that the system is so corrupt that we should elect Donald Trump to shake it up because any change would be an improvement.
I guess that raises two questions. First of all, just how corrupt is our present system. And second, just how corrupt is Donald Trump.
As for corruption in our present system, there are several ways to look at it.
One interpretation of corrupt is the crudest sense of corruption, i.e., are our politicians being flat-out bribed? Well, there was William Jefferson and his fridge full of money, but so far as I can tell, this is an unusual case. For the most part, there isn't that much flat-out bribery going on. Corruption in our political system is something more subtle.
At the other end of the spectrum is the politiphobe definition of corruption, which basically amounts to the existence of politics at all:
Let's face facts. Treating one's personal relationships as primary is simply human nature. Yes, treating important public policy decisions simply as an exchange of favors between friends is inappropriate and often corrupt. That is why there are so many elaborate disclosure and anti-corruption rules, to keep basic human nature from asserting itself. But in the end, such rules can only go so far. People will network, do favors for friends, exchange one favor for another, grant access based on past association and so forth. There is simply no way to prevent it short of taking humans out of government altogether and replacing them with computers.
Another extremely broad definition of corruption is acting on one's own private interests instead of for the public good. Here again, given the difficulty in figuring out what the public good is and how it is best served, as well as the mind's extraordinary ability to rationalize what it wants, it seems a reasonable assumption that corruption of this kind is impossible to eliminate. I realize that at this point libertarians would agree and say that is all the more reason to hold government to the absolute bare minimum (roughly, a criminal justice system and civil courts to enforce contracts), to prevent that sort of corruption and abuse of power. My only response can be that I think libertarians seriously underestimate how much corruption and abuse of power can take place outside government.
My answer, instead, is that if you can't eliminate corruption of this kind, your better bet is to broaden or, if you will democratize it. My own hypothesis is that the broader the corruption, the more people who benefit, the broader the interest being promoted, the less it differs from the public good, and the less noxious the corruption.
Consider some points of comparison. At the time this country was founded, corruption was rife in Great Britain. One form this corruption took was in representation in Parliament. Representation was not in proportion to population. Some district had only a handful of eligible voters (rotten boroughs). Election from this district could be achieved simply by bribing a handful of electors. In other districts, one wealthy proprietor permanently had power to bribe or coerce the view eligible voters ("pocket boroughs" because they were in a proprietor's pocket) to ensure his election to Parliament. Bribery of this crude sort was not possible in districts with large populations. This is not to deny that bribery is possible. A longstanding US tradition has been for representatives to bribe their constituents with "earmarks" and pork barrel projects, i.e., bringing popular public works to the district. This, too, is a form of bribery, but it is one in which a fairly broad swath of the population benefits and therefore, I would say, a less noxious one.
The US Congress in 1995 under the leadership of Newt Gingrich is another case in point. Republicans had denounced the Democrats as the party of special interests and taken power proudly boasting that they had no such corruption. They then proceeded to attempt to turn Congress into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chamber of Commerce and introduced legislation to block the introduction of modern anti-bacterial methods of food inspection, to make it easier for companies to dip into employee pension funds, to sell National Forests to mining and timber interests, and so forth. My mother commented at the time that this showed that Republicans were just as must the party of special interests as Democrats, their interests were merely narrower. The AARP (America Association of Retired Persons) represents only a sub-portion of the population (retirees) whose interest can legitimately conflict with the interests of working age people. But it is a much broader, and therefore less noxious, interest than the ones who wanted to dip into employee pensions and so forth.
All of which leads to a specific kind of corruption of this kind. Namely, elites the world over (the 1%, if you will) have a marked tendency to confuse their own power and privilege with the common good. The US is no exception. In the US, this means a tendency for our elites to believe that whatever maximizes profits maximizes the public interest. It informs the Republican Party's insistence that cutting taxes as the top and gutting regulations should always be top priorities. Critical here is many people's belief that the 1% have captured our politics altogether and that popular voices have been completely shut out.
This is very much the fear of people on both sides of the aisle. Followers of Bernie Sanders and followers of Donald Trump share it, though in different ways. To Democrats (myself included) the all-consuming hegemony of the 1% is shown in the Republican obsession with cutting taxes at the top and gutting regulation, and the obsession of Very Serious People in balancing the budget by cutting entitlements. To Republicans, the all-consuming hegemony of the 1% is shown in Republican willingness to admit more immigrants who will add cheap labor, in the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same sex marriage, and in the current atmosphere that treats people to oppose same sex marriage and giving transgenders access to the restroom of their choice as outside of all bounds of reasonable discourse. And people on both sides of the aisle see it manifested in this endless insistence on intervening in wars in the Mideast long after such interventions have proven fruitless.
Is this true? Well, I believe that the 1% have a much stronger grip on our body politic than before, partly be campaign donations, and partly by the decline of many interest groups that represented people outside the 1%, like labor unions. But it would be false to say that our political class are completely unresponsive to pressure from below. For instance, Trump supporters still act as if the Republican establishment favored unrestricted immigration, when that simply is not so. By now securing our border and opposing any path to legalization are essential ideological tests for a Republican almost as much as tax cuts at the top. And make no mistake, this is the result of pressure from below. The same applies to guns. Another basic ideological marker for Republicans is opposition to any sort of restriction on firearms ownership, also the result of pressure from the rank-and file. The same applies to church members and abortion.
On the Democratic side, raising taxes on the top rates seems unlikely to be the result of the views of the donor class. And while it does seem fair to say that the donor class are lock-step in favor of same sex marriage and trans-genderism, that, too, ultimately came about from pressure from below. So, too, Black Lives Matter is a seeking to exercise influence from below. In short, it is still possible to exert pressure from below and influence politicians; it is just more difficult than in the past.
Another aspect of our political system that is both a source of corruption and a limitation on the power of the 1% is that the 1% is by no means a monolith. Not only do elites tend to identify their interests with the common good, but they are divided into sub-factions that each equate its own particular interests with the common good. For instance, the finance industry identifies the common good (savers!) with maximum return on passive investments (raise interest rates); extractive industries identify the common good with repealing environmental regulations; real estate developers identify the common good with repealing land use regulations; manufacturers (often) identify the common good with protectionism, and so forth. Furthermore, these interests are not just interests of the 1%. Many people work in all these industries and share vertical ties with the people at the top; thus the whole industry from top to bottom shares common interests. (There are also conflicts within industries as well, of course, such as labor-management conflicts). This might be seen as combating one form of corruption (the horizontal interest of the 1%) with another kind of corruption (the vertical interest of particular industries).
So what about Donald Trump? Well, I just finished watching his second debate, and he has definitely put emphasis on this -- that Hillary is captive to her donors, while he is too rich to buy. And he took her to task for the fact that she had been in government for 30 years, yet the country still has problems. If he were elected President, he would fix all of them. That is, quite simply, an appeal to the politiphobe view of corruption, that the mere existence of politics is corruption, and that if we could set aside the failings of politicians, everything would be fixed. It is, of course, a fantasy.
But the thing about Donald Trump is that his record indicates him to be corrupt in the narrowest possible sense, and therefore the most dangerous. He is not a candidate who equates the public good with the interests of the 1% or the interests real estate development. He gives no evidence of having any concept of the common good apart from his own interests. He is a candidate who takes advantage of the Brexit to pitch for his golf courses in Scotland. He is a candidate whose campaign routinely buys Trump products and uses Trump buildings and pays Trump enterprises inflated prices for the privilege. He is a candidate whose concept of putting his wealth in blind trust is turning his business empire over to his children to manage.
This is, I think, what most people think of when they talk about political corruption, certainly what many fear is what our system has become. And Trump is running as the candidate who will put an end to this type of corruption -- by embracing it whole-heartedly.
I guess that raises two questions. First of all, just how corrupt is our present system. And second, just how corrupt is Donald Trump.
As for corruption in our present system, there are several ways to look at it.
One interpretation of corrupt is the crudest sense of corruption, i.e., are our politicians being flat-out bribed? Well, there was William Jefferson and his fridge full of money, but so far as I can tell, this is an unusual case. For the most part, there isn't that much flat-out bribery going on. Corruption in our political system is something more subtle.
At the other end of the spectrum is the politiphobe definition of corruption, which basically amounts to the existence of politics at all:
[Politiphobes] believe that obvious, commonsense solutions to the country’s problems are out there for the plucking. The reason these obvious solutions are not enacted is that politicians are corrupt, or self-interested, or addicted to unnecessary partisan feuding. Not surprisingly, politiphobes think the obvious, commonsense solutions are the sorts of solutions that they themselves prefer.Only slightly less sweeping is the concept of corruption implied in the whole uproar over the Hillary Clinton e-mails, which roughly defines corruption as networking. I noticed much the same thing all the way back in 1997 at the time of the Southeast Asian economic crisis. The general consensus seemed to be that the Asian economies crashed because of corruption and "crony capitalism." These terms were roughly defined to mean people making decisions based on their personal relationships, rather than cold-blooded calculations about the bottom line. In other words, acting like actual flesh-and-blood people, rather than the soulless Homo economicus that inhabits textbooks everywhere.
Let's face facts. Treating one's personal relationships as primary is simply human nature. Yes, treating important public policy decisions simply as an exchange of favors between friends is inappropriate and often corrupt. That is why there are so many elaborate disclosure and anti-corruption rules, to keep basic human nature from asserting itself. But in the end, such rules can only go so far. People will network, do favors for friends, exchange one favor for another, grant access based on past association and so forth. There is simply no way to prevent it short of taking humans out of government altogether and replacing them with computers.
Another extremely broad definition of corruption is acting on one's own private interests instead of for the public good. Here again, given the difficulty in figuring out what the public good is and how it is best served, as well as the mind's extraordinary ability to rationalize what it wants, it seems a reasonable assumption that corruption of this kind is impossible to eliminate. I realize that at this point libertarians would agree and say that is all the more reason to hold government to the absolute bare minimum (roughly, a criminal justice system and civil courts to enforce contracts), to prevent that sort of corruption and abuse of power. My only response can be that I think libertarians seriously underestimate how much corruption and abuse of power can take place outside government.
My answer, instead, is that if you can't eliminate corruption of this kind, your better bet is to broaden or, if you will democratize it. My own hypothesis is that the broader the corruption, the more people who benefit, the broader the interest being promoted, the less it differs from the public good, and the less noxious the corruption.
Consider some points of comparison. At the time this country was founded, corruption was rife in Great Britain. One form this corruption took was in representation in Parliament. Representation was not in proportion to population. Some district had only a handful of eligible voters (rotten boroughs). Election from this district could be achieved simply by bribing a handful of electors. In other districts, one wealthy proprietor permanently had power to bribe or coerce the view eligible voters ("pocket boroughs" because they were in a proprietor's pocket) to ensure his election to Parliament. Bribery of this crude sort was not possible in districts with large populations. This is not to deny that bribery is possible. A longstanding US tradition has been for representatives to bribe their constituents with "earmarks" and pork barrel projects, i.e., bringing popular public works to the district. This, too, is a form of bribery, but it is one in which a fairly broad swath of the population benefits and therefore, I would say, a less noxious one.
The US Congress in 1995 under the leadership of Newt Gingrich is another case in point. Republicans had denounced the Democrats as the party of special interests and taken power proudly boasting that they had no such corruption. They then proceeded to attempt to turn Congress into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chamber of Commerce and introduced legislation to block the introduction of modern anti-bacterial methods of food inspection, to make it easier for companies to dip into employee pension funds, to sell National Forests to mining and timber interests, and so forth. My mother commented at the time that this showed that Republicans were just as must the party of special interests as Democrats, their interests were merely narrower. The AARP (America Association of Retired Persons) represents only a sub-portion of the population (retirees) whose interest can legitimately conflict with the interests of working age people. But it is a much broader, and therefore less noxious, interest than the ones who wanted to dip into employee pensions and so forth.
All of which leads to a specific kind of corruption of this kind. Namely, elites the world over (the 1%, if you will) have a marked tendency to confuse their own power and privilege with the common good. The US is no exception. In the US, this means a tendency for our elites to believe that whatever maximizes profits maximizes the public interest. It informs the Republican Party's insistence that cutting taxes as the top and gutting regulations should always be top priorities. Critical here is many people's belief that the 1% have captured our politics altogether and that popular voices have been completely shut out.
This is very much the fear of people on both sides of the aisle. Followers of Bernie Sanders and followers of Donald Trump share it, though in different ways. To Democrats (myself included) the all-consuming hegemony of the 1% is shown in the Republican obsession with cutting taxes at the top and gutting regulation, and the obsession of Very Serious People in balancing the budget by cutting entitlements. To Republicans, the all-consuming hegemony of the 1% is shown in Republican willingness to admit more immigrants who will add cheap labor, in the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same sex marriage, and in the current atmosphere that treats people to oppose same sex marriage and giving transgenders access to the restroom of their choice as outside of all bounds of reasonable discourse. And people on both sides of the aisle see it manifested in this endless insistence on intervening in wars in the Mideast long after such interventions have proven fruitless.
Is this true? Well, I believe that the 1% have a much stronger grip on our body politic than before, partly be campaign donations, and partly by the decline of many interest groups that represented people outside the 1%, like labor unions. But it would be false to say that our political class are completely unresponsive to pressure from below. For instance, Trump supporters still act as if the Republican establishment favored unrestricted immigration, when that simply is not so. By now securing our border and opposing any path to legalization are essential ideological tests for a Republican almost as much as tax cuts at the top. And make no mistake, this is the result of pressure from below. The same applies to guns. Another basic ideological marker for Republicans is opposition to any sort of restriction on firearms ownership, also the result of pressure from the rank-and file. The same applies to church members and abortion.
On the Democratic side, raising taxes on the top rates seems unlikely to be the result of the views of the donor class. And while it does seem fair to say that the donor class are lock-step in favor of same sex marriage and trans-genderism, that, too, ultimately came about from pressure from below. So, too, Black Lives Matter is a seeking to exercise influence from below. In short, it is still possible to exert pressure from below and influence politicians; it is just more difficult than in the past.
Another aspect of our political system that is both a source of corruption and a limitation on the power of the 1% is that the 1% is by no means a monolith. Not only do elites tend to identify their interests with the common good, but they are divided into sub-factions that each equate its own particular interests with the common good. For instance, the finance industry identifies the common good (savers!) with maximum return on passive investments (raise interest rates); extractive industries identify the common good with repealing environmental regulations; real estate developers identify the common good with repealing land use regulations; manufacturers (often) identify the common good with protectionism, and so forth. Furthermore, these interests are not just interests of the 1%. Many people work in all these industries and share vertical ties with the people at the top; thus the whole industry from top to bottom shares common interests. (There are also conflicts within industries as well, of course, such as labor-management conflicts). This might be seen as combating one form of corruption (the horizontal interest of the 1%) with another kind of corruption (the vertical interest of particular industries).
So what about Donald Trump? Well, I just finished watching his second debate, and he has definitely put emphasis on this -- that Hillary is captive to her donors, while he is too rich to buy. And he took her to task for the fact that she had been in government for 30 years, yet the country still has problems. If he were elected President, he would fix all of them. That is, quite simply, an appeal to the politiphobe view of corruption, that the mere existence of politics is corruption, and that if we could set aside the failings of politicians, everything would be fixed. It is, of course, a fantasy.
But the thing about Donald Trump is that his record indicates him to be corrupt in the narrowest possible sense, and therefore the most dangerous. He is not a candidate who equates the public good with the interests of the 1% or the interests real estate development. He gives no evidence of having any concept of the common good apart from his own interests. He is a candidate who takes advantage of the Brexit to pitch for his golf courses in Scotland. He is a candidate whose campaign routinely buys Trump products and uses Trump buildings and pays Trump enterprises inflated prices for the privilege. He is a candidate whose concept of putting his wealth in blind trust is turning his business empire over to his children to manage.
This is, I think, what most people think of when they talk about political corruption, certainly what many fear is what our system has become. And Trump is running as the candidate who will put an end to this type of corruption -- by embracing it whole-heartedly.
Monday, October 3, 2016
Reflections on the First Debate
OK, I know it is a bit late to be weighing in on the debate, but let me put my two cents' worth anyhow. Which is, I don't think Trump did so badly as conventional wisdom has it. Not that I think he did great or anything, but I didn't think he was an epic disaster.
I might as well confess my biases here. I tend to favor debaters who appear to know what they are talking about, have a good command of facts and serious understanding of policy. Even if I don't agree with candidates, I am inclined to cut them some slack if they make a good, evidence-based case for what they want to do.
Thus to me Ronald Reagan's performance against Carter is sort of the gold standard of debate. A number of people have commented that, although there was pervasive discontent with how the country was doing, many people were afraid Reagan was a crazy fanatic. The debate convinced them otherwise. Speaking for me, I was quite impressed when he regularly countered Carter's accusations and attempts to paint him as extremist with calm facts, even to the point of chuckling and says "There you go again," after several such accusations. Not everyone agreed with me. My civics teacher at the time said he would never trust anyone who chuckles while talking about nuclear war. But there you have it.
On the other hand, Sarah Palin is a sort of anti-gold standard. Hers was the most painful debate performance I have ever seen. My impression watching the Biden-Palin debate was that it was between two candidates, one of whom had a serious, in-depth understanding of policy, and the other one of whom was reciting canned talking points. And, in fact, some accounts afterward say that that was exactly what she was doing. Not everyone agreed with me. Palin supporters thought she did great. But a majority clearly saw Biden as the winner. To me, it looked like a high school athlete trying to compete against pros.
Well, Trump wasn't Ronald Reagan. But he wasn't Sarah Palin, either. Hillary started with what sounded to me like a lot of glittering generalities without much substance behind them, while Trump came out with what sounded like facts, even if some of them actually were not true. On the other hand, if you had turned the sound off, Hillary would look like a normal person, while Trump's facial expressions and body language were exaggerated and clownish and did not look worthy of a leader of the free world. And as the evening wore on, Trump started shouting and showed that he could be provoked. Clinton stayed calm. And while the audience was told to be quiet there were some lines that got laughter and some that got applause. Trump drew first blood on applause, saying he would release his tax returns when Hillary released her e-mails. But I would call the most noteworthy event of the night Trump saying he had the better temperament after a rant that rather strongly proved the contrary. That got a good laugh too, but not an intended one.
So I would say advantage Trump earlier on and advantage Clinton later. But never a real blowout. My side, obviously, exaggerated every one of Trump's errors and failing. But even Trump's side seems to think he should have prepared better.
The big question, of course, is now what. There are two more debates to go. What will happen?
The cynical take is that whoever lost the first debate will necessarily have to be declared the winner of the second, with the original winner making a comeback in the third. That is how the media always spin debates in order to maintain drama and suspense.
And finally, there is the question of how much it matters at all. After all, the general consensus is that debate rarely do more than briefly move the needle. Hillary's debate bump is already looking to be smaller and shorter-lived than her convention bump. On the other hand, we are now in the home stretch, with just over a month to go, at a time when every little flicker in opinion polls really does matter. Complacency (or despair) is still premature. But it is nowhere near as premature as it was a few months ago.
General forecast: A very stressful month ahead.
___________________________________
*This approach also may have an inherent bias toward Democrats. Can't find the link, but when reporters switched which side they covered, they were particularly impressed by that. Democratic voters have specific concerns that they want the candidates to address, while Republican find the whole idea of government addressing people's problems repugnant and address ideological generalities instead. The town hall format focuses on people with specific concerns they want the candidates to address.
I might as well confess my biases here. I tend to favor debaters who appear to know what they are talking about, have a good command of facts and serious understanding of policy. Even if I don't agree with candidates, I am inclined to cut them some slack if they make a good, evidence-based case for what they want to do.
Thus to me Ronald Reagan's performance against Carter is sort of the gold standard of debate. A number of people have commented that, although there was pervasive discontent with how the country was doing, many people were afraid Reagan was a crazy fanatic. The debate convinced them otherwise. Speaking for me, I was quite impressed when he regularly countered Carter's accusations and attempts to paint him as extremist with calm facts, even to the point of chuckling and says "There you go again," after several such accusations. Not everyone agreed with me. My civics teacher at the time said he would never trust anyone who chuckles while talking about nuclear war. But there you have it.
On the other hand, Sarah Palin is a sort of anti-gold standard. Hers was the most painful debate performance I have ever seen. My impression watching the Biden-Palin debate was that it was between two candidates, one of whom had a serious, in-depth understanding of policy, and the other one of whom was reciting canned talking points. And, in fact, some accounts afterward say that that was exactly what she was doing. Not everyone agreed with me. Palin supporters thought she did great. But a majority clearly saw Biden as the winner. To me, it looked like a high school athlete trying to compete against pros.
Well, Trump wasn't Ronald Reagan. But he wasn't Sarah Palin, either. Hillary started with what sounded to me like a lot of glittering generalities without much substance behind them, while Trump came out with what sounded like facts, even if some of them actually were not true. On the other hand, if you had turned the sound off, Hillary would look like a normal person, while Trump's facial expressions and body language were exaggerated and clownish and did not look worthy of a leader of the free world. And as the evening wore on, Trump started shouting and showed that he could be provoked. Clinton stayed calm. And while the audience was told to be quiet there were some lines that got laughter and some that got applause. Trump drew first blood on applause, saying he would release his tax returns when Hillary released her e-mails. But I would call the most noteworthy event of the night Trump saying he had the better temperament after a rant that rather strongly proved the contrary. That got a good laugh too, but not an intended one.
So I would say advantage Trump earlier on and advantage Clinton later. But never a real blowout. My side, obviously, exaggerated every one of Trump's errors and failing. But even Trump's side seems to think he should have prepared better.
The big question, of course, is now what. There are two more debates to go. What will happen?
The cynical take is that whoever lost the first debate will necessarily have to be declared the winner of the second, with the original winner making a comeback in the third. That is how the media always spin debates in order to maintain drama and suspense.
My prediction for the narrative, based on every election since 2000, is that Trump will be deemed to have improved substantially in the second debate, and then Clinton will be seen as pulling off a needed comeback in the third. Note that this is my prediction for the narrative. It doesn’t matter if Trump spends the second debate yelling into his cell phone about how he won’t pay construction workers, or if Clinton suffers a stroke in the third debate. In the second debate it is necessary that Trump be seen as redeemed, so if he spends the entire debate ignoring the moderator and yelling about his refusal to pay a bill he’ll be called “bold and unconventional” for doing so. In the third debate, if doesn’t matter if Clinton goes into a coma, the narrative demands a comeback, so she’ll be seen as “incredibly graceful as she soldiered on until medical personnel intervened.”On the other hand -- well, Trump's supporters say that he has to prepare better, but it is not clear whether he is even capable of preparing. Remember all those comments how he has an incredibly short attention span and is incapable of focusing for more than a few minutes on subject other than his own self-aggrandizement. That makes debate prep really hard. And the next debate will consist of ordinary citizens asking questions. I have seen debates of that type and don't like the format much. Ordinary citizens' questions tend to be quite narrowly focused on issues that affect them personally rather than ones of national importance. But the result is to give a clear advantage to the wonk who had an incredibly fine-tuned knowledge of policy.* Others (cannot find link) have suggested that the town hall format plays especially poorly for the sort of temper and dominance displays that are Trump's stock-in-trade.
And finally, there is the question of how much it matters at all. After all, the general consensus is that debate rarely do more than briefly move the needle. Hillary's debate bump is already looking to be smaller and shorter-lived than her convention bump. On the other hand, we are now in the home stretch, with just over a month to go, at a time when every little flicker in opinion polls really does matter. Complacency (or despair) is still premature. But it is nowhere near as premature as it was a few months ago.
General forecast: A very stressful month ahead.
___________________________________
*This approach also may have an inherent bias toward Democrats. Can't find the link, but when reporters switched which side they covered, they were particularly impressed by that. Democratic voters have specific concerns that they want the candidates to address, while Republican find the whole idea of government addressing people's problems repugnant and address ideological generalities instead. The town hall format focuses on people with specific concerns they want the candidates to address.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Uh-Oh. This Doesn't Look Good For Hillary
The New York Times ran a recent article chronicling 31 lies Donald Trump has told in the last week. Which I might think would hurt him, except for the nature of one lie that jumped out at me. Apparently Trump said that Hillary had 13 phone destroyed with a hammer to keep the messages on them from being found. The Times said it was only two.
Hot new flash. When you are accused of destroying 13 phones to conceal their contents, no one is going to be much impressed by the defense that really it was only two. Thirteen or two is going to make little difference to your average American (myself included). The important point is that Hillary had phone destroyed to hide their contents.
If Trump raises that point in the upcoming debate -- well, it is going to hurt. So presumably he will raise it.
Hot new flash. When you are accused of destroying 13 phones to conceal their contents, no one is going to be much impressed by the defense that really it was only two. Thirteen or two is going to make little difference to your average American (myself included). The important point is that Hillary had phone destroyed to hide their contents.
If Trump raises that point in the upcoming debate -- well, it is going to hurt. So presumably he will raise it.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Advice to Hillary that She Will Never See
Well, it was premature to panic when Trump's ratings went up in May after he secured the Republican nomination and premature to become complacent when then went down in July. It was also premature to become complacent when Hillary's ratings soared following the conventions, but not as premature. And it is premature to panic now with Hillary's extended string of bad luck -- but not as premature.
It appears to be the e-mail scandal that is hurting her. The press has been paying extended attention to that scandal and treating it as a very serious matter, so it can hardly be surprising that the public treats it as a serious matter as well. In the meantime, there are any number of shocking stories about Trump out there, but none of them has caught on in the same way that the Hillary e-mail scandal has. Why is that?
I am inclined to think first and foremost that there is just so much stuff out there on Trump that none of it is really sticking because there is always a new bright, shiny object to move on to. The e-mail scandal, on the other hand, is one thing to latch onto. Or rather, it is not. It is actually three or four things going on at once. One is that Hillary Clinton sent State Department e-mails over a private server, which she was not supposed to do, and which makes them more vulnerable to hacking. Or maybe it was an attempt to hide them from investigators, and she did, in fact, delete some 30,000 personal e-mails before handing over the public ones. Also the e-mails include a number of large donor to the Clinton foundation asking for special favors, although there is no evidence that such favors were ever granted. All of these are separate, but they are similar enough to (understandably) be conflated in the public mind. There was also the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee, which was not related and did not involve national security or classified documents, but also tends to become conflated because both scandals involve e-mails and electronic security. Besides, Trump tended more to conflate them by joking that he hoped the Russians had recovered those 30,000 e-mails she deleted. One comes away with the impression that either Hillary Clinton endangered national security by sending e-mails on a private server that was hacked, or that she is engaged in a massive cover-up of corrupt dealings. Or both.
Trump, in the meantime, has any number of crooked dealings in his past, but there are so many that it is hard to focus on any one.
Also, badly organized as his campaign may have been in the past, he has now mastered the importance of message discipline. His response to any accusation is simply to turn the subject to those damn e-mails. During the primaries, Trump joked that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and it wouldn't cost him any votes. Just to be clear, that was purely a joke, and I do not believe that he would every shoot anyone, on Fifth Avenue or anywhere else. Nonetheless, imagine if Trump did shoot a political or business rival in the middle of Fifth Avenue.
Some reporter would ask if that made him look "unpresidential." Given his record, Trump might deny having shot anyone, despite the innumerable witnesses and possibly even being caught on camera. But if he couldn't get away with denying it, he would say oh yeah, well what about Hillary's e-mails? Campaign surrogates would say that the United States is a very big country, with some 300 million people. Out of that vast number, Trump shot exactly one. But Hillary put all of us in danger by sending State Department e-mails on a private server. Someone would point out that it is not unprecedented for a President to shoot someone. After all, Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel. But no President up till now has ever sent State Department e-mails on a private server.* News stories would solemnly report that new questions were being raised in the Clinton e-mail scandal, setting forth the latest donor to request a favor, with the careful caveat that the favor does not appear to have been granted. In further news today, Donald Trump shot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Others would solemnly purse their lips and declare that both candidates were running into trouble, Hillary over unanswered questions on her e-mails and Trump over shooting a rival on Fifth Avenue. Though to be fair, if Trump denied the shooting Politifact would no doubt give him a "Pants on Fire" rating for it.
Is it any wonder given all the attention it is getting that large numbers of people are now convinced that sending State Department e-mails on a private server is the worst offense a candidate can possibly commit, They may conclude that Trump may be a crook, he may have built his business empire on fraud, he may be utterly corrupt and make no distinction between personal and public interest, he may not know or care a thing about policy, he may appeal to prejudice and hate, he may have a wildly unstable temperament and lash out wildly at personal insults, he may even wonder why we can't use our nuclear arsenal, but at least he never sent State Department e-mails on a private server. We have to focus on what is important here.
So what can Hillary do about all this? My advice is, learn a lesson from Trump about message discipline. He has committed so many outrages that no one can keep up with all of them, and any attempt to raise all will make most people's eyes glaze over. So do a bunch of polls and focus groups to find of of all the dirt there is on Trump, which offends people most. Which one really has legs? So next time someone asks her about those blasted e-mails she should deflect the question back to whatever scandal on Trump gives the most offense. And she should instruct all her campaign surrogates to keep raising the same issue. And she should get Democrats everywhere to also start talking about it at every possible opportunity.
And funny thing, but before long whatever Trump scandal turned out to have the most mileage will be in the news. And once the news media get going, it is very difficult to stop them (as Hillary knows all too well). So hurry up, Hillary. There isn't much time left.
*And that would, in fact, be true. While in the early 19th Century a President's Secretary of State was practically his designated successor, the Secretary of State to become President was apparently James Buchanan, who, of course, served long before e-mails were invented.
Why It Might Not Be Wise to Portray Trump as a Con Man
Hillary Clinton has been running an anti-Trump ad that shows one of the many people Trump has stiffed. This one was an architect who designed one of his club houses. First a bunch of Trump people ganged up and refused to pay more than a third of bill. So he sent a bill for that amount, but Trump again refused to pay more than half. He complained that Trump thinks he can only win by making the other guy lose. The sub-text here is clear -- Trump is not on the side of the little guy, and he doesn't keep his promises.
There's just one problem with the ad. I don't think it will hurt Trump with people inclined to favor him. Why not? Because supporters are apt to see another subtext. Trump drives a hard bargain, and he wins. The other guy knuckled under. That is just the sort of person they want for a leader.
You see, Trump supporters are the sort of people who think in terms of Us and Them. And not just that but people who think it is immoral to give any ethical consideration to Them because it means a lack of commitment to Us. So who are They? Well, foreign countries, clearly. And illegal immigrants. Muslims. Those liberal elitists who look down on the white working class. And the Republican leadership who sold out to the Democrats. And probably others, too. In fact, it is best to be a bit vague on who they are because it allows each listener to fill in the blanks for himself. Basically They are anyone who is not one of Us. It is pointless to worry about distinctions among Them like the difference between Mexicans and Arabs, Muslims and atheists, Communists, socialists, and fascists, because the mere fact that you are parsing such fine distinctions among Them is proof enough that you aren't one of Us.
And then consider how this looks to someone who thinks They have no ethics whatever and have been taking unfair advantage of Us for a long time, at least since Obama has been President. Again, it doesn't matter whether They are China selling cheap goods, Mexico sending in illegal immigrant, Iran making a nuclear deal or allies not paying their fair share. Nor does it matter whether They are Democrats who always seem to get their way in government showdowns or the Republican leadership that keeps caving, illegal immigrants stealing US jobs or black people crying racism whenever they don't get their way. Nor does it matter whether these perceptions are factually accurate. The point is, you want someone who knows how to fight dirty to champion Us against Them. And who could be a better champion than a man who first tricked some sucker into accepting a third of the payment he proposed and then chiseled that down to half. Now there is someone who could stand up for Us and give Them a taste of their own medicine.
All right, you may say, and it is understandable if people applaud when Trump stiffs the banks and other high rollers who really are Them and really do deserve it to some degree. But this architect is the little guy Trump claims to champion. Isn't he one of Us?
To this I assume most Trump supporters would agree that, okay, Trump was kind of unethical with this guy, and he really shouldn't have done it, but just think what those skills will look like when deployed against our enemies. Or, put otherwise, there is no reason to believe that the architect is one of Them, but neither has he quite established sufficient credentials as one of Us to have any special claim on our sympathies. This was, after all, simply an arm's length business deal and not something that gives the architect any special claim on Trump's loyalty. Or maybe we should use more chilling language -- it wasn't personal strictly business. If you want to make Trump supporters outraged about their hero's lousy ethics, you have to make it personal. Instead of Trump is an unethical businessman, the subtext has to be, Trump is a sociopath with no loyalties to his supporters.
That's why I think this story would have a lot more legs than the architect. This was the story of a kid band that sang songs like, “Deal from strength or get crushed every time.” The band and their adult manager were faithful Trump supporters who played at one of his rallies. Naturally he showed his gratitude by failing to pay them. It wasn't a large amount, only $2,500, but presumably that is a lot more money to a kiddie band than to Donald Trump. Instead he offered to allow them to make up the money by giving them a free table to sell their CD's. Of course, he didn't keep that bargain either, although it would not have cost him any more than a little space at his event. And when they failed to learn their lesson and foolishly agreed to fly to Iowa to play at another rally, Trump wouldn't even reimburse their travel costs.
So how is this different from the architect story? Obviously both are about Trump chiseling the little guy. But I see two differences. One is that here Trump is cheating children, and mistreatment of children trips a lot of triggers.*
The other is that these aren't just some random guy he is dealing with at arm's length. These are supporters who went all out for Trump and got the shaft. They have clearly established themselves as belonging to Us (i.e., Trump supporters), but he treated Us just as badly as he promises to treat Them. It needs a bit more subtext, but that basic point is that it isn't just Them that Trump plays for suckers. He is trying to play Us for suckers too.
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*Something similar occurred to me when Trump joked that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn't hurt his support. My comment at the time was that he probably could get away with shooting a person, but if he was ever caught strangling kittens that would be the end. And just to make clear, I have no evidence whatever that Trump strangles kittens.
There's just one problem with the ad. I don't think it will hurt Trump with people inclined to favor him. Why not? Because supporters are apt to see another subtext. Trump drives a hard bargain, and he wins. The other guy knuckled under. That is just the sort of person they want for a leader.
You see, Trump supporters are the sort of people who think in terms of Us and Them. And not just that but people who think it is immoral to give any ethical consideration to Them because it means a lack of commitment to Us. So who are They? Well, foreign countries, clearly. And illegal immigrants. Muslims. Those liberal elitists who look down on the white working class. And the Republican leadership who sold out to the Democrats. And probably others, too. In fact, it is best to be a bit vague on who they are because it allows each listener to fill in the blanks for himself. Basically They are anyone who is not one of Us. It is pointless to worry about distinctions among Them like the difference between Mexicans and Arabs, Muslims and atheists, Communists, socialists, and fascists, because the mere fact that you are parsing such fine distinctions among Them is proof enough that you aren't one of Us.
And then consider how this looks to someone who thinks They have no ethics whatever and have been taking unfair advantage of Us for a long time, at least since Obama has been President. Again, it doesn't matter whether They are China selling cheap goods, Mexico sending in illegal immigrant, Iran making a nuclear deal or allies not paying their fair share. Nor does it matter whether They are Democrats who always seem to get their way in government showdowns or the Republican leadership that keeps caving, illegal immigrants stealing US jobs or black people crying racism whenever they don't get their way. Nor does it matter whether these perceptions are factually accurate. The point is, you want someone who knows how to fight dirty to champion Us against Them. And who could be a better champion than a man who first tricked some sucker into accepting a third of the payment he proposed and then chiseled that down to half. Now there is someone who could stand up for Us and give Them a taste of their own medicine.
All right, you may say, and it is understandable if people applaud when Trump stiffs the banks and other high rollers who really are Them and really do deserve it to some degree. But this architect is the little guy Trump claims to champion. Isn't he one of Us?
To this I assume most Trump supporters would agree that, okay, Trump was kind of unethical with this guy, and he really shouldn't have done it, but just think what those skills will look like when deployed against our enemies. Or, put otherwise, there is no reason to believe that the architect is one of Them, but neither has he quite established sufficient credentials as one of Us to have any special claim on our sympathies. This was, after all, simply an arm's length business deal and not something that gives the architect any special claim on Trump's loyalty. Or maybe we should use more chilling language -- it wasn't personal strictly business. If you want to make Trump supporters outraged about their hero's lousy ethics, you have to make it personal. Instead of Trump is an unethical businessman, the subtext has to be, Trump is a sociopath with no loyalties to his supporters.
That's why I think this story would have a lot more legs than the architect. This was the story of a kid band that sang songs like, “Deal from strength or get crushed every time.” The band and their adult manager were faithful Trump supporters who played at one of his rallies. Naturally he showed his gratitude by failing to pay them. It wasn't a large amount, only $2,500, but presumably that is a lot more money to a kiddie band than to Donald Trump. Instead he offered to allow them to make up the money by giving them a free table to sell their CD's. Of course, he didn't keep that bargain either, although it would not have cost him any more than a little space at his event. And when they failed to learn their lesson and foolishly agreed to fly to Iowa to play at another rally, Trump wouldn't even reimburse their travel costs.
So how is this different from the architect story? Obviously both are about Trump chiseling the little guy. But I see two differences. One is that here Trump is cheating children, and mistreatment of children trips a lot of triggers.*
The other is that these aren't just some random guy he is dealing with at arm's length. These are supporters who went all out for Trump and got the shaft. They have clearly established themselves as belonging to Us (i.e., Trump supporters), but he treated Us just as badly as he promises to treat Them. It needs a bit more subtext, but that basic point is that it isn't just Them that Trump plays for suckers. He is trying to play Us for suckers too.
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*Something similar occurred to me when Trump joked that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn't hurt his support. My comment at the time was that he probably could get away with shooting a person, but if he was ever caught strangling kittens that would be the end. And just to make clear, I have no evidence whatever that Trump strangles kittens.
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