In rhetoric, there’s an ancient concept called “argument from authority.” In Latin, it’s called argumentum ad verecundiam. The idea is that the person making an argument invokes a big name, saying, in effect, “So-and-so agrees with me, so I must be right!”
The American politician, a presidential aspirant, was explicit in his secret-but-audacious message to the Russian leadership in Moscow: Help me win the White House, and then, once I’m in the Oval Office, I will return the favor.
Do the Democrats want Donald Trump to become the 45th president? Of course not. And how about the Democrats’ handmaiden, the Main Stream Media? Do they want Trump in the White House? Of course not. And how ‘bout all the other affluent residents of the Washington “swamp,” which Trump has pledged to drain—do you think any of them want Trump? Of course not. Together, these anti-Trump constituencies help form what has been called the Deep State.
The president, born to a wealthy Protestant family in New York, was seemingly surrounded by military men, and he frequently used martial rhetoric to make his points. This military influence disturbed his many critics, who accused him of concentrating executive power in un-democratic hands.
Our 26th president had the same can-do spirit as does the soon-to-be 45th president. Trump has been so eager to dive into the fray that he is already fighting for American jobs.
The Democrats have lost the White House as well as the Congress, and the American left finds itself out of power in Washington, DC. And yet this new crop of exiled leftists won’t have to march very far to find safe harbor.
Even though his inauguration is nearly eight weeks away, we are learning more about how Donald Trump will lead and govern as our 45th president. Specifically, we can identify a quintet of key characteristics.
In the last installment, we examined some positive historical precedents for a new president’s foreign policy. In this installment, we will consider positive precedents for a new president’s domestic policy.
In earlier installments, we examined the 2016 elections and their impact on the Democrats. We have also pondered the likely contours of the 2018 midterm elections and how Republicans might think about solidifying their Congressional majority. Now, we will look through the prism of history at the 2020 presidential election by studying Richard Nixon’s presidency.
In previous articles, we explored the Democrats’ likely trouble in the near term, and also the Democrats’ potential for a comeback in the long term. As the wise say, there are no final victories. Now we’ll consider how Republicans can hold on to their grip on the White House and on to their majorities in Congress.
A few days ago, I wrote that the post-2016 ideological pendulum-swing within the Democratic Party makes it likely that President Donald Trump will face a weak Democratic challenger in 2020. And yet, as we shall see, over the long run, the news for the Democrats might improve — thus Republicans must never grow complacent.
For the Democrats, the news is bad—and it’s about to get worse. Why? Because the ideological pendulum is swinging the Democrats to a far-left place, and a political party doesn’t win from the wings.
I’m thinking strictly positive thoughts about this latest peaceful American revolution, which begs comparison to two other political earthquakes: the Reagan Revolution of 1980, and the Gingrich Revolution of 1994. Here are ten takeaway points from the Trump Revolution of 2016.
In Part One of our series, we considered the curious partisan political inversion around the proposed AT&T-Time Warner deal, as Donald Trump has come out noisily in opposition, while Hillary Clinton seems quietly supportive. In Part Two, we introduced our guest-expert, the Great Trustbuster himself, Theodore Roosevelt, who explained that the history of the Republican Party’s antitrust policy is more complex than most people realize. Now, in Part Three, we will press Roosevelt for a specific opinion on the AT&T-Time Warner deal, and he will expand on his quantity-vs.-quality theory of regulation.
Skepticism about big corporations and their doings is not quite so unorthodox for Republicans as you might think. The Republican Party got its start among the farmers, free laborers, and merchants of the Midwest, not on Wall Street. The GOP was the little-guy party, at a time when the Democratic Party—which had its own populist tradition, going back to Andrew Jackson—had been taken over by the Southern plantation slaveowners. But as the 19th century moved along, Main Street Republicanism became one strand of the Grand Old Party. Another strand was Big Business and Wall Street Republicanism.
Two big corporations, AT&T (worth $221 billion at last count) and Time Warner (worth $66 billon), want to combine to become even bigger, and yet in response, the two major American political parties are not to be found in their usual ideological positions.
What a difference four years makes. The just-ended Republican Convention in Cleveland was a lot different from the Tampa GOP convention four years ago, and a lot different from the St. Paul Republican convention four years before that. One is tempted to say, “Let’s count the ways,” starting with the conventional wisdom-defying rise of Donald Trump, but it’s hard to count that high. So let’s just focus on six.
Yes, the men and women of Trump Nation were brimming with energy, enthusiasm, and a steely sense of high purpose.
These were the men and women of Trump Nation. They volunteered for their duty, arising from cities crowded and sparse, from states large and small.
The US foreign policy establishment, wedded as it is to hawkers, doesn’t like Trump. And neither does the foreign policy establishment in a country such as Georgia, which borders on Russia, and which fought and lost a minor war with Russia in 2008. And so the Post, in its neocon mode, did its best to make Trump’s suggestions that the US and Russia might actually be able to get along look rather sinister.
A new poll makes clear: Donald Trump can win this election if he keeps hammering on the anvil. That is, hammering with the same hammer, on the same anvil, for the next five months. The anvil, of course, is the basic issue of homeland security, and the hammer is the action needed to keep the country safe.
Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, disagree on taxes, encryption, and, of course, who should be the next president. Rather strongly, in fact, on all three questions.
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus calls Donald Trump the “presumptive nominee.” Trump deputy campaign manager Michael Glassner is heading to Cleveland to scope out the situation for his boss. Indeed, most Republicans — with the conspicuous exception of House Speaker Paul Ryan — are lining up behind Trump.
A landmark article in the March 26 edition of The Economist, headlined, “The problem with profits,” gets one to thinking about the fundamentals of our economy.
Donald Trump is two for two with teleprompter-ed speeches. That is, he is batting 1000 with remarks that are carefully prepared and delivered. So for his sake, he should keep it up. And if he does, he can win the Republican nomination in July and the general election in November—by carrying 40 states.
Here’s a headline for you, from The Washington Post: “Cities begin to challenge a bedrock of justice: They’re paying criminals not to kill.”
We all know that the old ideological labels, such as “conservative” and “liberal,” are worn out. Okay, so what are the new labels? What are the new ideologies?
Whatever happens next, Donald Trump has already made political history. He has restored the most powerful political coalition in the annals of US elections—namely, the cross-regional, strange-bedfellows alliance of North and South.
Yes, the past always repeats itself. In our first installment, we saw how, in the 18th century, the English aristocracy went about clearing the peasants off of valuable land. To be sure, everything that the aristocrats did was legal — of course it was, because the gentry wrote the laws.
To the catchy riff from Sweet Home Alabama, Senator Jeff Sessions took the podium in Madison, Alabama, on Sunday afternoon and changed the trajectory of the 2016 Republican nomination fight—and perhaps also of U.S. history.
So Uncle Sam has crushed the Oregon ranchers. Federal forces, spearheaded by the FBI, have done their job, and the rule of law has been upheld. But what law? And whose law? We’ll get to those questions in a moment. But first we can note that one man, one of the ranchers, is dead—and some will say he is a martyr.
The libertarian Cato Institute gets right down to it, in a New York Post op-ed titled, “Woodrow Wilson’s racism isn’t the only reason for Princeton to shun his name.” Yes, Cato went there. The libertarian outfit, which mostly seeks to identify with Republicans and conservatives on tax and spending issues, actually threw in with left-wing radical #BlackLivesMatter-type protesters on another important matter—defending the traditional understanding of US history. But as we shall see, the traditional understanding of US history means nothing to Cato.
The Democrats are having their fun. But as Peter Falk, playing Lt. Columbo on the old TV series would say, “There’s just one more thing.” Open-borders-ism is toxic politics with the electorate as a whole. As in, support for open borders is a political death warrant.
The first thing to remember about the Turkish downing of a Russian fighter-jet is that it could just as easily have happened to an American aircraft. Yes, the situation in Syria is that complex; there’s plenty of risk to go around—and that’s before anyone starts putting “boots on the ground.”
In our last epistle from the Bottomless Pit, we mocked the presidential ambitions of three Republican hopefuls: Jeb!, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump. And if you don’t like it, what’re you gonna do about it—tell us to go to hell?
Welcome to the Ninth Circle—the Ninth Circle, of course, of Hell. Or, as some of us call it, here Inside the Beltway—home. Yes, Washington, D.C. in all its hellishness is where we live.
Yes, there’s an African invasion of Italy—it’s a mostly peaceful invasion, but still, as the Brits say, “invasion” is the right word for it—going on every day in the Mediterranean
America needs policies that are serious, effective, and sustainable. And historical experience, as well as common sense, tells us that such an effective policy can come only from a robust and far-reaching debate—ratified, of course, by the voters. As we shall see, the annals of American national-security policy provide ample, and encouraging, precedent, not only for systematic deliberation, but, even more importantly, for effective follow-through.
Let’s think about the next 10 or 20 years in the Middle East. If we think hard, we can envision that Israel, the U.S., and the cause of moderation and modernization in the Middle East all have a real chance to make solid gains. But we will need to be alert to opportunities as they arise—and be ready to jump on them, making tough choices.
Republicans should hereby resolve: One Obama is enough. Let’s not get back in power, get in another war, and thus set the stage for another Obama in a few years. Instead, let’s learn some lessons—and apply them.
