Let’s not forget what a Hillary Clinton victory would have meant—four more years of Republican obstructionism, followed by a probable GOP victory in the 2020. She lost for a reason: her charisma is Nixonian and her centrist policies would only have maintained an untenable status quo. It wasn’t going to be fun defending her as Republicans continued to strengthen their hand.
The silver lining is that Trump has cleared a path for Progressives like Sanders and Warren in 2020, as well as statehouse victories that can undo House gerrymandering. If you take a long view, the Republicans won a tactical victory, but a strategic defeat. Someone did need to throw a grenade at Washington, and obviously I’d have preferred that it had been us, but the fact that it happened will serve to open up discussion on issues that were previously off the table due to bipartisan consensus and “conventional wisdom.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s indecency, incompetence and ridiculous narcissism will create a platform for Americans to reassert their values and inspire others with displays of courage, integrity and empathy. When people remember 1969, they think of hippies, not Richard Nixon.
I’m speaking in the broader sense in which elections are venues for discussion. If the Republicans had unified under Bush and the Democrats under Clinton, we wouldn’t be talking about trade agreements at all, but now they’re a central issue in American politics. Ross Perot had a similar effect when his candidacy made NAFTA controversial and positioned deficit reduction as a top priority for the next president.
In the near term Trump is going to try to do everything unilaterally, but we’ll see how that goes. I’m somewhat encouraged by the recent proposal to allow states to decide whether to keep Obamacare. On closer inspection, that may turn out to be disingenuous in some way, but it’s thinking in the right direction. Trump can declare war on the media (and anyone else who tells him what he doesn’t want to hear), but can he win?
Since that’s where the real deaths occur. Plus, abortions are due to two things: medical issues, or an unwanted pregnancy. Life doesn’t turn out so great (or long) for a majority of those fetuses anyway.
This is the problem with Trump. I’ve genuinely agreed with him about a number of things, but I have to imagine that his “solution” to the problem will make things worse, not better. The TPP was the one thing he could get right because if you were against it there was really only one course of action available.
What baffles me is that I find the media buying this idea as well, specifically with NAFTA. People are worried that Trump is going to make things harder on Canada. I think I can say that Canada and the USA are the two most closely allied countries in the world. Viewing trade between us as a zero sum game makes no sense at all. I’ve been very happy that Trudeau’s response has basically been, “Of course! We’d be happy to talk about trade!” When you’ve got auto parts that are crossing the border 6 times on their way to becoming cars, tariffs don’t make any sense for anyone.
But ultimately, we saw Trump’s negotiating skills with that air conditioning plant, right? He stepped in an helped broker a deal that saves 37% of the jobs at over $1M in tax breaks per job? If trade negotiations are a zero sum game, the USA is going to get taken to the cleaners.
One of the things that worried me as well. The odds of Democrats holding the White House for 4 consecutive terms were astronomical. 2020 is going to be a FAR more important election: there will likely be more SCOTUS vacancies in that 4 years than in the next 4, and 2020 is a census year, which means reworking congressional districts.
At least this way, the public is liable to be pushing the pendulum as far away from the GOP as possible, and if we catch that wave right, we can do some real good.
So far since the conservative revolution, every Republican president has shifted the Overton Window further to the right, and placed SCOTUS justices that add to further long standing damage. I admire your optimism that this won’t happen this time and there’ll be a leftward shift, but I don’t share it. I see no silver linings, only a lot of carnage that ain’t likely to get fixed for decades.
Overall message: bending the arc of history towards justice isn’t something that just happens. You have to make it happen, and you won’t always succeed.
