Category: Trump

VDH and The Bulwark

Posted on | by hr | Leave a Comment on VDH and The Bulwark

I have a great deal of respect for Victor Davis Hanson. I’ve read and listened to him extensively, and he has always impressed me with his thoughtfulness, decency, humility, breadth of knowledge, and quiet sanity.

The Bulwark, this new anti-Trump publication staffed by Charlie Sykes, Bill Kristol, and other people whose narrow-minded smug superiority I find impossible to stomach, has placed Hanson on its list of sell-outs, dupes, and traitors to the conservative cause, and set its sights on discrediting him and others who hold his, to me, quite sensible views.

It has long been true that I would like Trump a lot less if I liked his enemies more. Folks like those at the Bulwark are much of the reason I refrain from criticizing the President more than I do. I’m not much of a joiner, but I’d rather have Hanson on my team than any number of these others.

[Update: I wrote this post not knowing that Victor Davis Hanson has a new book coming out. The Case for Trump will be released this week.]

Waiting for Mueller

Posted on | by hr | 2 Comments on Waiting for Mueller

At the beginning of this long investigation I wrote that if convincing evidence is presented that candidate Trump colluded with Russians — that is, that he knowingly participated in or otherwise facilitated illegal Russian interference in the 2016 election — then I would call for his impeachment.

I also wrote that I think the entire charge is a fabrication of the embarrassed and almost pathologically mendacious candidate Clinton, and that in fact it’s largely a projection of her campaign’s own shady dealings with Russia via the Steele dossier and related nonsense. That is still my belief.

However, if Mueller provides that convincing evidence, I will admit my mistake and call for the President’s resignation or removal.

But if he does not, then I will call for the resignation of most of the nation’s press, as these clowns will have, in typical print-first-ask-questions-never fashion, poisoned the national discourse for years with their relentless and baseless claims, and given comfort to the posse of corrupt and scheming apparatchiks who, until recently, ran much of our federal law enforcement.

So let’s wait and see.

PS No, I don’t expect the press to accept its responsibility. I don’t even expect them to significantly change their message, when and if Mueller’s report exonerates the President. Most of the press supports Democrats, the more left-leaning the better, and that isn’t about to change.

Smollett as Metaphor

Posted on | by hr | 3 Comments on Smollett as Metaphor

If you aren’t familiar with the purported assault on a young man named Jussie Smollett, you can read a pretty good account of it here. But, basically, this young gay black male actor (details which are relevant) claimed that he was attacked while walking in Chicago late at night at the end of January. He claimed his assailants were Trump supporters who committed various obviously racially-motivated offenses against him, and then fled the scene. His claims were met with expressions of outrage and support from celebrities and politicians, often accompanied by editorial comments about racism in America, the President, etc.

It now seems almost certain that Mr. Smollett staged the entire event, with the assistance of two friends whom he paid for their participation.

People do foolish and desperate things for all sorts of reasons. One rumor has it that Mr. Smollett was being dropped from a program he was on, and so was seeking some extra attention and visibility. I have no idea what else might have been going on in his life to prompt him to do something as ugly and dishonest as this, and I don’t care: he’s one individual among billions and, as I’ve said any number of times, there will always be someone doing something stupid — and, if it’s gaudy enough, someone will report it. People love drama when it doesn’t impact them.

Whatever his motivation, Mr. Smollett has done a disservice to those who are or will be victims of actual violence, and to everyone who cares about truth and justice.

But Mr. Smollett is hardly alone in fabricating injustice, nor even the worst offender. There is an entire industry in America devoted to promulgating the mistaken idea that America is a racist country — that is, that racism is a deep, widespread, and essential quality of our nation.

That’s nonsense. There are racist people; it could be argued that most people — black, white, brown, or otherwise — have some racial bias, preferences, or misconceptions. But to argue that America, a nation that has long demanded full legal equality regardless of race, that has elected all kinds of minorities to the highest offices, that is self-consciously obsessed with avoiding even the semblance of racism, and that considers a charge of “racist” to be the most damning epithet, is in any significant sense a “racist country” is both unfair and absurd.

Like Mr. Smollett, proponents of the racist America theory have had to fabricate evidence, misinterpret statistics, and impute bad intent where more prosaic explanations are readily available. And, like Mr. Smollett, they do injury both to the truth and to the victims of true racism — most significantly, victims of the racism they create with their misguided prescriptions for social justice: with their low expectations and preferential treatment, their outrage and their excuse-making.

Mr. Smollett sought to create division where there was none. Everyone who beats the racist America drum is doing the same, regardless of how well-intended, or not, their motives. Racism will diminish when, and not until, those most obsessed with it stop seeing it where it isn’t, in every disparity and imagined micro-aggression.

How to Handle the State of the Union, 2019

Posted on | by hr | 1 Comment on How to Handle the State of the Union, 2019

Dear Mr. President,

You recently informed Speaker Pelosi that you would accept her gracious invitation of January 3rd to deliver your State of the Union address to Congress next Tuesday. You justified this by explaining that, contrary to her expressed concerns about security, the Dept. of Homeland Security and the Secret Service have both informed you that security will not be an issue.

Despite this, Speaker Pelosi has once again informed you that the invitation will not be honored, and that you will not be allowed to address Congress.

It seems clear that the Congress has a right to rescind its invitation, and that attempting to force the matter would create a Constitutionally problematic situation. Fortunately, there is a simple, even elegant solution to this potentially embarrassing impasse.

While the Constitution does require that you provide it a report of the state of the union, it does not require that you do so in person. The obvious solution, therefore, is for you to provide a written report to the Congress — and then to deliver that same report, as a speech, to the largest, most adoring crowd of supporters you can assemble for such an historic event.

One very desirable consequence of this will be that the Democrats will be hard-pressed to deliver a televised “response” to your speech without inviting substantial ridicule, given that you addressed the Congress in writing, and that they denied you the opportunity to give a formal address.

Win, win.

A Thought about Executive Arrogation of Authority

Posted on | by hr | Leave a Comment on A Thought about Executive Arrogation of Authority

President Trump has recently, and repeatedly, claimed that he “absolutely” has the authority to declare a state of emergency and build a border wall which Congress has, thus far, refused to fund. The merits of that claim are debatable.

It’s questionable that the statutory intent of his emergency powers could reasonably be stretched to include such a slow-moving crisis as our long-inadequate border security.

On the other hand, Presidential emergency powers are broad, and have only occasionally encountered judicial challenge. While it’s inevitable, given the political climate, that any such use of executive authority by President Trump would face immediate obstruction by hostile courts, it is by no means obvious that such use would be less justifiable than past exercises of executive emergency authority.

But here is something to consider, when contemplating the Constitution and the administration’s respect or disregard for same.

There is little reason to think that President Trump does not believe that he has that authority. He is not deeply knowledgeable about the Constitution; he has not thus far demonstrated a willingness to violate Constitutional boundaries as laid down by the courts, even when provoked; and he has relied extensively on the counsel of strong Constitutional originalists. Those facts would suggest that he is either bluffing — a possibility that can’t be ruled out — or that he does sincerely believe that he has this authority. (And, again, it’s possible that he does.)

What I find particularly interesting is the way in which the Trump administration differs from the Obama administration on this matter of executive authority and the Constitution. President Obama was, at least to some extent, a Constitutional scholar; he certainly did believe — he repeatedly admitted it himself — that he lacked the authority to, for example, change the status of illegal immigrants through executive action.

Yet President Obama was willing to achieve essentially the same thing, albeit on a supposedly temporary basis, through executive action and without the participation of Congress. This was a charade, an artificial “re-prioritizing” that was a de facto granting of special status to certain classes of illegal aliens. The courts tolerated much of it, though they did block his most egregious examples of overreach.

It seems fair to say that the current administration has been more respectful of the Constitution than was the previous one, despite the fact that the popular perception is the opposite — thanks, I would argue, to relentless and inaccurate press coverage.

That’s something.