Sorting Things Out ...

A little over two weeks have gone by and the post-election's dust has yet to settle. It was not supposed to go this way. Why? The media was giving Clinton an 85% chance or better. There was no way that Trump could become President. President Obama, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and other luminaries had said so. It was in the bag! Clinton would be the next President, and the first female President.

It did not turn out that way, did it?

Democrats went into shock, then got angry, and some loudly proclaimed: Not my president! Celebrities and diehard democrats had vowed to leave the country if Trump would win, but cowardly have chosen to remain.

Republicans were as surprised as the Democrats. The media had convinced everyone that there was no way the republican candidate had a chance to win. Many predicted that the Democrats would win not just the White House, but control of the Senate as well. Republicans had resigned themselves to minimizing their losses and vowing to make it next time. Several Republicans running for office went out of their way to disassociate themselves from their party nominee.

If You Don’t Like the Results …

Group dynamics teaches us that groups, when in defensive retreat, will employ predictable defenses. First, clamor to change the rules … then to abolish the Electoral College. Second, claim irregularities with the voting machines and ask for a recount. Third, question the legitimacy of the winner because he received fewer votes on a national basis.

It is hard to shift from a sure win to a sure loss.

Someone said that Democrats took Trump literally, while Republicans took him seriously. Indeed, if you took Trump literally, many should rightfully be scared. After all, he is racist, homophobe, xenophobe, misogynist, or worse. The anti-Trump demonstrations that followed his election have expressed fear of Trump’s potential actions. They imagine hate, divisions, brutality, dictatorship, and other horrible consequences. A few have the audacity to accuse the President-elect of being worse than Hitler.

The Benefit of the Doubt

Many staunch liberals are not open to that. They have already decided that he is unworthy of the office, which rightfully belonged to their candidate. They have a tough time imagining Trump as a pragmatic and well-intentioned politician.

Trump announced his first 100-day priorities. Guess what? The rhetoric has pretty much toned down. No Armageddon! No mass deportations, no repeal of Obama Care, no economic chaos!

The DOW broke 19,000 … Unemployment rate drops below 5% … Foreign leaders take a customary, conciliatory approach and welcome Trump’s victory.

My Predictions

Nobody can foretell the future, but all of us can imagine. Here are my 10 guesses for the next four years:

·      Obama Care will be mended, not ended. Republicans might play slight of hand with the nomenclature, but key provisions will be maintained such as pre-existing conditions, coverage of dependent children until age 26, and subsidized rates for the poor.

·      No mass deportations. Criminal undocumented aliens will be pursued and sent back. The wall will be built in some form, physical or electronic. Legislation will tighten immigration rules.  Illegal immigrants, in the country for several years, will be given the opportunity to legalize their status. Sanctuary cities will feel the squeeze of the federal government to support ICE or lose significant amounts of transfers. Mayors of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities will squawk and complain, but they will quietly get in line.

·      A massive infrastructure bill will pass and spur a significant rise in economic activity and better paying job prospects. If the traditional multiplier applies, we can see a significant spill over that would generate more revenue for the national treasury.

·      The tax system will undergo some streamlining in the rates. U.S. companies with more than two trillion dollars parked overseas will be encouraged to bring these funds home after paying a nominal fine.

·      Women will continue to have the right to an abortion. Not sure, though, if Planned Parenthood will continue to receive federal money. Some particulars will be delegated to the States. The landmark U.S Supreme Court case will not be overturned.

·      NAFTA will be renegotiated to eliminate imbalances and to give the American worker more protection. The Trans-Pacific trade deal is already dead and so is the Trans-Atlantic trade deal under negotiation. Trump will favor bilateral agreements.

·      The economy will pick up steam during the second year of Trump’s presidency and grow at the rate of 3-4%. Wages will rise at a robust 4-5%.

·      The pipeline bringing oil from Canada to Texas will be started. A more even-handed, and less ideological approach to climate change will give clean coal, gas and oil a fairer treatment while continuing the diversification of our energy sources.

·      The U.S. will find accommodation with Russia to finally defeat ISL and bring closure to the Middle East wars.

·      Educational choices will expand as the federal government promotes more leeway for parents in selecting a school for their kids. The competition from charter schools will make public schools more effective.

Conclusions

If Trump accomplishes 8 out of these ten “predictions”, the Republican Party will increase its control of the Senate by at least 6 more senators by dislodging those 6 senators running for re-election in 2018 from red states.

Furthermore, Trump will have set the path for a massive victory in 2020 with control of both houses. He will have managed to clean up his tarnished image and political hatchet job at the hands of his political enemies.

Wishful thinking? For the good of the country, I hope so ...

My take-aways from the election ...

I am glad the election is over. It was no fun being bombarded by numerous ads, targeted by robot calls, and bored by polls suggesting that Clinton had an 85% chance of winning. 

The people have spoken. Trump is the president-elect. He won fair and square by working tirelessly, albeit in a non-conventional manner.  The enormous financial advantage of the Clinton machine did not have the final impact that pundits anticipated.

The networks will speculate on a number of issues such as why the polls were wrong, what contributed to Trump’s last minute surge, and what mistakes were made by the Clinton campaign. The theories abound, but that is all we have with which to work at present.

Those who find it hard to accept the result will point out that Clinton won the popular vote. They forget that America is a federal republic, not a democracy. The framers configured the Electoral College to protect the smaller states from being bullied by the larger ones.

I have my own theories.

The polls were wrong because the sampling methods were wrong. Wrong sample = wrong results! The polls were wrong because the methodology was faulty. Many folks flat out did not tell the truth, because doing so would risk being called a racist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, a misogynist, or worse.

There was no last minute surge. The steady drip of Wikileaks revelations chipped away at Clinton’s honesty and dealings, exposing the inner working of Clinton’s staff  willing to do anything to get their leader elected.

As to the major mistakes by the Clinton campaign, my theory is that arrogance blindsided it. They were so sure that Trump was not electable that they started to believe their own press reports. After all, they went out-of-the way to paint Trump as unfit to serve because of his temperament, morals, and proposals.

The Clinton campaign and the Democrat party failed to recognize the high level of anger amongst blue-collar workers, the so-called deplorables, those lacking a college education, those who cling to bible and guns, the uninformed. Democrats turned their back on the very people that built their party – the workers. They became content to stroke one another as better educated, more sophisticated, more PC, and better qualified to render judgments.

Identity politics has its advantages and disadvantages. Dicing and slicing the electorate into analytical clusters often produces shallow conclusions. The rush to dominate one slice or another often can work against us. Not all African Americans, Latinos, women, men, etc. vote the same way. Democrats, in their search to dominate the minority vote, ignored the white majority, which accounts for 70% of the population. Major efforts by Obama and his team to encourage people to vote for Clinton were a failure. Fewer African Americans voted this round as they did in 2008 and 2012. 

People were fed up with the revolving door in Washington and an establishment on both sides of the aisle high on self aggrandizement and personal enrichment and low on keeping the promises made during the election season. Many were unhappy with the choice. There was talk of choosing Hillary because she was the lesser evil. A large number, including myself, found the argument shallow. Evil is evil. Period. So a large number did not vote this round or voted for everything else but the presidential choice.

Trump recognized the anger of the blue-collar voter from the start. That is a major reason for his triumph over 17 other formidable challengers during the primaries. His style often turned people off, for sure, and the revelations of several peccadillos surely did not help him. I personally found much about his style offensive and sophomoric.

In the end, Trump was determined and focused. He wanted to show Obama off. Why? Obama had mercilessly ridiculed him in front of thousands of dignitaries and press folks during a Washington roast for having questioned his birth place. Those who saw footage from that event can attest to watching a livid Trump absorb abuse and ridicule at the hands of Obama, while the many liberals in attendance laughed and giggled. He became determined to show that he was a winner!

Bernie Sanders exposed many holes in the Democrat agenda. Trump capitalized on some of them: the view that the system is rigged, that trade polices have been unfair and half-baked, that there is a huge gulf between the bottom and the top of the economic pyramid, and that Wall Street needs reigning in.  To me, Bernie is the unsung hero of the last election.

Impact on the Obama Legacy

Obama leaves the presidency with one of the highest approval rates in history. People like him. They like his oratory skills. They admire his fine family. They respect his authenticity. Yet, the great majority of voters feel that the country is on the wrong track, and that we continue to be a much-divided nation. Many, including me, had high expectations when he was elected.  We hoped for better race relations and for a more civil discourse. We flat-out did not get either, to no fault of his.

Voters have pretty much repudiated many of Obama’s policies. Principally:

·      The health insurance policy

·      The energy policy.

·      The foreign policy.

·      The economic policy.

·      The trade policy.

·      Executive orders to skirt Congress.

·      Immigration policy.

·      Education policy.

·      Defense policy.

In two years, there will be nothing left of the Obama legacy, except a faint reminder that it does not pay to “lead from behind.” We have ample data to show that timidity is not what the nation needs. What it needs is a compelling vision followed by bold actions. A lesson from an old Arab proverb applies here: A strong horse is better than a weak one. 

God Bless America!

National Elections: Pyrrhic Victories

Thank God the election will soon be over! 

Yesterday I cast my absentee ballot. It was a very challenging vote. In addition to the national offices, in California we have to deal with a long list of initiatives, some pretty stupid and some incomprehensible. For example, we are asked whether actors in adult films should be required to wear condoms, whether we should increase taxes on others, whether people should be allowed to grow a limited number of marijuana plants for recreational purposes, whether our public schools should be told how to teach English to newcomers, and so forth. In most cases, these are technical issues that can be better decided by technical experts.

For the first time in presidential elections, I did not vote for someone I thought was the best option for the country. I voted against someone that I thought would be worse. This is a sad commentary on the two top choices … two flawed and unworthy candidates for president of our great country. Two individuals mistrusted by the majority of Americans.

Here you have two individuals who lack, on one side, honesty and, on the other, integrity. Voters, in essence, are being asked to rank order these two valued virtues. Is honesty more important than integrity or is it integrity more important than honesty: a kind of zero sum game. Depressing!

Lessons from History

Not many know the story of King Pyrrhus.  He was a general and statesman of the Hellenistic period in Ancient Greece. At one time he controlled much of Greece and Southern Italy. He was a strong opponent of the rising Roman power. As a result, he fought many battles against them. Some of his battles, though victorious, caused his army heavy losses.

Pyrrhus commented after one of his victories that if he won another battle he would surely be ruined. Why? The cost of his victory left his army much weakened. In the end, the Romans out maneuvered Pyrrhus’ army and defeated it.

Historians defined Pyrrhus lamentations a Pyrrhic Victory -- any victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Its heavy toll diminishes any sense of achievement.

The dustbin of history is full of such victories including but not limited to: the Battle of Bunker Hills (1775) during the American Revolutionary period, the battle of the Bulge during WWII (1945), the battle of Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War (1950), the battle of Mogadishu during Operation Restore Hope (1993), and the occupation following Iraq's defeat (2003).

Mistakes Ignored Are Mistakes Repeated

Fast forward to 2016 primaries. 

Trump singlehandly defeated 17 other contenders for the nomination. A Pyrrhic victory? He emerged as a much-weakened candidate. Why? By shamelessly attacking, demeaning, and ridiculing his opponents, he ended up losing their support. By engaging in bombast and personalized attacks, many came to challenge his character and fitness.

Clinton, on the other hand, won the nomination by walloping Bernie Sanders. Her Pyrrhic Victory? She shamelessly trivialized Bernie Sanders’ policies and in the process alienated his supporters. She emerged from the primary with a large number of Bernie’s supporters still refusing to support her candidacy. By playing hide and seek with her email scandal, she fostered the notion that she is secretive, and not to be trusted.

What happened to the real issues and potential solutions? They have more or less disappeared from public view. Here are some of them:

·      Controlling the excesses of Wall Street

·      Fixing or replacing Obama Care

·      Creating new jobs and retaining existing ones

·      International fair trade policies

·      Social justice issues

·      Growing the country’s GNP

·      Reducing a suffocating national debt

·      Securing our borders and streamlining the immigration laws

·      More affordable college tuition

·      A more holistic energy policy

·      Fixing our decaying infrastructure

·      A clearer strategy for defeating ISL and terrorism

Tackling these issues would surely advance everyone’s wellbeing. We cannot ignore these facts:

·      We have the lowest worker participation in history

·      The poverty level is stubbornly high

·      The size of our national debt has doubled

·      Healthcare costs continue to skyrocket

·      Middle East and Libya in flames

·      Immigration system in disarray

·      Student loans’ exploding liability

·      Racial strife in urban areas

·      Perception that system is rigged  

·      Crumbling infrastructure

Fast forward to the 2016 General Election.

A hostile press has pilloried Trump mercilessly: his style, his policies, his business practices, and his peccadillos. His unorthodox approach and fiery temperament have contributed to potential defeat by his own hand.

The publishing of a video showing Trump in a so-called locker room dialog was the October surprise the Democrats had in store. The video did not just surface. It was in the hands of the press for months. The emergence of several women, who accused Trump of sexual harassment, was very well orchestrated to extract maximum pain. No one can in real conscience condone the kinds of behaviors and words used by Trump. Indiscriminate attacks on Moslems, immigrants, and war veterans surely have not helped his cause either. All adds up to self-destruction.

Clinton, on the other hand, has been hounded by multiple scandals, but has deftly managed the news with help from a more congenial press. However, the steady drip-drip of emails from Wikileaks, the continuing saga of the private server, and alleged pay-to-play scandal with the family foundation continue to dog her. The chicanery of her staff trying to do damage control has hurt rather than help. Lastly, disclosure of her private remarks casting dispersion on Bernie’s followers, "deplorable" GOP voters, private versus public policy positions, and her open border secret wish have heightened the level of mistrust folks have for her.

What Next?

With a mere 22 days to go, the two candidates are locked in a sort of death dance, and are separated by a few points, in the margin of error territory. 

Neither candidate enjoys the support of more than 50% of potential voters. Whoever will win might not be elected by the majority of voters.

This is ominous, because it portends another Pyrrhic Victory: winning the presidency without the support of the majority of Americans.

At a time when the country needs to be more united, the seeds of more animus will yield further divisions. This disunity will impact importantly needed legislation. 

Personal attacks and exposes will continue.