Decision 2016

We're less than a week away from the next Presidential election. Hillary Clinton's lead had shrunk a bit recently because of (vague) news about new revelations in her email scandal.  To recap: When Hillary was Secretary of State she chose to keep a personal email server rather than the gov't issue version. This is probably illegal though probably not unusual. What are the American people to think of this activity? I dunno. I know nothing about how the gov't keeps its emails and I don't know why I would know or would want to know. My instinct is that the Madame in Charge makes the rules of order and if she chooses to have email sent to her AOL account instead of her .gov account, it matters not to me. The gov't gets hacked all day every day so the argument that her machinations imperil cyber-safety doesn't really wash with me. The emails are the property of the American people and subject to FOIA requests and such, that's true. But I don't see how the serves itself makes any difference: if the sitting Secretary of State chose not to release certain communications, I don't know what the New York Times or the American people are gonna do about it. That's not a function of Hillary Clinton or her predecessors or successors, it is the cold fact that Executive Privilege is beyond the citizenry and that's just how it lays, bro.

The President could go on TV tonight and explain every intricacy of...say, the tax code...but who would watch and who would understand it anyway? The White House could not possibly give a complete accounting of its day-to-day affairs even if it wanted to and why would it want to? Donald Rumsfeld at the height of the occupation of Iraq could calmly explain the ins-and-outs of policy to the American people but how would that make his job any easier? How would that make the American people safe or more secure? Or even more well-informed? Knowledge is a malleable commodity and your politicians want to mall-u as much as they can. We can pretend that the Blue Guy is more trustworthy than the Red Guy or vice versa, but that's hopeless bullshit and you know it. Politics, like tic-tac-toe and global thermonuclear war, is a losing game and the only way to win is not to play. (Said it before I'll say it again: if they wanted to take away my right to vote, I'd vote against it; until then I think voting is not merely a dumb waste of time but a deluded and quite possibly dangerous way to engage in the civic sphere. The idea that is your duty is absurd nonsense and an indication that we are doing it wrong as a people)

This election has been backwards in the sense that it is the Republican who is the fiery rabble-rouser while it is the Democrat who is the staid old hand who preaches a stay-the-course philosophy. And to continue the backwardness: I believe a Trump presidency would look like an Obama presidency (zero foreign policy interest, no support from the Republican Congress, able to win people over with press conferences but not much else) while a Hillary presidency would look like the George W. Bush administration (active military, sucking up to elderly voters, defiant and defensive in the face of criticism). So do Trump supporters really want change because I don't think they'll get it; and do Hillary supporters really want more of Obama because I don't think they'll get what they want either. The electorate is been turned inside out--thank goodness Americans don't actually pay attention once the election is over.

My previous post was about the steady rise of an executive branch that wants to communicate more directly with the American people leading to a rise in responsibility without any commensurate rise in actual power. This has led to elections where people increasingly put unrealistic expectations onto the candidates. For example, this election seems like a referendum on women's issues where Hillary represents womens' reach for more power while Trump represents the recalcitrant old ways. But I would suggest this embodiment is entirely skin deep. Once the President is chosen, women will possess no greater power under one than they would have under the other because the President doesn't have much control over how women live their lives in this society. African-Americans may have believe that an Obama Administration would make everything obviously better for black people but after 8 years is anything really different for minorities in this country? Perhaps. Perhaps a black president inspires black people to take more professional control or be more bold in their social dealings but does any of that really come from White House policy? America is run by the culture and the economy, not the government. The government is there to safeguard our basic freedoms, not make anything better. We can ascribe symbolic significance to our leaders but that's not the same as leaders actually having transformative powers.

These candidates have legendary negative ratings from the electorate. Again, though, this strikes me as false. The idea that Trump would be a dangerous president doesn't really account for the checks and balances of the American system. I think Trump would be a largely ineffective president, neutered at best. The President's only real clear power is in foreign policy and so far Trump has shown no acumen or philosophy for dealing with foreign affairs. He has an old timey Republican bluster about being a powerful foreign presence but his bluster is the talk of a guy who has never had to do any of this shit before and I suspect if he was in power he would be every bit as reticent to send troops abroad or drop bombs on other countries as Obama has been. And the idea that Hillary is some crazed socialist ideologue misses that I think she would actually be a coldly calculating pragmatic politician that America hasn't seen since the days of Bob Dole as Majority Leader. I think she would be much more likely to reach out to the Republican Congress than Obama (or Trump) and I think she would give them the opportunity to make deals more than the popular consensus realizes. I think Hillary gets how Washington works more than any President since HW Bush, maybe even Nixon. Hillary will be an active executive and will force Congress to act in a way that Obama never had any appetite for.

I think the next four years will be brutal on whoever wins this election. I think Trump doesn't really even want to be President and this is all the perfect setup for a new network to compete with Fox News: he's discovered his core audience who thinks the system is rigged, that Hillary is a criminal and that the Republican Party (and Fox News) is too soft to be of much use any more. Winning the election would be a major career setback for Trump and, let's face it, good god this guy would suck at being president. As for Hillary, I've long thought the she would be the next president and I also long thought that she would not run for reelection in 2020. I think her health is not as strong as she likes to make us think, I think she has no stomach for another election run, I think the next four years will see a lot of international and economic challenges (I'm hoping my next blog post will be on that topic) and I think giving herself only four years will keep her high intensity each day in office. As much as the commentary as suggested the political parties are tearing themselves apart, I suspect four years from now we will have long forgotten what a clusterfuck this election season truly was (no Trump, no more Bushes or Clintons, no Christie, no Sanders, no Pence, I see a completely new slate of challengers).

I think Hillary Clinton will be the next president and I'd like to think she'll be good. Like I said, I think she'll be a measured and pragmatic (and stonewalling) executive. I think she'll alienate her supporters with her active foreign policy, I think she'll look to make deals in Congress (my dream is Social Security reform, which has to come from a Democrat) and she'll try to restore the presidency to the unfun office it used to be. I think she'll be able to use Bill as the perfect sponge for controversy, look for Bill to put on the clown suit whenever the focus needs to go somewhere else. As for Trump, he'll be off to be a TV star and randomly appearing on Fox News or Twitter won't be enough for him. Pillorying Hillary will be fun for a while but soon enough he'll move on to other things, puncturing the presidency will always be low hanging fruit but he'll find other things to keep the audience watching.

The good news: America is fine. We waste a lot of resources, a lot of time and money, but in general its because we are rich and can afford to. The day will come when we can't afford it any more but hopefully that'll be a hundred years from now. The reason everything looks bad is because we're looking at all the bad parts (partisan politics) and acting like its way more important than it actually is. If we'd just deflate the pompous megalomaniac political motherfuckers we'll all be better off. I don't vote because I don't like any of these people and I don't feel like any of them truly represent me. Fortunately I don't feel like I need these people to pander to me. Ignore the politicians and give them less money--SPEND THE MONEY ON WHAT YOU WANT IT SPENT ON INSTEAD OF WAITING FOR CONGRESS TO PLEASE YOU!--and America will seem like a much more egalitarian and enlightened place. We have resources, we have opportunity, we have fun and sexy lives. Live healthy, live smart and don't wait for others to make your dreams come true and all will be well.