President Trump: All hail the chief
There is only one politician who can deny Donald Trump re-election in November — and that person is not to be found among the political pygmies of the Democratic Party.
There is only one politician who can reliably deny Donald Trump re-election as president in November. That politician is not to be found in the throng of political pygmies and fading never-quite-weres in the still-crowded field of Democratic Party contenders.
The only politician who can really stop Trump is Trump.
The President’s unique and sometimes volatile mixture of actually delivering on his promises, strong nationalism, earthy persona, cut-through attack lines and unpredictable showmanship this week looked a winning combination on every score.
Excuse this lamest of puns, but the week certainly came up trumps for Donald.
He has not had, politically, a better week in his presidency. The Democrats have not had a worse week. They looked grossly incompetent in Iowa, they remain fragmented and divided ideologically with no frontrunner, they looked petty when Nancy Pelosi tore up her copy of Trump’s State of the Union speech — perhaps the best speech of his presidency — and they went down to wholly deserved ignominious defeat in the ridiculous impeachment trial.
The Democrats, much more than Trump, have debauched the constitution by so manifestly misusing it in this impeachment charade. One of the two charges against Trump was that he obstructed congress — meaning he wouldn’t surrender certain documents and allow some officials to testify.
These matters, for which there is endless precedent, could have been easily adjudicated in a court when the House of Representatives was holding its impeachment hearings. But the Democrats didn’t take it to court. So the President is supposed to be hurled from office and the 2016 election result annulled, the first time such a thing has happened in US history, for a routine administrative matter that was readily open to court adjudication?
Gimme a break.
The greater charge against Trump was that he withheld aid to Ukraine to pressure it into launching an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Trump did broadly urge such an investigation in his conversation with the Ukraine president. There was a sliver of connection to an existing, authorised, separate US Justice Department investigation. But any way you cut it, it was a tacky, unbecoming, unpresidential, even dishonourable thing for Trump to do.
It does not remotely resemble, barely exists even in the same universe as, one of the “high crimes and misdemeanours” that would justify impeachment and removal from office.
Washington Republicans have not been very popular these past few years. According to the polls, they are now substantially more popular than the Democrats.
This is because the Democrats’ impeachment arguments are so intrinsically unreasonable and disproportionate. High-profile former presidential candidate senator Lindsey Graham demonstrated just how easy it is for the Republicans to make the argument when he said: “They (Democrats) were going to impeach the President because there was a small delay in aid to Ukraine to leverage an investigation into a political opponent. No investigation took place and the aid flowed. And on this basis they were going to deprive the American people of their election choice?”
As the impeachment process has unfolded, public support for it has declined and Trump’s approval ratings have risen. Gallup, whose polls normally are not at the pro-Trump end of the polling spectrum, reports Trump’s overall approval rating at 49 per cent. His approval as an economic manager is a staggering 64 per cent.
Trump was able to boast in his State of the Union speech that he has delivered the “great American revival” that he promised as a candidate.
Unemployment is at its lowest rate in more than 50 years. The Federal Reserve forecasts economic growth in the US this year of 2 per cent, down a little from last year but still a leading result among developed nations. Trump has just concluded a so-called “phase one” trade deal with China. Beijing has promised to buy $US200bn ($297.8bn) more in US exports. This deal is an affront to the principles of free trade and Beijing has a long record of never actually buying the dollar sums it notionally commits to in headline trade agreements. But Beijing wants peace, even a temporary peace, with Trump and the Chinese will surely buy a lot of US farm goods this year.
Trump’s economic achievements are substantial. He has cut taxes and deregulated business. Under his presidency the US has created seven million new jobs, vastly more than anyone forecast when he was elected. The key minorities — African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans — are experiencing record low unemployment rates.
Trump has delivered to some extent for the minorities who voted against him. And he has delivered for the working class. There is a boom in blue-collar jobs and blue-collar wages.
It is true, of course, that all this is being purchased, in part, with debt and deficit that are surely unsustainable. In so far as Trump has an approach to national debt, it is for the US economy to grow its way out of the debt.
But any president would claim the credit for these overall economic figures.
Trump is delivering on other promises. He is building his wall with Mexico. He is asserting control over US borders. In his State of the Union speech he spoke against illegal immigration but in favour of legal immigration. He didn’t mention Australia by name in this speech but he once more proposed an Australian-style immigration system, where immigrants are chosen for skills and for the contribution they can make to America.
Under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama the Democrats were in favour, at least rhetorically, of asserting control over US borders and preventing or discouraging illegal immigrants. Under Obama, the US arrested and deported hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. That most of the left and progressive side of the Democratic Party now effectively promotes open borders, and even Democratic centrists oppose any actual measure to control borders, shows just how far left the Democrats have moved.
This move leftwards has secular and even global causes. But it is also exacerbated by the disorienting effect Trump has on his opponents, the famous Trump derangement syndrome. He drives them nuts. Many Australian commentators suffer from this condition. Tim Costello, in a bizarre recent piece, argued that merely opposing the idea that Trump should be removed from office between elections constituted being “a religious standard-bearer for Trump”.
This betrays a representative left-of-centre moral disorder in which anyone who doesn’t embrace relentless, undiscriminating hatred of Trump and all his works is condemned as morally and ethically unworthy, a slave to atavistic prejudices and irrational hatreds.
Some of Trump’s moves on immigration have been excessive and unconscionable, such as the brief period when children were forcibly separated from their parents at the border. Evangelical leaders, among Trump’s strongest backers, condemned him for this and he quickly changed.
But there is no doubt most Americans, including most immigrants, want the US to control its borders. If the Democrats nominate a far-left candidate who preaches open borders, they both offend common sense and handicap themselves in the election. Trump must be hoping the Democrats go down this path.
The State of the Union speech contained serious bids for Hispanic and black votes. If Trump were to wins 40 per cent of Hispanics and 20 per cent of African-Americans he would almost certainly be re-elected.
Other things Trump said were worth listening to as well. He hailed in the audience a mother and her beautiful two-year-old daughter. This little girl was born after 21 weeks’ gestation. Surely at 21 weeks, and certainly at 22 weeks, she was a human being. If you believe human beings have universal human rights surely she enjoyed human rights at 22 weeks. Do other babies also enjoy human rights at 22 weeks? What does that say about the human rights dimension of late-term abortions?
There was no audible booing when Trump was talking of this little girl. To boo Trump then would have meant Democrats booing the mother and her daughter. This was a dignified and powerful part of Trump’s speech. No president has ever raised this issue in this way before. It is not surprising that people who regard such issues as important think there is some value in Trump’s presidency.
The State of the Union speech had one pure Trump innovation in communications. Presidents since Ronald Reagan have been hailing designated audience members as exemplifying particular political or civic virtues. But Trump went further. He gave one little girl a scholarship. He allegedly surprised one military wife by bringing her husband home to her there and then. He promoted one proud African-American military veteran, age 100, to the rank of general. What can the Democrats do about all this?
They can’t run on the economy. Impeachment was a farce. They will run on Trump’s character, which a lot of Americans don’t like, but Americans have got used to Trump by now. The big recent rise in Trump’s approval rating has come from increases in approval among the growing share of the population who call themselves Republicans, and an increase in approval among independents, which is surely based on the economy.
If the Democrats end up, in Bernie Sanders, with a self- described socialist preaching revolution who wants to throw open the borders, abolish private health insurance and de-industrialise the nation in the interests of climate change, they will make Trump very, very hard to beat.
But November is a long way away and anything can happen. At time of writing it looks like Pete Buttigieg, the former small-city mayor from the mid-west, has just won Iowa. Sanders is likely to win New Hampshire next week. After New Hampshire comes Nevada and then South Carolina.
Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada don’t select many delegates but they confer, or destroy, momentum. Joe Biden, the establishment favourite who in notional polls does best against Trump among all the Democrats, finished a humiliating fourth in Iowa.
No one has won the presidency without finishing first or second in their party’s primary in New Hampshire. Biden is favoured in South Carolina because he has inherited goodwill from African-American Democrats after eight years serving with Barack Obama. Four different Democrats could each win one of the first four primaries.
After Nevada comes a huge slew of states in Super Tuesday on March 3 and more than 1300 nominating conference delegates. By then, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, with billions of dollars at his disposal, will be making his maximum run.
The Democrats could just about find themselves in a divided nominating conference, with no one having a majority and a brokered outcome. The longer the process goes on the more fiercely the Democrats will fight and damage each other.
Mayor Pete, as Buttigieg is called, is certainly the shiny new winner. He is a centrist, very likeable, a mid-westerner, a military veteran, and young and good-looking. He is openly gay but doesn’t wallow in identity politics. Hopefully his sexual orientation has no effect one way or the other.
If Biden collapses would Buttigieg or Bloomberg inherit his support as the most electable centrist? American politics can always surprise you. Neither Clinton, nor Obama, or Trump himself was considered likely to win his party’s nomination, much less the presidency, when their respective primaries began.
Trump may yet be like NSW in a State of Origin rugby league match leading by 10 points at half time. Don’t take anything for granted.
Then again, it’s always better to be winning.
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