What I Think and What I Believe

I did not vote for Trump; I do not like Trump; I wish he weren’t president; I can’t imagine voting for him in 2020. I also believe it’s morally wrong for me to mock, belittle, or demean anyone and I do my level best to treat all human beings that way. I am a human and imperfect; sometimes I succeed at that better than others.

That belief of mine is rooted in Catholic moral values. Merely by virtue of being a human being every human being is worthy of dignity, respect, and consideration. That doesn’t prevent me from characterizing, doing analyses of actions, or making judgments but it does prevent me from mocking. Consequently, I’d make a lousy comic since so much of comedy is mockery. I like the Marx Brothers because most of their mockery is turned on themselves.

I don’t support presidents. I support or oppose policies and, again, I do my level best to do so on an empirical basis. I am a human and imperfect, etc.

I agreed that we needed a lower corporate income tax. I disagreed that we needed a lower personal income tax. The results aren’t fully in yet and it will be difficult to disaggregate the consequences of the reforms to the corporate income tax from those to the personal income tax.

I agree that we need to control immigration better than we do. I have written at length on this subject and believe it is best facilitated by employment enforcement. Further, I think that failing to do so has had terrible effects on blacks and recent immigrants. I think that Trump’s wall would be an error. I think that President Obama’s policy was the inevitable consequence of a substantial influx of families with children and the Flores decision while Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy which split up families was wrong and a mistake. President Obama’s policy ran afoul of moral hazard; President Trump’s policy was just wrong.

I don’t think the Russians are our friends. I do think that our policy WRT to Russia has been stupid and counter-productive over the last 25 years. It’s probably too late to do anything to remedy that other than heeding the First Rule of Holes.

I think it would be far more effective to get on our high horse about Russian cyber-attacks and information operations if we had a high horse from which to preach. That’s not a moral equivalence. It’s a statement of fact. We’ve been engaging in our own meddling and cyber-attacks for decades at a scale undreamed of by any other country. We are the grand champion and, sadly, our motives are not always pure. At the very least it confuses other countries with regard to what we’re outraged about.

I think that trade should be used as a tool to help the greater part of the American people rather than to promote the interests of a narrow sliver of the American people. Sadly, that has not been the case for many years.

I agree that China has not played fair in international trade. I disagree that tariffs will change their behavior. It will change our behavior and that may be enough.

I think that our State Department and intelligence apparatus has been playing lone hands for many years. They are, reasonably enough, resisting a change. Change is necessary but I’m skeptical that Mr. Trump will be able to effect it.

I don’t think of myself as a Trump supporter. I think of myself as a policy and political analyst, amateur class. Am I wrong?