It’s times like these that I’m glad I’m not a Republican. If John Tamny’s recent column at Forbes is any gauge, Republicans have already decided that Trump will lose the election and are casting around for explanations for how Republicans will benefit from his defeat:
Can any Trump partisans imagine their candidate working tirelessly to convince others of the good or bad of a policy sans obnoxious rhetoric, and better yet, anyone listening to this most empty-headed of candidates? Regardless of Tuesday’s outcome, can anyone honestly say Trump will leave behind any kind of legacy that actually advances the policy debate?
Donald Trump is quite simply the most policy ignorant presidential candidate to ever emerge from the Republican primaries. But it’s not Trump’s stunning ignorance about seemingly everything policy-related that makes him such a lousy candidate, and such an embarrassment to the GOP. Figure that we’re advantaged economically and also in terms of freedom when presidents do nothing. Trump’s problem is that he combines policy ignorance with an impressive lack of common sense, and then tops it off with a desire to actually turn his know-nothingness into law. This is worth mentioning simply because yours truly would be cheering for Trump rather boisterously if he advertised his total cluelessness alongside an expressed desire to sit on his hands for four years. The problem with Trump once again is that he’s got lots of policy ideas. They’re nearly all bad. And the manufactured facts supporting them are nearly all wrong.
Read the whole thing.
Keep in mind that I hope with every fiber of my being that Donald Trump is not elected president but also bear in mind that I don’t care about the fate of the Republican Party one way or another. Basically, I think that the benignity of political parties is enormously overstated.
Winning may not be the only thing or even the most important thing but at least it’s something. Losing is nothing. If losing weren’t worse than winning, nobody would ever try to win anything. Losing is so much easier.
So a loss is a loss and IMO whether Donald Trump is elected or not the Republican Party will be damaged by the experience.
I’d like to make one final observation about Mr. Tamny’s column. He writes:
Countries don’t trade. Individuals trade, and by definition their trade balances.
IMO a very myopic view of trade. When an American person or company buys goods or services produced or performed in China, they pay in dollars. They give their dollars to the Chinese individual or company with whom they’re trading and receive the goods or services in exchange.
What happens to the dollars? They cannot be used to purchase goods or services by the Chinese in China. They can be stuffed into a mattress, they can be used to purchase interest-bearing financial instruments of some sort (which means that they’ll be used to obtain more dollars at a later date), they can be used to purchase capital assets in the U. S., or they can be used to purchase goods and/or services produced or performed in the United States.
The U. S. is running an enormous trade deficit with China, well over $350 billion per year. That means that Americans are buying more goods and services from the Chinese than the Chinese are buying goods and services from Americans. By definition that reduces U. S. economic growth. What are they doing with all of those dollars? Some are being used to purchase goods and services not produced in the United States but denominated in dollars anyway, mostly oil. But a lot of those dollars are being used to purchase interest-bearing financial instruments.
I’m completely in favor of the sort of free trade in which Americans and Chinese trade goods and services with each other in near complete parity. I do not care for the sort of trade we have in which the Chinese hold over a trillion dollars dollars worth of T-bills rather than buying other U. S. goods and services. In effect we’re purchasing inexpensive manufactured goods from the Chinese and exporting employment. That might be good for politicians and people in the financial sector but I don’t think it’s very good for you and me.
The balance of Mr. Tamny’s column is filled with anarcho-capitalist half truths. For example this:
Economic growth within these borders ensures a continued inflow of people into the United States.
Uh, no. Cost-benefit analysis of coming into the country illegally ensures a continued inflow of people into the U. S. Growth has little to do with it. I could go on almost indefinitely.
Great post, but the sad, sick, pathetic reality is that John Tamny, his posse, and his detractors have little to no understanding of what you have written.
I have no doubt that we could put together a simple but comprehensive solution that would work, and we could design it like the Egyptians did with the base of the Pyramid walls – sloping inward to collapse on itself providing greater stability.
Our PE Investor friend may not be ecstatic, but I suspect that he would be able to still make as much or more money under the new regulations. With the streamlined regulations, he may even be able to get in a few extra games of golf.
I don’t know about calling Trump a Loser, it appears that Trump possibly will win more electoral votes than either Romney (lost by 126 EVs) or McCain (lost by 192 EVs) did, and while perhaps some portion of this would may be attributable to his opponent and not himself, it does appear that Trump is doing better in some purple states at the expense of some excess, unnecessary voters in red states. Right now, 538 has Trump losing by a (statistical) 61 EVs.
If its a close loss, I would expect the Republicans to collectively attempt to take the good and discard the bad of Trumpism. What this means will be be contested, but that is probably the framework. The complicating factor is what does Trump do next. If Trump retains some sort of organization or voice, that role will be contested as well.
Tamny is still lying about Smoot Hawley playing a key part in causing the Great Depression. It played no part. Buchanan has outlined the history many times.
Trump was never a Republican, so it will naturally be easy for the party establishment to dump him. As Megan McArdle put it: “Trump has built no organization, made no friends, inspired no new generation of politicians and intellectuals to go out and become his apostles. His entire contribution to a new policy agenda for the Republican Party can be embroidered on a hat.”
There will still be his block of angry voters, which the establishment will continue to insult and ignore. Maybe they will wreck the Democrats next? One can only hope.
So a loss is a loss and IMO whether Donald Trump is elected or not the Republican Party will be damaged by the experience.
That was the best reason to vote for him in the primaries. (The second best reason was to stomp the Bush family into the dust.)
The best reason to vote for Trump in the election yesterday was to start the process of stomping the Democratic Party into the dust. Neither party has done anything to better the country in decades, but they’ve done much to better themselves and their donors at the expense of the nation as a whole. Here’s to burning both parties to the ground and starting over.
National Razor Party: NOW!
As Megan McArdle put it: “Trump has built no organization, made no friends, inspired no new generation of politicians and intellectuals to go out and become his apostles. His entire contribution to a new policy agenda for the Republican Party can be embroidered on a hat.â€
What Trump HAS done is have the best Electoral showing of a Republican candidate since 1988, when Herbert road Reagan’s coattails to a YUGE win, and he did it by completely ignoring what that Party big shots has told everyone was the only way for a Republican to win. If the rest of them are too stupid to figure that out? Well, they will be swept aside in due course, either by those following what should probably be known as the Sailer Strategy, or by the demographic tide the Republicans have helped create with the Democrats. Either way, the old line Republicans are doomed to an ever shrinking sphere of influence.