Trump – Looking Back
Now that Trump has gone, or at least is no longer President, the question becomes, what to make of his Presidency. It was certainly unique. Whether you supported Trump or despised him, Trump was one of the most impactful presidents in American history. He was President at a time went the country was polarized more than at any time since the Civil War. His critics blame him. Still, while he is certainly far from blameless, any fair-minded person would point out that the division which now split the country has been growing for decades. Rather than causing the polarization, Trump’s Presidency is more likely a result.
How would I grade the Trump Presidency? Mixed. His Presidency falls into two distinct categories, personality and policy. In terms of personality, Trump’s Presidency is hard to evaluate because his greatest strength was also his greatest weakness. All the Republican presidents and candidates for President in my lifetime have been savaged. This is to be expected from the Democrats, but the news media have also savaged them. More importantly, this has gotten worse over the years. McCain was a darling of the press until he became the nominee. Romney was arguably the nicest person ever to run for office and yet was portrayed as a callous man who let his employees die. For decades Republicans have been routinely called racists, greedy, and wanting to kill people. In one commercial, House Speaker Paul Ryan was depicted as pushing a grandmother over a cliff.
A common attitude among Republicans in 2016 was that we had tried candidates who were nice; we need a fighter. Republicans wanted a candidate who would not cower under the pressure of such attacks. One thing you can say about Trump is that he did not cower. He fought back. This was his greatest strength, an ego so large there was no room for self-doubt. It was also his greatest weakness. Everything was about him, and everything he did was the biggest, the best, the greatest, the largest.
This boosting immediately ran into trouble with a hostile press looking to find even the slightest flaw. Trump soon became fact-checked like no other politician ever had been, which continued a negative spiral with the press all too willing to distort, misrepresent and at times even lie.
Worse of all, Trump’s ego often got in the way of what he was doing. Often good news of his administration’s accomplishments was stepped on, not by Democrats trying to divert attention, but by Trump himself as he felt compelled to respond to some perceived slight. In this respect, Trump was often his own worse enemy.
On a side note here, this was one of the reasons I always thought the charge that Trump was racist, or a white supremacist, to be absurd. For Trump, only one thing matters, Trump. For him, the world is divided into those who support him and those who don’t. Nothing else really matters.
The other aspect of Trump’s Presidency is policy, what he did and got accomplished. His policies are much easier to judge. His list of accomplishments and success is easily one of the best of any President. A list of over a hundred Trump accomplishments was fact-checked in the New York Times, mostly true. Then there were the tax cuts leading to the economy under Trump being one of the best, if not the best, on record.
In area after area, Trump was able to accomplish what others had only promised but failed to deliver. One area where I disagreed with Trump was in the area of free trade. However, Trump achieved trade deals I did not think were possible. He started rebuilding the military, creating Space Force. Despite the Democrats and the media’s false rhetoric, his foreign policy accomplishments were many, culminating in the impossible, 4 Middle East peace agreements. These agreements would not have happened without Trump’s leadership, as many Democrats denounced his efforts as destructive and doomed to fail.
Even with COVID, Trump’s leadership was strong. While the Democrats were busy with the first impeachment, Trump formed a task force on the virus. Biden called him xenophobic when he shut down flights from China to slow the spread of the virus. Other Democrats said there was nothing to worry about. When in March the danger became apparent to all, Democratic governors in California and New York praised Trump’s efforts to help deal with the crisis.
Early on, the Trump administration stated Operation Warp-Speed to accelerate the development and distribution of a vaccine. It is a testament to the power of the Democrats and their media allies that as the election grew closer, they were able to ignore all this. They started to claim Trump did not have a plan. If that was not enough, they said he was responsible for every death. When the history of this period is written, Trump will have a lot to answer for. Still, the naked politicization of the COVID virus by the Democrats and their media allies will be their shame.
How do I grade all this? The policy is easy. Booming economy before Covid; rebuilt the military, historic trade deals, Middle East peace, and operation Warp-Speed, to name but a few. He gets a solid A. When grading his personality, one could look at the pros and cons and give him a C. I don’t because, with the policy record Trump accomplished, he should have been unbeatable. Yes, the ruling elites were all against him, but he could have overcome all that. A major reason his record was not better known was that he kept stepping on his own story. Even in the election campaign, there was too much about Trump and not enough about his accomplishments. Sure his followers knew what he did. But not enough voters did.
In any election as close as 2020, there is no single reason why one candidate won or lost. Any number of things could have changed the outcome. However, Trump’s personality is in his control or at least should be. His inability to let the story be about his administration’s accomplishments rather than about him cost him the election. For this, I give him a grade of D.
2020 Election – Postmortem
My overall view of the 2020 election crystallized in the two days following election day. Shortly after the election, when several states were still too close to call, I said it was basically a tie. Whichever side lost would not be happy. When the states were called for Biden, I considered the election over. When a friend asked about Trump not conceding, I wrote back,
“After all, Hillary and many other Democrats still claim Trump stole the election with Russians’ help. The recount will take place. The states will certify their results. The electors will vote, and Biden will become the President-elect. Trump will leave, and Biden will become President on January 20th.”
Despite the riots at the Capitol, that is what will happen. Still, there are many questions and lessons to be learned following the election.
First, the question of fraud. Was there fraud? Of course, but that is not the main question. There are two other questions. The first and the most important question is whether or not there was enough provable fraud to challenge the election. Even before the many court cases, the answer was pretty clearly no. Fraud is extremely difficult to prove. As one of Trump’s lawyers summarized the situation, it would take two years to put together a normal fraud case; they had less than two months.
In addition to lack of time, there were issues of jurisdiction and timing. For example, concerning state officials changing the timing and requirement for mail-in ballots, this may have been illegal. Still, the time to bring the lawsuit was when they announced the change, i.e., before the election, not after your side lost. Other lawsuits were put together so hastily that they were full of errors. Overturning an election in the courts was always going to be an uphill battle, as it should be. It would be an extraordinary move that would require extraordinary evidence. It would be extremely difficult to do that in one state, but to have to do it in several was not going to happen.
That leaves the second question was there enough fraud to have changed the outcome. Some see no difference in these two questions, but that is hardly a defensible position. Courts determine matters legally. They do not define reality. Just because something cannot be proved in a court of law does not mean it did not happen. There have been many miscarriages of justice in history, where the innocent were convicted, or the guilty party set free. The legal answer to the election question is Biden won and should become President.
As for the second question, the best answer at the moment is maybe. We really do not know. Some unusual things happen. Perhaps, this was all due to COVID, perhaps not. This question is not important in determining who should become President; that is the legal question. This question is vital for the integrity of the election process in the future. It is even more so for the publics’ confidence in the outcome of elections.
America has a long history of voter fraud and political machines. Securing the integrity of elections was a major and valid component of the Civil Rights movement and the subject to two amendments to the Constitution. Nor are Presidential elections immune. Many historians believe that Nixon probably would have won the 1960 Presidential election, except for fraud in Texas and Illinois. In more recent years, Democrats have questioned the legitimacy of Bush’s election in 2000 and Trump’s 2016 election.
If Biden wants to be a unifier, one thing he could do is establish a truly bipartisan commission to make recommendations for improving election security. I am not hopeful. In recent years, the main push by Democrats has been to make voting easier at the expense of making fraud both easier and even more difficult to prove. Still, given how close recent elections have been and the charges of fraud from both sides when they lose, securing the electoral process is the only way to restore confidence in the electoral system.
The final question is both the most dangerous for the democratic process and the most difficult to fix. That is the question of whether or not the election was fair. It was not even close. One expects both sides to be partisan; that is just the nature of things. Two things were different this time; the first was the press coverage.
The Press has for decades had a liberal bias. For example, in my book Preserving Democracy, I document how for the 2008 presidential election, the press coverage of Obama was 2-1 positive to negative. The situation was reversed for McCain. Still, nearly half the stories were neutral. The positive bias towards Obama was explained at the time as normal since the winner usually gets better coverage. The problem with that explanation is that these numbers had not changed much from 2004 went the Republican candidate won. If the explanation was correct, then Bush should have gotten the 2-1 favorable coverage. Yet, his coverage was not that much different from McCain’s.
For Trump, almost all the neutral and positive stories disappeared as studies consistently showed that 90% of the stories or more were negative. Not only that, but we also now know that a large number of them were false; many were little more than conspiracy theories. A huge amount of the coverage dealt with theories that Trump colluded with the Russians or was about the fire Mueller. Meanwhile, his many accomplishments were hardly mentioned.
While the three Networks spend 2,634 minutes on the Muller probe, which in the end found no evidence of the collision, they spend just 9 minutes on the President’s tax cuts and another 9 minutes on Trump’s historic Middle East Peace agreements. These examples just scratch the surface of the overwhelming bias in the media’s coverage.
The other major difference this time was the censorship of Big Tech. Big Tech has for years tracked you, whether you want them to or not. It is as if someone was with you 24/7, taking notes on everything you do, except worse, as they can correlate data with all their millions of other sources of information. They literally know more about you than you do, as they never forget anything. They used this information to make billions of dollars by targeting ads.
For a decade, the ability to track, has been increasingly shifting to influencing and then into manipulation. It is not just showing you ads you are interested in, but tacking and understanding you, so they can present you with the correct information at the right time that will get you to buy. Increasingly they not only want to sell marketing companies effective ads but guaranteed purchases. In short, they know how to get you to do what they want. A 2012 study in Nature showed that manipulating search results can affect how people vote. Big Tech has only gotten better since then.
Following Trump’s win in 2016, many in Big Tech who control most of the news and information on the internet promised not to let that happen again. They were true to their word, not just shaping information but restricting and even blocking information that might help Trump.
Thus when news of Hunter Biden’s laptop broke, Big tech blocked any mention of it, shutting down the New York Posts Twitter feed for daring to post the story. The major Networks spent just 21 minutes on the story, mostly casting it as Russian disinformation. This claim proved to be yet another false story from the networks. After the election, when it was safe to do so, the New York Post story was confirmed.
Did all this bias and suppression of the news affect the outcome? After the election, a poll of Biden voters in key states found that most did not know many of Trump’s major accomplishments. These were accomplishments such as achieving several Middle East Peace agreements or Operation Warp Speed. Nor did they know of significant Biden problems. More importantly, 17% of Biden voters said they would have changed their vote had they known. Perhaps the poll was off. Still, far less than a 1% switch would have changed the outcome.
The Democratic process depends on voters. Voters, however, depend on hearing both sides of a debate. The results of the 2020 election are clear. The major news sources and tech companies were determined to stop Trump, and they did everything they could to stop him. The election results were clear. Even with a 90% negative bias and suppressing and blocking of stories, they only just barely succeeded.
Will things change? They already have. In an article in The Atlantic, CNN’s Jim Acosta, a strong and vocal critic of Trump, said he expects his style of coverage will change. “I don’t think the press should be trying to whip up the Biden presidency and turn it into must-see TV in a contrived way.” Why should they? Their guy won. Their goal now will be to protect him.
A National Moment
There are times in a nation’s history where something happens that touch the national spirit and instantly galvanizes public opinion. These could be major historical events like the attack on Pearl Harbor or 911. They could be moments of national pride, such as the Moon landing, or moments of tragedy such as the Challenger disaster, or in Britain, the death of Princess Diana.
At these moments, how a leader reacts is critical. What a leader should do at such a moment is conceptually pretty easy. Understand what is going on, and then tap into that sense of national unity to build a consensus that will help the nation do what it needs to do.
This is what most leaders do, or at least try to do; they seek to unify the country and build a sense that we are all part of the nation. FDR’s speech to Congress following the attack on Pearl Harbor unified the country, preparing it for what lay ahead. Reagan’s speech following the Challenger disaster unified the country in the sorrow of the lost. But not all rise to the moment. A few seek to exploit it for political gain. This rarely ends well. Following the Reichstag fire in 1933, Hilter used the event as an excuse to go after his political opponents and consolidated his power.
The riot at the Capitol Building was a national moment. In one sense, this was just another example of the political unrest and riots happening with increasing regularity. But this was something more; this was something different. The video of rioters walking around the Senate Chamber shocked people in a way that similar footage of rioters walking around the streets of cities had not. The Capital is not just a building; it is a symbol of our government. This was a national moment, and there was near-universal disgust and condemnation of the rioters.
As for what is going on, that is pretty clear. We, as a nation, are not just divided; we are polarized. We have, for the most part, lost the ability to have a political discussion. And as such, increasingly, people are resorting to violence. If the last election showed us anything, it is that we are split 50-50. There is only one peaceful way out of this problem; we must lower the rhetorical temperature and start talking to each other again.
How did our leaders do? Trump, ever the egoist, could not see past his personal grievances to rise to the moment. His statement the next day was a better, but too little too late. Leaders rarely get do-overs.
As for Biden, as an incoming President, this was the softball of all softballs. A speech seeking to lower the political rhetoric and calling on unity could have set the tone for the start of his Presidency as the unifier. It would have rallied the country behind him right as he becomes President.
He did the opposite. Rather than seek unity, he used the opportunity to attack Trump and his supporters yet again. For the majority of the speech, if you did not know the context, you could have easily thought it had been given in October during the heat of the election.
To make matters worse, he then went on to say, “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol.” He says this as if we have not seen how rioters across the country have been allowed to take control of cities for days, or even weeks, in some cases. Such statements can only further divide the nation.
If all this was not bad enough, Biden then ended with a veiled threat, saying, “I hope it’s sensitized them to what we have to do.” What we have to do? He then talked about the Justice Department, being formed to “take on domestic terrorism.” Just what is he planning?
So rather than a speech on unity and lowering the political rhetoric, Biden used the opportunity to attack his political opponents and proposed going after them with the Justice Department. So much for unity and healing the country.
Let me suggest an alternative message for the inaugural. While not a national moment, Abraham Lincoln became President at a time when the nation was polarized. He concluded his first inaugural with the following plea,
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Sadly Lincoln’s plea was ignored, and the Civil War broke out. Perhaps we should not ignore it now.
Listen to the Experts
The constant message these days in the media is to listen to the experts. But the problem quickly becomes which experts. They do not all agree. This is even more clear with the recent publication of the Great Barrington Declaration, which, at the time of this writing, was already signed by 5,872 Medical & Public Health Scientists and 11,893 Medical Practitioners.
These health professionals look at both the dangers posed by COVID-19 but also consider the impact of government policies. These policies are not free of impact; nothing of any significance ever is. They have “have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.” The dangers of COVID-19 needs to be balanced with effects of the shutdown. They write,
(to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.
As our knowledge of this virus has grown, and treatment methods improved,
we know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.
It is just a fact that COVID-19 will continue to spread until the population reached herd immunity. The only thing shutdowns can do is drag out this process. A vaccine can help, but a vaccine is not required. In the end, we will need to reach herd immunity. As such, these experts recommend,
“The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.”
In short, theses experts argue that our response should be driven by looking at both side and seeking what will result in the least harm, and not just what minimize the virus.
To see the declaration go to https://gbdeclaration.org/
The More Things Change
Quick question, which party is seeking the ability to discriminate based on race?
If you answered the Democrats, you are correct. They are doing so in California, a state they have solidly control for a long time. What they are trying to do is repeal the following provision of a state Constitution,
The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.
This should not be a surprise. While they like to hide it, as I have written in the past,
The Democratic party still divides people into groups, where one is a member of a group before they are an individual. In recent years this has been formalized in the concepts of intersectionality. It is seen, for example, in Biden’s recent statement that a person is not Black if they don’t vote for him. In short, the issue of race is still at the core of the Democratic party.
Voters added this provision to the California Constitution in 1996 with Proposition 209. I voted for that proposition, and it had the strong backing of Republicans, but faced opposition from Democrats. In the upcoming election, Proposition 16 attempts to repeal it. Thus not too surprisingly, prop 16 has the strong backing of Democrats but opposition from Republicans.
Prop 16 will allow Democrats to discriminate based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Of course, they dress all this up with language such as,
Prop. 16 expands equal opportunity to all Californians, increasing access to fair wages, good jobs, and quality schools everyone.
But how can this be true? How can you increase access for everyone by discriminating based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin? When the Democrats did this to support slavery and then later segregation, such discrimination was called wrong, and properly so.
A core of this effort is the Democrats’ desire to play group-politics. They want to pick and choose between various groups those they like (i.e., support them) and those they don’t. They want to be able to tell you, as a member of a particular group, that you should vote for them because of all the wonderful things they do for your group.
In the old south, Democrats told whites they should vote for them to support slavery. Once Republicans abolished slavery, they ran on defending segregation. In the North, Democrats played group-politics with various immigrant groups to create and maintain political machines. By the 1960s, Democrats realized that segregation was doomed. So they shifted to a national machine model with the Great Society and pressed on.
While a lot changed, the more things changed, the more they stay the same. Machine politics thrives on the ability to distribute tax dollars to friends and punish enemies. Thus under the Obama IRS, Tea party groups had their applications blocked and held up for years, as their members faced audits. Meanwhile, friends of Obama had their applications fast-tracked sometimes in days. Other government departments saw similar behavior.
Yet for Democrats, doling out such favors has been more difficult recently because of their focus on intersectionality. The bottom line is that they want to discriminate, but are finding it harder to do so. So now they want to change the law to make discrimination legal again. Discrimination, in the name of equal opportunity! That is the upside-down world of the Democrats. The sad thing is, given that California is a Democratic stronghold, it will probably pass.
