I take a backseat to no one in anti-Trump credentials. I recognized him as a threat to national security and political stability from the get-go, I got a few of my friends together to declare this loudly, and I have lost friends because of my choices. One did not need January 6 to prove my prescience, but an actual insurrection designed to impact the constitutional reckoning of a presidential election, summoned by the loser of that election, instructed by the loser of that election, and directed by the loser of that election, should have served as a sufficient QED. The utter failure of the insurrection is not evidence of its absence.
I supported Joe Biden for President, not because I particularly like Joe Biden, but because of the field he was running against, my guess he was the most likely to be able to beat Trump. In an unexpected embrace of sanity, the Democratic Party turned against a stable of The Woke and turned to Biden, who realized that his name recognition and the fact that he wasn’t Trump was his ticket to the White House, as long as he didn’t veer too far to the left and depress independent turnout. So he posed as a man of the center-left and did the only thing I needed him to do, and that was beat Trump. I was—and am—genuinely grateful that he is now President, because as Republicans told me in 2016 “it’s a binary choice” (I reject this, by the way), and the alternative was unacceptable.
Eleven months into the Biden Presidency reveals it lacking in basic competence, which means it is failing to deliver on its main claim to existence. They botched Afghanistan, they are routinely fumbling on COVID, their first defense budget was a disgrace, and now the President is experiencing the joy of working with the loose confederation of identity groups that comprise the party in power. As to being “in power”, a slim Electoral College margin, a razor-thin House majority, and a Senate majority of one delivered to them by the former President, would suggest the lack of a mandate (beyond the mandate to beat Trump). It is one thing to talk about “investments” in social welfare, healthcare, climate change, family leave, and social justice—it is quite another to wrap them all up in a “framework” (at some point I’ll understand what a “framework” is and if it is binding on anything, but today is not that day) that utterly re-orders the relationship of the governed to the government.
Of late, I have had a few wags on social media—when I point out something or the other of the predictable quandary Biden is in—do a little end-zone dance and remind other readers that I voted for all this. This view is idiocy, as I laid out in this anticipatory post last year, before the results of the election were even known. We do not have a parliament; when I vote, I am not asserting my support for a program. I voted tactically, to contribute to the defeat of a danger. I did not then nor do I now support the overwhelming bulk of the policy ideas of the Biden team.
Why am I saying all of this now?
Because Trump was defeated, and an administration is in power whose plans and policies represent a broad menu of bad options, most of which cut ideologically against my priors, I am happy to cheer on politicians and campaigns that point out some of the ridiculous excesses of the modern left. You see, I am and remain a conservative. While the GOP lost its mind and ran off toward mindless populism, I stayed right where I was. Limited government, individual liberty, free markets, and strong, active leadership in the world. That’s where I was. That’s where I am.
Some on the right feel that Donald Trump and his ilk remain the existential threat they once were, and so they have decided that none of their ideological impulses or policy preferences are important anymore, or at least aren’t as important as extirpating Trumpism. To this end, they have become shrill tools of the left, useful but not valued. I get the impulse. There is real patriotism behind it—these folks have made a risk calculation and decided that they simply cannot risk Trump’s return.
While I consider this to be a possibility, I consider it a low probability possibility, and at this point, certainly not worth the scorched earth approach that some of these Never Trumpers turned Democratic Apparatchiks are pursuing. Living under the benevolent reign of Governor Hogan here in the People’s State of Maryland, I pay only passing attention to the politics of the Old Dominion. I find the GOP candidate uninspiring and Trump-adjacent to an annoying degree that approaches Trumpenproletariat status. But I find the the Democrat even worse, and his embrace of she-who-created-the-Trump-voter-fraud-playbook is repellent. This “which candidate more closely represents my ideological priors” approach to elections seems to be something I could get used to as a man without a party, tempered of course by a sense of the person’s character, ethics, and honesty. Simply voting against all Republicans—an idea that I flirted with to be honest—becomes over time less and less of a real option for me.
The noise and mis/disinformation surrounding “voting rights” has become deafening and little of substance makes its way through. Lots of states made considerable concessions to COVID in order to ensure voters could exercise the franchise. In the absence of COVID, it is an open question whether and when any of these changes would have come about organically. Some legislators in some states decided that the provisions had gone to far, and they proposed legislation to return to the status quo ante. In some cases, there were provisions offered up that were OBVIOUSLY the ravings of the lunatic Trumpenproletariat. In most cases, those provisions were defeated or removed. In many of the states MOST criticized, early voting access and duration remains above the national average, and certainly above the average of several “blue” states. We must be vigilant to legitimate threats to democracy, but we must not confuse reducing early voting from 28 days to 14 days as a threat to the Republic. As long as we have the federal system, states will conduct elections, and they will do it (subject of course to Constitutional stricture) in a manner that reflects the will of the majority. It has ever been thus.
Things could change. If Trump begins to emerge as the GOP nominee in 2024, I’ll yell from the rooftops against ANYONE who supports him. In the meantime, there’s a country to run, and the Democrats are failing.
The Minimum Corporate Income Tax
The President received encomiums from his own staff this weekend about an effort underway to create an agreed upon minimum rate of taxation for corporations across the developed world, to discourage businesses from chasing lower operating costs. Here’s one:
I have not arrived at a decision on the wisdom of this policy, and there is a good deal of discussion amongst experts about it (although it seems they are more interested in whether it is achievable or enforceable than if it is wise). One thing strikes me as a POSSIBLE positive in such a move would be that if there were such a minimum, the trade space for lowering corporate tax rates could increase.
The important thing to remember though, is that irrespective of the lauds and hosannas the President is receiving, there is no deal, there is no agreement, there is nothing but a bunch of nations saying that they think this is a good idea (not a bad start). The only way that it becomes binding on businesses in the United States is through legislation passed according to Article 1 of the Constitution. The hullaballoo here seems incredibly premature, especially given the ongoing inability to get much of this President’s program through the Congress.
It Isn’t Always About Racism
Sherrilyn Ifill can only see one reason for Youngkin’s victory in Virginia.
Kewl