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Tag Archives: Peggy Noonan

Im-Politic: Listen Closely to the Florida Students

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

adolescence, families, Florida school shooting, gun control, guns, Im-Politic, mass shootings, mental health, Nikolas Cruz, Peggy Noonan, pop culture, Ron Powers, school shootings, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal

As I’ve written before, the upsurge in school shootings and other mass shootings in America must surely stem from multiple causes. Aspects of U.S. gun laws clearly are defective. But broader social and cultural trends are at work as well.

The student survivors of last week’s Florida school shootings who are demanding that their elders more effectively protect them and their generation – and of course all other potential victims – deserve major credit not only for the passion and eloquence with which they are pressing the case, but for recognizing that better mental health care is essential along with better ways of keeping guns from the other Nikolas Cruz’s in U.S. classrooms.

Nonetheless, there’s a gap between their clear prioritization of gun control on the policy level, evident in their anger at the National Rifle Association, and an emotion that seems much more elemental – and compelling. Moreover, it’s doubtful that any single new law or set of new laws will make a major difference on this particular front. Consider the following statements:

>From a student survivor: “We had been doing drills on this in the past month. In every single class period, my teachers had gone through safety protocols. We have safety zones, we have protocols for every single emergency….”

>From another student survivor: “If our legislators don’t take action, how can we ever feel safe?” (Same source.)

>From that same survivor: “…I will not feel safe going back to school myself until reasonable mental health care legislation and gun control legislation is passed. Because, at this point, it’s unacceptable. How many more students are going to have to die and have their blood spilt in American classrooms, trying to make the world a better place just because politicians refuse to take action?” (

>From a student at a neighboring school: “I’ve seen these shootings happen my whole life. I’ve grown up with them. I remember Sandy Hook. I remember every single one.” (Same source as the second quote.)

It’s painfully obvious, at least to me, that what we’re being told here is that these young people are literally terrified that the kid sitting next to them, or the one sitting alone at the far end of the lunchroom, or the one who was just expelled, or one of the aimless, surly slightly older kids or twenty-somethings hanging around the neighborhood or the mall, literally is a ticking time bomb capable of exploding at any times. Moreover, the adults who have raised them and teach them are alarmed by these threats, too.  And these (all too believable) fears reinforce can’t help but reenforce the contention that something terrible has happened in America in recent decades that has turned entirely too many adolescent boys in particular into actual or potential killing machines.

Columnist Peggy Noonan made this point with her characteristic common sense and eloquence in The Wall Street Journal last week. It’s definitely worth your while. (For the record, however, I’m not entirely convinced about the abortion point.) And if you think such claims are simply right-wing talking points, take a look at this 2002 piece in The Atlantic – no conservative stronghold.

As I’ve written, it’s absolutely true that school and other mass shootings don’t happen in other high-income countries where young people are exposed to the same kind of toxic pop culture that prevails in the United States (although where the breakdown or family and community haven’t been nearly so advanced?) – which strongly supports the belief that tighter gun control is the key to stopping them or dramatically reducing the numbers. But it’s also true that these tragedies were much rarer earlier in American history, when guns were much more widespread.

So again, I strongly applaud the activism of the Florida students. I hope it doesn’t fade. I hope it helps shame American leaders into taking more productive action. But I also hope the students, their peers, and other Americans start asking more persistently not only why so many young people can so easily buy or otherwise access shockingly destructive weapons, but why they want to.

Im-Politic: Did Trump (and Trump-ism) Really Lose Big in the Healthcare Fight?

25 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

border adjustment tax, Congress, conservatives, Freedom Caucus, healthcare, Im-Politic, Immigration, infrastructure, Obama, Obamacare, Paul Ryan, Peggy Noonan, Republicans, RyanCare, tax reform, Tea Party, The Wall Street Journal, Trade, Trump

The list of realities, considerations, factors – call them what you will – that President Trump either forgot or overlooked as he pushed for House passage of the Republican healthcare bill is long, impressive, and pretty obvious according to the Washington, D.C. conventional political wisdom. On the off chance you haven’t heard it or read it, it includes the difference between cutting deals among real estate tycoons and negotiating with ideological politicians; his own voters’ tendency to rely heavily on the kind of government healthcare aid that the GOP legislation either eliminated or sharply curbed; the powerful vested stake developed after years or working with it in the current healthcare system – however troubled it might be – by major participants in the system; and the dangers to Mr. Trump’s own credibility and political power of choosing to tackle first a highly contentious subject (like healthcare) instead of a priority that’s reasonably uncontroversial (like infrastructure spending).

All those points seem valid to me, but I would add two more that seem at least equally important. Then I’ll present an interpretation of the healthcare story that hasn’t appeared anywhere else yet but that shouldn’t be overlooked – if only because it ties the otherwise puzzling story together in ways that are admittedly byzantine, but that make eminent sense in a Machiavellian (and therefore quintessentially political) way. In fact, this analysis dovetails exceptionally well with the president’s clear (to me, certainly) determination to remake American politics by rejecting the doctrinaire conservatism embodied by the Republican party for decades, and thereby increasing its appeal to independents and moderates.

The first such consideration that should be added to the overlooked list: how much more difficult it is both politically and substantively to take away government assistance used by economically stressed Americans (like those who backed Trump in droves) than it is to enable them to thrive without the assistance via other major planks of the Trump platform – chiefly immigration and trade policy overhaul.

One of the secrets of Trump’s success, after all, was his recognition that vast numbers of working and middle class Americans no longer buy the mainstream Republican argument that they could greatly increase their economic self-reliance through the wealth that would trickle down to them through shrinking taxes and government. He understood that this promise would always ring false as long as so many good jobs and so much income were being sent to foreigners through offshoring-friendly trade policies and mass immigration.

So it’s easy to understand why the Republican healthcare legislation registered so little support from even Republican voters – no doubt including many Trump backers. He seemed to be putting the cart before the horse not when it came to the kinds of government programs touted by liberals that Trump-ites viewed as bupkis, but with a program that had become central to their lives. (For a terrific analysis of Main Street views of healthcare at the usually ignored gut level, see this column by The Wall Street Journal‘s Peggy Noonan.)

The second neglected consideration flows directly from the first: President Trump’s election shows that the Republican party has moved significantly in his more populist and particularly less ideological direction, if not at the interlocking think tank/donors/Congressional level, at the far more important voter level. As a result, there was no apparent reason for Mr. Trump to defer to the more ideological Congressional Republicans on the healthcare front.

More specifically, even though the national party’s leadership did indeed treat Obamacare repeal and replacement as a defining principle and promise to its grassroots, and even though candidate Trump expressed strong opposition to his predecessors’ signature achievement, healthcare was never the defining principle of the maverick movement he led. That’s why he so frequently spoke of achieving healthcare goals that have been so widely rejected in Republican and conservative and leadership circles, like ensuring universal coverage.

So why did the president lead off his legislative agenda with orthodox Republican-style healthcare reform? Here’s where the story gets Machiavellian to me – but in ways that should be entirely plausible to anyone familiar with how successful political strategists think. Further, it’s a narrative that fully takes into account the hyper-partisan nature of Washington and legislative politics with which Mr. Trump needs to deal. And it goes like this.

The president recognizes that even though he’s remade much of the Republican base in his own image on the issues level, he also must realize that the Washington Republicans – which include the party’s mainstream conservative Congressional leaders and its more ideological Tea Party wing – remain hostile on the highest profile matters on his own agenda. I imagine he also recognizes that they might be powerful enough to undermine his initiatives on trade, immigration, and/or infrastructure – especially if Democratic leaders remain in their adamant “resistance” mode.

For even if Democrats are ultimately winnable on trade and infrastructure, they have no interest even in these areas in giving the president the kind of quick victory that would greatly strengthen the odds of turning his first term of office into a success that would boost the odds of his reelection. They have even less interest in helping Mr. Trump further strengthen his appeal to many of big Democratic constituencies.

So the Washington Republicans needed to be at least neutralized – and sooner rather than later. And appearing to fight the good fight for their healthcare reform proposal was an ideal way to demonstrate his loyalty to their objectives and strengthen his case for demanding concessions from them in return in areas he valued much more highly. This calculation looks especially shrewd since the Republican bill was so draconian that even had it squeezed through the House, the Senate was bound to prevent its reaching his desk in anything like its current form.

As a result, now that the “RyanCare” legislation is dead, Mr. Trump can say to both the House Republican leaders and even to the hard-line Freedom Caucus something to the effect, “We tried it your way, I carried lots of your water, and I paid a noticeable price. Now we drop the healthcare effort, pivot to my priorities, and I expect your votes, even if you won’t pull front-line duty. And when we do address healthcare as Obamacare’s failures multiply, you’re going to do right by your own constituents and drop the free market extremism. P.S. Anyone remaining obstructionist comes into my social media cross-hairs with your reelection bids coming up.”

I have no inside information here, and my reasoning could certainly be too clever by half. Moreover, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my professional life is that just because an analysis seems logical or commonsensical, doesn’t mean that it’s true. But even though it’s only about a day since the healthcare bill was pulled from a scheduled floor vote for the second and final time, I derive some satisfaction in seeing the president is making nice with both House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Freedom Caucus members, and making clear that it’s tax reform time (which could bring a tariff-like border adjustment tax). Which could mean that Donald Trump’s presidency is highly conventional in at least one respect – temptations to dismiss it as a failure should be strongly resisted.  

Im-Politic: A Preview of Trump-ism without Trump?

23 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2016 election, amnesty, attrition, Contract for the American Voter, Democrats, deportation, Donald Trump, entitlements, establishment, healthcare, Im-Politic, Immigration, immigration magnet, independents, Jobs, NAFTA, Obamacare, Peggy Noonan, politics, Populism, Republicans, TPP, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Wall Street Journal

Throughout this circus of a presidential campaign, I’ve emphasized the importance of distinguishing between Donald Trump’s myriad personal failings and the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign positions – which I remain convinced can form the basis of an urgently needed, sensible, and therefore, enduring new American populism. This week, substantial support for this proposition has come from Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan and, more surprisingly, from Trump himself.

In an October 20 essay, Noonan – long one of the most effective critics of the corporate-funded Republican establishment that Trump thoroughly trounced during the primaries – described the pillars of “Trump-ism without Trump” with her usual wit and grace. Among the highlights:

>He “would have spoken at great and compelling length of how the huge, complicated trade agreements created the past quarter-century can be improved upon with an eye to helping the American worker”:

>He “would have argued that controlling entitlement spending is a necessary thing but not, in fact, this moment’s priority. People have been battered since the crash, in many ways, and nothing feels stable now”:

>And he “would have known of America’s hidden fractures, and would have insisted that a healthy moderate-populist movement cannot begin as or devolve into a nationalist, identity-politics movement.”

The only matter on which I believe Noonan is seriously off-base is immigration. I certainly agree with her that Trump should have “explained his immigration proposals with a kind of loving logic—we must secure our borders for a host of serious reasons, and here they are. But we are grateful for our legal immigrants….” The problem is with her apparent belief that “In time, after we’ve fully secured our borders and the air of emergency is gone, we will turn to regularizing the situation of everyone here….”

As I’ve written, this popular (with both wings of the establishment) version of amnesty inevitably will supercharge America’s “immigration magnet.” The perceived likelihood of eventual legalization can only bring millions more impoverished third world-ers to the nation’s various doorsteps. It’s inconceivable that even a President Trump would take the measures needed – which would surely involve some use of force – to keep these masses, and especially the women and children, at bay.

The far better, indeed only realistic, approach is one that Trump himself has unfortunately barely mentioned: a stout refusal to legalize in any form accompanied by a strategy of attrition – i.e., encouraging illegals to leave both by boosting efforts to keep them out of the workplace, and by denying them (and their anchor children) public benefits.

But it’s almost like Trump was listening. Two days later, he came out with a “Contract for the American Voter” that echoed much of Noonan’s column. He promised that in his first hundred days in office, he would announce his “intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal,” along with withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. Both measures should draw strong support from Democrats and independents. In addition, Trump would designate China a currency manipulator, and order an inventory of predatory foreign trade practices.

On immigration, he omitted any reference to blanket deportation of all illegals and instead focused on starting to remove “the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back”; to de-fund Sanctuary Cities; and to “suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.” Especially in the political climate that would result from a Trump victory, would most Democrats on Capitol Hill fall on their swords to prevent any of this?

And what did Trump vow re entitlement reforms? The phrase doesn’t appear at all in the Contract, although the list of legislative proposals does include the repeal of Obamacare and replacement with a system (described only generally, to be sure) that could well appeal to most Republicans and many independents, and that in combination with other measures mentioned could bend the national healthcare cost curve down further.

Couple these ideas with Trump’s support for a big infrastructure build-out and repair program; his broadly non-interventionist foreign policy stance combined with a big (job-creating) defense buildup; new government ethics reforms that seek to halt the corrupting revolving door between government and private sector; and any kind of serious middle class tax relief, and it looks to me like a (mandate-sized) winning formula – for a politician who can pass the interlocking personality, character, and temperament tests.

Can such leaders emerge from the current political system, as I recently asked? Are American politicians who rise up through this system simply too beholden to special interests, or too thoroughly imbued with the “If you want to get along go along” ethos to favor rocking any big boats? I still can’t say I know the answer. But I’m as confident as ever that unless and until this kind of candidate emerges, American politics is going to remain one very angry space.

Im-Politic: Why Trump-ism Could Have Staying Power

05 Thursday May 2016

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2016 election, America First, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, foreign policy, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, internationalism, Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, national interests, national security, Obama, Peggy Noonan, Richard Nixon, rule of law, The Wall Street Journal, Trade

Welcome to the Age of Trump!

Since ages these days come and go a lot faster than previously in history, this one could well end in November, if he loses the presidency. Who, though, can doubt that, until then, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will dominate the news cycle with his outsiders’ instincts and his matchless flair for publicity, and keep his presumptive rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, the quintessential insider, continually on the defensive?

At the same time, the reasons for supposing that what might be called “Trump-ism” in American policy (and yes, I’m aware of all the contradictory views he still needs to resolve) is no flash in the pan are much stronger than widely realized.

Even given the implacable hostility he’s generated throughout the Mainstream Media, because of all the of digital ink spilled already on Trump’s remarkable rise, it’s hard to imagine anyone recently coming up with something fundamentally new – including me. But the Wall Street Journal‘s Peggy Noonan (who gained fame as a star speechwriter for Ronald Reagan) achieved just that objective in her April 28 column, when she wrote that the key to Trump’s appeal has been his supporters’ conviction that “he is on America’s side.”

Moreover, before you say, “Duh,” Noonan’s basic analysis ultimately also explains why Trump is so detested by the nation’s policy establishment across the political spectrum, along with the establishment journalists that flack for them – and why his approach to America’s challenges and opportunities holds much more promise than the reigning framework, especially in world affairs.

As you’ll see if you read the article, Noonan’s definition of “pro-American” entails much more than an avowed determination to defend and advance the nation’s interests. Of course, all public officials will call that their goal, and nearly all will sincerely mean it. What Noonan emphasizes, however, is the tendency of mainstream liberal, conservative, and centrist politicians alike to dilute that goal with numerous other considerations. These often are compatible with what’s best for America, or could be. But they’re not necessarily or intrinsically “pro-American” and can easily – and often have – compromised U.S. security or prosperity.

Noonan’s writes that Trump’s literal America First outlook “comes as a great relief to [his backers] because they believe that for 16 years Presidents Bush and Obama were largely about ideologies. They seemed not so much on America’s side as on the side of abstract notions about justice and the needs of the world. Mr. Obama’s ideological notions are leftist, and indeed he is a hero of the international left. He is about international climate-change agreements, and leftist views of gender, race and income equality. Mr. Bush’s White House was driven by a different ideology—neoconservatism, democratizing, nation building, defeating evil in the world, privatizing Social Security.

“But it was all ideology.

“Then Mr. Trump comes and in his statements radiate the idea that he’s not at all interested in ideology, only in making America great again—through border security and tough trade policy, etc. He’s saying he’s on America’s side, period.

I’d elaborate with two points. First, there’s a fundamental, bipartisan worldview and approach to world affairs underlying all these disparate positions. As I’ve explained, it’s called internationalism, and its bedrock tenet holds that America’s best bet for security and prosperity is pursuing what political scientists call milieu goals – literally trying to shape the world to make it safe for America.

As a result, especially since Pearl Harbor, this strategy has led the nation’s leaders on what I’ve called (especially in writing about national security and international economic policy) a search for abstract (a word Noonan uses in passing) standards to guide policy rather than simply asking what makes America and its people safer or wealthier. In fairness to the policy gurus and their acolytes, they insist that they’re simply taking a broader, more complex (sophisticated, etc.) and indeed more realistic view of U.S. interests. In particular, they claim to understand that the long run is more important than instant gratification.

That’s why even long before President Obama entered the White House, American leaders have been talking about strengthening peaceful global norms of behavior and the international institutions that should be administering them; about preserving relationships; about submitting to a “global test” before going to war (Secretary of State John Kerry’s words as the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate); about creating New World Orders and balances of power and “global structures of peace” (a Richard Nixon favorite); about freeing global trade and commerce to the greatest possible extent; about winning foreign “hearts and minds” (a Vietnam War campaign); about figuring out who’s on the “right side of history” (a big bone of contention during Jimmy Carter’s presidency); about eradicating global poverty; about controlling arms; about demonstrating credibility; about exercising or maintaining “global leadership.”

Of course, America and the world as a whole would indeed likely be much better off if much of this substantive progress (i.e., disarmament, trade liberalization) came to pass. But the main question facing policy-makers is rarely, “What would be advantageous” but “What is achievable at acceptable cost and risk?” Just as important is the question, “Compared to what?” For countries without alternatives, questing for a more congenial world environment is arguably the policy to follow – even though, paradoxically, however, their very lack of alternatives logically reflects a weakness that places this goal far out of reach.

As I’ve argued, however, the United States is in a different, and much more favorable, situation entirely, thanks to its geographically isolated location, its still dynamic social system, its sheer size, and its consequent economic power and potential for self-sufficiency. And logically, a policy of relying on variables that are relatively easy to control (i.e., a country’s own capabilities and actions) makes much more sense than a policy relying on variables that are relatively difficult to control (i.e., the capabilities and actions of others).

The arguments for pursuing the procedural aims of internationalism (those institutional goals) are even weaker for the United States. Given its military and economic superpower status and potential, yoking America to internationally agreed on standards of behavior seems likeliest to crimp valuable freedom of action, and hand influence over America’s fate over to powers that are either indifferent or hostile, without contributing on net to national security or well-being.

Also worth fretting about are time-frames (which are closely related to cost and risk issues). Let’s assume that even all of the above goals would benefit America sufficiently to warrant their pursuit. That still leaves the matter of how long the nation is supposed to wait for the benefits to start flowing. And nowhere is this question more important than in the international trade field, where Americans have repeatedly been told either (a) that their jobs and incomes should be sacrificed for the greater good by decisions to win and keep allies by handing them chunks of U.S. markets; and (b) that whatever economic pain liberalized trade is inflicting will eventually be more than offset by greater efficiencies or wider consumer choices or even more employment opportunities and higher wages (when foreign countries finally decide to open their markets).

It’s important to note that a “Trump-ian” crockery-breaking pursuit of greater and quicker policy benefits has no place in domestic politics. At home, Americans have developed a strong consensus on acceptable standards of behavior that justifies the supremacy of rule of law and its consequent proceduralism.  Nothing close to such a consensus is visible internationally.

But here’s something that’s at least as important to note: Even though it’s by no means certain that internationalism’s assumptions have been discredited, or that its promises have been broken, what is certain from the success this year of Trump as well as Democrat Bernie Sanders – another staunch critic of U.S. trade policy – is that Americans increasingly are out of patience. They’re demanding policies that safeguard their livelihoods and raise their wages now. And they’re in no mood to be told that such measures might violate World Trade Organization rules or antagonize allies whose own free trade bona fides are dubious at best – or offend populations in a dysfunctional Middle East that hasn’t exactly been showering Americans with affection lately.

Finally, the politics of the divide between Trump supporters and policy elites has been positively inflamed by the latter’s ability to avoid most of the costs and risks of glittering, quasi-utopian visions still all too far from panning out. Precisely because these electoral considerations dovetail so neatly with a policy shift strongly grounded in geopolitical and economic realities, unless U.S. security and international economic policies start delivering concretely for many more Americans very soon, the Age of Trump could have real legs.

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