Tuesday, June 13, 2017

What is really happening, scandal edition

Trump

Well, it's the name on everyones' lips.  There seems to be two major factions, one that is insistent that he is the antichrist incarnate and the other that insists that he is our savior.  Those two are engaged in a battle that is largely pointless to the rest of us.

I supported Trump over Hilary Clinton.  I thought Trump might actually be good.  I'm seeing little to actually disabuse me of that notion.  From an objective evaluation, what Trump has done is not that far out of the ordinary, even the things he does with which I do not agree.

Immigration

So, Trump's immigration order has resulted in a rather unprecedented response.  Courts have made blanket, nation-wide injunctions, which aren't particularly common, believe it or not.  People have been screaming about constitutionality and fairness and the American way.

While I agree that Trump has beliefs on immigration that are not in alignment with what I believe is the American way, I do need to point out that the immigration order, itself, doesn't really violate the American way.

As for constitutionality, that argument is actually rather weak.  I have yet to have anyone successfully defend this particular charge, as the order itself is not in any classical way discriminatory.

I will agree it's largely pointless, but that is nothing new to the United States federal government.  After all, we've been dealing with the enhanced security at airports and general loss of rights all over for no really good reason, and courts have even held that it's not up to them to determine if such a policy is actually effective as an elected person has a right to do that for which he was elected.

Personally, as always, I believe that once a person manages to set foot on American soil, they become an American citizen.  I hold a minority position.

We do have to balance the good with the bad, however, and that is what this post is about.

Regulation

While everyone is losing their shit over the network neutrality rules change, Trump has quietly been reducing regulation all over the federal government.  Instead of being noticed for his wholesale reduction in expensive regulation, everyone is going on about the loss of the network neutrality regulation that was, apparently, a triumph of the Obama administration.

That regulation was another attempt by the Obama administration to legislate from the Oval Office.  Obama was annoyed at how slowly Congress was addressing the issue and decided that, since Title II applied, it should be done that way.  This, of course, put an end to the efforts in Congress to address the issue.  The FTC, which used to deal with consumer complaints against ISPs, lost that power.

Further, the regulation didn't address those in the smallest markets, the ones most damaged by ISPs misbehaving.  Also, it didn't address the fundamental problem, which was the lack of real competition in the market.  This is, of course, caused by existing regulation that grants a monopoly to various cable companies.  It wasn't a bad deal for the cable companies, getting Title II regulation in exchange for retaining utility-level monopoly status.

So, in exchange for returning regulation of network neutrality to the Congress and the FTC, we've gotten a lot of other regulations removed.  On the whole, I find this positive.  I might point out that there is no consensus amongst the analysts at the bureau on this issue.

Comey

So, there are two readings to this.  There is the official, establishment reading, that Comey caught Trump trying to influence an investigation.  Then there is the reading I see, which is that nothing of any objective import happened, and a disgruntled Comey tried to hurt Trump.

Comey got fired by Trump.  Everybody in the administration works at the pleasure of the president unless their post is specifically protected by law and Comey's wasn't.  Further, there are a lot of questions as to how Comey went about it.  Comey testified he specifically leaked his document in order to cause a special prosecutor to be appointed, not merely to get the truth out.  Coupled with his testimony that he never liked Trump and was always suspicious of him, Comey's testimony is rather suspect.

Did Trump lean on anyone?  There doesn't appear to be any solid evidence he did.  Everything he said or did can be alternatively interpreted as him expressing a hope for the fate of his friend.  There is no situation where Trump said that if Comey didn't stop the investigation into Flynn, he was fired.

This leads me to my final point on this, which is that presidents are normally given a while to settle in.  In this case, the establishment hates Trump and is leaking every embarrassing thing they can.  They are doing anything they can to paint him in a bad light so they can be rid of him.  Everything he says or does must be read in the worst possible light in this holy war of theirs to defend their comfortable corruption.

What is really happening

So, Trump is a naive president, sent to Washington to raise hell.  One analyst refers to him as a 'pooball' thrown at Washington by the electorate.  Trump has the cojones to actually effect change.  He's not the effete Obama or the befuddled Bush.  Not only has he promised to take on sacred cows in the city, but he has actually attempted to deliver on that promise.

There are a lot of special interests in Washington quietly working out deals to the detriment of the rest of us in this country.  Those special interests are angry with Trump because he actually threatens them.  This is the first president since Ronald Reagan with the will and ability to fight the establishment.  That he is a loose cannon only makes it worse for them, because they can't predict and thus manage him.

So they've flung every accusation they can find at him, accusations that used to reliably ruin a politician, but, with Trump, has effected nothing.  The Donald is not teflon like Bill Clinton; the electorate simply does not care anymore.  They don't trust the news media a bit.  They don't trust their politicians in Washington.  They don't trust Trump.  Trump, however, is trying to do things that they agree with and therefore is the least evil there.

I do not know how history will view Donald Trump.  I do know I wouldn't change places with him for any amount of money.  He is a lonely man against whom the entire establishment of the country is arrayed and yet he soldiers on doing what he wants to do regardless.  It's that he is either completely tone deaf or that he is possessed of great courage in the face of adversity.  Instead of seeing this lonely fight for what it is, much of the media is trying desperately to convince us that he is the ultimate evil.

Trump's supporters

Ah, these people.  They aren't doing Trump any favors.  They really aren't hurting him, either.  I get several emails a day from Trump supporters asking for my money and wondering if I'm 'faithful' to Trump.

See, elected officials in this country are our servants.  They serve at our pleasure and should be loyal to us, not the other way around.  This is a bit Hilary Clinton got wrong; we don't want to be led around by the nose for our benefit.  We want to be free to forge our own destiny.  To that end, we elect people to go to government and take care of things so that we may be free.

So, no, I'm not loyal to Trump.  But I do think he's getting a raw deal.

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