You Will Never Read A Hotter Take About Election 2016
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“Why should those psuedo-left bros who used to write for Salon get to monopolize idiotic ‘Trump=Obama” columns?” torture enthusiast Marc Thiessen must have thought to himself. “I get a nice paycheck from Fred Hiatt, and I can make H.A. Goodman look more coherent and historically informed anyday.”
They can relax. Strip away the incendiary rhetoric, and a Trump presidency in many ways will be exactly what Democrats want — a third Obama term.
Yes, this sounds eminently plausible.
Take spending and debt. One of the great liberal achievements of the Obama presidency was the massive 2009 stimulus, which included $550 billion in government spending to fix what Obama called “our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools” — even though it was not paid for with spending cuts elsewhere. This was the bill that helped set off the tea party revolt of 2010. Nearly every Republican in Congress voted no.
ARRA was a fine bill. You know who’s not passing anything like it? Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell. So I have no idea what this has to do with a Trump administration.
Well, in August, Trump said that as president he plans to spend — wait for it — more than $500 billion on new infrastructure projects — which, he boasted, is “at least double” what Clinton plans to spend. Where would Trump get the money? By adding to the national debt. “This is the time to borrow,” he told CNBC, because “rates are so low.” Trump further explained that “normally, you would say you want to reduce your debt, and I would like to reduce debt, too,” but we can’t because we have “a tremendous infrastructure problem.”
Now, I know you don’t necessarily have to have a deep expertise about politics to write op-eds for the Washington Post, so I’ll let Marc in on a couple of secrets here. Statutes are passed by the so-called “Congress,” which consists of two legislatures. The president can “plan” to spend as much money on infrastructure as he wants and if Congress does not agree it will be irrelevant. As not only I but Marc have already observed, the people who would control Congress under a Trump presidency are strongly opposed to infrastructure spending.
Or take American exceptionalism. Back in 2009, Republicans blasted Obama when he declared, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said, “I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” adding that Obama’s comments show “a stark lack of moral clarity.”
“American exceptionalism” is not actually an issue.
In some areas, such as Supreme Court nominations, a Trump presidency would probably be a setback for Democrats.
Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln…
But in other areas, Trump may actually be an improvement for liberal Democrats over Obama. On trade, Trump opposes the hated Trans-Pacific Partnership that Obama negotiated.
I’m sure his unspecified plans to improve the TPP focus primarily on labor standards. Indeed, I assume he has Loomis lined up to lead the negotiations already.
On health care, he supports single-payer and has said, “This is an un-Republican thing for me to say. . . . I am going to take care of everybody . . . the government’s gonna pay for it.”
Sure, Trump will sign the “Repeal Obamacare and Replace It With The Let Them Eat Insurance Across State Lines and Tort Reform Act” Ryan and McConnell put on his desk, but he secretly favors single-payer and it will totally happen. He can use the same Article XII powers he will used to spend $600 building new gold-plated railway stations.
Marc Thiessen is paid a substantial amount of money to write his opinion about politics for one of the nation’s most prominent newspapers. I expect him to win a Pulitzer no later than 2018.*
*Speaking of which, Maureen Dowd is back from plugging her shitty column compilation book, coming to a remainder table at your local Barnes & Noble this Thursday. Tl; dr: “On the one hand, white nationalist authoritarianism nobody could have seen coming buy everybody; on the other hand, EMAILZS!!!!!!! In conclusion, Both Sides Do It.”