What Do the Washington Insiders Think?

By P.J. O'Rourke

I've been back and forth to Washington, D.C. three times since Donald Trump's victory in the Indiana Republican presidential primary. Now that we have (presumably) learned who the presidential candidates will be, I wanted to find out what Washington Insiders are thinking about the election.

Washington is full of pundits, policy wonks, think-tank thinkers, political gatekeepers, and so-called "down ticket" politicians (the people running for all the other offices on the ballot in November). They comprise the entity that is collectively known as "Inside the Beltway." I've been trying to take its temperature. No jokes, please, about where I'm sticking the thermometer.

"Washington Insider" has been the ultimate insult this election cycle. Trump's platform seems to consist entirely of declaring he's not one. Whatever insiders favor, he's against. (Never mind that he's running to be the biggest insider of all.)

The most powerful argument Bernie Sanders has against Hillary Clinton is that she's a political-establishment insider. (As if former representative and current Senator Sanders, who has barely ever held a job outside politics, isn't.)

In reaction to Bernie, Hillary has moved her rhetoric to the left until she sounds like what she's inside is an "Occupy" movement tent. (Check her campaign finances to see where she really is – inside the pocket of donors from the 1%.)

So why should we care what Washington Insiders think?

Because they know how the government works. Insiders understand the fiendish intricacy and arcane details of lawmaking, judicial rulings, regulatory processes, and bureaucratic operations.

The government may be working badly. The insiders may need to change what they're doing and how they think. But in a hospital operating room, when the hip replacement isn't going well, we don't call in a car mechanic to take over with a wrench and a pair of pliers.

And let's be fair to car mechanics. When a piston rod is thrown, we don't ask an orthopedic surgeon to make the repair.

Washington has complex problems. Solving complex problems involves expertise. When expertise is needed, experts are required.

I talked mostly to conservative experts. That's because I find liberals are mostly experts at creating schemes for "equality" and "fairness." That is, they won't replace your hip, but they'll promise to make everybody else in America limp.

Also, the liberals were busy doing their Happy Dance. They think that the youth vote, the minority vote, and the women's vote add up to make it impossible for Hillary to lose.

I'm not sure about the liberal arithmetic. I think they're like little kids counting on their fingers while wearing mittens.

We're dealing with an equation containing double negatives. According to the latest aggregated poll figures from the Huffington Post, Trump has an unfavorable rating of 57.8% and Hillary's unfavorable rating is 54.5%. It's hard to call a race predictable when public opinion is running 112.3% against both candidates.

I live in New Hampshire, a "deep purple" swing state. The two comments about the election I've heard most from my neighbors are, "I can't vote for him, but I really can't vote for her," and, "I can't vote for her, but I really can't vote for him."

Conservative Washington Insiders are saying the same thing. And often the same person says both things.

The smartest person I know in Washington – I'll call him "Deep Thought" – holds an endowed chair at a large and influential nonpartisan public-policy institute. Deep Thought is only somewhat given to exaggeration for effect. He said, "It's like having to choose sides in the Hitler-Stalin Nonaggression Pact of 1939." Deep Thought pondered his quip and then looked somber. "You'll recall," he said, "in the end, we did have to choose sides."

Choosing sides has caused conservative insiders to fall into three groups:

1. Reluctant supporters of Trump. One of these told me, "He has brought a lot of new people into the Republican Party. And after November, I hope they'll all go back to where they came from."

2. Very reluctant supporters of Hillary. One of these told me, "She's wrong about everything, but she's wrong within the known and tested parameters of wrong."

3. Desperate seekers after a viable third candidate. And I tell myself, "Knock, knock... Who's there? Nobody at all."

I talked to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at one of those big hotel ballroom dinners that Washington Insiders love to hold. Bloomberg, who certainly understands the economy, would have been a great third-party candidate. I said, "Mr. Mayor, I've got $10 right here in my pocket to start a 'dark money' PAC to get you elected."

He laughed. He's not running. Given Bloomberg's record as a businessman and politician, I'm sure he did the math on a third-party candidate's chances. And he's good at math.

I gathered from our conversation that Bloomberg thinks any third-party candidate would either help Trump or Hillary win.

Deep Thought pointed out that although we have a large number of discontented independent voters this year, their discontents are very different. Some think America has taken a wrong turn, and some think America should take a left turn into oncoming traffic. No third-party candidate could appeal to both.

At another one of those dinners I sat next to a senior military officer whose uniform had enough brass on it to make a tuba. We chatted politely about what a strange election season it had been and I said, "If I had to take a guess, I'd say Hillary is going to be the next president."

And he said, "I hope so."

He could see I was surprised. Senior military officers never make partisan political comments. And especially never to a reporter, no matter how off the record the occasion is supposed to be.

"I may," he said, "have a president I agree with. I may have a president I don't agree with. That's fine. But we can't have surprises."

The Reluctant Trump Supporters are counting on the inertia of Washington Insiders to make sure that Trump doesn't do something too surprising.

Any president we get is going to have to deal with "Inside the Beltway" inertia. And the Reluctant Trumps certainly looked inert. They were subdued and glum about the prospect of their candidate winning.

I asked the editor of a prominent conservative publication how things stood with his staff and contributors.

"They're all over the place," he said. "X hates Hillary. Y detests Trump. Z has asked everybody, including Ike's ghost, to run as a write-in."

I asked him how he was handling it.

He said, "Time for the 'Three Monkeys' editorial policy: 'See no Hillary,' 'Hear no Trump,' 'Speak no Third-Party Candidate.' We're going to run a lot of intellectual stuff."

Which brings us to a question that you, the reader, are doubtless already asking: "This grim, pessimistic column that P.J. just wrote – what the heck message is it supposed to have for investors?"

The message is what my editor friend said: "Run a lot of intellectual stuff." Or as it's called in investing, "due diligence."

We're going to get a bad president. The economy will be the worse for it. So it's up to wise investors to start examining the institutions and individuals inside the beltway. Which of these will help avoid or mitigate the disasters threatened by the next administration (whoever's leading it)? Which institutions and individuals deserve encouragement and support?

It's up to smart investors to begin looking carefully at the platforms and policy positions of the congressmen and senators running to become or remain Washington Insiders.

Washington Insiders are – like what's inside our own "beltways" – the guts of the operation. As with our own guts, we know what Washington Insiders are full of. But we can't do without them.

Regards,

P.J. O'Rourke