My Worries About the Opposition to Trump – Part I
By P.J. O'Rourke
If you worry about politics (and that's my job at Stansberry Research), you have a wide selection of things to worry about these days.
I worry about some of the amateur-hour performances at the Trump White House.
For instance, the appointment of a national security advisor, Michael Flynn, who Trump fired because he got caught playing Post Office with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
Or hastily conceived executive orders on immigration that are now bogged-down in federal courts... leaving America's already-swamped immigration system spinning its wheels in legal mud.
Or a foreign policy that seems to go back and forth between channeling John Wayne and John Kerry.
But – so far – Trump worries me less than the strident, shrieking, raging, and sometimes violent opposition to Trump. (Not that there hasn't been some ugly, loud, and angry behavior from Trump supporters... But I've decided to face my anxieties one worry at a time.)
I can't imagine waves of Trump supporters setting a limousine on fire if Hillary had won. A Tesla, maybe, to protest the California vote... But no. Most Trump supporters respect property rights, and anyway, Teslas seem to set themselves on fire.
Part of the opposition to Trump is, of course, a rational political disagreement. And such disagreements can be bruising. We have the last eight years of Obama in a cage match with Congress to prove it.
I'm not worried by the fact that President Trump faces opposition. That's proof democracy is functioning. We don't want a robotically programmed electorate. Voters would be like the "hosts" in Westworld, and when we started to malfunction we'd all get "wiped." (Never mind that some political commentators think this is what happened to voters in Rust Belt states.)
I'm not worried by opposition to Trump as a person. He is a bit of a goof. Though I'm not sure he's the goofiest person to ever sit behind the Oval Office desk. There was Jimmy Carter – Barney Fife if Barney had been Mayberry's local crackpot liberal instead of Mayberry's local crackpot deputy sheriff.
And I'm certainly not worried by opposition to Trump's policies. I oppose his immigration stance myself. My family's from Ireland, which used to be a major source of terrorists. And I'm skeptical about Trump's protectionist ideas about foreign trade. We shanty Irish could wind up paying $1,000 a sheet for Canadian plywood to build our shanties.
But another part of the opposition to Trump appears to be... frankly... insane.
Hysteria and fanaticism have infected part of the Trump opposition. It's a prominent part, or at least it's getting prominent coverage in the news.
The first indication of hysteria and fanaticism was Trump opponents branding Trump supporters as "fanatical" and "hysterical."
Psychologists call this projection. I'd call it: The fox is the finder. The stink lays behind her.
Trump opponents were the ones who fanatically backed Hillary or hysterically felt the Bern.
Although let's be fair... plenty of people voted for Hillary because of general ideological agreement with her... or because she looked to have a lower "volatility index" than Donald... or because she had the sheer guts to wear those big purple pants suits.
And plenty of people backed Bernie because he was clear and consistent in his convictions – an honest man, by Washington politician standards. (Which is like saying it's warm outside, by Vermont February standards.)
But let's also be fair to the Republican Party...
If you review Republican primary and caucus vote totals and track the ups and downs of Republican presidential hopefuls' poll standings, you'll see that support for Trump was the result of a long, slow, and often painful deliberative process. Watching Republicans choose a presidential candidate was like watching a C- college student writing a term paper.
Every campaign attracts a few fanatics and hysterics. But I covered the election cycle for nearly two years. Fanaticism and hysteria weren't the major factors in Trump's party nomination or electoral victory any more than Trump's very bad personal barber was the major factor in Trump's loss of the popular vote. (Having attended any number of Democratic campaign rallies I can tell you that, at the least, most Bernie supporters have worse haircuts than Trump does.)
The people who voted for Trump (or who, anyway, did not vote for Hillary) were determined to change America's political diet. But many of those voters picked Trump with much the same enthusiasm that husbands at the grocery store pick a green leafy vegetable for dinner... Marco Rubio spinach?... John Kasich kale?... Ted Cruz turnip greens?... Gary Johnson arugula?... Or, yuck, Jeb Bush broccoli?...
In this, the first of two columns where I'm the self-appointed chief worrywart about fanatical and hysterical opposition to Trump, I'd like to focus on the hysteria.
My Webster's defines "hysteria" as [with my commentary in brackets]:
...variously characterized by emotional excitability [yes], excessive anxiety [and how], sensory and motor disturbance [the "Women's March on Washington" could be so described if you were trying to get around D.C. that day], or the unconscious simulation of organic disorders, such as blindness [to the issues that gave Trump his election victory], deafness [to the voters talking about those issues], etc.
In the "etc." department, I spent the first few days of the Trump administration collecting news and editorial headline hysterics about Trump. I got my headlines from the Washington Post, not because the Post is anti-Trump (most big-city newspapers are), but because the Post specializes in political coverage.
The Washington Post is to politics what the Wall Street Journal is to economics. Therefore, one would expect the Post (although pro-liberal) to try to cast a cool and dispassionate eye on the world of politics the way the Journal (although pro-business) tries to cast a cool and dispassionate eye on the world of economics.
And yet, the following:
News stories:
"In the home of NATO and the European Union, dismay as Trump takes power"
"Trump's first day full of reminders of potential business conflicts"
"Elected on words, Trump faces collision with deeds"
"Fact-checking President Trump's inaugural address"
"The president painted a portrait of the United States that often was at variance with reality"
"Book about Trump for sale at National Museum of American History is riddled with falsehoods"
"Fury and internal power struggle mark Trump's tumultuous first days in office"
"Trump's disregard for truth threatens his ability to govern"
"Secret Service agent may face disciplinary action after suggesting she would not 'take a bullet' for Trump"
Opinion pieces:
"Is this what we've come to, America?"
"Trump couldn't see that Friday [the day of his inauguration] wasn't about him"
"In his inaugural address, Trump leaves America's better angels behind"
"This weekend, America can use all the prayer it can get"
"Trump completes hostile takeover of Washington, puts both parties on notice"
"An early surprise from Trump's team: Shame"
"Trump is Nixon without the polish"
But... What if we had elected Trump's polar opposite president? (Or since we're discussing mental illness, his "bipolar" opposite?) What if we had elected Elizabeth Warren?
Warren's administration might have gotten off to a bumpy start remarkably similar to Trump's. She could have issued an immigration ban every bit as sweeping if she invalidated the visas of anyone she considered an "oppressor" – males, to start with, especially those from countries where Sharia law prevails and women don't have equal rights.
Trade barriers would be raised higher than anything Trump has considered if Warren forbade imports from nations where workers aren't unionized, lack OSHA-approved working conditions, and don't receive a $10-per-hour "living wage."
No doubt there would have been a flurry of executive orders from the pen of President Warren. Medicare beneficiaries forbidden to smoke or drink and required to exercise daily. Students participating in school-choice voucher programs told to drop their books and march right back to inner-city Smith & Wesson Senior High where they came from.
Her cabinet nominees would make Trump's seem lukewarm and wishy-washy:
- Michael Moore for Secretary of Labor
- George Soros for Secretary of the Treasury
- Ralph Nader (yes, he's still alive) for Secretary of Transportation
- Bernie Sanders for Secretary of Defense
- Hillary... No, Bill... No, Chelsea Clinton for Secretary of State
She would have had plenty of opposition. But would it have been hysterical? I suppose there might have been a "Men's and the Little Women's March on Washington" with tens of thousands of protestors wearing red "Make America Great Again" ball caps instead of pink "Pussy Hats."
But I doubt it. I have a feeling that most of the people who deeply opposed President Warren would have been at work instead – trying to figure out how to make enough money to cover the upcoming Warren tax hikes.
Going back to my Webster's, I find another definition of "hysterical" – "extremely comical."
The hysterical opposition to Trump has been pretty funny so far. Let's hope that those who are in their right minds get the last laugh.
Regards,
P.J. O'Rourke