Stein’s Law holds that “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” We don’t know what the era of Trump will mean but the status quo was stifling for too many Americans and it will no longer go on.
It’s easier to discuss what a Clinton victory could have meant: four more years of lagging economic growth, bad regulatory policy, union-dominated public education, a misguided and interventionist foreign policy. And, with Clinton, four years of abject political corruption because that is who she and her husband are and always have been.
With Trump, we’re already seeing a market meltdown [well, that didn’t last very long; back up by Wednesday afternoon!]. Trade will suffer, and that will be bad. But the hope is that saner regulatory and tax policy will again unleash America’s entrepreneurial spirit.
For the record, I voted for Gary Johnson despite some policy disagreements and with regret that his running mate went renegade. It was a message that both parties had nominated unacceptable choices. Nevertheless, I think Clinton would have been at least as bad or worse for the country than Trump, although she’d be better on LGBT issues. But by “better,” I also mean more likely to stoke the culture wars by using the regulatory state to force small business owners to provide expressive services to same-sex weddings in violation of their religious convictions, which is something I adamantly oppose and believe will eventually be viewed as a stain on the gay rights movement.
As for judges, Clinton’s left-liberal big-government advocates would have been worse for the country than Trump’s conservatives—and the idea that Trump’s justices would overturn marriage equality was far-fetched at best. He is not, and never has been, a social conservative and while his initial Supreme Court appointment will probably be in the Scalia mode (because the late justice’s textualist perspective deserves to be represented in court deliberations), there were also names on Trump’s prospective list of future judicial appointments that lean libertarian.
Of course, there’s the larger issue: The white lower-middle and working classes have been through the wringer not only economically but as the object of left-progressive contempt, whether they were denigrated for clinging to their guns and religion, or dismissed as despicable and irredeemable for rejecting the tenets of big government progressivism and the rule of the bureaucrat kings. If your party keeps kicking half of the population in the shins, eventually that half is going to take control. That’s now happened.
More. The LGBT and liberal mainstream media did a good job of promoting the “Trump is anti-gay” meme. NBC’s exit polling shows that Trump got 14% of self-identified LGBT votes, down from Romney’s 22 percent in 2012—and Romney supported amending the U.S. Constitution to block marriage equality (which Trump, by the way, does not).
As NBC (now) reports, “Clinton’s strong support among LGBT people comes in spite of Trump’s direct attempt to court the group this year with targeted appeals in speeches and even campaign merchandise, an unprecedented move for a GOP presidential candidate.” But those efforts went mostly unreported by the LGBT and mainstream media while the campaign was underway.
19 Comments for “The Change”
posted by TJ on
TPP- now POTUS- made it perfectly clear that he opposed equality, backed judges who opposed Romer, opposed Lawrence and opposed marriage equality.
He also wants to eliminate health insurance for millions of people (many are poor, working and middle class).
Its trendy to throw a “regulation” blanket up in the air. Automatically looking at regulations as good or bad should be a warning sign.
Frankly, their were plenty of warning signs about the POTUS. His corrupt business practices, his habit of lashing out like a spoiled child, his “know nothing” nativism, his attacks on the free press, his sexually obnoxious and predatory behavior, fondness for nuclear war and the list goes on..
.
None of these (and many other) warning signs will go away simply because the candidate because the elected.
posted by Jorge on
Hi!
No matter who won, I was going to post the line, “It’s time for a meaner, crueler America!”, spoken by Cutie Pie (Wendy O.) Koopa in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 when she and Bowser Koopa kidnapped President Bush and took over “America.”
“Law number 1: Every girl in America must give me a kiss.
“Any ugly ***** who does not ask me for a date will be turned into a crook.
“All the gold in Fort Knox will be melted down to make me a lifetime supply of charm bracelets.”
And the best part is, George and Barbara Bush came back. The Mario Brothers rescued the White House and smashed her back less than 10 minutes later.
Oh, and this was a nice jaw drop:
http://www.nbcnews.com/card/nbc-news-exit-poll-trump-fails-peel-lgbt-voters-away-n680901
Hmm, but let’s back to this one later. This is my first time reading NBC’s exit polling.
Kellyanne Conway is speaking on Fox News right now (didn’t she get any sleep?). I have to say, hats off to her and the way she was able to communicate professionalism both to the public and the campaign. This really is the year of the woman.
posted by Jorge on
“All the gold in Fort Knox will be melted down to make me a lifetime supply of charm bracelets.”
(Yikes!) Um, that was the original line. I meant to say, “to make America great again!” of course!
posted by Kosh III on
“and the idea that Trump’s justices would overturn marriage equality was far-fetched at best. He is not, and never has been, a social conservative and while his initial Supreme Court appointment will probably be in the Scalia mode,”
BS
Appoint just one Scalia-like monster, and as soon as he’s in someone will start a lawsuit to overturn Obergerfell. With another bigot on the bench it will be 5-4 to destroy our newly won liberty to marry.
Spare me the lies about how conservatives love freedom and justice: only for themselves, the rest of us can just get sick and die.
Frak you all
posted by Tom Scharbach on
We will have an indication whether President-Elect Trump is “gay-supportive” in January when (1) a Supreme Court nominee is put forward, and (2) he acts on the numerous Executive Orders protecting gay/lesbians with respect to employment, medical care and other matters (not including, sadly, cakes, which fall within the purview of decades-old state-level public accommodations laws).
Stephen has already given up on SCOTUS (as we all should), conceding a Scalia-clone nominee in January. Looking forward to following nominations, Stephen finds false hope, I think, in the fact that a few of the judges on the President-Elect’s list “lean libertarian”. If subsequent nominees “lean libertarian”, the pick will more likely be the result of accident than design, I suspect.
With respect to Executive Orders, the President-Elect has pledged to rescind all Executive Orders, and we’ll see what he actually does. If the President-Elect lets the Executive Orders protecting gays and lesbians stand, we will have an indication. If he does not (as is to be expected given his campaign pledges), we will also have an indication.
Over a longer time frame, we will have to see how the Trump administration handles the myriad of department-level administrative and regulatory policy changes that have extended and/or clarified protection of gays and lesbians.
I suspect that Stephen will have many opportunities over the next four years to eat past words about the President-Elect being “gay-supportive”. I’ll be curious to see how Stephen spins at each opportunity.
posted by Houndentenor on
We’re fucked.
posted by JohnInCA on
Mr. Miller just can’t accept that his preferred party is responsible for President Trump, can he? And here’s the problem with all the “let’s hope for the best” stuff: Trumps personal views don’t matter. He’s already signaled his SCOTUS picks won’t be based on his pen views, but as a bribe for support. He did the same with his VP pick.
Whatever President Trump does or does not do will be based on what he gets out of it, not in service to any ideal.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
[T]he idea that Trump’s justices would overturn marriage equality was far-fetched at best.
I would say that it is almost a dead certainty that Obergefell will be reversed (or so severely limited as to be effectively reversed) within the next decade. The Obergefell reversal will come as part of a body of decisions rolling back the 9th Amendment “right to privacy” cases in the Griswold line, including Roe and Lawrence, a line which little by slowly eliminated “moral approbation” (to use Scalia’s term) as a basis for unequal treatment under the law. The Court is now at 5-3 on Obergefell, is likely to be restored to 5-4 by the next appointment, and then, assuming that Trump keeps to his pledge to appoint off the list, soon to be 4-5, then 3-6, and then 2-7. It is going to be a long, ugly slog, but the slog heads in but one direction.
{Trump} is not, and never has been, a social conservative and while his initial Supreme Court appointment will probably be in the Scalia mode, there were also names on his prospective list of future judicial appointments that lean libertarian.
Do the math, Stephen.
It is likely that three of the five Justices who joined in the Obergefell majority (Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy) will retire, die or become incapacitated during the next administration. Given that Trump’s initial nomination, as you suggest, will be a Scalia clone, what do you think the odds are that Trump will unerringly pluck all three subsequent replacements from a handful of “lean libertarian” judges on the list?
Trump doesn’t have a libertarian bone in his body, and he will be under enormous pressure by anti-abortionists to pick social conservative ideologues like Alito , Scala and Thomas rather than “lean libertarian” Justices like Kennedy and O’Connor.
You really think Trump will intentionally pluck “lean libertarian” judges off the list? If so, I think you are dreaming.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“Clinton’s strong support among LGBT people comes in spite of Trump’s direct attempt to court the group this year with targeted appeals in speeches and even campaign merchandise, an unprecedented move for a GOP presidential candidate.”
Yup. It looks like gays and lesbians can tell the difference between positions on issues (e.g. marriage, Obergefell, judicial appointments, FADA, government-sanctioned discrimination, the bathroom bills and so on) and a carnival act. Gays and lesbians aren’t about to be bought off by glitter. Not any more. And probably, not anytime in the future.
posted by JohnInCA on
To the addendum: Mr. Miller, you and LCR both said that while Trump wasn’t anti-gay, conservative and Republican Gauss shouldn’t vote for him anyway.
And then Trump gets a lower share of the gay vote them Romney, while Clinton gets about the same as Obama, and you’re upset? You got what you asked for dude.
posted by Jorge on
With another bigot on the bench…
You know it’s this kind of arrogance that does much to prove the need for a movement to make America great again. Why is it only bigoted to rule against gay people and not to support jailing and fining Christians?
(not including, sadly, cakes, which fall within the purview of decades-old state-level public accommodations laws).
Really? The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission doesn’t cover that? Federal public accommodations law enforcement is done entirely by the courts?
(Really.)
Okay, I’ll try again.
There aren’t any federal laws giving the federal government the power to withhold funds from states that discriminate in the area of public accommodations? All that talk Republicans do of helping small business and they never got a big government hook to ensnare the states to do the federal government’s bidding? You’re telling me government aid is only about Medicaid, welfare, and schools?
(I think they tried, but then the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was ruled unconstitutional as applied to the states.)
Impressive.
For the record I do not believe leaving the LGBT-related executive orders in place is dispositive. But further research could be helpful.
“But those efforts went mostly unreported by the LGBT and mainstream media while the campaign was underway.”
Like I suggested, I was shocked Trump got so little support. I think I can understand it.
(Clinton’s long history of LGBT-supportive politics? Over-representation among educated whites?)
I forgot.
posted by Lori Heine on
More faux-progressive virtue signalling! Oh, happy, happy joy joy!
Every one of you who voted for Hillary Clinton helped to elect Donald Trump. YOU are responsible for why he’s president. Belly up to a mirror, grow a pair and for once in your lives tell yourself the truth.
The Left is effectively dead in America. Nothing is left of it but a pathetic fraud. You’re lower than a snake’s belly, so you sound like an asshat getting self-righteous with anybody.
You rigged your own primary. You skewed the polls so badly that you had no effing clue what the hell was really going on. (Chronic lying does tend to have the effect of detaching people from reality.) Thus all the bitter tears and butthurt on the Intertubes today.
The only real progressives voted for Jill Stein, or stayed home. So cut the crap.
posted by Jorge on
If being a real progressive means voting for a criminal who was caught on tape, then it is obvious that the Willie Horton ad was onto something.
posted by Lori Heine on
🙂
posted by Lori Heine on
I didn’t vote for either Trump or Clinton. But I REALLY didn’t want four more years of the crap we’ve endured for the past eight.
I’m simply going to make the best of it. Because it’s too important to this country not to hope for the best.
posted by Kosh III on
I guess I”ve got absolution from Lori since I voted for Stein.
posted by Lori Heine on
As I type this, the Sign of Benediction is floating over your head.
posted by Jorge on
I just realized something whose relevance I do not know.
In 2012 CNN asked people if they are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. But in 2016 it asked if they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
In both cases 5% of people said “Yes.”
NBC also asked the question in the form of gay, lesbian or bisexual in 2012. I cannot find a link to the full NBC News exit polls for this year, but the story describes the label as LGBT. (Its line graph fails to point out the change in the way it asked the question)
I seem to recall that’s not the first time the wording of the gay question has changed. However I would point out that this blog’s postings suggest sharp divisions exist at times between the political interests of gays and transgendereds.
Personally I do not believe the number of self-reporting Ts to be likely high enough to change the results by more than about 1/4 or so.
posted by Lori Heine on
Hmmm…I don’t know. How a question is worded has a lot of impact on the results.
Personally, I believe that many people who identify as gay or lesbian are actually bisexual. And that some supposedly-straight folks are, as well. It probably accounts for a lot of the lingering and really tenacious homophobia out there.
From the standpoint of evolutionary science, there would almost have to be more bisexuals than homosexuals. The monosexism so rampant in “the community” intimidates many bi’s into letting people think they’re gay or lesbian.