Jan. 20

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Trump Will Inherit a Deeply Polarized Country

Today at noon EST (or maybe later, if Chief Justice John Roberts messes up again, as he did in 2009), President-elect Donald Trump will take the oath of office and become President Donald Trump. That's the easy part. Governing and especially healing the country is the hard part. In 1989, incoming president George H.W. Bush spoke to the nation after taking the oath, saying:

We meet on democracy's front porch, a good place to talk as neighbors and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended.

What a quaint idea. It's not going to happen today, not for a nanosecond. The protests against Trump have already started, with marches all over the country during the past week, and more today. The country is divided as never before (but see below). The current divisions pit white against black, rural against urban, rich against poor, educated against uneducated, and so many more divisions that would be difficult to heal even if the president tried very hard. Instead, we have a president who has shown no interest at all in healing the divisions. In fact, yesterday he tweeted:

It wasn't Donald Trump that divided this country, this country has been divided for a long time!" Stated today by Reverend Franklin Graham.

In other words: "Don't blame me." That the country has been divided for a long time is beyond any dispute, of course. Red states have become redder and blue states have become bluer. Attitudes differ strongly between red states and blue states on abortion, climate change, traditional values, the role of government, refugees, and so much more. These divisions all predate Trump, but he is starting his presidency in a deep hole, with only 30-40% of the people approving of him, far less than every other incoming president since pollsters began asking the question. Former Obama White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer summed up the situation by writing: "He extended exponentially more olive branches to Vladimir Putin than the Democrats in Congress, Hillary Clinton, or the majority of the country that voted for someone else." If Trump has any plans to heal the country, he has his work cut out for him. (V)

Trump Starts with Half an Administration

Actually, it is considerably less than half an administration. By the time he is sworn in on Friday, only two of Donald Trump's 15 cabinet appointees (Secretary of Defense James Mattis and DHS Secretary John Kelly) will have been approved by the appropriate Senate committees and will be close to assuming their new jobs. Overall, Trump has made just 29 appointments, and that includes the ones still before Congress. How many jobs have not yet been filled? A mere 631. So, the new president will start off with approximately 95% of his staff to be determined.

Needless to say, this is not enough for the government to function, especially since most of the 29 who have been chosen are not yet allowed to begin work. Consequently, about 50 members of Barack Obama's administration have agreed to extend their tours until they can be replaced. The White House is certainly going to be an...interesting workplace for the next few weeks.

Trump, for his part, is characteristically unconcerned about all of this. When questioned about the situation, he said that it would not matter, because his nominees have "by far the highest I.Q. of any cabinet assembled." This is, of course, nonsense—there is zero chance that a cabinet that includes Ben Carson and Rick Perry is more intellectually gifted than the one that included Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, among other examples. Trump then sped off to a concert at the Lincoln memorial, declaring that it would be the first time that a concert had ever been held at that location. Also nonsense; concerts have been held there for nearly a century. We are definitely about to enter a world where facts—not to mention empty desks at the White House—are merely inconveniences. (Z)

Trump to Get the Nuclear Launch Codes Today

Some time today, presumably just before he is sworn in as president, Donald Trump will undergo a briefing on how to start a nuclear war. The procedure consists of asking the military aide who will follow him with the nuclear "football" (actually a 45-pound satchel) containing the launch codes, war plans, and communication tools needed to launch the missiles to hand over the satchel. To launch the missiles, he is to call the secretary of defense and follow the procedure described in the satchel. The secretary of defense then relays the order to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sees to it that the president's order is carried out.

Previous presidents have come out of the briefing ashen-faced. Presumably, the military briefing officers tell the president that a nuclear attack on another nuclear power will almost certainly result in an all-out nuclear war that will result in the death of most of the population of the United States, with the president himself being target #1. There is no check on the president's power. Congress plays no role in the decision to launch the missiles. The secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs are required to carry out the president's orders, not to argue with him. It is an awesome responsibility, soon to be Trump's alone. (V)

What Kind of Man Is Trump?

This is a question that writers and scholars of various stripes will try to answer for at least the next hundred years. Philippe Reines has some ideas, however, and he comes to them from a very unique perspective: He was the man tasked with impersonating Trump for Hillary Clinton's debate preparation.

The method acting lengths to which Reines went in order to play his part are impressive: self-tanning lotion, a Trump-branded watch bought on eBay, four-inch shoe lifts, an ill-fitting suit, the works. He even stopped taking his prescription medications. Then, he watched each of the Republican primary debates three times, taking careful notes on Trump's mannerisms, approach, thought process, and use of language. Here are some of Reines' key observations:

Whether or not Reines has the right of it, it's a fascinating analysis, and well worth reading in full. (Z)

Trump Plans Drastic Budget Cuts

Donald Trump's team is planning dramatic budget cuts for government departments. Commerce and Energy would take huge hits. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be privatized. The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities will be eliminated completely. The goal is to reduce federal spending by over $10 trillion over 10 years. The proposed cuts closely follow a plan issued by the conservative Heritage Foundation and are popular with many Republicans in Congress. The cabinet officers have not yet been informed of how much money each one is going to lose. It is not yet clear whether Trump intends to keep his promise to leave Social Security and Medicare, two major items in the federal budget, alone.

Many of the agencies and programs slated for elimination are ones conservatives dislike on ideological grounds. A few of these are:

In short, the new administration plans a huge break with previous ones. (V)

Mnuchin Doesn't Toe the GOP Line During Confirmation Hearing

Steven Mnuchin, the secretary of the treasury-designate, faced sharp questions from senators during his confirmation hearing yesterday. He was formerly known as the "foreclosure king" for having foreclosed on thousands of homeowners when he owned a bank. Mnuchin also worked for Goldman Sachs, so the Democrats' case against him is not that he is incompetent (like their case against Ben Carson), but that he has only the interests of the wealthy at heart.

On some issues, he said things that conflict with GOP dogma. If he really means them, he could have conflicts with Republicans in Congress. Some of the issues where problems may arise include:

The top Democrat on the senate panel, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), lit into Mnuchin about the "truly disgusting inequity and abuse of Ameerica's tax laws." In particular, he went after Mnuchin for setting up hedge funds in the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven. He pointed out that Mnuchin's hedge fund is a sham, since it has no employees, customers, or office space on the Islands. Wyden also raised the issue of Mnuchin's use of a dynasty trust and a tax-exempt foundation for lobbying. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) asked Mnuchin if he would close loopholes like the use of Cayman Islands for tax avoidance, but all he said was: "I would support changing the tax laws to make sure that they're simpler and more effective." (V)

Obamacare Is as Popular as it Has Ever Been

Barack Obama is finished in Washington, and his signature healthcare legislation might not be far behind. So, naturally, Americans are just now deciding that they like the ACA after all. For the first time, CNN's regular polling of the question reveals that more Americans favor the law (49%) than wish to repeal it (47%). Still, the great majority (82%) think that it is at least "somewhat likely" that the Republicans will repeal the law.

It's understandable why respondents would feel that way, given how frequently GOP politicians have promised that a repeal is coming. But as Donald Trump, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), et al. are finding out, the devil is in the details. There is no way to reconcile the Party's stated goals of (a) reducing premiums, (b) improving coverage, and (c) eliminating the mandate to buy insurance. At least one of those three things has to give, and more likely two of the three have to give. As the Los Angeles Times' Michael Hiltzik points out, nearly any approach the Republicans take will cause costs to rise while coverage decreases.

The plans being pitched by HHS Secretary-designate Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), and others, are rooted in the notion that the free market is the solution to all our health care ills. They say that if individual consumers oversee their own healthcare spending (through such instruments as health savings accounts), they will make smarter and more efficient decisions, and will avoid spending money on wasteful and unnecessary treatments and medications. This is, quite simply, dead wrong. Study after study, including one published Monday in the journal Cancer, make clear that when people are spending "their" money, they cut corners on preventative care and on minor health problems. What happens, of course, is that problems that might have been detected and solved fairly cheaply become very, very expensive. Put another way, the cost of one mastectomy with hospital stay is greater than the cost of 200 mammograms. This being the case, no money is saved at all—it's a classic example of "penny wise, pound foolish." And even if we cynically believe that Tom Price, Paul Ryan, etc. don't actually care about poor people dying, the logic still doesn't work. Bacteria, viruses, etc. don't check if people have an insurance card. If we create a situation where a lot more poor people are sick, then diseases will propagate, and more rich people will be sick, too.

Recently, the comedian Jimmy Kimmel did a bit in which he asked whether people preferred Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act (which are, of course, the same thing). He demonstrated, as had many scholars and comedians before him, that the ACA won hands down. In other words, it's not the law that so many people hate, it's the president. What it all adds up to, as Hiltzik points out, is that Obamacare may just get a few cosmetic changes, and a new nickname (Trumpcare?), and that will be it. Time will tell, of course. (Z)

Yellen: Economy Near "Maximum Employment"

Killing Obamacare is not the only campaign promise that is going to be tricky for Donald Trump to fulfill. His predictions for economic growth always seemed a bit too rosy, and in her annual address Thursday, Fed Chair Janet Yellen confirmed it. While she did not name Trump, the message was nonetheless clear: There's little room for the economy to do better than it already has been doing.

Yellen focused, in particular, on unemployment and interest rates. As to the former, she said that Americans are essentially at "maximum employment," since even in a robust economy there will always be a small percentage of people who are changing jobs, dealing with a personal crisis, working in seasonal professions, or otherwise not working. As to the latter, she reiterated that the Fed has gone too long without raising interest rates, and that they would be doing so regularly in the next few years, including at least three times in 2017. This will make it almost impossible to hit the 4% annual growth that Trump has promised.

As the Federal Reserve is a quasi-private entity, the chair does not serve at the president's pleasure. So, Trump will have to live with Yellen until her term is up in 2018. Even then, he will not be free to pick anyone he wants, in hopes of getting someone to do his bidding. He's limited to the sitting governors, which means that to get "his guy" he would have to appoint them this year (to one of two vacant slots), get them approved by the Senate, then next year jump that person over the more senior governors already sitting on the board, and get that maneuver approved by the Senate. It's a tall order, particularly given that every politician may be leery to rock the economic boat too much, knowing that a bad economy is the quickest ticket to being voted out of office. (Z)

How Did this Happen? (Part I)

To so many Americans, particularly those in the academy and the commentariat, Donald Trump's surprise victory made very little sense. How could working-class people, who are angry at the bankers and the Wall Street tycoons, vote for someone so unlike them? Someone that seems to be the very embodiment of what they are angry about?

Shortly after the election, Berkeley professor Joan C. Williams—who comes from blue-collar roots—wrote a keenly insightful piece entitled "What So Many People Don't Get About the U.S. Working Class." She observes, first of all, that the working class abhors the smugness and pretension of professionals (professors, lawyers, supervisors, etc.), but they admire the very rich as a role model and something to aspire to. Trump clearly wins on that count. Hillary Clinton and her pantsuits and "deplorables" comments and wonkiness push this particular button, and making things worse is that she is a woman who presumes to talk down to men.

This leads to a second point, that the white working-class still places enormous value on manly dignity, and recalls fondly a pre-PC world where men could be men. Again, Trump promised the return of that world, Clinton promised to bury it. Still another observation is that the working class values "straight talk," which Trump delivers is spades, and Clinton does not. And yet another point is that people who work hard, scramble to pay the bills, and sometimes go without, resent those who are poorer than them and appear to be getting a free ride. Trump's attacks on Obamacare and on undocumented immigrants make it seem that he "gets" it, while Clinton appears to be enabling the poor.

Williams also warns against dismissing the white working class as racists (and, at the same time, demonizing the police officers they greatly admire). She concludes:

Saying this is so unpopular that I risk making myself a pariah among my friends on the left coast. But the biggest risk today for me and other Americans is continued class cluelessness. If we don't take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous.

The essay should really be required reading for every Democratic politician.

Meanwhile, Robert Leonard has written a similar, complementary, essay for the New York Times entitled, "Why Rural America Voted for Trump." Talking to his onetime neighbors and friends from his youth spent growing up in Iowa, Leonard tries to put his finger on the key division between Republicans and Democrats today. He argues that, informed by their Christianity, Republicans tend to see humans as inherently evil, with impulses that need to be controlled. Democrats tend to see humans as inherently good, with attributes that need to be nurtured. Neither side is entirely right, of course, but this broadly helps to explain the two sides' views on, for example, mass shootings. Democrats blame the guns (because humans are inherently good), Republicans blame the shooters (because humans are inherently evil). Or, to take another example, terrorism. Democrats blame the situation, Republicans blame the people in the situation.

Needless to say, Donald Trump and other Republicans speak this language very well. As Leonard writes:

Many moderate rural Republicans became supporters of Mr. Trump when he released his list of potential Supreme Court nominees who would allow the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade. They also think the liberal worldview creates unnecessary rules and regulations that cripple the economy and take away good jobs that may belong to them or their neighbor. Public school systems and colleges are liberal tools of indoctrination that go after what we love and value most—our children.

Some of what liberals worry about they see as pure nonsense. When you are the son or daughter of a carpenter or mechanic and a housewife or secretary who lives paycheck to paycheck, who can't afford to send kids to college, as many rural residents are, white privilege is meaningless and abstract.

When Ted Cruz campaigned in a neighboring town in 2015, I watched as a couple of dozen grade-school pupils sat at his feet, as if they were at a children's service at church. His campaign speech was nearly a sermon, and the children listened wide-eyed when he told them the world is a scary place, and it's godly men like him who are going to save them from the evils of President Obama, Hillary Clinton and their fellow Democrats.

If Leonard is right—and as he himself observes—this is not something that is going to be easy for Democrats to overcome, regardless of how badly Trump's presidency goes. (Z)

How Did this Happen? (Part II)

Another big mystery, again particularly among the academy and the commentariat, is how so many women could vote for Donald Trump, an admitted p***y-grabber. The New York Times interviewed a number of female Trump voters; among the highlights:

Across these interviews (and several others that appear in the article), certain themes are clear. First, all of these women have at least some reservations about Trump, and most are actively hoping that he doesn't mean everything he says. Second, Hillary Clinton rubbed nearly all of them the wrong way. Third, they are generally less focused on specific campaign promises than they are broad-to-very-broad themes like "he'll make the economy better" or "he'll help people." Fourth, and finally, they have pretty different things that they seem to care most about. It will be hard for Trump to deliver on all of these.

In any event, scholars and Democrats will be wrestling with the question of "How did this happen?" for many years; pieces like the three summarized above certainly help us get at least a little closer to the answer. (Z)

Trump's Victory: A View from the White House

Not only did just about everyone in the academy and in the blue states think that Hillary Clinton had things in the bag, so too did everyone in the White House that night. That includes speechwriter Pat Cunnane, who has penned an insightful account that not only documents that fateful evening, but also reveals a fair bit about the operation of the Obama White House. For example:

Picking up some alcohol from my desk, I bumped into a few friends, who mocked my clothing. I hate suits and had been pushing for casual Fridays since the midterms. This Tuesday had a decidedly Friday vibe, so I changed into jeans and a sweater—"victory casual"—for the watch party. The only problem was that the buttons near the neck were out of whack, and I had to make a choice: Do I risk choking myself, or do I show, according to some White House staffers and all of my bosses, "too much chest"? I chose the latter. "What's it matter?" I said to a colleague. "It's all over anyway. We're done here. Time to pass the baton to P.I.W."

For more than two years, I'd referred to Hillary Clinton as the "President-in-Waiting." I'm a worrier by nature, but it was always clear to me that she would succeed President Obama. When the White House began making plans for the visit of the President-elect the week before, I scribbled in my calendar: "Thursday, POTUS will meet with HRC."

Another one that's well worth reading in whole. (Z)

Strange Presidential Transitions

As Barack Obama wraps up his presidency, and Donald Trump begins his, it's certainly been a strange process. Normally, the guy on his way out treats his successor with great respect, while the guy on his way in treats his predecessor with great deference. Not this time, as Trump has presumed to step on Obama's toes many times, and Obama has openly worked to stymie Trump's agenda.

That said, the country has switched from one president to another 44 times, and the process hasn't always been calm and collected. CNN commissioned some of the nation's best historians and political scientists to write brief narratives of some of the more unusual switchovers:

The country survived all of those less-than-smooth transitions, so presumably it will survive this one as well. (Z)

Discount for Political Wire

Taegan Goddard, publisher of Political Wire, is offering readers of electoral-vote.com a 10% discount on a paid membership to Political Wire. It is a great site for political news and some of the content is free, but there are increasingly many articles only for paid members. If you would like to sign up for a $45 annual fee instead of the usual $50, use the code: votemaster.

As to us, we'll soon be slowing down our publication schedule now that the process is over, though we're not going away completely. We'll still be posting at least a couple of times a week, perhaps with one or two new bells and whistles TBA. Thanks for reading, and we hope you'll stick around! (V & Z)


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