Imagine Hillary Clinton here. The Oval Office during the administration of William Jefferson Clinton
Wikimedia Commons/National Archives and Records Administration

I hate to say it, but it sure looks like Hillary Clinton will be our new president. Of course if the shoe were on the other foot and Trump looked like he were increasingly likely to win, I would be saying “I hate to say it, but … “.     

The Revulsion from It All

As best I can tell from looking at people’s reactions and from what I read, a large fraction of the electorate, perhaps even a majority, are looking at our presidential choices with intense revulsion — revulsion and fear. Hillary Clinton, by her criminal mistreatment of classified material, almost certainly caused undercover spies for the U.S. to be killed. As a result, should she be elected, she will have to deal with an angry and rebellious national security establishment. In addition, her long history as a compulsive, serial liar repeated itself in her many lies to the American people about her email scandal. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) cleverly used this fact while questioning FBI Director James Comey in a July 7 meeting of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The main subject was how he could possibly justify recommending to the Department of Justice not to seek an indictment of Clinton for violations of  18 U.S. Code § 793, subsection f. His answer essentially was he did not think that statute, aka the Espionage Act of 1917, was constitutional because it did not require a proof the accused actually intended to violate the law. Gowdy then asked a series of questions demonstrating how thoroughly Clinton had lied to the Nation about her emails and her unsecured email servers. Having elicited answers from Comey showing that this was so, he then got Comey to agree that such exculpatory lies could be used as evidence of consciousness of guilt and of intent to violate the law.

As for Donald Trump, we have known for some time he has a rude and crude personality, with an emotional thin skin that suggests narcissism. It has been suggested lately that his philandering has even extended to gross sexual misbehavior, even to sexual assault. Although we do not know much about how guilty he actually is, prejudices developed earlier from seeing his crude, uncouth behavior make it easy to believe these accusations. Nevertheless, his actions have not yet (as far as we know) caused people to die or to endanger national security, the way Clinton’s have.

Yet my biggest objection to Trump is his lack of knowledge about elementary economics, such as his objections to free trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The objections raised against these agreements are usually about the loss of U.S. jobs that used to produce the imported good. However, this is true about every foreign trade. If you substitute a foreign supplier for a domestic one, jobs of the erstwhile domestic supplier will always be lost. If this is not acceptable, then the only possible response is to become economically isolationist and to forbid all foreign trade. Yet, foreign trade greatly reduces the costs to the U.S. economy of supplying the imported goods. It also releases capital from producing that imported good to be used for producing goods for which the U.S. does have a comparative advantage. This is such an obviously true fact that Ricardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage is the only neoclassical economic law that possesses a simple yet rigorous mathematical proof. The real villain in the loss of jobs from foreign supply is the United States government, which has increasingly made it difficult for companies to operate because of taxes and regulations. These make it difficult for companies to rapidly move capital and jobs from the displaced industry to one for which the U.S. has a comparative advantage. There are other examples of Trump’s economic ignorance (see Donald Trump’s Lack of Knowledge), but I digress. I will only add that Clinton’s ignorance about economic reality is even more egregious, especially with her proposed taxes and new spending programs.

The manifest and tragic unsuitability of both party’s candidates to be President of the United States is enough to bring tears of frustration to a grown man’s eyes.

Continuing Political Gridlock: The Best We Can Hope For

The growing present danger to the existence of the United States is now greater than at any time since the Cold War during the 1950s and 1960s. The existential threats are not just military, like those given us by ISIS, Russia, China, and Iran, but are political and economic as well. If the logic of present developments proceed without change, within a short period of time, five, ten, or fifteen years from now, the growth of entitlement spending plus interest payments on the national debt will completely absorb every single penny of federal revenues, leaving nothing for defense or other federal operations. Since I doubt anyone at that point would be willing to lend to the federal government by buying Treasury bonds, pretty much all other federal activities would cease. ISIS or Russia could then just walk in and take us over.

Frankly, this is a danger no matter which of the two gets elected, since neither of them is willing to face the need for entitlement spending cuts. However, Clinton would make the danger considerably worse by actually increasing mandated entitlement spending with government subsidies for childcare, expansion of Obamacare, and new Social Security benefits. Obamacare, now spiraling down to self-destruction, itself is a brand new entitlement for poor people who receive its benefits with government subsidies; but for the middle class, it is a budget-draining curse. The government subsidies for the poor will undoubtedly increase as the economy adds to their numbers, and greatly speedup the date of the federal government’s financial Armageddon.

Additionally, If Clinton can get her tax increases enacted, especially the corporate tax increases, she will be driving the economy directly into a recession by denying companies even more of the capital they need to invest. Not that companies are inclined much to invest anyway, given all the federal government regulations and taxes hindering their ability to operate and make a profit.

If and when Clinton is ensconced in the Oval Office, the only check on her policies will be the Congress, assuming the Republican Party can retain at least one of the chambers of Congress. As of now, the GOP keeping the House still looks probable, but their continued control of the Senate looks uncertain. Should the Republicans keep at least one chamber of Congress, we can expect almost every piece of enabling legislation for her domestic policies to be dead on arrival. On the other hand, if the Republicans lose the Senate, any appointments she makes to the Supreme Court will depend on the size of the Democratic Senate majority. Only a simple majority is required for the Senate to “advise and consent” to the appointment. However, if the Democrats have less than three-fifths of the senators on their side, i.e. 60 votes, to achieve cloture, any appointment can be filibustered to death by the Republicans. However, the ability to filibuster is enabled only by the Standing Rules of the United States Senate, not by the Constitution. Fortunately, it takes a two-thirds majority (66 senators plus one) to amend the Senate’s rules. Therefore, unless the Democrats have at least 60 senators, the Republicans can ensure that no progressive appointment to the Supreme Court is approved.

Unfortunately, what Republicans can not do in that situation is to enact any changes to the status quo to solve our increasingly dire economic and social problems. That will have to await another president and considerably more Republican votes in Congress. The most conservatives can hope for now is continued political gridlock. It is rather ironic that for a people totally fed-up with the status quo, Americans seem to be ready to vote it right back into power.

One problem with a prospective Clinton administration I have not yet mentioned. That problem is the growing authoritarian nature of American progressives. I have discussed that serious and developing problem in the following posts:

• Bernie Sanders and the Road to Serfdom
• The Corruption of the Democratic Party
• Democrats Want to Imprison Scientific Skeptics?
• The Intolerance of Barack Obama and the Democrats
• The Anti-Freedom Bias of Progressives
• Are We No Longer a Nation of Laws?
• Progressives Are NOT Liberals 
• Are You Unconvinced Democrats Are Growing More Authoritarian?

We have seen a number of attempts by the Democratic party to force their will unconstitutionally on everyone else, all of which I discussed in The Corruption of the Democratic Party. A partial list of these attempts would include the use of the IRS to silence conservative groups during elections, the attempts by President Obama to rule by presidential edict, and the pursuit of legal prosecution of scientific skeptics to anthropogenic global warming. If Hillary Clinton should be elected, I fear we will see much more of the same.

And all because of the clay feet of Donald Trump.

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