As I mentioned before, we were in Europe for most of July. One of the advantages of this was we missed the conventions, both of them. I wouldn’t have watched them anyway, but being out of the country meant we didn't have to read about them, either. Which was a good thing, except I almost missed Donald Trump’s statement to the effect, as I understand it, he would only follow our obligations under Article 5 of the NATO agreement for countries that are spending 2% of GDP on defense. I also missed Donald Trump getting his knickers in a knot because a Muslim family said something mean about him at the Democratic convention.
On the other hand, I missed all of the talk at the Democratic convention about how Hillary Clinton is the most qualified presidential candidate. I don’t know if they meant she is the most qualified candidate ever, in which case I am going to put up John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as among those more qualified than Secretary Clinton. Or if they meant she is the most qualified in the last “x” years, in which case I am going to mention Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush.
I have already made a few comments on the race. For example, I talked about why I am glad Mike Pence is running with Donald Trump. Also, I compared the presidential election to the 1945 World Series and to the 1991 gubernatorial election in Louisiana.
But let me now talk the two candidates we are left with. First, Hillary Clinton. I have talked about her email problems many times, most recently here. There is probably not much more to say about them, other than to quote this from the British newspaper The Economist:
“Were she an aspiring staffer on the National Security Council, her career would now be over. Were she an ambassador awaiting confirmation, the Senate would reject her.”
Great. Secretary Clinton is running for president because it’s the only way she can get a security clearance.
And then there is the question of all those contributions made by foreign governments to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. That was unacceptable. Whether legal or not, it was wrong. As I said here:
“I am sure it was not illegal, but that does not mean that it was right. It was unseemly and indicative of an attitude with respect to private gain and public service that I do not find acceptable.”
And if Secretary Clinton is elected, we will have more of this kind of thing.
Consider domestic issues. In the 1990s, she supported school choice as a way to improve the education that poorer children get. Now she opposes it, and the teachers unions endorsed her over a year ago. When she was Secretary of State, she endorsed the Trans Pacific Partnership. Now she opposes it.
One of my biggest objections to what President Obama has done, something I have commented on many times, is his disregard for what I have called following proper procedures and what others call rule of law. (See, inter alia, here.) President Obama seems to take the view that, if Congress won’t do what he wants, he’ll do it on his own. There is no reason to repeat here what I have said elsewhere – other than to say I consider this a basic issue. It is one thing to disagree on whether this position or that position is correct. President Obama’s willingness to ignore proper procedures, and the ule of law, goes beyond that because it goes to the heart of how our democratic system is supposed to work.
The problem with Secretary Clinton is that she has no problem with President Obama has done. In fact, she has said that, if Congress won’t cooperate with her on issues, she will do things on her own, just as President Obama has done – and more.
I could go on and on. On issue after issue, I disagree with Secretary Clinton, not only on what should be done, but how it should be done and who should do it.
But what about foreign policy. This is where her experience is supposed to be so important. A senator for eight years. Secretary of State for four. She has the experience Donald Trump doesn’t. Except I wonder how good she would really be based on how good she actually was when she was in office. Consider Libya.
Secretary Clinton, and others in the first Obama administration, pushed for the United States to bomb Libya when Moammar Gaddafi was threatening to bomb his own people in Benghazi. It was a humanitarian move, she said. It wasn’t about regime change; it was about protecting innocent people. She even got Russia to agree to not veto a resolution approving the operation in the United Nations Security Council on the ground that it wasn’t about regime change. However, things started going so well that the purpose of the operation did become regime change. And then, when Gadaffi was killed, Secretary Clinton went on TV to proclaim, “We came, we saw, he died.” In other words, not only did we change the goal of the mission, after we got Russia to acquiesce in it, but Secretary Clinton rubbed their nose it in with her triumphalism on TV.1
Compare this with George H.W. Bush’s understated response when the Berlin Wall came down. President Bush understood this was not a time to gloat. He was worried about how the Soviets would react. He wanted to make sure we did not upset the process just as it was beginning. In his book, A World Transformed, President Bush referred to suggestions from Democrats like Senator George Mitchell and Congressman Dick Gephardt that he go to Berlin to dance on the Wall as “pure foolishness,” as it was.2 But that is not far from what Secretary Clinton did upon the death of Colonel Gaddafi.
Add it all up, character, domestic policy, commitment to the rule of law, and foreign policy, and you get a candidate that I would, in any other presidential election, enthusiastically oppose. Except this isn’t “any other presidential election”. This is 2016, and the alternative is Donald Trump. So let’s look at Mr. Trump and compare him to Secretary Clinton. First, domestic issues. Mr. Trump says he is going to build a wall between the United States and Mexico and get them to pay for it. I have no idea how he is going to do it, but I am confident it won’t be right or proper.
When it comes to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, Mr. Trump opposes that, too, plus he says he’s going to tear up NAFTA.
While Mr. Trump has listed some people who would be good Supreme Court nominees, do we really have any comfort level that he would really appoint any of those people. I don’t.
While Mr. Trump’s temporary ban on Muslim immigrants and visitors may not be unconstitutional, as many on the left like to say (the President has just about unlimited power with respect to immigration), it is a terrible idea. Instead of keeping terrorists out, such a ban would create who-knows-how-many more terrorists in the United States.
Perhaps, most importantly, consider what I see as President Obama’s abuse of executive power and his failure to comply and follow proper procedures; i.e., protecting the rule of law. While it may be hard to believe, I think Donald Trump might be even worse on this issue than President Obama. I have no reason to believe Mr. Trump has any understanding of or respect for the rule of law and the importance of following proper procedures. He has said he wants to change the libel laws, which a president can’t do. Given the tenor of his campaign and everything he says, it is hard to believe that, if Congress won’t agree with him, a President Trump would not just try to do what he wanted, regardless of law or procedure. In response to those who might argue that, unlike President Obama or a President Hillary Clinton, President Trump would at least be trying to accomplish the right result, I’m not sure that is true. But even if it is true, it doesn’t matter. Because the ends do not justify the means, in spite of President Obama tries to claim on a fairly regular basis.
Which brings us to Donald Trump’s foreign policy. As I have discussed earlier, he truly doesn’t know much. Consider:
- Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to understand that Russia is already in Ukraine.
- Mr. Trump didn’t seem to understand that Japan and South Korea are already contributing 50% of our costs in stationing troops in their countries.
- Mr. Trump seems to think it the world would be better off if South Korea and Japan had their own nuclear forces.
- Mr. Trump seems to think that public opinion in Crimea can justify Russia’s unilateral annexation of territory of another country.
Some people, however, say that he would listen to advisers. I don’t think so. Mr. Trump seems to think he is his own best, and smartest, adviser. He did, after all, win the Republican nomination following his own advice. If he wins the presidency the same way, why should he listen to anybody else once he is president?
No, I think he will follow his own instincts. And that is the problem. While we were on our vacation, we had the chance to talk to a couple in Hungary. The man was an economist for a bank and the woman was an economist who now ran a private foundation helping at-risk children. They asked whether Donald Trump had a chance to get elected. And they talked about their views of what he has said about NATO, among other things. The man was born in the late ‘60s and the woman was born in the early ‘70s, so they grew up under communism. They were alive for the Annus Mirabilis, 1989. They understand how important what happened in that year was, and they are embarrassed by their Prime Minister, who, among other things, likes Vladimir Putin and favors an “illiberal state” for Hungary.
In talking to them, I realized that our election is not just about the United States. Other countries may be able to elect candidates just for themselves. The United States cannot. President Obama has not seemed to understand that the United States has a leadership role to play in the world. At times he seems to think the world is better off without the United States playing a leading role. He is wrong. He confuses bad management with inevitability. Just because some presidents have gotten things wrong, doesn’t mean that we always get things wrong. Just because George W. Bush screwed things up in Iraq, doesn’t mean Richard Nixon didn’t get it right when he supported Israel with supplies and more during the 1973 October War. Just because Barack Obama made many of his own mistakes in the Middle East during the last eight years, doesn’t mean George H.W. Bush didn’t handle the fall of communism and the liberation of eastern Europe with consummate skill. Or that Harry Truman didn’t get it right with the Marshall Plan and NATO after World War II.
The point is that the world needs the United States to lead – because nobody else can do it, even if we mess up more than we should. And even though Hillary Clinton, as noted above, is no George H.W. Bush or Richard Nixon – or Harry Truman – when it comes to foreign policy, Donald Trump is, in my opinion, a real danger. Both for the United States and the world. He doesn’t know the facts, and I don’t trust his instincts.
Hillary Clinton may be as bad, if not worse, than Donald Trump for the United States domestically. But we can’t just think of ourselves. The danger that Donald Trump is to the world, is also a danger to the United States. The world would be a significantly less safe place if Donald Trump becomes president. It pains me to say it, but even with all of her many, many faults, Hillary Clinton is the better choice for the United States – and the world – than Donald Trump.3
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1 David Kilcullen, Blood Year: The Unraveling of Western Counterterrorism (2016), p. 72.
2 George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (1998), pp. 149, 167.
3 However, if you live in a solidly Democratic state, you may be able to safely skip voting for president, confident that Secretary Clinton will win your state anyway. It is still important, though, to vote Republican in the down ticket races, perhaps even more important with Secretary Clinton as president.
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