The View from Right Field

Instead of More Politicians Like George H.W. Bush, We Need More People Like George H.W. Bush

On Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune had an editorial entitled “Humility and civility: More pols, please, like George H.W. Bush.”  The editorial concluded:

“If enough politicians and others in the public sphere would take a lesson from the former president’s honorable conduct, Americans would have more respect for their governments – and for each other.”

While I agree that our politicians should take a decency lesson from George H.W. Bush, it would be even better if all of us took a lesson from former President Bush.  If we would act honorably.  If we would have more respect for those who disagree with us.  If we would post on social media, only things that we are willing to say to somebody in person.

If we want our politicians to be more decent and more honorable (which is something to keep in mind when we go to the polls), the first thing we need is to be more decent and more honorable ourselves.

George H.W. Bush, RIP

I have written a lot about George Herbert Walker Bush over the years, and while I am saddened by his passing, I am sure that he, and his family, are glad he is with Barbara once again.  Our longest presidential marriage is an example for us all.  As was his sense of duty, honor, and decency, something that is too often missing in politics today.

But George H.W. Bush was more than a good man.  He was a good president.  Many of the obituaries talk about how President Bush went back on his pledge at the 1988 Republican Convention: “Read my lips, no new taxes.”  What they didn’t mention is why President Bush felt he needed to agree to a tax increase in the fall of 1990.  In October of 1990, there was a short government shutdown over the Columbus Day weekend.  By then, however, and following on President Bush’s statement of August of 1990 that Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait “will not stand,” U.S. troops were already beginning to deploy to the Middle East.  President Bush explained his decision to agree to a tax increase in order to avoid a further government shutdown as follows: “When push came to shove and our troops were moving overseas, we needed a fully functioning government.  I simply had to hammer out a compromise to keep the government open ….”¹  This is obviously an approach to government, and responsibility, that not many people in Washington, at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, seem to have today.

Where Does the Republican Party Go After Donald Trump?

While Donald Trump has only been president for a little over a year and a half (it seems longer, doesn't it?), with the 2020 election starting in January of next year (assuming it hasn't started already), it is perhaps not too early to start looking at the question in the title this post, since it could happen in a little more than two years.¹

In an editorial (“What has become of the Republican Party?”) and a long article (“How the elephant got its Trump”) back in April, The Economist touched on this question.  One of the most interesting points in the article was that Trump supporters came to the Republican Party before President Trump did.  Donald Trump didn’t create the populist wing (or whatever you want to call it) of the Republican Party.  He merely took advantage of it.

Let’s Respect the Flag by Actually Singing the Star Spangled Banner

On Wednesday, the NFL announced a policy providing, as I understand it, that all players on the field when the National Anthem is played must stand and show respect for the flag and anthem.  Players who do not want to stand can stay in the locker room until after the anthem is played.

It has never been a big deal for me whether players stood or didn’t stand during the anthem.  I don’t watch football, and even if I did, I wouldn’t care.  There are more important things to worry about.  Plus the freedom to protest is a good thing.

An Idea for Less Stress About the News

Richard Thaler, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize for Economics, was asked what somebody should do if they woke up, turned on the TV, and found that the stock market had fallen by three percent.  Dr. Thaler’s advice was simple: “Change channels.  Turn the show off.”¹

Dr. Thaler’s investment advice is pretty simple:

“Whenever anyone asks me for investment advice, I tell them to buy a diversified portfolio heavily tilted toward stocks, especially if they are young, and then scrupulously avoid reading anything in the newspaper aside from the sports section.”²

He said crossword puzzles are also okay, but you need to stay away from the financial section.

Sex Scandals – and Bill Clinton’s Impeachment

With all of the sex scandals, and worse, appearing these days involving politicians, entertainment figures, and business leaders, I want to make one thing perfectly clear with respect to Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and President Clinton’s impeachment.

I can’t speak for anybody else, but the reason I supported President Clinton’s impeachment was not because of what he and Ms. Lewinsky did.¹  It was because President Clinton lied under oath about what he and Ms. Lewinsky did.

TDS: Trump Derangement Syndrome

We have previously had ODS and BDS (i.e., Obama Derangement Syndrome and Bush Derangement Syndrome [George W. Bush, that is]).  ODS and BDS can be explained as stressing out over President Obama or President Bush all the time, thinking that everything wrong was their fault, and worrying that the country might never recover.  We had a form of CDS (i.e., Clinton Derangement Syndrome) back in the nineties (particularly during Bill Clinton’s second term), even if it wasn’t called that.¹  There was probably a RRDS (i.e., Ronald Reagan Derangement Syndrome), though it, too, would not have had that name.  There definitely was a NDS (i.e., Nixon Derangement Syndrome), which started not in 1969 or 1973 (with Watergate), but in 1948.²  However, I don’t think any of them, even ODS, was as all-consuming as TDS (except maybe NDS during the last few months of Watergate).

TDS has been going full strength since Donald Trump was inaugurated – if not since he was elected (or before).³   It’s hard to read a newspaper or watch a news show (or check your smartphone, for those who get their news that way) without seeing all kinds of things about Donald Trump: good, bad, crazy, porn, etc.  And we have 33 months to go (at a minimum).

Social Trust

Megan McArdle wrote about trust, and in particular social trust, in a recent article on “The left’s Denmark envy.”  The reason for the left’s “Denmark envy” is fairly obvious: generous welfare benefits, social liberalism, and high taxes.  Plus Denmark doesn’t have the things those on the right predict for a country with generous benefits and high taxes, such as high unemployment, fleeing capital, lower GDP, and benefit cheating.  Why?  According to Ms. McArdle: “Denmark and its Nordic neighbors get away with it because they have an extraordinary high level of social trust.”

Ms. McArdle explains how social trust works and why the United States has less of it:

“‘Social trust’ is, well, what it sounds like: How much do you trust your neighbors?  And in turn, how trustworthy are they?  In a low-trust place such as Greece, people don’t trust their neighbors not to cheat, which in turn makes them more likely to cheat themselves, because why should you stay honest when everyone else is getting away with something?  This affects everything: whether people pay their taxes, whether they take benefits they don’t really need, how easy it is to regulate companies.  And social trust also works as a productivity booster, because [it allows you to] do away with a lot of the cumbersome monitoring that is ubiquitous in modern societies – the supervisors who oversee low-level workers, the store clerks who keep an eye on the customers.  Every worker who is not making sure that people don’t steal or shirk can be re-employed doing something that actually increases output.

The Thomas Jefferson Standard for Judging Leaders

Thomas Jefferson is famous, among so many things, for what he had inscribed on his gravestone.  Mr. Jefferson had been Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Secretary of State, Vice President, and of course President from 1801 to 1809.  Any of these alone would be career achievements for other people.  And yet, Thomas Jefferson did not put any of them on his tombstone.  Rather, he directed that his gravestone read as follows:

“Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of American Independence
Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom
And Father of the University of Virginia”

What Will Happen in Washington When All the Good People Leave?

Democrats will be happy with Trey Gowdy’s (R, SC) announcement Wednesday that he will not be running for reelection to the House this year.  Representative Gowdy is another in a long line of Republicans retiring from the House this year.  Some of them were members who were reaching their term limits as heads of committees,¹ but that wasn’t Representative Gowdy.  He only took over last year as head of the House Oversight Committee.  Instead, Representative Gowdy explained his retirement this way:

“Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom that in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system.  As I look back on my career, it is the jobs that both seek and reward fairness that are most rewarding.”

That is a considerable indictment of our political system today.  People rightly talk about the Greatest Generation, the men and women who served in World War II and then went on to serve our country in government and elsewhere for decades afterward, all the way to George H. W. Bush and beyond.