Saturday, May 07, 2016

The enemy within

Now that Trump is the presumptive nominee, it's no longer a choice between Trump and his primary opponents, but Hillary and Trump. 

(I mean "choice" in terms of which one will be elected. Obviously, there are other folks you can vote for, or not vote at all.)

There are voters who hate Trump, but will vote for him because they think Hillary is worse. That's not my own position, but I don't blame them. The Trumpkins have destroyed all the good options.

But I'd like to briefly discuss the consequences of a Trump presidency, were he elected. I'm probing the way in which the choice is framed. Is Trump better than Hillary?

We have two major parties in this country. By that I mean, only two parties are large enough to be competitive at a state and national level. There are other parties, but they are rarely completive, even at the state and local level. I'm not saying that's good or bad. That's just the way it is.

The Democrat party is the liberal party, and it keeps moving to the left. The GOP is the opposition party. 

A basic problem with a Trump presidency is that he'd co-opt the GOP. He'd have the potential to transform the party–for the worse. In that event, you'd no longer have an opposition party to resist the liberal establishment. You'd wind up with two liberal national parties. Yes, there'd be conservative splinter groups, but these would be ineffectual. 

There's a particular kind of damage that someone inside an organization can do that outsiders can't. A classic example is Kim Philby, head of counterespionage operations for MI-6. As a double agent (a KJB recruit), he was in a position to do far more harm to British intelligence than an outsider could. 

Indeed, some critics have suggested that Trump is a Democrat plant. But even if that's not the case, he's the functional equivalent of a double agent. He's a lifelong Democrat with Manhattan values.  

If we turn over the house keys to Trump, will we have a house to come back to four years later, or will we be locked out? Evicted?  

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