Separate for a moment the wisdom of the policy from the politics of the execution. I know most regular readers here think Trump’s 7-nation temporary incoming travel ban makes sense, even if it doesn’t go far enough, and it is certainly legal. Preaching to the coir and all that. But let’s look at the other side a moment, just how it was done, and what happened, what’s the fallout, and where do things go from here.
He issued an executive order that basically said “use this 2015 law Obama signed to prohibit travel from these problematic nations, and prohibit travel from these nations Obama designated as problematic.” The left totally loses their collective shit, judges in Seattle and elsewhere issue injunctions to halt it, the media melts down, paid protestors collect their paycheck, and it’s all literally worse than Hitler going into the Sudetenland (or it would be if the leftists knew what that was, but ya’ll know what I mean). It goes to the 9th Circuit, where a 3-judge panel uphold the stay. The media crows and dances about how they stuck it to the man! “well, crap!” was the common sentiment on the right.
So, now what? Trump had to have seen this coming, even though it’s really stupid and self-defeating.They – the left – walked right into the trap, and are now bragging about how tasty all the free food is. It’s such a huge trap that one or more judges on the 9th Circus sees it and is calling for an en blanc review. Trump didn’t even have to appeal. Why?
If after appeals and all, the ban is finally allowed, Trump tweets: See, I keep my promises, and the JV team wants to delay and play politics. The left ill be so burned out, over-triggered, and back on their heels that when his next slightly expanded ban gets enacted, most of the muddle in the middle (the swingable middle ~20% of voters) will say “what’s the big deal? Didn’t he already do that?”, and grow even more weary of the leftist hype and antics and riots and traffic foul-ups. Trump has earned near free rein to do what he wants for the next 2 years.
What if the court turns activist and he’s blocked, and there isn’t any terror attack – he points to a safer nation, and all the other things (more expensive, and slower) he’s done and passed to keep it that way… and he wins reelection by a comfortable margin.
(spew alert. set the beverage down. Ready? OK.)
But… what happens if there is a terrorist attack, particularly by anyone from any one of those 7 nations, before this gets cleaned up? (statistically, I’d give it better than even odds) Trump tweets: I tried to protect you, but the left WANTS dead Americans! Game over. Rhetorical kill-shot, the Dems are toast, and Trump is on his way to be the first Supreme Court Justice elected Pope, with his mug on Rushmore in 20.
The Dems and activist judges have backed themselves into a place where any domestic acts of terrorism committed by anyone from the Middle East will hand Trump a major political win, where the left will be seen as aiding and abetting. The media will try to spin any attack to prove that he’s ineffective, but Trump is the master of rhetoric that cuts through the fog of newspeak to reach the average person: the Fake News organs will not be believed. And with the arrest of paid rioters and deportation of criminals, crime will fall, jobs will open, and things will be… interesting.
It’s an E-ticket ride, folks, and you have to be at least [-this-] tall! Buckle up.
Brilliant analysis. It’s a win-win-win, and I am so tired of winning (no, I’m really not).
Hard to say if what you articulate is an actual strategy, but I can definitely see your analysis being true. I already see the vitriol settling down among the more normal liberal crowd – my Facebook page is seething with hatred a lot less from liberal “friends” lately.
Meanwhile, the antifas and their ilk continue to create chaos to the point where either their hidden employers stop writing paychecks and let them go back to their normal welfare payments and/or SJW college classes, or the right will just get fed up and open season on them. And even the more moderate liberals won’t weep.
Ask your face-book “friends” this simple question: If there was a terrorist attack by someone from Syria here in the US, who owns it, completely? The Dems and activist judges do. Totally, and completely. And Trump and Spicer are not the sorts that will let not owning it slide. It’ll get rubbed in the media’s face.
Or trump and his followers will be blamed for provoking it with their anti Muslim rhetoric and general mean-spiritedness.
You know that’s in the works because the Progressives have been using it for decades. Jimmy Carter referred to Reagan’s tough talk against the Soviets as “belligerent” and warned that it would drag us into nuclear war.
All of what’s going on in the media is a replay of some kind, from the old play book. You want to know what the leftist agitators in media will do? Must look at what they did fifty years ago. Or 100 years ago. It’s all the same stuff.
Also any additional economic turmoil in the world, which seems more than likely, will be said to be the result of Trump’s “conservative” policies. And of course any unpleasant weather events will be blamed on capitalism, white people, men, and Judeo/Christian Civilization. The line will be;
“You right wingers got what you wanted, and look what happened. Now it’s time for responsible, thoughtful people to take over and try to clean up after you…”
Of course.
The thing is, Big Media and the Dems (but I repeat myself) would do that in any case. But there will be a counter-narrative going, sent straight from the POTUS, unfiltered, via Twitter and Spicer. That double-standard and double-speak has not been effectively called out before by the Stupid Party. That may change.
“Would do that in any case”. Right.
I continue to be amazed by all the commentators (not loony left types) who say that, if only Trump went a little more slowly, or explained what he was doing more nicely, he wouldn’t face such opposition. But that’s absurd: the leftist position is “resist resist resist”.
Consider that Chuck Schumer, who is often mistaken for a moderate, said in a TV interview that every nominee that Republicans like would be unacceptable to Democrats. Every nominee. I suppose that’s moderate compared to Hollywood nutcases who call for military coups.
Most commentators seem fixated on the notion that Trump is stupid and doesn’t know what he is doing. A few follow your reasoning (at least part way) and argue otherwise. That seems plausible to me. When someone is a big success in a mafia-infested field, it seems likely he’s learned some tricks and the art of making the opposition underestimate him.
He’s stupid? In his first ever political campaign, he ran against the opposition (who spent more than $1B to defeat him), the media (who attacked, slimed, accused, and misrepresented him constantly, giving at least $1B in-kind donations in terms of coverage), and the GOP establishment (who didn’t control him). He won against someone with HUGE name recognition and the union-organized backing, the racial-bloc voting machine, the Dem voter-fraud machine, and just about every other political machine in America.
He fought against all that, changing campaign managers twice, and won because he was … lucky?
The left cannot face up to that possibility that he really is that good, and he might – just possibly – be right about anything. It would give lie to their entire world-view.
The left will paint Trump with the stupid brush in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, throwing in additional myths like, “He’ll kill us all.”
Of course, the real reason he was elected isn’t because Trump is stupid – the left simply doubled down on the conclusion they’ve had all along – conservatives are stupid. We can’t possibly be as smart as they are, because we don’t hold the same values, etc. etc. So, not only is Trump stupid, but the 50% of the population that voted for him are just as stupid.
This is exactly it. The Left, in the face of all logic and reason, honestly believes that they’re SMART. Never mind the fact that all of their grandiose plans lead to ruin. Never mind that things always get objectively worse whenever they’re in charge. They’re just More Intelligent than us drooling knuckledraggers, and that’s the end of it.
This is why Trump has to be stupid. This is why they blame hacking, bad luck, sinister plots–anything but the possibility that President Trump (dang, I like the sound of that!) is beating them like a rented mule because he’s SMARTER THAN THEY ARE. If that’s the case, then that means the Left is stupid, and therefore have been wrong about everything…and their entire identity/worldview disintegrates.
The Left are so emotionally invested in their ideology that they can’t EVER admit to being wrong. This is why they always double down. This is why they’re incapable of change.
And this is how we’ll win. 😉
Win? For some definition that that word, I suppose. But going against an insane and totally committed mass of psychos isn’t going to be pretty.
I am convinced Trump is working to a game plan that has been refined, critiqued, and wargamed continuously since long before he announced he would run for office. Nothing is from the hip, everything is planned no matter how spontaneous his tweets appear to be.
His policy teams work like chess masters, looking out three and four moves deep on every path to see where the best advantage lies.
This is a case in point, Trump now has a casus belli to break up the 9th Circuit (good) and start removing the most radical judges for cause.
In a general sense, he’s smarter than the media and the loony left as a whole and what’s worse, is that he knows it and they don’t. I still say he’s playing the old fashioned rope a dope on them as fast as he’s moving with things…
I agree that Trump is smarter than both the media and the loony left. (To be fair, though, that’s an awfully low bar to clear.)
He’s also keeping much calmer than his opponents — again, this is not particularly hard — and he’s being proactive, where they are being reactive. (“Hey, what action of Trump are we opposing today?” “I dunno, whatever he did this morning.”)
If this continues, we may well see four years of him driving his opponents stark, raving mad… and running circles around them. Interesting times.