4/6/16
A lot of voters are terrified by the prospect of a Trump presidency. Perhaps these voters are less afraid after
Mr. Trump’s big defeat in Wisconsin
last night, but they still remain at least unsettled by the idea that Mr. Trump
still has a decent chance of becoming our president.
This is a justifiable fear. I, too, though more amenable to Mr. Trump
than most, am not entirely at ease with the idea that our next president may
very well be a man who has displayed limited ability to restrain his impulses,
some of which are quite base, who apparently has no time for introspection, and
who considers mastering the details of governance more of an avoidable annoyance
than as an inherent component of the description of the job to which he
aspires. I can certainly empathize
with Mr. Trump; an old friend of mine told me when I was a young man that I
could have been really big on Wall Street if only I didn’t feel the need to
express every opinion I had the second I had it. But I am not running for president and am
quite confident that I never will aspire to an an office as lofty as, say, Naperville alderman, let alone the Oval Office. I don’t completely dismiss the possibility
(of the latter, not the former); however, my sense of realism should be a great
source of comfort to citizens of the Republic.
But I digress.
So many of people’s fears about Mr. Trump, which
apparently finally were expressed at the ballot box in Wisconsin last night,
are justifiable. But I am far more
unsettled by at least two other developments in the 2016 campaign.
First, what really terrifies me is to hear the other
Republican candidates, remaining and, for the most part, withdrawn, discuss foreign policy. John
Kasich wants to put ground troops in Libya…temporarily, of course. Ted Cruz is obsessed with Vladimir Putin and what he considers
Russian aggression, to the point at which he gleefully discusses aggressive
actions he would take to counter Mr. Putin and the nation he leads. One can easily see such actions leading to
such unpleasantries as not entirely convivial confrontations between actual
Russian and American troops, and we all know where that could lead. One also suspects that Mr. Cruz’s problems
with Mr. Putin have their origins in more than the typical GOP simple minded,
knee-jerk “Russians bad, everyone else good” approach to foreign policy, but I
digress. Mr. Cruz also talks about
making the sand, presumably in the Middle
East, not in the Nevada desert, glow at night. Both Messrs. Cruz and Kasich speak with
regret about our “premature” withdrawal from Iraq and urge continuation of our Bushian nation building exercises
(without, of course, using that terminology) both there and at other places in
the Middle East. Neither man seems to
even faintly acknowledge that many of the problems they think they are
addressing had their origins in outsiders poking at the geopolitical hornets’
nest that is the Middle East. No,
Messrs. Kasich and Cruz go merrily on, urging further pokes at that very hive
and, indeed, finding other hornets’ nests to swat like Middle Eastern
variations on piñatas. Such talk is far scarier than some guy
babbling like a hyper-pubescent teenager about reporters, opponents, and wives
of opponents.
Second, I listened
to Bernie Sanders’ post-Wisconsin
speech, delivered in Idaho, last night.
Yes, we all know that Bernie is a socialist, but people, even those who
vehemently oppose just about everything for which he stands, look upon Mr.
Sanders as some kind of crazy uncle who is, in the words of Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, “as mad
as a bloody March hare,” but whose heart is in the right place. But if one listened to that speech, one got
a feel for the enormity of the plans this economic illiterate has for the
transformation of this country. Free
college, free health care, mandatory paid family leave, $15 (or higher) minimum
wages, forgiveness of student loans…it goes on and on and on. Actually hearing this litany of what the
government would do to (er, sorry, for) us if Bernie had his way tends to concentrate
one’s mind, and trepidations. But what
really scared me was Mr. Sanders’ rationale for forgiveness of student
loans. He stated that we shouldn’t “punish”
people for doing the right thing and getting an education. Making people repay money they borrowed is
punishing them? In what world is
making debtors repay their loans punishment?
Apparently, in Bernie Sanders’ bizarro world where the laws of
economics, and human nature, need not apply.
And that is a very scary place.
