The Left should be thanking its lucky stars for Trump
I’ve had a funny relationship with Trump over the past twelve months. No, I don’t mean he even knows I exist (though I do like to think I can affect his thoughts, if I work just a little bit harder on my ESP). Instead, I find myself frustrated by feeling the need to quasi-defend him as the best realistic option available to America in 2016.
This does not remotely mean I’m optimistic about his term. In reality, he will only possibly improve on one or two areas over Obama. Maybe he’ll play an important role in moving healthcare in the right direction, although Paul Ryan and the rest of the GOP seem to have forgotten that they’re supposed to defend property rights and freedom of exchange. Maybe he’ll finally normalize relations with Russia so that we aren’t one idiotic candidate with a personal vendetta away from World War 3.
Ultimately, though, I think the left needs to take a step back and breathe a sigh of relief that he won. Hillary was far from perfect, and some of her problems should have been non-starters for everybody. Furthermore, there are some legacy financial problems that America is going to have to own up to in the next 10 years, and Democrats should be glad they probably won’t be the ones who have to handle that hot potato.
Hillary would have done more damage to the DNC’s brand than W did to the GOP’s.
Hillary was, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, the most corrupt candidate to run for president since Nixon. Pay-to-play has probably never been as clear to see as in the Clinton Foundation. From the Uranium One deal, to the questionable management of donations for Haiti, the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative both smacked of corruption and almost certainly ran afoul of federal charity law. Her private server took it to another level. It was rarely disputed at all that she put it in place specifically to skirt FOIA laws. She was deliberately trying to hide her activities from the electorate. Finally, it was a matter of record that she stole the DNC nomination from Bernie. These are on top of run of the mill “You give me $100,000 for my campaign and I’ll make sure you get some special favors from regulatory agencies” corruption.
Electing Hillary to the White House would have brought this filth to the highest office in America, and it would have done more damage to their brand than W did to the GOP’s.
Much more importantly, though, Hillary had an active and personal feud with Vladimir Putin and was not shy about throwing shade his way. This is the exact opposite of how adults with nukes should be behaving towards each other. Especially when you consider that Hillary is an indisputable hawk, I see no reason to expect nuance or diplomacy from her in this matter, and that is terrifying. In fact, this is literally the only reason I did not vote for her.
The left should be thanking their lucky stars she did not get elected. Bush’s legacy has been irreparably harmed by Iraq and Afghanistan, taking the GOP with him. Obama will end up with a similar reputation. Hillary would have been more of the same. Trump may not end up being any better, but at least it’s not their candidate that will be dragging his name through the mud.
Returning to domestic problems, there is another reason, one that doesn’t have anything directly to do with Hillary. Well, it’s actually over 19,000,000,000,000 reasons. That would be the federal debt. At historic interest rates, servicing the federal debt would be the third costliest budget item, after Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. This is untenable, yet the political landscape will not allow cuts to federal programs. Every single kickback and crony deal combined with the reality that welfare buys votes prevents that.
Thus, this debt bomb is going to explode, and explode soon. When it does, one of two things will happen: massive stagflation/inflation or the collapse of the welfare-warfare state. Whoever this catastrophe falls on will certainly see it stain their administration and party.
In total, the left has dodged a fatal bullet in Trump, long term. With a contentious media and population, his effectiveness will probably be limited to a significant degree, so their fear of him is almost certainly overblown. However, the damage that will undoubtedly be done by circumstances in the next term or two to whoever is in power, combined with Hillary’s known issues, should cause them to breathe a sigh of relief. The left is already on the ropes (Trump, Brexit, Le Pen, the alt-right). Her victory may have ended up being the knockout blow to their credibility.
