The Trump Presidency

[JayUtah]

Even his (probably not much longer) current secretary disagrees with Big Orange;

Secretary Esper will almost certainly lose his job and be replaced by some flunky who will simply do the President's bidding no matter how atrocious it is.  Convention wisdom is that Sec. Esper was advised by the Joint Chiefs and others that the professional military leadership draws the line at being casually deployed to keep the domestic peace.  As the political head of the military, Sec. Esper has the unenviable task of communicating that sentiment to the President and public.  As I wrote earlier, this is the same quandary that other conscientious officials face in this administration.  If you cross the President, you will be fired and replaced by a lackey.  Therefore you get one chance to fall on your sword, so you had better make it a good fall.

Sec. Esper called on States to send National Guard troops to Washington DC as peacekeeping forces.  As opposed to the full-time professional military, domestic peacekeeping is within the scope of the volunteer state militias when ordinary law enforcement is unable to cope.  DC having no state militia of its own, this was a justifiable call.  I don't object to that policy in principle, but I object to it in this case because the need arose from the DC Metropolitan Police force's unwillingness to be political pawns.  It's not as if the police were overwhelmed.  It's that they did not agree to follow the specific orders they were likely being given -- to suppress and "dominate" political dissent.  Sadly my State was one of the few who answered and sent troops to DC.  I've voiced my objection to our leadership for that action, but of course I will go unheard.

And now it seems we have a hithterto unknown secret police force standing guard in DC.  This is probably the most alarming development.  And stupid, from a leadership position.  Again, when the issue being protested is the accountability of policing forces, the correct answer to that is not to make the operative forces less accountable and more intimidating.  It's as if this President somehow always knows to do the opposite of the sensible thing.  It takes talent to be a failure at almost everything.

[jfb]

You mean Ford, but the point is there. 

I'll argue that Ford was not running as Nixon's former VP, but as President seeking re-election (although technically it wouldn't be re-election). 

I was thinking about Nixon's loss to Kennedy in 1960, after having been Eisenhower's VP. 

It's just not common for us to keep the same party in the White House for more than two terms - Truman and GHWB are the only ones since WWII.  Nixon, Humphrey, Gore, HRC, all failed to succeed their Presidents in the WH. 

[JayUtah]

but the Democrats fight back with the same old style of candidate that didn't work last time!

And the same overall political strategy.  American swing voters really do vote for Democrats only after the Republicans have left a bitter taste.  The DNC is once more putting forward the "safe" candidate, lest any of the transformative ideas other candidates propose should offend the center.  They still have this nostalgic view that if they stand just left of center and portray themselves as reasonable and open to compromise, people will somehow see its natural appeal.

I'm of the generation where centrist politics and legislative compromise generally worked.  It wasn't ideal.  Nobody got everything they wanted.  But everyone got something.  But this is exactly what the Tea Party faction of the GOP disliked.  They co-opted the Republican Party under the banner that said you could get everything you wanted if you just played to win.  And that has proven largely true.  Centrism and compromise take two to tango, and the GOP has no further interest in dancing.  And this was happening long before Donald Trump.  Trump is a symptom; he's a Useful Idiot whom the GOP thought they could control, but have been wrong.  When I talk about this with the younger generation, they rightly see no future in centrism and compromise.  What they want from the Democrats are the "radical" ideas that scare the DNC core so much.  They want the DNC to stop trying to keep its clothes clean and instead fight the GOP tooth-and-nail for real reform.

[Peter B]

...Sec. Esper called on States to send National Guard troops to Washington DC as peacekeeping forces.  As opposed to the full-time professional military, domestic peacekeeping is within the scope of the volunteer state militias when ordinary law enforcement is unable to cope.  DC having no state militia of its own, this was a justifiable call.  I don't object to that policy in principle, but I object to it in this case because the need arose from the DC Metropolitan Police force's unwillingness to be political pawns.  It's not as if the police were overwhelmed.  It's that they did not agree to follow the specific orders they were likely being given -- to suppress and "dominate" political dissent.  Sadly my State was one of the few who answered and sent troops to DC.  I've voiced my objection to our leadership for that action, but of course I will go unheard.

A good thing that you did, because you can't know for sure that you'll go unheard. You don't know how many other people have done as you did, so that collectively you are heard - just think of "Horton Hears A Who"!

I remember reading somewhere that in pre-email days one letter from a member of the public to a politician was considered to represent the views of ten people. Presumably the ease of email devalues it in comparison to letters in this regard, but I think politicians ignore large volumes of email at their peril.

And now it seems we have a hithterto unknown secret police force standing guard in DC.  This is probably the most alarming development.  And stupid, from a leadership position.  Again, when the issue being protested is the accountability of policing forces, the correct answer to that is not to make the operative forces less accountable and more intimidating.  It's as if this President somehow always knows to do the opposite of the sensible thing.  It takes talent to be a failure at almost everything.

Sorry, what?

[JayUtah]

A good thing that you did, because you can't know for sure that you'll go unheard.

I know a fair number of people in our state government personally, and I've typically known -- on average -- about half our Congressional delegation at any one time, including Sen. Romney.  His former company, Bain Capital, was at one time the sole owner of my company.  But in the grand scheme of Utah politics, I still rank far below the level of attention needed to have an individual effect.  So I'm baking on the Horton Effect.

Sorry, what?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/us/politics/unidentified-police-protests.html

Nobody knows who these people are.  If, as it is rumored, they are Corrections officers under the command of Attorney-General William Barr, this is a violation of federal law.  Corrections officers have very limited authority outside a federal penitentiary.  They have police power elsewhere only to the extent necessary to recapture escaped inmates.  Using them as a general police force is improper.

[JayUtah]

A good thing that you did, because you can't know for sure that you'll go unheard.

Well, something worked.  The mayor of Washington DC has invoked the Third Amendment and evicted all the various states' National Guard troops from the city.  The Senator from Utah whom I don't know is having a hissy fit, of course.  He's the Tea Party guy, and I don't care to make his acquaintance.  This is noteworthy because nearly everyone considers the Third Amendment an anachronism.  To save everyone a bit of Googling, it's the amendment that prohibits the unconsented-to quartering of troops in peacetime.  No one in modern times has considered it still relevant until today.  Also, I was mistaken in saying DC has no National Guard troops of its own.  It does, commanded by the Secretary of the Army following the pattern than many of the functions of government in the District are directly administered by the Federal institutions.

There are exactly zero Supreme Court decisions involving the Third Amendment.  This will be interesting.

[Ranb]

I think it's going to be the hotel and home owners who are protected using the 3rd amendment instead of DC as a whole.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

[JayUtah]

I think it's going to be the hotel and home owners who are protected using the 3rd amendment instead of DC as a whole.

Indeed, it's by no means an open-and-shut issue.  The authority of the Mayor to evict troops could be argued on grounds other than the Third Amendment.  However, while I said that no Supreme Court jurisprudence exists on the matter, there is lower-court jurisprudence, Engblom v. Carey in the 2nd Circuit, that applies.  It greatly expands the notion of ownership where rights of privacy are concerned, and allows mere control of the premises to suffice.  Further, it expands the notion of property to extend beyond the rigid (and bizarrely complicated) formulations from common law.  From this could follow an argument that the Mayor has this authority for the whole District considered as a form of property.

Granted it's still a stretch to say that all of DC is property, and that the Mayor has operative control.  It was obviously intended to protect domiciles -- even temporary domiciles like hotels, and probably not much else.  If any of the hotel proprietors consented to the quartering of National Guard troops in their hotel, the Mayor would clearly have little authority under the Third Amendment to banish those tenants.  She may have authority otherwise, however.

[JayUtah]

As more information comes in, it's looking less like a constitutional issue.  The troops were being quartered in hotels at the District's expense.  That may be a lack of (eventual) consent from the Mayor's office, but it is not a lack of consent from the hotel owner.  In fact, consent is presumed.  So no Third Amendment question.  In most U.S. cities, mayors have plenipotentiary contracting authority on behalf of their cities.  So while a routine contract for lodging may have been executed by someone in the executive office, the Mayor has ultimate authority over whether the contract will be honored, and may, according to the terms of the contract, cancel it on her sole authority.  This does not remove the troops, of course.  But it does say that the District will not pay to lodge them.  While some news outlets are reporting that the Third Amendment was invoked, I cannot find any statement from Mayor Bowser's office making that claim.

I guess I should be grateful that it's a straightforward contract question and not a constitutional crisis.

BTW, the rights protected in the Third Amendment are not grounded in property law, but in privacy law.  Certainly if there is a contract for lodging troops, then that contract implies the consent required by the Third Amendment.  But such a contract may not be foisted.  That is, if some officer knocks on the door of anyplace where you have the right to control entry, and demands that you quarter his troops and promises a fair compensation, you are not obliged to accept the offer.  This differs from the seizure doctrine in which your property may be commandeered by the government without your consent so long as you are fairly compensated.  That's property law.  "No, you may not quarter your troops here under any terms," is privacy law.

[jfb]

but the Democrats fight back with the same old style of candidate that didn't work last time!

And the same overall political strategy.  American swing voters really do vote for Democrats only after the Republicans have left a bitter taste.  The DNC is once more putting forward the "safe" candidate, lest any of the transformative ideas other candidates propose should offend the center.  They still have this nostalgic view that if they stand just left of center and portray themselves as reasonable and open to compromise, people will somehow see its natural appeal.

The DNC has little control over who wins the primaries.  They can certainly help candidates with funding and networking and exposure, they can pressure other candidates to drop out (or convince them to run for different office), but under the rules we've set for ourselves primary voters have the ultimate say, barring very exceptional circumstances.

Biden is the (presumptive) candidate because more voters selected him in the primaries than other candidates.  Not the DNC. 

We can argue about how Democratic primaries are structured all day - yes, the South is frontloaded, and Southern Democrats tend to be a bit more conservative than their Coastal brethren (which is why Sanders faded after New Hampshire and Iowa and Biden gained so much ground).  There are good arguments for shaking up the calendar and not always leading with Iowa and NH.  But right now, this year, this is how things worked out. 

Nothing's official until after the national convention, of course, and there's always a possibility that delegates could ignore the voters and pick someone else, although that's extremely remote and realistically would only happen if Biden physically could not finish the campaign. 

I voted for Warren, but more people (including my wife) picked Biden.  No, he isn't going to do anything radical, and honestly that's probably the way to win right now.  Nothing will fundamentally get better in a Biden term, but neither will it get appreciably worse.  If that translates into more EC votes than Warren or Sanders, then so be it, as long as it gets Trump out of office. 

[JayUtah]

The DNC has little control over who wins the primaries.  They can certainly help candidates with funding and networking and exposure, they can pressure other candidates to drop out (or convince them to run for different office),...

I'd say they have more than minimal control. I was involved with a colleague's (unsuccessful) campaign for U.S. Senate as a Democrat.  That may have more to do with state committees than the DNC.  But there was frankly more influence involved than I expected, along the lines you mention and more.  It could conceivably sway a close election on its own.

But in fairness I should agree more with you.  You have a better point.  The voters have the final say, regardless.  If the politicking -- whether overt or backroomish -- doesn't result in swaying votes, then it's ineffective.

[gillianren]

I mean, I'm pretty sure quite a lot of the DNC wouldn't have chosen Hillary Clinton.  The important factor as I see it is that they can't make candidates run, and they're stuck with who they get.  I think we can all agree that the RNC wouldn't have chosen Trump, even if they're with him now.

[JayUtah]

Good point.  You can't make good candidates step up, but you can certainly work hard to make unwanted candidates fail.  I think both of you are right about the national committees.  It's unfair of me to lay blame for candidate choices or success at their feet.  Regarding the DNC, I recall something in the hacked emails that suggested they favored Hilary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, and acted on that preference.  But that's not the same as wanting someone over Clinton who, for lack of will, didn't run.  Once the voters had selected Clinton as the candidate, they were stuck with her and all the baggage she brought with her.

I think I'm soured over Utah politics and extrapolating that irrationally to the national level.  Briefly, the Utah GOP used to have a caucus/convention-only system for choosing candidates for the primary ballot.  When the Tea Party basically took over the state party leadership, they lobbied for far-right delegates to the convention.  Since then, the convention voting has skewed quite a bit farther to the right than the general GOP voting in the state.  Many Utah Republicans are surprisingly moderates, but they were given only arch-conservatives (cough, Mike Lee, cough) as credible candidates in the primaries.  Because of the circumstances of districting, it has become difficult to unseat these unrepresentative delegates.  Displeasure over this led to various initiatives resulting in, among other things, S.B. 54, a law that allowed candidates to qualify for any state-run primary by collecting signatures.  The Utah GOP literally bankrupted itself fighting this in court, losing finally when the Supreme Court denied certiorari for an appeal from the 10th Circuit.  Rank-and-file Republicans saw the law as one of only a few ways they could get popular moderate candidates like Mitt Romney on the GOP primary ballots.  (Romney came in second at the GOP convention but won the GOP primary in a landslide.)  Another result was the United Utah party, composed mostly of disaffected Republicans and a few moderate Democrats.

Sorry to bring up local politics so much.  It's where my understanding of politics comes from.  I realize this is a national-politics thread, centered on Donald Trump.

[Obviousman]

Don't be sorry - I'm interested to hear how things run in the US; it's all been quite enlightening.

[Peter B]

Don't be sorry - I'm interested to hear how things run in the US; it's all been quite enlightening.

+1.

I mean, here in Australia we have the same sort of shenanigans when it comes to politics. And with state and federal governments formed in chambers with single-member electorates, our politics is similarly dominated by two parties (or at least, two party groupings). In the past this has led to the same sort of partisanship that is common in the USA.

So, in the second half of last year we had the sports rorts affair, in which the government came under a lot of heat when it was revealed the relevant minister had distributed millions of dollars to community sports clubs in marginal electorates in the months preceding the last federal election. In Australia the curse is to live in a safe electorate, whether controlled by the government or the opposition.

Likewise the Prime Minister was criticised for his behaviour during the Black Summer - going on an overseas holiday at the start of the crisis (and getting his office to keep it secret), forcing bushfire victims to shake his hand, and then posting to social media about the government's commitment of military personnel to firefighting effort.

But since the start of the pandemic things have changed considerably. He set up a National Cabinet featuring himself and the state and territory heads of government (who are of both parties), and the level of bipartisanship since then has been impressive. By contrast the amount of irritating partisan sniping and bickering has been at an all-time low.

And the PM has even been willing to listen to ordinary voters: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-04/man-tells-prime-minister-and-press-pack-to-get-off/12321544?nw=0