A year of the Trump administration

As we come to the end of 2017, the first year of the Trump administration, what have we learned?

Well, clearly Trump himself is often his own worst enemy. He often undercuts his own efforts with contradictory and ill-timed Twitter postings.  On the other hand his Twitter postings do give him a direct line to the 34 million followers of his Twitter account, most of them probably his solid base, and most of them probably largely in agreement with his opinions. On balance I think his Twitter postings probably help him more than they hurt him, despite the sneering opinions of the media talking heads, because they let him bypass the largely anti-Trump spin that the mainstream media give almost anything he says or does.

In terms of the economy, which is probably the single most important factor in the upcoming midterm elections, the numbers look good. Blue collar wages are up in 2017 by between 3% and 4%, depending on the sector.  US third quarter 2017 growth is up to 3.3%, much better than the anemic 1.5-2% growth over the Obama years. Unemployment has dropped to 4%, the lowest level in many years. Companies are planning to repatriate trillions of profit dollars parked overseas, and investment is up significantly. This may or may not be due to anything this administration has done, but voters will give Trump and the GOP the credit for it anyway.

And they managed to pass the tax bill which will actually reduce taxes for most taxpayers next year, despite the rather hysterical claims by Nancy Pelosi that this is the end of the world. It has some reasonable things in it, like capping the state tax deductions and the mortgage interest deductions at middle class levels, and reducing the corporate tax rate to something in line with the rest of the world. Of course actually we really need to increase taxes to cover our massive annual federal deficit, but neither party is going to do that in today’s Washington.

There is of course a predictable amount of hand-wringing about Trump's reduction in the staffing of agencies like the State Department and the EPA. But realistically, with a half-trillion dollar a year federal deficit, these departments - and all other federal departments - need to be trimmed in size. Sure the things they do may be desirable, perhaps even important, but if the taxpayers aren't willing to pay enough taxes to support their size, then their size needs to be reduced. 

In foreign affairs, the Trump administration has managed to get China more actively involved in restraining North Korea’s nuclear and missile advances, which is more that Obama managed to do. The last round of UN sanctions was supported by both Russia and China, which shows some serious backroom negotiating with them, again more than Obama ever managed to do. Of course the sanctions may still not work – Kim has clearly decided that nuclear weapons are the only way to ensure the survival of his brutal regime.

The party in power typically loses seats in the midterm election, so Trump may lose control of the House in the midterms, and perhaps even the Senate. But the constant claims by Democrats that a “wave” is building seem to me based more on wishful thinking than on reality. Democrats still have no new and appealing messages or programs to sell voters, they are still split down the middle between the extreme populists (Sanders, Warren, etc) and the more moderate Democrats, they are still led by increasingly out-of-touch old guard leaders (Pelosi, Hoyer, etc), and they still haven’t gotten real about their demographic problems, or even about why they lost the 2016 election.. 

In fact it seems to me Democrats are still largely clueless. They are so focused on being part of the “resistance” that they have passed up several opportunities – most recently with the tax bill – to offer some bipartisan support in exchange for protecting some of their own high priority issues. Since they publicly announce that they will oppose anything the Republicans propose (including, by the way, some things that they supported under Obama), there is no incentive for Republicans in Congress to try to deal with them. As a result, since everyone knows they will reflexively oppose anything proposed,  they get shut out of any negotiations over bills, which is poor strategy on their part. They would be far smarter to offer potential Democratic votes in exchange for some concessions on the issues that matter to them. But they are being driven by ideology now, rather than pragmatic political tactics, so they are losing.

With respect to the endless investigations of Trump collusion with Russia in the election, I note that to date no actual evidence has yet surfaced, despite the increasingly expensive Muller investigation. But a good deal of evidence of improper activities in the FBI, in the intelligence community, in the Obama administration, and in the Clinton campaign has emerged and continues to emerge daily.  Democrats may yet come to regret opening this can of worms. It may end up hurting them more than it hurts Trump.

So on balance I would say the Trump administration has thus far not been as bad as one might have feared (nor as good as Trump promised), and has even done a few good things here and there. But the Democratic party, and the elite liberal world in general, is still in terrible shape, seemingly having learned nothing from this recent defeat. And that is worrying.