This single entry thread finally gets a follow-on as the general election starts into full swing. Steve Benen was commenting today on Hillary’s early assault on the Trump campaign, as well as its generally weak state:
Today, she’s reportedly going to take another swing, this time hammering the presumptive GOP nominee over economic policy.
But before considering Clinton’s indictment, it’s worth appreciating what independent economic analysts are saying about Trump’s economic agenda. The Wall Street Journalreported yesterday:
A new analysis concludes Donald Trump’s economic proposals, taken at face value, could produce a prolonged recession and heavy job losses that would fall hardest on low- and middle-income workers.
The Moody’s Analytics report, which a person close to the Trump campaign strongly disputed, is the first that attempts to quantify the cumulative economic benefits and costs of Mr. Trump’s proposals on taxes, trade, immigration and spending. It determines that full adoption of those policies would sharply reduce economic output during his first term and reduce employment by 3.5 million jobs.
Under almost any scenario, the report says, “the U.S. economy will be more isolated and diminished.”
The report is available in its entirety here (pdf). Were it not for Trump’s campaign turmoil and anemic fundraising, it’s likely this scathing analysis would have been pretty big news yesterday.
So far, this looks like a modern destroyer hammering a World War I battleship: no contest. But there’ll be a certain percentage of the electorate that’ll remain blindly loyal to the conservative brand, even if it’s front-ended by Trump, as well as the Trump devotees who managed to get him nominated in the first place. Enough of those GOP zealots and the race stays competitive.
So I wonder if Hillary & Co. have considered an auxiliary strategy: Pay attention to Gary Johnson. Former Governor of New Mexico as a Republican, Governor Johnson & his running mate, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, have already received the nomination from the Libertarian Party. While libertarians make up portions of the GOP, they reportedly are uneasy with their more socially conservative colleagues, and the Libertarian Party’s nominees, to whom I’ll refer to as J&W, must be attractive.
So why even mention the campaign of the former governors? Mentioning a 3rd party candidacy amounts to free advertising, and we can bet there are a lot of voters who’ve never heard of an effort which struggles every cycle to have a national campaign, much less be effective. But so what? Let’s go through a few reasons:
- Split the GOP. Those members of the GOP who are reasonable will certainly welcome a fiscally conservative candidacy which doesn’t seem to be run by a narcissistic maniac. Give it some legitimacy by mentioning, by even insisting, that they be present at the debates.
- Isolate the dangerous evangelical movement. The GOP has been slowly taken over by the evangelical social conservatives (plus, no doubt, a bunch of power-seekers), which has given them a national platform to assert their favorite proposals. Many of these I don’t like; a few, such as those contradicting the Second Amendment, I think are dangerous to the Republic. Nearly as importantly, this GOP refusal to compromise, to govern responsibly, falls partially at their feet. If the GOP falls apart, their influence wanes, and perhaps once again responsible government can become a topic of discussion – rather than who’s the next RINO victim.
- An object lesson. If J&W do reasonably well, perhaps even outdoing Trump, that would be an object lesson to many Trump supporters, as well as Cruz and Carson supporters.
- In the case of disaster … do you want Trump to be President – or J&W?
There’s no reason Hillary’s team couldn’t analyze and dissect some of J&W’s proposals, and then she present the results in a speech. Let the national media chomp on it. Let the big news stations broadcast the result.
Let the more passive members of the electorate realize there may be a reasonable alternative than Trump out there.
And if all this happens … either the GOP can kick out those who are causing all the trouble and begin the task of rebuilding a responsible national political party, with real inputs and real counterarguments. Or the Libertarians can take the next step up the rungs of the ladder to being a responsible national party.
And that, ultimately, is really what we need. Two or three responsible parties. Not just the Democrats.
