President Trump v. President Clinton

what is most likely to happen in each case

Shoot first, ask questions later. Definitely the safe option for world domination.

President Clinton II

If Hillary is elected we know almost exactly what will happen.

Domestic policy: When not being impeached, she might half-heartedly try to pass some kind of legislation that helps people, minimum wages or a public option for health insurance, then give up and blame the Republicans. She’ll talk about some social issues and appoint corporate lawyers to the federal bench. As far as letting the banks free to create more dangerous bubbles and suck capital out of the real economy, she will find “bipartisan” support and set the stage for a new crash some years, say about 2022 or so, after she gets her “banking reform” passed. There will be no major changes in criminal justice, education, or infrastructure. Everything that benefits Goldman Sachs and George Soros will pass with “bipartisan” support and (TPP 2.0, banking consolidation) and everything that might help regular people will be stopped by those “evil Republicans” she never tried to work with (because she didn’t really want the legislation to pass).

Environment: She will work behind the scenes to expand pipelines and fracking while passing some token “green jobs” bill that is close to meaningless and prone to corruption.

Foreign policy: War will continue and expand in the Middle East with no coherent strategy. She will take no bold moves and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel will continue to be our essential allies whether we like it or not. She might intentionally provoke a crisis with Russia to distract us from her impeachment hearings or wander into a crisis as a matter of route learning, as crisis and mindnumbingly stupid foreign intervention is her speciality.

Healthcare: The health insurance system will be even worse than it is now but the stock prices of the health insurers will be higher.

Terrorism: Any terrorist that wants to provoke her into an over-reaction by attacking the United States will find it easy to bait her into pointless conflicts that help Jihadi recruiters, as they successfully played Bush II. Thus, the incentive to attack the US and interests will remain high.

Politics: Democrats continue to rally around Clinton no matter how many laws she breaks, countries she destabilizes and run themselves into the ground with young Americans. Meanwhile, people’s lives continue to deteriorate and inequality grow. Her tenure leaves the country vulnerable to a real fascist takeover, as people grow desperate for functioning government, sick of war and scandal.

President Trump

With Trump, it’s much harder to predict. The doomsday scenarios promoted by Democrats all have an alternative outcome, which is that Trump is unable to achieve whatever terrible thing he might do. The problem is to evaluate how likely each worst case and best case scenario might be.

Worst case for the wall: Trump succeeds in building a fence or wall on the Mexican border. Waste of money and bad publicity follow but no change in immigration reality.

Best case for the wall: Democrats and Republicans in congress act like a separate body from the executive and stop the wall from being built.

Conclusion: Even if he does build the wall, although unlikely, it would not be an existential crisis, as would be endless war in Syria and boots on the ground and no fly zones with Clinton. I think it’s a dumb idea, but it’s not the end of the world.

Worst case on nuclear weapons: Trump declares he thinks tactical nuclear weapons should be used in missions, actually uses one without congressional approval.

Best case on nuclear weapons: Congress reasserts its constitutional right to declare war and takes away the imperial power of the president to conduct any act of war without congressional approval.

Conclusion: Trump may not be more likely to use a nuclear weapon than any other president. If he is, his excessive language may well lead to a reduction in the imperial powers of the presidency.

Worst case on racism and sexism: Trump is a terrible role model for America and people actually start to act more racist and sexist ways making America more ugly.

Best case on racism and sexism: People realize a president is just a person doing a job and not a secular saint. A flawed person can do the job and we shouldn’t look to celebrities as role models but find a sense of worth internally and act morally because if we don’t act morally, we can’t look ourselves in the mirror. All presidents get a haircut: Lincoln had greatness about him but unlike some of his contemporaries, he was a committed white supremacists. FDR is one of my heroes, but interning the Japanese Americans was inexcusable. Thankfully George Washington did not want to be president for life, setting the stage for democratic stability in the United States. He did the right thing with his own slaves, freeing them on his death, but never stood against slavery as a matter of public policy. Instability in South America at least also ended slavery 50 years earlier than in the US. And on and on. Just flawed people doing a job. From now on, we stop looking for role models.

Conclusion: Some bad behavior by Trump supporters is inevitable.

Worst case on civil rights: Trump closes down newspapers he doesn’t like and puts Muslims on a watch list.

Best case scenario: Institutions such as the courts, congress, and the people in the streets re-assert the value of liberty.

Public policy worst case: Trump passes a tax plan that helps the rich and does nothing for regular Americans. He creates a trade war with China and tanks the economy.

Best case scenario: Trump tries to pass terrible laws but is stopped by a bipartisan coalition, then, realizing that you don’t get adoring crowds by giving money to rich people, decides to flip the script and passes a $15 an hour minimum wage, medicare for all, free college, and all of Bernie’s policies because if he does, the people will adore him. He might try being an alt-right Republican, see what works for him there, then be an FDR Democrat. You just don’t know what he will actually get done. Whatever he passes will have to have Democratic votes, as the Republicans will not simply fall in line behind him.

Conclusion: Who the hell knows what would happen? Certainly not Trump.

So you see, for every disaster you can name for Trump, there is a silver lining. With Hillary, there are none. Why? Because the Democrats are loyal to her. The Republicans are not loyal to Trump at all. Zip. So, with Trump you have the chance for congress to act in a bipartisan way, as in 1972 with Watergate. If he turns out to be really bad, congress will chuck him out.

With Clinton, the Democrats have made it really clear that they will stick with her no matter what idiotic wars or crimes she gets herself into. Thus, when Clinton is bad, she is just bad until we collapse. When Trump is bad, there is a chance that government improves in response.

Clinton can do a Watergate every day and she will never get chucked out, although she will be impeached in the House at least once.

Hillary is not the safe choice. With Hillary you are guaranteeing that 2020 will be a replay of 2016 on steroids. War, economic crisis, political decay, corruption and a pro-corporate federal court are guaranteed under Clinton. Trump could be as bad as Democrats say, even “an extinction level event” but I think the chances are pretty close to zero.

Anyway, how bad could Trump be? Hillary went to his wedding, visited his children and Bill played golf (and other “stuff”) for years. Hillary promoted his candidacy by changing the primary schedule. Bill called him and told him to run. Podesta talked him up before he announced. If you say Trump is so terrible, you are also saying Hillary has terrible judgment.

So stop with the “extinction level event” or next “Hitler” rhetoric. President Trump will be at worst no worse than others. We’ll see. We’ll survive.

Meanwhile, Hillary…