It’s Oprah Winfreyism, writ large.
It’s Oprah Winfreyism, writ large.
A t this stage in the proceedings, it feels almost churlish to write earnestly about the public-policy implications of the coming presidential election. In Kamala Harris, we have a candidate who will commit to nothing lest she is subjected to a follow-up question; in Donald Trump, we have a candidate so determined to discharge his every thought that there is no time left for his auditors to speak. As an old-fashioned “issues” voter, I am not sure which is more annoying: that Kamala Harris answers every inquiry by talking distractedly about the sanctity of middle-class grass, or that Donald Trump promulgates novel positions with the fecundity of a sunfish. Irrespective, the spectacle is an unedifying one.
Some cynics argue that none of this matters. We have two teams in America, they observe, and what counts is which one you’re on. Politics, they insist, is painted in broader strokes than a crisp manifesto can allow. One party is For; the other is Against; the details that result from this dichotomy will be worked out in the wash.
At the risk of naivety, I must dissent from this conceit. All things being equal, Kamala Harris’s reticence may help her win the White House. Likewise Trump’s pandering. But it will not help either of them enact an agenda — which, lest we forget, is the purpose of securing power in the first instance. We are thoroughly modern, I’m quite sure, but there is still no alternative to a clear and deliberate agenda.
Alas, neither clarity nor deliberation is on display this time around. Last week, in the course of a truly pathetic interview with ABC Philadelphia, Kamala Harris proved unable to even hint at how she would go about fulfilling her routine promise to “lower prices.” “I grew up in a community of hard-working people,” Harris said, “you know, construction workers and nurses and teachers, and I try to explain to some people who may not have had the same experience — you know, a lot of people will relate to this.” Exactly to what those people were supposed to “relate” was never explained — even in outline. Nor will it be. Harris believes that she is winning, and she is aware that talking in public is the intervention most likely to change that fact. From now until November 5, she will let us eat joy.
Donald Trump is going for the opposite approach. Yesterday, Trump promised that, if he were to be chosen as president once again, Americans would not only end up paying “no tax on tips,” “no tax on overtime,” and “no tax on Social Security benefits,” but that he would help repeal one of the biggest achievements of his first term, the cap on the state-and-local-tax (SALT) deduction within the income-tax code. Why? Because Trump thinks that these declarations will be popular among the groups he needs to win — and hasn’t considered them beyond that. Nevada has a large number of tip-reliant service workers; Trump wants to win Nevada; therefore . . . Social Security recipients vote in higher numbers than any other group; Trump wants them to vote for him rather than for his opponent; therefore . . . Trump is speaking in New York tonight; New Yorkers want their SALT-subsidy back; therefore . . . Regrettably, there is nothing more to any of it than that. It’s Oprah Winfreyism, writ large.
This matters. His personal conduct notwithstanding, Donald Trump’s last presidency contained a great deal for conservatives to cheer. The 2017 tax-reform bill that Trump signed was well-crafted; the deregulation agenda to which he acquiesced was welcome; the federal judges he nominated were (mostly) terrific; and, having corrected the GOP’s course on immigration, his administration did some solid work in limiting the influx at the southern border. By the time he left office, Trump’s critics had been proven correct about his character but wrong about the likely policy consequences of his victory. As president, Trump did not abandon conservatism wholesale, or vanquish those whom he’d defeated; rather, he relied heavily upon the years of hard work that had preceded him. From the Federalist Society to Paul Ryan to the American Federation for Children, Trump took good advice and adopted solid ideas. In so doing, he inherited an orderly, disciplined, thoughtful agenda whose intricacies had been developed and defended over time.
This time around, there will be no such bequest to enjoy. Indeed, if Trump wins, he will be presented with the near-impossible challenge of pulling his many random utterings into one place and attempting to make them cohere. When he does, he will soon discover there is a good reason that no serious tax proposal tries to exclude fatally gameable categories such as “tips” or “overtime,” just as there is a good reason that conservative legislators have not focused on exempting Social Security benefits or on restoring the SALT deduction, and that reason is that, even if those changes were practically possible, they would be arbitrary, contradictory, and an impediment to superior reforms. If, in 124 days’ time, Trump finds himself back in the White House, the scattershot approach to policy that he has taken throughout this capricious campaign will guarantee that the first question he will find himself asking his office wall is, “Okay, I’m here — now what on earth am I supposed to do next?”