Decius was kind enough to respond to several of my latest columns, and I thank him for his comments. What separates us is our estimate of Trump, our understanding of legitimacy, and our hopes for the future.
Decius dismisses Trump’s mentioning of Merkel as the foreign leader he most respects, but I think it gets to the core of why Trump is so destructive a representative of his causes. He could have said Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has stood up to Merkel’s attempt to impose her immigration preferences on the entire EU, but he probably couldn’t have named Orbán if his life depended on it.
It might sound like a small point, but imagine if Reagan had been asked the foreign leader he most admired and he had named not Thatcher or John Paul II but Brezhnev — except for the socialism. Then imagine conservatives praising Reagan for his forceful rejection of Communism. Then again, Reagan was a serious anti-Communist. Over one year into a campaign based on immigration enforcement and national sovereignty, Trump has said he most respects the Western world’s chief enemy of borders and sovereignty. That is because he is a hustler working a con, and he bothers to learn only what he needs to know in order to take down the marks.
Decius also dismisses Trump’s belief that, as president, he could implement national stop-and-frisk. Trump isn’t up to speed about the “machinery” of government. Decius is also calm about Trump’s desire to “open up” libel laws, since the Founders were not modern liberals on free-speech issues — even as Trump brags about using our current libel laws as a vehicle for harassing critics. While Trump might be unclear about the powers of the office he seeks, Decius argues that Trump sees past our everyday Constitution to our country’s very constitutional soul, in which federalism, the separation of powers, and other elements of our system have been subverted by the administrative state.
Decius’s diagnosis of the situation of has elements of truth (our constitutional norms are a wreck and will likely worsen in the short term), but the description of Trump is preposterous. He wouldn’t know the administrative state from Viktor Orbán, and has never shown the slightest interest in returning power to the political branches (Congress most of all.) Trump wants what he wants, and what gets cheers at his rallies.
Trump has battened on a constituency that (rightly) considers itself widely despised by the political class. He has some proposals that this constituency likes. Some are broadly popular. Some are not. Some are constitutional. Some are not. But Trump is, like his opponent, a post-constitutional, post-rule-of-law candidate. That is why we are out of luck.
And that is a final problem with Decius and Trump. Decius presents the election as a choice of whether we will be ruled by the American people or by an oligarchy. The truth is that we will either have a president elected by Trump supporters or a president elected by Clinton supporters. Whoever wins, it will be the choice of the American people. Whether the next Congress passes amnesty or funds a new deportation force, it will be equally a decision of the American people — to the extent that our electoral system and the vagaries of campaigns ever allow for such clear judgments.
Decius’s identification of Trump with the American people (and his victory with their victory, his defeat with their defeat) reminds me of leftists who used to say that they represented the people even while they were losing elections — especially when they were losing elections. If Trump loses, it will be because he failed to convince the American people. The identification of Trump of (and his constituency) with the rule of the people is deeply corrupting and hopefully will not last.
There is also a little good news. For all his talk of plane crashes, and guns being put to the head, and elections happening but not mattering if Trump loses, I doubt someone as spirited as Decius will give up on our country. If Clinton wins, I expect to see Decius,in some form,arguing for a better politics. If Trump is elected, Decius writes, he will oppose Trump if Trump betrays his supporters. I believe him. If Trump is elected and he sticks by his pledges on judges, and seeks to implement an immigration policy that benefits wage earners, then I will gladly praise Trump. One way or another, as long as Decius doesn’t give up on our country, we will be on the same side soon enough.