Trump: No Tax Returns, No Data Operation. Who Needs Them, Right?
On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced he won't be releasing any of his tax returns --"there's nothing to be learned from them" -- and that he won't be using "the kind of sophisticated data operation that was a centerpiece of Barack Obama's winning White House runs." "I've always felt it was overrated," Trump said. "Obama got the votes much more so than his data processing machine. And I think the same is true with me." Someone tell me -- what's the downside of having a sophisticated data operation to identify, target, and mobilize voters? Why We Need to (Politely) Criticize Our Favorites When They're Wrong Longtime readers will know that I count Bobby Jindal is one of my all-time favorite political figures, my first (sigh, short-lived) choice in the 2016 primary, and one of the great stories of conservative governance. Yet twice in the past week, when he offered begrudging endorsements of Trump that are impossible to square with the dire warnings he made about Trump in the autumn, I pointed that out. I leave it to you to decide whether this constitutes flip-flopping, amnesia, a less-than-convincing change of heart, or just Jindal's coming to terms with political reality. But I feel like I owe it to you, the readers, let you know that even my favorite guy is starting to line up behind Trump. I don't like it. I could easily choose to not write about it, and write about something else. But if you care about these sorts of things -- the Republican party, conservatism as it is traditionally defined, leadership, and the choice before us in 2016, you probably ought to know that the guy who once suggested Trump couldn't be trusted with nuclear weapons is now backing the likely GOP nominee because he's concluded that's a better choice than Hillary Clinton. If you're like me, a lot of people have let you down this cycle. You've seen them defending the indefensible, averting their eyes, and ignoring the embarrassing, hand-waving away contrary evidence. Television hosts turned over their shows to Trump to bask in in the ratings warmth; primary rivals who insisted Trump was the worst possible choice turned around and endorsed him. Now, day by day, week by week, just about every Republican official is going to fall in line. We're in this disturbing era where nobody in a position of responsibility wants to acknowledge any inconvenient contrary evidence. Ben Rhodes and the Obama White House didn't want to deal with the evidence the Iran deal might not work, so they pretended it didn't exist. Facebook doesn't like certain conservative topics that are trending, so it takes them off the list and pushes less popular liberal ones. Trump regularly denies making statements that he's been recorded on video saying. Suddenly everyone is "gaslighting" -- insisting that you're crazy and wrong when you point out things that you know are true. No matter how much I've annoyed you this primary, I hope you would recognize that if I'm willing to call out my favorite guy when I feel like he's being inconsistent, I'm not willing to give anybody a pass. (Heck, I wrote something critical of CPAC after they gave me an award. Either I'm exceptionally honest or an absolute ingrate.) In court, declarations against interest are considered more likely to be true, because it's so rare for someone to tell a lie that is against their own interest. I call 'em as I see 'em. I'm not a press secretary for anybody, I'm not in the spin business, and I don't owe any politician any courteous coverage, or any reader only the news they want to hear. Whatever my flaws, I'll address the counter-evidence. Trump has polled terribly against Hillary for almost all of this year -- and then Monday we saw a couple that didn't look so bad. If I'm going to argue that Trump's unpopularity was a reason nominating him was such a mistake, I've got to at least note when the numbers improve a bit. In that light, a couple people interpreted this NRO article as me as coming around to Trump, or laying the groundwork for a future expression of support for Trump. Nope, he's still terrible. #NeverTrump for life, baby. Why? Read on. What a Trump Win Costs Us Sure, a Trump victory would leave Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the entire Democratic party in utter despair -- and if you're a conservative, that thought probably makes you smile! The problem is that I don't want a less leftist version of Obama's executive-order-prone, Congress-ignoring, government-expanding, tax-hiking, IRS-abusing presidency. I want limited government, smaller and less expensive government, more individual liberty, and a strict adherence to the limits on government power enshrined in the Constitution. I want Rick Perry's vision of a Washington D.C. that is less and less relevant to the lives of average Americans*. Ultimately, I want politics to reverse the intense entanglement with pop culture that started with MTV's "Rock the Vote" in 1992 and go back to being the land of the nerds and policy wonks -- leaving governing to the people who actually care about the issues at hand. Make Politics Boring Again! Even if a President Trump moved American policy generally rightward -- far from a sure bet -- it would probably come at great cost in liberty. Brad Thor, bestselling author and friend of the Morning Jolt, offers his thoughts on the choice before us: My greatest concern about Donald Trump, though, isn't a trait he lacks, but a dangerous one he poses -- in spades. Authoritarianism. Confident people do not bully and demean others. That is the realm of the weak and insecure. Confident people also do not threaten others, especially not their fellow citizens. Donald Trump has told us to just wait and see what he does to Jeff Bezos once he gets into the White House. He has told us the American military will do whatever he tells them to do no matter what their reservations. He has promised to prevent American companies from moving outside the United States, regardless of what they believe is best for their businesses. In other words, Donald Trump has clearly told all of us that he will use the power of the presidency to force people to bend to his will. This is not liberty. In fact, Donald Trump has never even spoken about liberty. Neither has he spoken about the Constitution and the Founding documents. This is an absolute first in the history of the United States. Instead, Donald Trump talks about hiring the "best people" and making the "best deals." This, though, isn't what made America great, and it certainly isn't what will return America to its prominence. The blueprint for America's success is the ideas of the Framers -- limited, Constitutional governance -- an area in which Donald Trump is criminally ignorant. Let me be clear that I don't want to vote for Hillary Clinton. I also don't want to vote for Donald Trump. My preference is to write-in or vote third party. I think they are both terrible for our future. But between a big government progressive and a potential despot -- every American must ask themselves where liberty has the greatest chance to survive over the next four years. By the way, Trump fans, once you start posting people's home addresses and home phone numbers on Twitter, you're no longer fighting for liberty. You're using implied threats and the force of the mob to bend somebody else to your will. You're replacing forced obedience to the state with forced obedience to you. * Yes, I know Rick Perry pulled a Jindal and endorsed Trump, after denouncing him repeatedly, passionately, and thoroughly in the primary. The simplest explanation, from where I sit, is some sort of head injury to the former governor. Eagerly Embracing the Conservative Movement, Unhitched from the GOP Damn, our Stephen Miller is good: Trump clinched a major party nomination based almost strictly on the short attention spans of his audience. Remember that unsubstantiated National Enquirer blockbuster exclusive about Ted Cruz's purported five mistresses? Trick question: neither do Trump's supporters. By the way, wasn't there some sort of blockbuster evidence that was about to drop? Never arrived, huh? Trump is dependent on conspiracy theories, Internet pontifications and outright trolls to maintain his flight of sensationalism. With Trump, the explicit strategy is to say the most outrageous thing he can about whoever opposes him and then make them prove the negative. This is the inevitable result of what happens when a mainstream media once tasked with finding truth is now more interested in finding narratives and clicks. 2008 changed everything -- it was the moment when the network media decided they were all in for the magical story of Barack Obama and his promises of hope. Readers went elsewhere and voters turned to something else when hope never came. Truth no longer mattered. Yes. Thank you, Stephen. Something went seriously wrong with political journalism in the Obama hype of 2007–08, and it never got fixed. The phenomenon of simply ignoring contrary evidence or lack of supporting evidence really accelerated in that period; mainstream journalists never wanted to ask why Obama would bring about an era of bipartisan and racial healing; why his legislative record was so thin, what evidence existed that he knew how to make the sprawling federal bureaucracy more effective or efficient, or what his life story was beyond the version in his autobiography. No one wanted to ask what would happen in Iraq after we left, either. Back to Stephen, addressing the inevitable disappointment of Trump's most passionate fans. It feels good to pound out the word "CUCK" from the keyboard of your clever /pol/ meme avatar, I'm sure. But it doesn't change your miserable [bad word] life. No matter how many times you troll the staff of Commentary with frog-Twitter gas chamber memes for the lulz, you are not leveling-up in life. In the end, in a country of three-hundred million people, choosing two that are hated most amongst the majority suits us perfectly at this moment in time. Another celebrity-built election on the back of those we loathe. We don't follow Kanye West on Twitter because he's a swell human being. We don't watch the Kardashians argue about Caitlyn's junk because we love and admire them. And we don't nominate Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump because we love what they say about tax policy. We do it because it makes ourselves feel better. That's the level of apathy we find ourselves in. But it can't last and something has to take its place when we find ourselves at the end of this tunnel of [bad word]. That's the lesson to be learned from Trump and those that enabled him. Conservatives, now battling ideological opponents on both flanks, have to decide what that's going to be, but if they're going to do it, it has to be without any of the voices who have embraced, enabled or facilitated this catastrophe. ADDENDA: In today's New York Times: "If there is a silver lining for Mrs. Clinton, it is that Mr. Sanders's lingering presence gives her cover to settle on an effective course against Mr. Trump, something her team does not yet seem to have done." Wait, she and her team haven't settled on the strategy against Trump yet? How much more time do they need? How much more time do they have? He's only been dominating the headlines for a year!  | 
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