The next President will fail, spectacularly, and bring their political party down with them. Neither Clinton nor Trump will be able to persuade Congress, and the American people, that drastic reforms are called for. It may be that neither of them feels such reforms are even necessary. Regardless of what they might want, Congress is such a cesspool of corruption that the best they’ll be able to do is continue kicking the can down the road.
Congress can’t do major legislation any more, or when they do they just cock everything up. Obamacare never made any sense, but in order to get it through Congress it became a Rube Goldberg joke. Fixing our entitlement programs is beyond the capacity of Congress. It’s too hard, politically. Some people would be pissed off at reform, and your typical Congressman is deathly afraid of angering his constituents. It might hurt his reelection chances, so it’s off the table. It’s been twenty years since Congress reformed anything. The dysfunction of the federal government is merely a reflection of the Congress that is responsible for it.
Some Congressman wants to insert a provision in a spending bill that will block Obama from forcing transgenderism on America’s school children. If Congress was an actual functioning institution, this would be adopted without much problem. But Congress is dysfunctional, so good luck with that.
Of all the reasons to vote Libertarian for President, this is the one that persuades me. If elected, Donald Trump would be a second Herbert Hoover, a big time businessman who was used to getting big things done. He was over his head, screwed the pooch both substantively and politically, and had the Republican Party wandering in the desert for 20 years after he lost reelection in an historic landslide. With Trump, it could be worse, and conservatism and the GOP could go the way of the Whigs.
Since Congress is the real problem, the only solution is Article V. It can be used to not only get Congress in line, but the Supreme Court and the entire federal government as well. A Clinton election would galvanize the Article V movement, while President Trump would kill or cripple it.
The Tuolumne County Republican Party is having its 10th annual Reagan dinner tonight, featuring Rep. Tom McClintock, one of the 30 or so Congressmen worth keeping. It will be held just a few miles from the 900,000 acre Stanislaus National Forest. If I get a chance, I’ll ask McClintock about the Transfer of Public Lands, and the American Lands Council.
I made a mistake in 1988, and ran for reelection to the House. I was the Minority Leader, and I thought we might get in the majority, and I could be Speaker. With that as a platform, I’d be able to take Ted Stevens on in the Republican Senate primary of 1990. But we didn’t win a majority, so I handed the Minority Leader job to my friend Robin Taylor of Wrangell, and spent as little time at the Capitol as I could get away with. I’d written a novel, Brinkman, about a Cold War incident in which my hero, a part Native U. S. Senator named Herman Merculieff from Alaska, saved the day. I had a New York literary agent named Jay Garon who thought he could get it published. He told me I reminded of a writer he was working with from Mississippi, named John Grisham, who was also a former state legislator. I spent most of my time in Juneau working on finishing up the book, and only showed up for votes.
Then the Berlin Wall came down, and my novel was obsolete. I remember watching it all happen on TV with my buddy Bob Clarke, who I was staying with. It was fun to watch, but bittersweet to me. I explained to Bob the role that Pope John Paul II had played in making it all happen, and he convinced me to write a book about it, which I did, called Triumph of Faith. Jay Garon went and died on me, and I never could get it published.
I’ve decided to e-publish it, and look forward to putting it out. It’s a great story, and one which very few millennials are familiar with.
Karol Wojtyla was the greatest man of the 20th Century, and a saint. God bless him.
reaganproject.com 