Victor Davis Hansen has advice for Democrats and progressives …

Progressives wonder how in the world could anyone still support President Donald Trump. So here are ten reasons why more than 40% of the electorate probably does — and will.

1. Voters appreciate that the economy is currently experiencing near record-low peacetime unemployment, record-low minority unemployment, and virtual 3% annualized GDP growth. Interest andinflation rates remain low. Workers’ wages increased after years of stagnation. The US is now the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas. And gasoline prices remain affordable. The President continues to redress asymmetrical trade with China, as well as with former NAFTA partners and Europe. He jawbones companies to curb offshoring and outsourcing. The current economic recovery and low consumer prices have uplifted millions of middle-class Americans who appreciate the upswing.

2. Trump does not exist in a vacuum. Many supporters turned off by some of his antics are still far more appalled by an emerging radical neo-socialist Democratic agenda. If the alternative to Trump is a disturbing tolerance among some Democrats for anti-Semitism, the Green New Deal, reparations, a permissive approach to abortion even very late in pregnancy, a wealth tax, a 70-90% top income tax rate, the abolition of ICE, open borders, and Medicare for all, Trump’s record between 2017-20 will seem moderate and preferable. Progressives do not fully appreciate how the hysterics and media coverage of the Kavanaugh hearings, the Covington teenagers and the Jussie Smollett psychodrama turned off half the country. Such incidents and their reportage confirmed suspicions of cultural bias, media distortions, and an absence of fair play and reciprocity.

3.Trump can be uncouth and crass. But he has shown an empathy for the hollowed-out interior, lacking from prior Republican and Democratic candidates. His populist agenda explains why millions of once traditional Democratic votersdefected in 2016 to him — and may well again in 2020. Some polls counterintuitively suggest that Trump may well win more minority voters than prior Republican presidential candidates.

4. Trump may come across as callous to some, but to others at least genuine. He does not modulate his accent to fit regional crowds, as did Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. He does not adopt particular outfits at state fairs or visit bowling allies to seek authenticity. Like him or not, his Queens accent, formal attire, odd tan, and wild hair remain the same wherever he goes and speaks. Voters respect that he is at least unadulterated in a way untrue of most politicians. Big Macs convey earthiness in a way arugula does not.
5. Even when Trump has hit an impasse, his supporters mostly continue to believe that he at least keeps trying to meet his promises on taxes, the economy, energy, foreign policy, strict-constructionist judges, and the border. So far his supporters feel Trump has not suffered a “Read my lips” or “You can keep your doctor” moment.
6. Voters are angry over the sustained effort to remove or delegitimize a sitting president. Many of the controversies over Trump result from the inability of Hillary Clinton supporters to accept his shocking victory. Instead they try any means possible to abort his presidency in a way not seen in recent history. Trump voters cringe at such serial but so far unsuccessful efforts to delegitimize the President: the immediate law suits challenging voting machines, the effort to warp the Electoral College voting, initial impeachment efforts, appeals to the Emoluments Clause, the 25th Amendment, and the calcified Logan Act, the Mueller investigation that far exceeded and yet may have not met its original mandate to find Russian “collusion,” and the strange Andrew McCabe-Ron Rosenstein failed palace coup. All this comes in addition to a disturbing assassination “chic,” as Madonna, Johnny Depp, Kathy Griffin, Robert DeNiro and dozens of others express openly thoughts of killing, blowing up, or beating up an elected president. The Shorenstein Center at Harvard University has found that mainstream media coverage of Trump’s first 100 days in office ranged from 70-90% negative of Trump, depending on the week, an asymmetry never quite seen before seen but one that erodes confidence in the media. Voters are developing a grudging respect for the 72-year-old, less-than-fit Trump who each day weathers unprecedented vitriol and yet does not give up, in the Nietzschean sense of whatever does not kill him, seems to make him stronger.

7. Progressives seemingly do not appreciate historical contexts. By past presidential standards, Trump’s behavior while in the White House has not been characterized by the personal indiscretions of a John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton. His language has been blunt, but then so was Harry Truman’s. He can be gross, but perhaps not so much as was Lyndon Johnson. The point is not to use such comparisons to excuse Trump’s rough speech and tweets, but to remind that the present media climate and the electronic age of the Internet and social media, along with general historical ignorance about prior presidencies, have warped objective analysis of Trump, the first president without either prior political office or military service.

8. Globalization enriched the two coasts, while America’s interior was hollowed out. Anywhere abroad muscular labor could be duplicated at cheaper rates, it often was — especially in heavy industry and manufacturing. Trump alone sensed that and appealed to constituencies that heretofore had been libeled by presidents and presidential candidates as “crazies,” “clingers,” “deplorables” and “irredeemables.” Fairly or not, half the country feels that elites, a deep state, or just “they” (call them whatever you will) are both condemnatory and yet ignorant of so-called fly-over country. Trump is seen as their payback.

9. For a thrice-married former raconteur, the Trump first family appears remarkably stable, and loyal. The first lady is winsome and gracious. Despite the negative publicity, daughter Ivanka remains poised and conciliatory. The appearance of stability suggests that if Trump may have often been a poor husband, he was nonetheless a good father.

10. Trump is a masterful impromptu speaker. Increasingly he can be self-deprecatory, and his performances are improving. Even his marathon rallies stay entertaining to about half the country. He handles crowds in the fashion of JFK, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama rather than of a flat Bob Dole, Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney.

… that John Steele Gordon shows they’re likely to ignore:

I’m old enough to remember when political candidates tended to take positions that were popular with the people who, they hope, will vote for them. That’s not what the Democratic candidates for president are doing this year as shown at last week’s debates. Consider what Bret Stephens, no Trump supporter by a long shot, wrote last week:

*What conclusions should ordinary people draw about what Democrats stand for . . . Here’s what: a party that makes too many Americans feel like strangers in their own country. A party that puts more of its faith, and invests most of its efforts, in them instead of us.

Busing students to achieve integration began in 1972 and was a total failure. Indeed, between 1972 and 1980, the percentage of black students attending mostly black schools dropped only from 63.6 percent to 63.3 percent. And the parents hated it. In 1973, most Americans favored integration but only 5 percent approved of busing, 4 percent of whites and 9 percent of blacks. With their kids being bused as much as an hour away, the parents could not participate in the education of their children. As the very liberal Tanner Colby explained in Slate:

With Jim Crow, black America lived under an onerous, top-down system that told them where their children could and could not go to school. Now, with busing, black America lived under . . . an onerous, top-down system that told them where their children could and could not go to school.

But Kamala Harris attacked Joe Biden during last Thursday’s debate for having opposed busing in the 1970’s. She also attacked him for working with two segregationist senators at that time—both Democrats, please note—on matters that had nothing to do with segregation.

In today’s Democratic Party, one can only work with the ideologically pure. All others must be anathematized. As Hillary Clinton found out, damning everyone who doesn’t agree with you 100 percent as “deplorable” is no way to appeal to anyone other than the inner circle of the Democratic base.

What is popular with parents of all races is school choice, which has a record of actually working to improve educational outcomes. But all the candidates except Cory Booker are adamantly opposed to school choice. Why? Well, a lot of it has a to do with the opposition of teachers’ unions to any threat to their monopoly of primary and secondary education that has produced so much educational mediocracy and downright failure. Teachers’ unions are very big contributors to Democratic campaigns.

Given a choice between favoring the interests of the kids and favoring the interests of donation-making teachers, the Democratic candidates are going with the teachers. The trouble with that, of course, is that there are a lot more parents than there are teachers.

Bret Stevens again:

None of this means that Democrats can’t win in 2020. The economy could take a bad turn. Or Trump could outdo himself in loathsomeness. But the Democratic Party we saw this week did even less to appeal beyond its base than the president. And at least his message is that he’s on their—make that our—side

The Wall Street Journal:

The Supreme Court wisely avoided bumbling into a political thicket Thursday, holding in a 5-4 decision that it isn’t the judiciary’s role to police partisan gerrymandering. The majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts is a notable example of judicial restraint, and over the long run it will protect the High Court’s credibility.

David Blaska watched two nights of Democratic debates so we didn’t have to (I was busy anyway):

The consensus seems to be that Julian Castro got the biggest boost out of the first debate Wednesday (06-26-19) and that “Beto” O’Rourke is out of his league. Kamela Harris bloodied front-runner Joe Biden in Thursday’s installment of America’s Got Progressives and Pete Buttigieg held his own.

The best coverage comes from National Review, to which the Werkes subscribes now that the Weekly Standard is kaput. Here is NR’s Jim Geraghty:

The headline out of tonight’s debate is going to be Kamala Harris starting off the second hour by turning to Joe Bidenand just kicking the snot out of him … Septuagenarians who have been in the Senate longer than I’ve been alive should probably avoid the term, “my time is up.”

Bernie Sanders stood out when standing next to the likes of Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb. This is much tougher competition, and he’s having a tougher time.

It’s a shame Andrew Yang couldn’t be there tonight. . . . Oh, he was on stage? I must have blinked too many times. The man with a million ideas literally got three minutes over two hours to pitch his ideas. This is an egregious mismanagement of the debate by MSNBC, and the Yang Gang has every right to be livid over this.

Oh for a Sister Souljah moment! —Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if Uncle Joe had said, “Look, I opposed ripping kids out of their neighborhoods and busing them clear across town to satisfy some ‘woke’ bean counter’s half-assed theory that certain kids cannot learn unless they’re seated next to certain other kids. Forced busing for integration wrecked our public schools and worsened race relations for a generation. I was against experimenting with kids’ lives then and I’m against it now.”

Julian or Julia? — Government-paid abortion for trans-gender males? Julian Castro, come on down!

Let that one marinate in your brain for a moment. Transgender women can’t get pregnant, because according to their chromosomes (which don’t change) they are men. But hey, don’t let biology get in the way of unlimited abortion.

True colors — Bill de Blasio quoting the murderous Ché Guevara? (the day after his debate Wednesday.)

Um, there’s that little matter of the … CONSTITUTION! — Bernie Sanders says he would rotate supreme court justices off the court.

Those were the days, my friends — Remember when Democrats were saying there was no crisis at the border? Now even A.O.C. is emoting for the cameras in front of a fence on an empty parking lot. No blue screen? What a phony!

As President on Day #1 — Joe Biden says his first act as President will be to defeat Donald Trump. (Must be his back-up plan if he loses the election.)

First call as President? — Democrat picks the obvious: New Zealand!

Blaska’s Bottom Line: We’ll say it again; Donald Trump and Republicans would be their own worst enemy were it not for Democrats bailing them out time after time.

 

Trent England:

Should rural and small-town Americans be reduced to serfdom? The American Founders didn’t think so. This is one reason why they created checks and balances, including the Electoral College. Today that system is threatened by a proposal called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, or NPV.

Rural America produces almost all our country’s food, as well as raw materials like metals, cotton and timber. Energy, fossil fuels but also alternatives like wind and solar come mostly from rural areas. In other words, the material inputs of modern life flow out of rural communities and into cities.

This is fine, so long as the exchange is voluntary — rural people choose to sell their goods and services, receive a fair price, and have their freedom protected under law. But history shows that city dwellers have a nasty habit of taking advantage of their country cousins. Greeks enslaved whole masses of rural people, known as helots. Medieval Europe had feudalism. The Russians had their serfs.

Credit the American Founders with setting up a system of limited government with lots of checks and balances. The U.S. Senate makes sure all states are represented equally, even low-population rural states like Wyoming and Vermont. Limits on federal power, along with the Bill of Rights, are supposed to protect Americans from overreaching federal regulations. And the Electoral College makes it impossible for one population-dense region of the country to control the presidency.

This is why Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. Instead of winning over small-town Americans, she amassed a popular vote lead based on California and a few big cities. She won those places with huge margins but lost just about everywhere else. And the system worked. The Electoral College requires more than just the most raw votes to win — it requires geographic balance. This helps to protect rural and small-town Americans.

Now a California millionaire named John Koza is trying to undo this system. He is leading and funding the National Popular Vote campaign. Their plan is to get state governments to ignore how their own citizens vote in presidential elections and instead get them to cast their electoral votes based on the national popular vote. If it works, this will be like getting rid of the Electoral College but without actually amending the Constitution.

California has already passed NPV, along with 13 other states plus Washington, D.C.  Nevada, with six electoral votes, could be next. NPV only takes effect if it is joined by enough states that they control 270 electoral votes, which would then control the outcome of all future presidential elections. If that happens (NPV needs 81 more electoral votes), and if the courts do not strike it down, big cities will gain more political power at the expense of everyone else.

The idea that every vote should count equally is attractive. But a quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin famously reminds us that democracy can be “two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for lunch.” (City dwellers who think that meat comes from the grocery store might not understand why this is such a big problem for the lamb.) And when you think about it, every check on government power, from the Electoral College to the Bill of Rights, is a restraint on the majority.

The Electoral College makes it even harder to win the presidency. It requires geographic balance and helps protect Americans who might otherwise have their voices ignored. All Americans should value constitutional protections, like the Electoral College, that remind us that the real purpose of government is to protect our individual rights.

Jon Gabriel adds:

Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, along with O’Rourke and Buttigieg, have signed on to this effort, despite it requiring fundamental changes to the Constitution.

“Every vote matters,” Warren said to a crowd in Jackson, Mississippi, “and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College.”

In 2000 and 2016, the winner of the popular vote didn’t claim the presidency. The fact that these aberrations favored Republicans isn’t lost on Warren, et al.

The Massachusetts senator argued that presidential nominees focus only on swing states instead of one-party states like California and Massachusetts. She wants candidates “to ask every American in every part of the country for their vote, not just those in battleground states.”

It’s a popular applause line, at least on the left. A recent poll showed that 60% of registered Democratic voters want to jettison the Electoral College, compared with just 20% who want to keep it.

While this might help one party’s near-term prospects, there’s a very good reason why America doesn’t choose its chief executive by popular vote. That’s because democracy, at least in its pure form, doesn’t work.

Sure, it might be a helpful tool for a group of friends deciding where to eat lunch, or a dozen board members choosing a new executive, but it’s no way to run a country.

The Founders knew this well, having read their classical history.

The world’s first democracy was ancient Athens, which allowed about 30,000 free adult male citizens to choose their leaders. They made up less than 15% of the population, but it was the most egalitarian political innovation to date.

It didn’t take long for the system to implode amid rampant corruption, an economic downturn, immigration headaches and unpopular foreign wars. (Sound familiar?) The plan of “one man, one vote” devolved into a kind of mob rule, the populace veering with wild swings of opinion. Voters overthrew leaders, exiled the unpopular, and executed generals and politicians — even Socrates himself.

As the saying goes, democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. The Founders looked to Athens less as a political model than an object lesson in what not to do.

James Madison said democracies are “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Therefore, America was set up as a republic, filled with countless checks and balances to avoid one group gaining power and using it to punish or exclude everyone they didn’t like.

Most people have a limited view of checks and balances, focusing on the president, Congress and courts. But the Founders created a system in which all sorts of groups strive against each other. Long-serving senators vs. representatives, the states vs. Washington, urban voters vs. rural voters — you name it.

Each of these checks incentivizes Americans to strive for their own interests while ensuring that no group is left out in the cold — at least not for long.

By distributing our presidential choice among 51 individual elections, nominees must appeal to a wide variety of voters with a wide variety of interests. Farmers in Wisconsin are important, as are retirees in Florida, factory workers in Pennsylvania and shopkeepers in Arizona. White evangelicals need to be courted in Charlotte, North Carolina, as do Latino Catholics in Mesa, Arizona.

If the Electoral College were abandoned, party front-runners would camp out exclusively in urban areas. The pancake breakfasts in Des Moines, Iowa, and Denver, Colorado, would be replaced with mammoth rallies in Los Angeles and New York City.

A candidate might visit Phoenix, but would they ever hit the tarmac in Tucson?

Moving to a national popular vote would destroy one of our foundational checks and balances: The interests of rural and small-town Americans would be abandoned for those of urban elites.

And can anyone fathom the tumult of a close election requiring a nationwide recount? Florida in 2000 created enough problems.

The Democrats’ most accurate argument against the Electoral College is that it’s undemocratic. But that’s the entire point.

We already have this in Wisconsin. Tony Evers is governor because of the vote totals of two counties, Milwaukee and Dane, which overwhelmed the rest of the state’s majority vote for Scott Walker.