{"id":9353,"date":"2016-06-16T13:07:05","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T20:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9353"},"modified":"2016-06-16T13:07:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T20:07:05","slug":"politics-not-personalities-will-likely-determine-the-presidential-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/politics-not-personalities-will-likely-determine-the-presidential-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics, Not Personalities, Will Likely Determine the Presidential Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

The candidates may be unconventional, but their political agendas fall along a conventional divide. <\/span><\/p>\n

By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n

A<\/span>t first glance, 2016 sizes up as no other election year in American history.<\/p>\n

For more than 30 years, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been high-profile and controversial celebrities. Both have been plagued by scandals and are viewed negatively by millions of voters. Clinton is facing possible federal indictment; Trump is being sued over Trump University.<\/p>\n

If elected, Clinton would be first female president in U.S. history. If Trump prevails, he would be the first president to assume office without having held a political or cabinet office or a high military rank.<\/p>\n

Yet the race still could prove more conventional than unorthodox.<\/p>\n

Trump is considered uniquely crude. But take some of our most iconic political figures and one can find comparable extremist rhetoric.<\/p>\n

As California governor, Ronald Reagan once said of University of California at Berkeley protesters, \u201cIf it takes a bloodbath, let\u2019s get it over with. No more appeasement.\u201d When the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst and forced her family to distribute food to the poor, Reagan quipped, \u201cIt\u2019s just too bad we can\u2019t have an epidemic of botulism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barack Obama has scoffed this his own grandmother was a \u201ctypical white person,\u201d called on his supporters to \u201cget in their face\u201d of his opponents, invoked a variation of the phrase \u201cbring a gun to a knife fight\u201d in an attempt to fire up supporters during his first presidential campaign, and compared his own bad bowling to the supposed competition level of the Special Olympics.
\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNever Trump\u201d Republicans swear they will not vote for Trump. Bernie Sanders\u2019s frustrated followers say they could not envision voting for Clinton. But by November, the majority in both parties will probably support their nominees.<\/p>\n

True, both candidates are notorious flip-floppers and opportunists who seem to lack deeply held beliefs. But for now, Clinton is pledged to the progressive wing of the Democratic party and has largely repudiated many of the centrist agenda items of her husband Bill Clinton\u2019s 1990s administration. And Trump, for all his contradictions, is, at least for the moment, far more conservative than Clinton. Neither Trump nor Clinton is viewed by the other side as a centrist.Why? For all the flaws of both presidential candidates \u2014 Trump is an undisciplined political amateur, Clinton a compromised and scripted establishmentarian \u2014 they will still advance political agendas that are markedly at odds and represent radically different views of America\u2019s proper future.<\/p>\n

Trump is a Jacksonian nationalist who likely would choose America\u2019s friends and enemies solely on the basis of perceived national interests. Clinton presumably would continue Obama\u2019s lead-from-behind foreign policy. Trump would be blunt about the connection between terrorism and radical Islam. Clinton likely would mimic Obama\u2019s policy of not referring to Islam at all in such a context.<\/p>\n

Trump probably would revise the tax code and lower taxes, cut back on government regulation and seek business-orientated solutions to the economy. Clinton likely would raise taxes on the upper income brackets and expand government in continuance of the Obama tradition.<\/p>\n

Chances are that Trump would cut overall spending but increase defense expenditures. Clinton probably would expand entitlements and limit military spending to past norms.<\/p>\n

Trump presumably would make good on his promise to close the border to illegal immigration by building a wall at the border and would also probably end sanctuary cities. Clinton likely would maintain the Obama administration\u2019s lax immigration policies and offer formal amnesties.<\/p>\n

Clinton seems to believe that the government must act radically to curb global warming. Trump seemingly is not sure that man-caused warming is an existential threat worth drastically altering the economy to address.<\/p>\n

Trump likely would oppose further gun control and follow a National Rifle Association agenda. Clinton would almost surely double down on the Obama administration\u2019s efforts to make gun ownership more difficult.<\/p>\n

On the Supreme Court, Clinton undoubtedly would appoint more justices like progressive jurists Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Trump probably would try to steer the court in the conservative direction of justices such as Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.<\/p>\n

In general, if voters are content with the current foreign, economic, social, and cultural policies of the Obama administration, then the progressive convert Clinton would likely ensure that those policies continue for at least four more years.<\/p>\n

If, on the other hand, a voter feels Obama has been, in the words of Trump, a \u201cdisaster,\u201d then professed conservative Trump would represent a shift in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

We have become exhausted by the flurry of daily political news \u2014 Trump\u2019s latest outrages, the fallout from Clinton\u2019s e-mail scandal, and the unhappiness of both Sanders supporters and members of the Republican establishment with the nominees. But in the end, as with most elections, the 2016 election will still offer a stark political choice between two diverse messages \u2014 however suspect and unpopular the respective messengers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The candidates may be unconventional, but their political agendas fall along a conventional divide. By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online At first glance, 2016 sizes up as no other election year in American history. For more than 30 years, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been high-profile and controversial celebrities. Both have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1092,1091,1090,11,23,46,185],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2qR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9576,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/has-clinton-topped-nixon\/","url_meta":{"origin":9353,"position":0},"title":"Has Clinton topped Nixon?","author":"Megan Ring","date":"November 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ Town Hall | Another day, another Hillary Clinton bombshell disclosure. This time the scandal comes from disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner's laptop computer, bringing more suggestions of Clinton's sloppy attitude about U.S. intelligence law. Meanwhile, seemingly every day WikiLeaks produces more evidence of the Clinton Foundation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nixon"","block_context":{"text":"Nixon","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/nixon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9685,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-animal-cunning-and-instinct-of-donald-trump\/","url_meta":{"origin":9353,"position":1},"title":"The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump","author":"Megan Ring","date":"December 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0He grasped that what voters cared about were the very issues politicos were disdainfully ignoring. The American middle classes, the Chinese, and Vladimir Putin have never been convinced that Ivy League degrees, vast Washington experience, and cultural sophistication necessarily translate into national wisdom. Trump\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Clintons"","block_context":{"text":"The Clintons","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-clintons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10163,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-to-blow-an-election-in-five-easy-steps\/","url_meta":{"origin":9353,"position":2},"title":"How to Blow an Election \u2014 in Five Easy Steps","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Counting the ways, and Comey is not among them. Hillary Clinton recently took \u201cfull responsibility\u201d for her 2016 loss. Only she didn\u2019t. Instead of explaining what the historian Thucydides once called the \u201ctruest causes\u201d (aitiai), she went on to list at least three pretexts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Democrats"","block_context":{"text":"Democrats","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/democrats\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9350,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/election-2016-knowns-and-unknowns\/","url_meta":{"origin":9353,"position":3},"title":"Election 2016: Knowns and Unknowns","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"We still have five more months of Trump vs. Hillary. Then four or eight years of \u2014 what? By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online The Disaffected. Will stay-home so-called establishment Republicans outnumber renewed Reagan Democrats, Tea Partiers, and conservative independents, some of whom likely sat out 2008 and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10921,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hillarys-sure-victory-explains-most-everything\/","url_meta":{"origin":9353,"position":4},"title":"Hillary\u2019s \u2018Sure\u2019 Victory Explains Most Everything","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 30, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/\u00a0National Review \u00a0 What exactly were top officials in the FBI and DOJ doing during the election of 2016? The Page-Strzok text exchanges might offer a few answers. Or, as Lisa Page warned her paramour as early as February 2016, at the beginning of the campaign and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "FBI"","block_context":{"text":"FBI","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/fbi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12014,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-madness-of-progressive-projection\/","url_meta":{"origin":9353,"position":5},"title":"The Madness of Progressive Projection","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 7, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Strangest among all the many melodramas of the last two weeks were the blaring headlines that President Trump had dared to talk with the Australian Prime Minister\u2014and referenced the role of foreign governments and in particular Australia in U.S. electoral politics in 2016. Given\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9353"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9353"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9355,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9353\/revisions\/9355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}