{"id":9529,"date":"2016-10-18T19:31:20","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T02:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9529"},"modified":"2016-10-18T19:31:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T02:31:20","slug":"our-neutron-bomb-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-neutron-bomb-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Neutron Bomb Election"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

The shells of our institutions maybe survive the 2016 campaign, but they will be mere husks.<\/h4>\n

The infamous neutron bomb was designed to melt human flesh without damaging infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Something like it has blown up lots of people in the 2016 election and left behind empty institutions.<\/p>\n

After the current campaign \u2014 the maverick Trump candidacy, the Access Hollywood Trump tape, the FBI scandal, the Freedom of Information Act revelations, the WikiLeaks insider scoops on the Clinton campaign, the hacked e-mails, the fraudulent pay-for-play culture of the Clinton Foundation \u2014 the nuked political infrastructure may look the same. But almost everyone involved in the election has been neutroned.<\/p>\n

In theory, there are nominally still such things as a D.C. establishment, the Republican party, still abstractions known as \u201cfact-checking,\u201d still something in theory called \u201cdebate moderators,\u201d still ex-presidents\u2019 \u201cfoundations.\u201d But, in fact, after this campaign, these are now mere radiated shells.<\/p>\n

Who are the big losers of 2016, besides the two candidates themselves? The D.C. \u2018establishment\u2019 and its \u2018elites\u2019<\/p>\n

Collate the Podesta e-mails. Read Colin Powell\u2019s hacked communications. Review Hillary\u2019s Wall Street speeches and the electronic exchanges between the media, the administration, and the Clinton campaign. The conclusion is an incestuous world of hypocrisy, tsk-tsking condescension, sanitized shake-downs, inside profiteering, snobby high entertainment \u2014 and often crimes that would put anyone else in jail.<\/p>\n

The players are also quite boring and predictable.<\/p>\n

They live in a confined coastal cocoon. They went largely to the same schools, intermarried, traveled back and forth between big government, big banks, big military, big Wall Street, and big media \u2014 and sound quite clever without being especially bright, attuned to social justice but without character. Their religion is not so much progressivism, as appearing cool and hip and \u201cright\u201d on the issues. In this private world, off the record, Latinos are laughed off as \u201cneedy\u201d; Catholics are derided as near medieval and in need of progressive tutoring on gay issues. Hillary is deemed a grifter \u2014 but only for greedily draining the cash pools of the elite speaker circuit to the detriment of her emulators. Money \u2014 Podesta\u2019s Putin oil stocks, Russian autocrats\u2019 huge donations in exchange for deference from the Department of State, Gulf-oil-state-supplied free jet travel, Hillary\u2019s speaking fees \u2014 is the lubricant that makes the joints of these rusted people move. A good Ph.D. thesis could chart the number of Washington, D.C., insider flunkies who ended up working for Fannie Mae\/Freddie Mac or Goldman Sachs \u2014 the dumping grounds of the well-connected and mediocre.<\/p>\n

In this world, there are Bill and Hillary, the Podesta brothers, Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner, Christiane Amanpour and Jamie Rubin, Samantha Power and Cass Sunstein, Andrea Mitchell and Alan Greenspan, and on and on. Jorge Ramos goes after Trump; his daughter works for Hillary; and his boss at Univision badgers the Clinton campaign to stay lax on open borders \u2014 the lifeblood that nourishes his non-English-speaking money machine. George Stephanopoulos, who helped run the Clinton campaign and White House, and who as a debate moderator obsessed over Mitt Romney\u2019s answers to abortion hypotheticals, is the disinterested ABC News chief anchor.<\/p>\n

CNN vice president Virginia Moseley is married to Hillary Clinton\u2019s former deputy secretary at the State Department Tom Nides (now of Morgan Stanley) \u2014 suggesting \u201cThe Clinton News Network\u201d is not really a right-wing joke.<\/p>\n

Former ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron is married to Susan Rice, a \u2014 pre-Benghazi \u2014 regular on the Sunday talk shows.<\/p>\n

CBS president David Rhodes is the sibling of aspiring novelist Ben Rhodes, Obama\u2019s deputy national security adviser for \u201cstrategic communications and Speechwriting,\u201d whatever that fictive title means.<\/p>\n

ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman married former White House press secretary Jay Carney (now senior vice president for \u201cworldwide corporate affairs\u201d at Amazon: not just \u201ccorporate affairs\u201d or \u201cworldwide affairs\u201d but \u201cworldwide corporate affairs\u201d). And on and on. Is there a rule somewhere that requires a media kingpin to be married to a political operative or government official or like kind?<\/p>\n

These nice people report on each other. They praise each other, award each other, make money together, and bristle with each other when they are collectively and pejoratively dubbed the \u201celites.\u201d They write and sound off about the buffoon Trump and preen in sanctimonious moral outrage, as the rest of the country sees this supposedly lavishly robed imperial class as embarrassingly naked. If our version of El Escorial continues, something like the prognathic Habsburg jaw may begin to appear as an elite D.C. marker.<\/p>\n

As administration officials go in and out of lucrative banking, foundations, academia, and Wall Street posts, the idea of a permanent New York or Washington \u201cpower couple\u201d or \u201cpower family\u201d becomes more banal.<\/p>\n

Is there a rule somewhere that requires a media kingpin to be married to a political operative or government official or like kind? Can an opinion journalist not be actively involved, whether overtly or stealthily, in an ongoing campaign or married to a consultant who is? Is there a retiring high official who just goes home and calls it quits after his public service? Is Nebraska, Carson City, or Mississippi such an awful place after Chevy Chase, Georgetown, or Dupont Circle?<\/p>\n

The Republican Party<\/p>\n

What exactly is the Republican party? Has it any coherence or unity or shared ideas? Is it for legally enforced borders or \u201clet the market adjudicate\u201d free passage of inexpensive labor between countries? Fair or free trade? Assimilation and integration, or identity-politics lite? Cashing in on government service or against emeriti lobbying? Does it embrace traditional values or a slight slowing of the descent of popular culture? Does it want to reverse big government or ratchet it down somewhat?<\/p>\n

Is it against $1 trillion deficits, but okay with $500 million ones?<\/p>\n

Does it believe losing the presidential election nobly is preferable to winning it ugly? Does Obamacare need a tweak or two?<\/p>\n

Is it for a Jacksonian, don\u2019t tread-on-me foreign policy, or isolationism, or neocon nation building \u2014 all, some, or none?<\/p>\n

Are Trump\u2019s private boorishness and crudity worse for Republicans than Clinton\u2019s now quite public corruption and dishonesty?<\/p>\n

Atheist free-market conservatives seem to despise Trump\u2019s vulgarity more than do Christian Evangelicals \u2014 not necessarily on the grounds that they are less likely to say such Trumpian things in their own private lives than are fundamentalists, but because they find him so very gauche.<\/p>\n

No one quite knows what the party will become after Donald Trump sprinted away with the Republican nomination and then discovered that most of the Republican establishment, implicitly and explicitly, would rather lose to Hillary Clinton than win with him.<\/p>\n

Many said they quit the Republican party when Trump was nominated, as many perhaps will quietly quit when it returns to normalcy.<\/p>\n

After the election, don\u2019t expect a rapid reconciliation. The Trump base, often in nihilistic fashion, does not wish to be part of Paul Ryan\u2019s pragmatic world; and those who identify with the culture of the Wall Street Journal and the Chamber of Commerce have no desire to be seen with the NASCAR and tea-party crowd. For fleeting moments in the primaries a Marco Rubio or Scott Walker posed as a Reaganesque uniter, only to implode under national scrutiny and candidate infighting.<\/p>\n

The Presidential \u2018Foundation\u2019<\/p>\n

The presidential foundation is now a parody of itself.<\/p>\n

The Clinton Foundation Syndicate served largely as a sinecure for Clinton hangers-on between elections who were apparently otherwise unemployable. It offered free jet travel for the Clinton family. It oiled pay-for-play donations that would spin off into private speaking and consulting gigs for the insatiable Bill and Hillary. Oil profits \u2014 from Russia, the Persian Gulf, and the autocracies of the former Soviet Union \u2014 fueled the Clinton cash nexus. (How odd to oppose domestic fracking but to welcome carbon cash from medieval foreign petro-nations.)<\/p>\n

Many Republicans damn conservatives who would hold their nose and vote Trump in hopes of saving the Supreme Court or stopping the socialization of the federal government. They should spend a quarter of their time writing about the Clinton Foundation. In the past 50 years, have we ever seen anything quite like the listing of VIP foundation donors by name so they could cash in on Haitian relief contracts to pick over the carcass of a ravaged, impoverished nation \u2014 or blatant requests to medieval sheikdoms to send million-dollar presents or free jet service to the ex-president, the message routed by way of his secretary of state spouse? Dick Nixon would not have found a way to enrich himself on the backs of the Haitian refugees or think out loud about assassinating a troublesome political opponent.<\/p>\n

There are three models for ex-presidents and their foundations. One is Jimmy Carter\u2019s sanctimonious progressivism \u2014 of setting up a quite legitimate \u201ccenter,\u201d staying active in politics, and assuming a (sometimes tiring) role as senior citizen of the world who globetrots and editorializes on how humanity has disappointed him.<\/p>\n

A second is more or less genuine retirement in the fashion of George H. W. and George W. Bush; their respective foundations and libraries are largely apolitical. Neither comments much on contemporary politics, nor do they trash their successors. Painting or sky-diving is preferable to returning to the campaign trail or slicing Obama.<\/p>\n

The third is the Bill\/Hillary Clinton paradigm of non-stop electioneering, tawdry enrichment, and massaging the office of president emeritus and a presidential foundation to feather one\u2019s nest.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama will choose one of these three models, but it is likely that the most lucrative Clinton paradigm is now utterly discredited.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fact-checking\u2019<\/p>\n

Few any longer believe in fact-checking, largely because it was exposed as an arm of progressive campaigns.<\/p>\n

The embarrassing recent statements of Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, were a frightening synopsis of rank bias defined up as disinterested audit. So were the obsequious check-ins by toady journalists with the Clinton campaign to remind Podesta, Inc. of their own lack of ethics.<\/p>\n

Fact-checkers inordinately go after conservatives. Or they make up rules about what constitute \u201cfacts\u201d as they go along, providing context and supposed noble intent to water down progressive inaccuracies. Or they use adverbs like \u201cmostly\u201d to suggest that false liberal assertions are \u201cmostly\u201d true and other accurate statements of non-liberals are \u201cmostly\u201d false. Fact-checking is postmodern truth that depends on who says something and for what purpose.<\/p>\n

When Hillary Clinton in the second debate directed the audience to her own website to \u201cfact-check\u201d Trump, we came full circle from naivet\u00e9 to farce.<\/p>\n

Fact-checking might have been a neutral concept, not inherently better or worse than the original \u201cfacts\u201d themselves \u2014 given that it is entirely predicated on the character and ability of those who fact-check (who, as we see from WikiLeaks, can be just as sanctimonious and deceitful as the politicians they audit). Fact-checking in the age of the Internet arena will go the way of America Online or Myspace.<\/p>\n

Debate Moderators<\/p>\n

There are no such persons any longer as \u201cdebate moderators.\u201d The enterprise has devolved into artifice, in which the moderator is supposed to argue with the conservative candidate, \u201cfact-check\u201d him or her in mediis rebus, while being deferential to the like-minded progressive candidate.<\/p>\n

Debate moderators follow assumed premises: an Anderson Cooper, Candy Crawley, Lester Holt, or Martha Raddatz envision themselves as crusaders hammering away at selfish and dangerous conservatives, in behalf of an ignorant audience that needs their enlightened help to avoid being duped. In a few of the worst cases, a scheduled debate question is leaked to the liberal candidate to ensure she is not embarrassed.<\/p>\n

If a conservative candidate seems to have tied his opponent, the liberal moderator \u2014 witness a Matt Lauer \u2014 is considered a sell-out, soon to be shunned by the right people. Most are thus deterred from moderating \u201cincorrectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

After 2016, we should either let the candidates go at it, or, better yet, let robot time keepers run things. The 2016 campaign is not quite over, and there are a few neutron bombs left to go off \u2014 but for many of our accustomed fixtures it is too late. They are nuked, and nothing remains but their shells.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The shells of our institutions maybe survive the 2016 campaign, but they will be mere husks. The infamous neutron bomb was designed to melt human flesh without damaging infrastructure. Something like it has blown up lots of people in the 2016 election and left behind empty institutions. After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"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":[1092,1091,1090,111,225,145,11,23,31,187,46,185],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2tH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9353,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/politics-not-personalities-will-likely-determine-the-presidential-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":9529,"position":0},"title":"Politics, Not Personalities, Will Likely Determine the Presidential Election","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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":10394,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/russia-didnt-interfere-in-u-s-election-to-help-trump-but-to-destabilize-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":9529,"position":1},"title":"Russia Didn’t Interfere In U.S. Election To Help Trump, But To Destabilize America","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 17, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0By Paul Gregory \/\/ Forbes.com \u00a0(Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB\/AFP\/Getty Images) A still unidentified Democratic Party donor paid for the factually challenged\u00a0dossier that almost sunk the Donald Trump campaign. The dossier was created (and perhaps written) with the support and assistance of unregistered foreign agents of the Russian government,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/specials-images.forbesimg.com\/imageserve\/810247190\/960x0.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9595,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-blow-to-the-non-elite-elite\/","url_meta":{"origin":9529,"position":2},"title":"A Blow to the Non-Elite Elite","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Biased and incompetent elites polluted the 2016 election, and they are getting what they deserved. There were a lot of losers in this election, well beyond Hillary Clinton and the smug, incompetent pollsters and know-it-all, groupthink pundits who embarrassed themselves. From hacked e-mail troves\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":9576,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/has-clinton-topped-nixon\/","url_meta":{"origin":9529,"position":3},"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":9529,"position":4},"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":9574,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/never-trump-republicans-spoilers-or-saviors\/","url_meta":{"origin":9529,"position":5},"title":"Never Trump Republicans: Spoilers or Saviors?","author":"Megan Ring","date":"November 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review If enough of them decide that Hillary\u2019s corruption is too much to take, she could be finished, at last. Will there be an eleventh-hour Never\/Against\/No Trump Reconsideration? The question gains new relevance as a Hillary Clinton landslide, widely predicted until recently, now seems\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9529"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9529"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9533,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9529\/revisions\/9533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}