{"id":9795,"date":"2017-02-01T11:11:51","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T19:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9795"},"modified":"2017-02-07T06:25:59","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T14:25:59","slug":"our-game-of-thrones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-game-of-thrones\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Game of Thrones"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>The Corner<br \/>\nThe one and only.<\/h4>\n<p>by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ <em>National Review<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration\u2019s flurry of reversing the earlier flurry of Obama executive orders and the Left\u2019s hysterical response is proving a sort of strategic Game of Thrones.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s opponents believe that they are bleeding him from a thousand nicks. Without the requisite political clout, their ultimate goal is to drive crazy uncomfortable Republican establishmentarians and force them into a fetal position where they beg for it all to just go away, turning on their own first rather than their adversaries. Or they wish to create such universal chaos that bend-with-the-wind federal judges go with the flow and start issuing endless injunctions in a way they rarely did with Obama\u2019s executive orders.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The model is Watergate, Iran-Contra, or the summer of 2006, when the furious rhetoric almost made and in one case did make presidential governance impossible. Given the current role of a biased media (it acted quite differently during the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, the flagrant lying about its impact, and the imploding AFC website), they hope to so increase the temperature that everyone melts down, with the goal of the in-power people liquefying first. They assume their blanket obstructionism will not suffer the public-relations boomerang that damaged the Republicans during shutdowns of the Clinton administration and slowdowns to stop Obama, given the media megaphone broadcasting their cause.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, the Trump people may believe that the Left is becoming so unhinged that their inflated rhetoric has lost all credibility and eventually becomes counter-productive. In Napoleonic terms by attacking everything, the Left is attacking nothing.<\/p>\n<p>Second, by raising the stakes, they bring out of the woodwork the true malevolence of the Left such as the adolescent boycott of the inauguration by many in the Congress, the unprofessionalism of the media typified by the Martin Luther King bust fiasco or Michael Cohen\u2019s nonexistent Prague meetings, the unhinged behavior of the acting attorney general, the repulsive rhetoric of a Madonna or Ashley Judd, and the creepy talk of journalists abroad of assassination.<\/p>\n<p>In that sense, the executive orders are pheromones that draw out and expose unattractive predators.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p>Where does this stand-off lead and how does it end?<\/p>\n<p>Who knows, but the Trump people, in strategic terms, need in advance to configure the third- and fourth-order effects of their executive orders to ensure:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>that they are seen as reactive to preexisting extremism (e.g., sanctuary-city policies are subversive and reactionary Confederate\/states\u2019-rights acts that lead to George Wallace\u2013like nihilism),<\/li>\n<li>that they are seen as refining prior presidential precedents (e.g., Obama gave them the example of temporary suspending visas to Middle Easterners and identifying particular countries that posed increased risks),<\/li>\n<li>that they are anticipating criticism (e.g., they might have exempted green-card holders and helpers of the U.S. military abroad from their temporary halt in immigration from areas of the Middle East),<\/li>\n<li>that they are putting the onus on their opponents (e.g., placing temporary and small \u2014 and therefore likely to be paid rather than circumvented \u2014 duties on remittances instead of a trade tariff-like fee would remind the American taxpayer that he should not, even indirectly, have to pay for building the wall, and reassure Mexico the U.S. is not leveling fees on those Mexican citizens who did not come into the United States illegally, given at present U.S. social services often subsidize the freeing-up of cash for remittances, a great majority of which come from those residing in the U.S. illegally).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, finally, that their policies are understood as focused and sober (e.g., the travel ban affects a minuscule number of would-be entrants in an otherwise generous policy of accepting up to 50,000 newcomers; the wall is normal practice in much of the world (Israel, the Gulf States, increasingly in Europe), and we are trying not to react in kind to Mexico, given that Mexico\u2019s own immigration practices, both in terms of punishment and questions of race and ethnicity, are in some sense racist and draconian).<\/p>\n<p>The loser, as in all strategic collisions, is he who more slowly misreads constantly shifting public opinion and is more guided by ideological zeal rather than empiricism and so doubles down on rather than modifies a failing strategy.<\/p>\n<p>The best indices of who seems to be getting the upper-hand are of course polls on particular issues and on Trump\u2019s favorability \u2014 and the unity or lack of among congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review The Trump administration\u2019s flurry of reversing the earlier flurry of Obama executive orders and the Left\u2019s hysterical response is proving a sort of strategic Game of Thrones. Trump\u2019s opponents believe that they are bleeding him from a thousand nicks. Without the requisite political [&hellip;]<\/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":[1092,145,846,31,187,46,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2xZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10142,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-the-obama-precedent-empowered-trump\/","url_meta":{"origin":9795,"position":0},"title":"How the Obama Precedent Empowered Trump","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness.com April 27th, 2017 Donald Trump was elected president by sizing up the Electoral College, and the voting public, and then campaigning accordingly. A number of the things that explain Trump\u2019s election also point to unique opportunities to overturn the Obama legacy. This, in turn,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Trump&quot;","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":10686,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trumps-constructive-chaos\/","url_meta":{"origin":9795,"position":1},"title":"Trump\u2019s Constructive Chaos","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas Almost daily, President Trump manages to incense the media, alarm the world abroad, and enrage his Democratic opposition. Not since Ronald Reagan\u2019s first year in office has change and disruption come so fast from the White House. Let\u2019s consider foreign affairs first. In response\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sports&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sports","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/sports\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10756,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10756-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":9795,"position":2},"title":"11\/27\/2017 From an Angry Reader:\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"11\/27\/2017 From an Angry Reader: \u00a0 Rarely have I read such infuriating nonsense as intellectual outlier Victor Davis Hanson spouts in his thoroughly delusional commentary about Trump. I know he\u2019s been a blind Trumpeter since the con artist\u2019s campaign began, and he remains steadfast in defending the indefensible. His pack\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Angry Reader&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9671,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/9671-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":9795,"position":3},"title":"From an Angry Reader: Re:\u2026","author":"Megan Ring","date":"December 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: Re: Obama's initiatives What a horrible president and yet, 57% approval rating! Wow! How is that possible! I think he did quite well considering that Republicans vowed on the first day not to work with him and never did! \u00a0Connie Knapp Victor Davis Hanson's Reply: Dear\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Angry Reader&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9797,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/when-normalcy-is-revolution\/","url_meta":{"origin":9795,"position":4},"title":"When Normalcy Is Revolution","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Trump\u2019s often unorthodox style shouldn\u2019t be confused with his otherwise practical and mostly centrist agenda. By 2008, America was politically split nearly 50\/50 as it had been in 2000 and 2004. The Democrats took a gamble and nominated Barack Obama, who became the first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Trump&quot;","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":8897,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/transitioning-to-the-post-obama-era\/","url_meta":{"origin":9795,"position":5},"title":"Transitioning to the Post-Obama Era","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJMedia How will the country wake up from its coma in 2016 to reality in 2017? Next year the lame-duck, legacy-starved Obama administration will double down on its executive orders, bureaucratic fiats, and circumvention of the law. 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