Trump and Reagan

Some comparisons between the Reagan administration and what may happen in the Trump administration:

Seems to me there were three power centers in the Reagan administration: the true believers (Reaganauts), the establishment (most notably Baker), and Nancy.  Over the course of the administration each group won some.  There may be a similar dynamic for Trump:

• the establishment would be Priebus, Ryan and McConnell
• the Trumpites would be Bannon, Giuliani, Sessions
• the children would be Nancy.

In the Reagan administration over time the establishment outlasted most of the Reaganauts--Schultz, Baker, and Weinberger--and tended to have the major policy posts  The Trumpites like Hickel (Interior), Block (USDA) and Pierce (HUD) ended up with lesser posts and scandals and major snafus.  Nancy protected her husband's longrange image, which is the role I see for the children (their future is their name, their inheritance is their name).

Hypocrisy or Just a Matter of Time?

Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy notes it's time to turn our clocks back to before Obama, so liberals and conservatives will switch places on matters of principles.

Schadenfreude: Both Sides

I was going to label the first sentence of this paragraph of a NYTimes article as the best sentence of November:

Mr. Trump will have no immunity from lawsuits involving his corporate ventures, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling involving Paula Jones, one of President Bill Clinton’s accusers. And nothing will stop Mr. Trump’s family from continuing to run its vast international web of businesses. Federal ethics laws and conflict-of-interest statutes that apply to other federal employees and cabinet members do not apply to the president.

But fairness compels me to note that Obama did expand the scope of the President's powers, so we liberals will be mourning that in a few months. 

Why Rural Areas Went Trump

One factor I haven't seen mentioned (which was IIRC key to Truman's victory in 1948): bad economics for farmers.  Prices are down, land values are down.  For example, per bushel corn prices have declined from $6.89 to $3.61 in four years.

Good News for Some, Bad for Others

Gun maker stocks took a big hit after Trump's win.

What If? Immigration First?

Matt Yglesias asks somewhere what would have been the result if Comey's letter had come out earlier and Trump's video had come out later?  The moral is the effect of contingency.

Along somewhat different lines, what would have happened had Obama opted to put immigration reform first, and health care second back in the first days of his presidency?  I could argue that there was a deal to be made on immigration (almost had one in the last year of GWBush's presidency) that would have reduced the heat the issue had this year.  If he'd then failed to pass Obamacare, the Tea Party uproar in 2010 might have been less effective, meaning less energy for the populist resentment this year.  And having passed immigration reform might have improved the Latino support for Clinton this year.

Of course, with all those what-ifs, Trump might not have become the nominee. 

Social Media and the Government

Dan Drezner has a couple posts at the Post about the future.  I commented this way on one
which included a discussion of some of the structural constraints on Trump:

You fail to note one factor not present in the past: social media.  Is the government much more permeable and transparent because of it?  Remember Nixon's tapes were secret and only revealed by accident.  Clinton's emails were hacked. Anyone with a gripe, justified or unjustified, can now find a speaking trumpet. Or does social media tend to empower the more extreme partisans, further dissolving the moderate middle?

The Hidden Toll of Gay Marriage

Does anyone remember it's been just a year and a half since same-sex marriage became legal nation-wide?  I didn't, and was surprised when I looked it up.

I may be the only one, but it seemed to me that the nation had quickly moved on to other things so issue quickly receded into the rear-view mirror.  Is it possible that the "elites" have assumed that relative silence (except over issuing marriage licenses, photography, baking) means the nation had accepted it? 

What if that assumption was wrong? Even though President-elect Trump didn't talk about it that I remember, and the Republican convention didn't make a big deal of it (not that I watched the speeches), perhaps one of the (many) reasons whites and some African-Americans went more strongly for Trump than Clinton is resentment that the rules were imposed from the top, by the lawyers and the Supreme Court? 

I Was Wrong

See this, and should retire as a predictor but I'm still optimistic.

Voted in 5 Minutes

That may be an exaggeration,but we parked, walked up the sidewalk to the elementary school, picking up a Democratic sample ballot, walked into the gymnasium and up to one of about seven desks, handed in drivers license which was scanned, repeated my name and address, the poll worker repeated it into a recording device, gave me a card to take to another station where I picked up the ballot.  Was directed by another worker to a long line of cubicles, sat down, filled in the ovals, got up and went to the scanning station where my ballot was scanned and accepted.  No lines.

Of course this was at 1:12 pm. I took this as I waited for my wife.  The initial reception stations are behind the woman on the right, the cubicles to complete the ballot are behind the divider on the left, the scanning station is at the immediate left.  All in all it was a new system and impressive.