Tag Archives: sullydish

Anti-woke, anti-Trump

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This is a small and interesting subset of commentators. See Coleman Hughes and Andrew Sullivan/Sam Harris.

My framework for looking at various aspects of the Presidential contest is to think in terms of probabilities. Given my preferences, what is the probability that the outcome of a Trump victory would be significantly better? What is the probability that a Biden victory would be significantly better? What is the probability of no significant difference?

For example, Sullivan and Harris argue vehemently that the response to the virus under President Trump was much worse than it should have been. From my framework, I do not see that. On March 19, I wrote Fire the Peacetime Bureaucrats, and I stand by the view that the top career officials at FDA and CDC should have been replaced by a crew with open minds, high energy and determination, and outstanding management skills. I would say that the probability that Biden would rely much more than Trump on the peacetime bureaucrats by a significant amount would be about 8 percent. The probability that Biden would instead find better people to rely on would be about 2 percent. The probability that neither Trump nor Biden would find better people to rely on is 90 percent.

I should say that I do not think that a Kamala Harris Administration would be much different from a Biden Administration. Although it is possible that in a Biden Administration she could slide into a role as ambassador to the radical left, my intuition is that she herself has no deep-seated beliefs, radical or otherwise.

So, on the aspects that I care most about, here goes. Depending on who wins–

1. Four years from now, will the Woke movement be stronger or weaker?

Hughes, Sullivan, and Harris argue that the Woke movement will be weaker if Biden wins. Hughes makes the important point that the Woke movement is cultural, and it would be a mistake to over-estimate the power of Presidential support or opposition to affect it.

One might hope that with Trump off stage, people on the moderate left would feel more inclined to distance themselves from the radicals. I think that is what these anti-Woke commentators are counting on, but I don’t see it as likely. If Biden wins, my friends who live conservatively and vote progressively are still going to keep their Black Lives Matter signs on their lawns. My guess is that Woke Capitalism will continue to march ahead. etc.

The ultra-Woke institutions of higher education and the K-12 establishment are likely to get much more help from a Biden Administration than from a Trump Administration. If you want to see more children in charter schools and more high school graduates finding alternatives to matriculating at Indoctrinate U, you want Trump to win. I put the probability of no significant difference at 70 percent, the probability of a better outcome under Biden at 5 percent, and the probability of a better outcome under Trump at 25 percent.

2. Will the politicization of everything be more or less?

This is where I find Hughes, Sullivan, and Harris most persuasive. Trump is a provocateur, and that is not helpful for turning down the political heat. Yes, you can blame radical leftists for politicization, but their antics are given. At the margin, a Biden Presidency seems to me to be less likely to add fuel to the fire. So I would put the probability of no significant difference at 70 percent, the probability that things would be better under Biden at 25 percent, and the probability that things would be better under Trump at 5 percent.

3. Will the President attract and retain good people?

My sense is that HUD Secretary Carson and Education Secretary DeVos have moved in policy directions that I like, and I give President Trump credit for retaining them. In foreign policy, I think that Trump’s mistreatment of his appointees is very risky. So far, we have survived without a major disaster, but I am not confident that will continue. Overall, I think that President Trump has not done a good job of attracting and retaining good people, and that is an important weakness. I think it is likely that Biden will appoint people who are more effective in achieving results but who push policies that I strongly oppose. So on this one I would rate the probability of no significant difference as 30 percent, the probability that Trump works out better [for me] as 40 percent, and the probability that Biden works out better as 30 percent. I give Biden as high a probability as I do because I fear some major avoidable mis-step on foreign policy under Trump, due to a thin team.

Tell us what you really think

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When Andrew Sullivan castigates the illiberal left, I believe that he is on point. When he castigates President Trump, I believe that he is over the top and unfair. This either says something about his bias or mine.

Regarding the President, Andrew Sullivan wrote,

But it’s also vital to understand that the most powerful enabler of this left extremism has been Trump himself. He has delegitimized capitalism by his cronyism, corruption, and indifference to dangerously high levels of inequality. He has tainted conservatism indelibly as riddled with racism, xenophobia, paranoia, misogyny, and derangement. Every hoary stereotype leveled against the right for decades has been given credence by the GOP’s support for this monster of a human being. If moderates have any chance of defanging the snake of wokeness, and its attempt to deconstruct our Enlightenment inheritance, we must begin with removing the cancer of Trump from the body politic. It is not an ordinary cancer. It is metastasizing across the republic and spreading to the lifeblood of our democracy itself. Removing it will not be enough. But not removing it is democratic death.

For me, the case for hoping that a Biden election would calm the political waters rests on assuming the following:

1. The liberal left does not in its heart support the illiberal left.
2. Once the liberal left does not have to contend with President Trump, it will seek to contain the illiberal left.

Conservative intellectuals who support Trump’s re-election doubt that these two assumptions are true. Many conservatives believe that (1) is false. See Michael Anton or Victor Davis Hanson. Others believe that (2) is false. See Yoram Hazony, who I think believes that the liberal left is too weak-kneed to confront the illiberal left without the help of conservatives.