Trump on the qualities he’d look for in a Supreme Court justice

Here’s Politico:

Trump: I’d pick justices who would look at Clinton’s email scandal

Donald Trump on Wednesday fired back at Hillary Clinton, remarking that he would likely nominate Supreme Court justices who “would look very seriously at her email disaster.” . . .

“Well, I’d probably appoint people that would look very seriously at her email disaster because it’s a criminal activity, and I would appoint people that would look very seriously at that to start off with,” Trump said in a phone interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “What she’s getting away with is absolutely murder. You talk about a case — now that’s a real case.”

Yes, I think the most essential quality of any Supreme Court justice is that they commit to persecute the set of people that the President considers his enemies.

This race is completely beyond parody.  There’s really no difference any longer between The Onion and the mainstream media.

And top GOP officials are endorsing this guy?  Everyone assumes he’ll start acting sane once he’s got the nomination wrapped up.  But what if this is the real Trump? What if he’s too dumb to fake being qualified for President?

And what if it were true that Trump is a stalking horse, secretly try to get his buddy Hillary elected.  He’s trying to lose by saying one outrageous thing after another. But now suppose he wins, despite trying to lose.

Springtime for Hitler?

(Perhaps the only Hitler analogy that actually fits Trump.)


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60 Responses to “Trump on the qualities he’d look for in a Supreme Court justice”

  1. Gravatar of Oderus Urungus Oderus Urungus
    18. May 2016 at 09:47

    Art Deco’s kosher Pope:

    https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/tag/pope-francis-hides-pectoral-cross/

  2. Gravatar of Bill Bill
    18. May 2016 at 09:58

    Bombastic Chauncey Gardner

  3. Gravatar of Bill Bill
    18. May 2016 at 09:59

    Evil Chauncey Gardner.

    More come to mind.

  4. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    18. May 2016 at 10:01

    This is over 6 weeks old.

    I’m also a bit surprised that you still don’t get Trump’s rhetoric style and persuasion skills. He could answer this question in the usual way most politicians do. For example: “I’ll nominate boring Mr. X who nobody knows. Or: I don’t know yet. Who cares?”

    But he doesn’t. He leads this question in a totally different direction and uses it for a direct attack against Hillary. His answer is not about Supreme Court justices at all but about Hillary. He wants to leave an imprint in your mind about one of Hillary’s biggest scandals. That’s all this answer is about.

    It seems to be a quite brilliant method so far. Libertarian and liberal economic professors might not fall for this. But you are hardly his target audience anyway.

  5. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    18. May 2016 at 10:35

    Scott, you write:

    “And top GOP officials are endorsing this guy?”

    I don’t see anything surprising in that at all. What about the last eight years of GOP behavior would indicate they’d do otherwise?

  6. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    18. May 2016 at 10:38

    Christian List:

    Yes because entertainment value is the most important quality in a president. Being qualified for office is soooooooooo boring!

  7. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    18. May 2016 at 11:11

    I love the 1st paragraph of this mea culpa about bad Trump predictions:
    http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-i-acted-like-a-pundit-and-screwed-up-on-donald-trump/

    It’s curious to me that Nate emphasizes making predictions with mathematical models and the learning opportunities that provides. What’s to prevent that from being the standard in all other fields?

  8. Gravatar of TA TA
    18. May 2016 at 11:12

    You could rename this blog “Perseveration about Trump.”

  9. Gravatar of Scott H. Scott H.
    18. May 2016 at 11:14

    I agree with Christian List. It’s not about entertainment. It’s about keeping to subjects that favor Trump, and don’t favor Hillary.

    President Trump will never ask any of those questions to prospective supreme court justice candidates.

  10. Gravatar of ghirlandaio ghirlandaio
    18. May 2016 at 11:25

    Hi Scott,

    From the previous thread……

    If I needed precise information on what exactly the fed can and cannot do legally, I would contact Alan Meltzer at Carnegie Mellon. But he’s almost 90, so I don’t know how with-it he still is.

    http://tepper.cmu.edu/our-faculty-and-research/about-our-faculty/faculty-profiles/am05/meltzer-allan

    Also,

    There is a Boston lawyer living in the DC/Virginia area called Edwin Vieira Jr. who wrote a fairly obscure 2 volume history of the american monetary system from a legal standpoint ( Pieces of Eight). He is a very impressive guy.,,not sure if he is the type of guy who you could just call with questions, but I will cold call him for you if you want me to, and see if he is open to chatting with you.

    http://www.amazon.com/Pieces-Eight-Disabilities-Constitution-Foundation/dp/0967175917

  11. Gravatar of james elizondo james elizondo
    18. May 2016 at 11:49

    #34 scott. Not bad

    https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/top-economics-blogs-2016/

  12. Gravatar of Gary Anderson Gary Anderson
    18. May 2016 at 11:55

    You hit it out of the park, Scott. This is the real Trump. He has been acting this way for over 20 years. He destroyed the USFL. He testified against native Americans saying they didn’t look native enough.

    This is the real Trump. The Republicans are committing political suicide. People will never forget their lack of judgement in supporting this freak.

  13. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    18. May 2016 at 11:59

    Trump’s been through enough lawsuits that he cannot but understand the function of appellate judges in broad outline. (In any case, his sister’s a retired judge). I’d have to agree with CL. This was a diversionary answer.

  14. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    18. May 2016 at 12:03

    And top GOP officials are endorsing this guy?

    Why do you expect working politicians to trash their own nominee? They have to consider the alternatives (Hellary, among others), their own public, their own nexus of relationships. They’re not in the business of performing for others at the faculty rathskellar.

  15. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    18. May 2016 at 12:37

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/us/politics/donald-trump-supreme-court-nominees.html

    Trump floats a list of judges for consideration.

  16. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    18. May 2016 at 13:05

    Martin Feldstein in search of the lost secrets of the Incas;

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/ending-the-feds-inflation-fixation-1463526125

    ———-quote———-
    A fundamental problem with an explicit inflation target is the difficulty of knowing if it has been hit. The index of consumer prices that the Fed targets should in principle measure how much more it costs to buy goods and services that create the same value for consumers as the goods and services that they bought the year before. Estimating that cost would be an easy task for the national income statisticians if consumers bought the same things year after year. But the things that we buy are continually evolving, with improvements in quality and with the introduction of new goods and services. These changes imply that our dollars buy goods and services with greater value year after year.

    Adjusting the price index for these changes is an impossibly difficult task. The methods used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics fail to capture the extent of quality improvements and don’t even try to capture the value created by new goods and services.

    …. With a margin of error [so] large, it makes no sense to focus monetary policy on trying to hit a precise inflation target. ….

    The Federal Reserve should now eliminate the explicit inflation target policy that it adopted less than five years ago. The Fed should instead emphasize its commitment to avoiding both high inflation and declining nominal wages.
    ———–endquote———

    But, the reason is….‘That would permit it to raise interest rates more rapidly today and to pursue a sounder monetary policy in the years ahead.’

    My bolds above.

  17. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    18. May 2016 at 13:13

    @Tom Brown
    You missed the point. This is not about entertainment. It’s about persuasion tactics. Never admit that you don’t have a list for example. Switch the topic and go into attack mode. That’s how you do it.


    Being qualified for office is soooooooooo boring!

    This argument is getting extremely boring itself. It was never true. US President is not an occupation that requires formal training. There’s no US President school or US President college you need to visit.

    There are only like 3-4 qualifications you need to become US President. You need to be a natural born citizen, you need to be 25 years old and you need to be resident for 14 years. That’s all. Then you need to get elected and then you are US President. It’s that *easy*. If you Trump haters are not happy with that then you’ll need to change the constitution.

    And speaking of ssumner being 6 weeks late: Trump published a list of 11 potential supreme court justices today.
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/18/trump-unveils-list-11-potential-supreme-court-justices.html

  18. Gravatar of Matthew Waters Matthew Waters
    18. May 2016 at 13:47

    Trump doesn’t even understand that appointing SC justices does absolutely nothing to prosecute Hillary. Only the US Attorneys prosecute federal cases and then the SC only rules after appeals have been exhausted. And very few cases actually go to the SC. A hypothetical case against Hillary would be very unlikely to have any questions of law worthy of Certiorari.

    “This argument is getting extremely boring itself. It was never true. US President is not an occupation that requires formal training. There’s no US President school or US President college you need to visit.”

    This is also true of, say, a CEO of a major corporation. You could make me CEO of GE tomorrow and it would take a long time for anybody to notice how unqualified I am. There’s no specific qualifications and so people like Mark Zuckerberg are CEO’s.

    Does that mean there aren’t good CEO’s and bad CEO’s? Of course not.

    Being President is not exactly the same as a CEO. The President spends much of their time pushing agendas through Congress and creating messaging for their preferred policy. CEO’s have mostly unlimited bounds for corporate policy, with only very large transactions requiring board or shareholder approval. By contrast, the executive branch is tightly controlled by statutes. Even rules from the executive branch must go through the Administrative Procedure Act procedures.

    So a President spends most of their time pushing their preferred policy, either through Congress or through messaging. So former Congress members and governors have experience with that. On policy, Trump is all over the place and generally his policies are nuts, often with an authoritarian and big government flavor. Because he has little regard for practicality or details, his policies often fail in their stated goals. If he wants to put Hillary on his enemies list, SC justices would not accomplish that goal at all.

    Then the President also has wide discretion from Congress on foreign policy and on their appointments of cabinet secretaries and board members of independent agencies. As an executive, Trump appears to have valued his image and loyalty from subordinates above all else. Depending on Trump’s actual worth, he has done much less with his inheritance than investing in index funds. Joe Nocera has a good article on his ownership of the New Jersey Generals and the ensuing failure of the USFL. For the USFL, his bluster and impetuousness led to many poor decisions which ultimately bankrupted the USFL.

    Most fundamentally, my opposition to Trump is a fear of his authoritarian policies and rhetoric. But he’s also unqualified to be a good executive of the federal government.

  19. Gravatar of Mark Mark
    18. May 2016 at 13:48

    Well, our current attorney general did seriously entertain the idea of opening RICO prosecutions against people or institutions that publicly disagree with anthropogenic global warming, and Hillary Clinton unabashedly wants to influence the Supreme Court to overturn a decision in which it allowed a nonprofit group to *gasp* make a documentary criticizing her.

    All in all, despicable as it is, Trumps remark here seems more par for the course regarding current popular political attitudes about the law than some outlier of looniness.

  20. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    18. May 2016 at 14:20

    Trump is trying to win -and doing it:

    https://twitter.com/PollsAndVotes/status/732957375972265984

    “And what if it were true that Trump is a stalking horse, secretly try to get his buddy Hillary elected.”

    https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4juzdg/if_i_dont_go_all_the_way_ill_consider_it_a_total/

  21. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    18. May 2016 at 14:21

    Also, Scott, why don’t you focus a little on Hillary: the only other serious candidate in this race.

  22. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    18. May 2016 at 14:22

    One thing is true: Trump isn’t gonna make his wife be in charge of the economy.

  23. Gravatar of TravisV TravisV
    18. May 2016 at 14:38

    Yikes! Over the past three weeks, as oil prices have risen, inflation expectations through 2021 have held steady but inflation expectations from 2021 to 2026 have fallen substantially. Seems reasonable that the oil price increase has had a stronger impact on the former than on the latter…….

    https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=4vDB

    https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=4vDk

  24. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    18. May 2016 at 14:48

    http://www.theonion.com/graphic/donald-trumps-campaign-myth-vs-fact-52913

  25. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    18. May 2016 at 15:10

    Sumner’s been thinking of this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springtime_for_Hitler

    I thought this was a econ log? Well, not really, it’s never been that.

  26. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    18. May 2016 at 16:12

    Yes Trump is bombastic.

    George W. Bush was not.

    The US got into two fantastically expensive evidently unwinnable but permanent wars under Bush jr. For that matter, Obama prosecuted Afghanistan his entire administration, to prop up a notoriously corrupt narco-state. Unsuccessfully, it appears, and with Hillary’s support.

    The human misery of those two wars….

    Will Trump be worse than the “normal” candidates?

  27. Gravatar of Clark Clark
    18. May 2016 at 16:22

    Matthew

    Christian is semi-trolling with the “persuasion” techniques that Scott Adams (Dilbert) writes about on his blog. It’s pretty dopey, but it has to be said it looked kind of convincing in the GOP primaries. Trump did win against great odds. But the GOP electorate has been hoodwinked for years, imo. It’s not that different. I suspect the salesman techniques Trump uses won’t be so effective on the general electorate.

  28. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    18. May 2016 at 16:39

    Add on: Trump released a list of Supreme Court picks. Typical GOP hacks. Like the judge they would replace.

  29. Gravatar of TravisV TravisV
    18. May 2016 at 17:13

    Noah Smith wrote a good long review of Bernanke’s book:

    http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2016/05/review-ben-bernankes-courage-to-act.html

  30. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    18. May 2016 at 17:39

    Typical GOP hacks. Like the judge they would replace

    Only in the mind of a worthless Democratic Party press agent.

  31. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    18. May 2016 at 18:24

    “I suspect the salesman techniques Trump uses won’t be so effective on the general electorate.”

    -Why not? People are people.

  32. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    18. May 2016 at 18:56

    Art Deco–

    Our founding fathers wanted a citizen-soldier military. Enshrined in the Constitution is the right of citizens to not only have guns, but to form militias and “bear arms.” Foreign entanglement war frowned upon.

    Even back then in the Revolutionary War days, arms included rockets, cannons and bio-weapons (the use of smallpox against Native Americans).

    I never heard Scalia utter peep-boo against the professional, hyper-mobilized, globally entangled federalized military we have today, and Scalia’s 2000 “Bush For President” decision GOP-hackery at the worst. I bought Al Gore was the most boring man on the planet, btw.

    Even more laughably, the Constitution was a compromise document, with many meanings and wordings left blurry to get agreement. A literal interpretation is not feasible, and different authors had different intentions.

    I am more on the libertarian side of the fence than anything. The Donlks and ‘Phasst—well, think Mancur Olson. All the same.

    The GOP is is a collection of interest groups, that want their hands on your wallet. They seem to have a nationalistic-socialistic warmongering streak as well, although Trump may not.

    The VA, btw, is a communist health program for former federal employees, housed in federal facilities and staffed by federal employees.

    You recall Scalia ranting against the VA? Any GOP’er?

    The biggest backer of the VA, outside the GOP, is…Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist.

    There is difference between the GOP and the Donks?

  33. Gravatar of Oderus Urungus Oderus Urungus
    18. May 2016 at 19:04

    @cole

    Don’t bother, he’s your typical brain-dead movement conservative. Slap on the word “military”, and he’ll support anything he’d otherwise decry as “socialist”.

  34. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    18. May 2016 at 19:08

    “Springtime for Hitler?”

    This blog is a parody.

  35. Gravatar of Mark Mark
    18. May 2016 at 19:30

    “There are only like 3-4 qualifications you need to become US President. You need to be a natural born citizen, you need to be 25 years old and you need to be resident for 14 years. That’s all. Then you need to get elected and then you are US President. It’s that *easy*. If you Trump haters are not happy with that then you’ll need to change the constitution.”

    No, they need to be 35 years old. And if you are incapable of understanding the difference between the words ‘can’ and ‘should’ then you forfeit the right to be taken seriously.

    A “qualification” is not the same as a formal requisite. There most certainly are qualifications for being president. Being smart; having good policy ideas; being mentally healthy; not being a sociopath or a narcissist. Donald lacks all of these qualifications.

    Of course you can elect a sociopathic mentally disabled schizophrenic who plans to salt all the arable land in the country once elected if you really want to, no rule against it. But then you may as well just be a petulant child rubbing his feces all over the walls of his parents’ home for no other reason than ‘because he can.’

  36. Gravatar of Mark Mark
    18. May 2016 at 19:32

    Oderus Urungus: “”Slap on the word “military”, and he’ll support anything he’d otherwise decry as “socialist”.”
    Yeah, that’s basically the concise version of the GOP platform these days.

  37. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    18. May 2016 at 20:05

    “Being smart; having good policy ideas; being mentally healthy; not being a sociopath or a narcissist.”

    -Trump is smart; he has a good brain. He had the best policy ideas of the entire Presidential field. He is extremely mentally healthy, making no obvious mistakes throughout his campaign (except for that abortion remark), and he is, as most people who know him attest, neither a sociopath nor a narcissist.

  38. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    18. May 2016 at 20:23

    Choosing a supreme Court judge on the basis of ideas is a singular proposition that logically entails “persecution of one’s enemies”.

    This is because the proposition is based on a collectivist view of mankind.

    It doesn’t matter if you phrase it in a way that focuses only on the side of defending one’s friends. Your choice also necessarily entails persecuting one’s enemies.

    That is what collectivism does. It creates friends and enemies.

    Only individualism avoids this trap.

    Sorry Sumner, you’re no better than Trump. Your choice for who should be Fed chair? Go ahead, phrase it in a way that focuses only on helping “people” or “society”, which is really and truly a mere subset of the population. Everyone else who are harmed, they are those you are persecuting. Just because you are not focusing on that persecution, it doesn’t mean you are not advocating for persecuting your enemies. It is exactly how Trump seeking to persecute his enemies logically entails defending his friends. One group against another group. That is the game YOU choose to play. You seem to only grasp this when the tide turns on you and you personally experience it. It is a rather childish way of learning about the world.

  39. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    18. May 2016 at 20:27

    Sumner, do you know what Utilitarianism entails? It is persecution of the minority.

    The minority, in your anti-libertarian worldview, are the enemies. They are sacrificed for the sake of the majority. This is what you want. This is what you call good and moral. Going after the minority simply because they are in the minority, and no other reason. This is what you sprinkle with “pragmatist” pixie dust.

  40. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    18. May 2016 at 20:45

    Scott,

    I know you’re a busy man, and probably don’t have time to listen to this whole thing (1/2 hour), but I found this pretty interesting: It’s done by youtuber “Sargon of Akkad” who spends a large percentage of his time criticizing what he calls the “regressive left” for their racism, sexism, political correctness, tribalism, propensity to play the victim card, authoritarianism and collectivism. However, in this video he takes a look at the other side of the coin: the so called “alt-right”: and though there are many nuances, he essentially concludes they are the mirror image of the regressive leftists (my conclusion as well, BTW): tribalists, white-nationalists, claiming they’re the victims of “white genocide,” and advocating authoritarian and collectivist measures of their own to promote white culture and white national preservation. And though they won’t admit it (he conjectures), like their regressive left counterparts, there’s plenty of irrational emotionalism at the heart of it.

    He points out that it’s far from a homogeneous movement with many disagreements and a diversity of thought on many of the core issues. For example, racial attitudes range from out and out racist and antisemitic (a vocal minority) to rejection of white supremacy (but still desirous of the preservation of the white majority though racial segregation and minimized immigration). My summary here of his survey and conclusions over simplifies significantly.

    Anyway, I thought you might like it. It *may* help you to understand some of your more fanatical and dedicated Trump supporting commentators, and why some of them seem forgiving of collectivism and authoritarianism. Also it may shed some insight on the anti-enlightenment irrational emotionalism driving some of the racial anxiety at the heart of the movement.

    Enjoy!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp0uq-QafYQ

  41. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    18. May 2016 at 20:49

    @Tom Brown

    -I linked to that in my Marginal Counterrevolution Assorted Links when it came out. I found it mostly fair to the alt-right and its champions.

  42. Gravatar of mark mark
    18. May 2016 at 21:03

    Harding: “Trump is smart; he has a good brain. He had the best policy ideas of the entire Presidential field. He is extremely mentally healthy, making no obvious mistakes throughout his campaign (except for that abortion remark), and he is, as most people who know him attest, neither a sociopath nor a narcissist.”

    Ha, I can’t help but hear: ‘Now it is true that one of the crew members is ill. Slightly ill. But the other two pilots are just fine, and have the controls flying the plane, free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.’ Christ I miss Leslie Nielsen.

  43. Gravatar of Peter Peter
    18. May 2016 at 21:22

    The onion predicted Trump in 2012.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjonGtrCyVE

  44. Gravatar of Steve Steve
    19. May 2016 at 03:27

    Reality check time.

    100% chance the next president will be WORSE than Obama.

    I didn’t think it was possible, but now it is not just possible, but an outright certainty.

  45. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    19. May 2016 at 04:54

    Steve-

    Maybe. But suppose Trump wins and does a Reagan? That is, avoids foreign entanglements, cuts taxes on rich people, pressures the Fed for a more-expansionary policy and engages in vigorous protection?

    It worked for Reagan.

    The border? They say more Mexicans are leaving than arriving, so that amounts to nothing (although the wall may prevent southerly exit, hahaha).

  46. Gravatar of Anand Anand
    19. May 2016 at 05:07

    (This is related to your last post, not this one.)

    Reading George Selgin’s monetary policy primer (http://www.alt-m.org/2016/04/21/a-monetary-policy-primer-part-money/), he says that: “The object of monetary policy is responsible management of an economy’s money supply.”

    I thought that was not your view? Is money supply the thing to be focusing on? Or is it NGDP?

  47. Gravatar of brendan brendan
    19. May 2016 at 05:54

    Like Ben Cole said. Trump is nuts? Compared to what?

    The Bush folks intended Iraq to be the first of a half dozen Islamic states to invade and democratize.

    The Obama folks doubled down on Afghanistan. And have stoked a nationwide urban crime wave. (BTW, yes, conventional wisdom is wrong about all sorts of things and it’s not the responsibility of the folks in charge to convince people Allah, Jesus, or the equality of all mankind aren’t what they think it is. But it is their responsibility not to exploit common delusions in ways that generate conflict. When it comes to delusions of race, culture, and gender, you could not act more recklessly than the Obama folks have. But the cool kids at Bentley share in those delusions so I guess that makes it forgivable.)

    The Supreme Court reads the right to whatever the current liberal fashion is from the constitution.

    Economists still think unlimited 3rd world immigration will enrich America.

    Focus back on foreign policy for a moment, the thing a president has the most influence on. In the early GOP debates all but Trump and Rand Paul insisted that the problem with foreign policy is that Obama deviated a bit from Bush’s great successes.

    It’s quite possible that Trump will do more than any individual in the first decades of the 21st century to pacify American foreign policy.

    I’ve personally never liked Trump. But if you can’t see the possibility that his most substantial influence will be pacify US interventionism, you’ve been blinded by something.

    (Yes, there are folks with clearer pacifistic tendencies than Trump! But the main source of US interventionism is the patriotic US Right. And the Right needs to be told by one of its own to chill the eff out, and that the Bush stuff was a gigantic mistake.)

  48. Gravatar of brendan brendan
    19. May 2016 at 05:59

    Does Trump mean any of what he says? I hope so.

    The strongest evidence he does is what he’s said re foreign policy and war.

    He did not need to criticize interventionism the way he did to win the GOP primary. That, more than anything else, is what made so many in the GOP establishment “nevertrump”, and risked a contested convention. So why’d he do it?

    Either to set himself up for the general election.

    Or because he meant it.

  49. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    19. May 2016 at 08:37

    Christian, Yes, Trump acting like a moron is all part of the secret plan.

    TA, All these posts are filed under Trump Derangement Syndrome.

    Thanks Ghirlandaio.

    Patrick, That’s depressing.

    Harding, You said:

    “Also, Scott, why don’t you focus a little on Hillary: the only other serious candidate in this race.”

    Other? You mean other than Gary Johnson?

    Tom, I agree that the alt-right and the loony PC left are sort of opposite sides of the same coin. Each has a tribe they want to defend.

    Peter, That’s worth a post.

    Anand, He wants to manage money in such a way as to stabilize NGDP. So do I.

    Brendan, You said:

    “But if you can’t see the possibility that his most substantial influence will be pacify US interventionism”

    How would you know that, given that he lies every time he opens his mouth?

    In any case, pacifism is just as likely to lead to WWIII as activism, if managed incompetently. Suppose Putin takes back the Baltics, because he assumes Trump doesn’t care, but then finds out the US is under pressure to honor its NATO commitments. The 1990 Iraq war occurred because Saddam wrongly thought Bush didn’t care enough to intervene, partly because Bush’s diplomat in that region signaled we did not care about “border disputes.”

    Trump is the candidate most likely to get us into a nuclear war. Still extremely unlikely, say less than 1%, but a bigger risk than the others.

  50. Gravatar of Mark Mark
    19. May 2016 at 09:32

    A little off topic but not entirely: did anyone see Google’s image today? They’re celebrating Yuri Kochiyama, an avowed Marxist, Maoist, black nationalist/black supremacist who openly condoned violence, befriended, encouraged, and sough the release of several murders and domestic terrorists, supported violent communist dictators, and openly admired Osama bin Laden after September 11.

    This is the kind of woman I would expect even the people at revleft to balk at supporting. And this… from Google.

    I hate to say it Scott, and my opinions about Trump remain unchanged, but seeing things like this may make even reasonable people think ‘ya know, I kinda see why some white people are getting behind Trump.”

    Maybe this is the leftists at Google’s overreaction to Donald Trump’s antics. In any case, ‘hostility always inflames the enthusiast, never converts him’ -Schiller. A lesson never learned it seems.

  51. Gravatar of Justin Justin
    19. May 2016 at 09:35

    If one wanted to represent the essence of what Trump says he’s looking for in a supreme court justice, you’d say “He’s after someone like Scalia”. I watch every Trump interview, and that’s the message I get. If all you saw about this topic was this post, you’d think Trump was focused on using the supreme court for attacks. Crooked Hillary obviously broke the law, so picking justices who’d enforce the law on her, regardless of her connections, makes sense.

    In any case, maybe it’s time the GOP start acting like the Democrats and using all tools at their disposal to weaken the other side. In the Megyn Kelly interview Trump said something which stood out to me it went like ‘I approach things as though I’m in a struggle to survive’. Trump gets the fundamentally Malthusian and Darwinian nature of this game we’re all playing. This must be a big reason why he’s accomplished so much in life.

  52. Gravatar of peterike peterike
    19. May 2016 at 10:16

    “Yes, I think the most essential quality of any Supreme Court justice is that they commit to persecute the set of people that the President considers his enemies.”

    Lol! So in other words, Trump is apparently going to pick judges who behave in EXACTLY the way that Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer and Kagan act. Only for the other side. You know, Constitution be damned, every vote is political. Seems pretty status quo.

  53. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    19. May 2016 at 12:34

    Christian List-it sounds like you have been reading a lot of Scott Adams

    If you can judge Trump by those he admire, we know he admires Putin, King Jong-un and thought the Chinese did a good job cracking down on Tinanmen Square.

  54. Gravatar of brendan brendan
    19. May 2016 at 13:06

    Scott, you must at least be curious about how so many folks who agree with you on so much of macro, micro, culture, role of govt, etc. support Trump.

    I think it’s possible that what you’re missing is that you seem to have decided long ago that traditionalists/nationalists like Pat Buchanan weren’t worth taking seriously.

    So it’s possible you know less than others about what sorts of debates have been going on between the traditionalists and mainstream neo-con leaning GOP since the cold war ended. The latter won out in the struggle for influence, but in terms of making accurate predictions re foreign policy, it’s been a rout for the traditionalists.

    No public figure wrote more presciently than Pat Buchanan did in 2002 re the prospects in Iraq, and the bad root ideas that were leading the GOP astray.

    And yet, before Trump, there was no hint at a shift in influence back into hands of the foreign policy traditionalists that had gotten so much right.

    That’s the key to understanding why many libertarianish folks support Trump: the GOP was intent on learning nothing from – or empowering – the wing of its party w/ a track record of accurate prediction on matters of war.

    A major reason the GOP establishment resisted Trump is because they saw him de-marginalizing the traditionalists, putting some power back into their hands. That’s what the neocons think he’s doing; that’s what the traditionalists think.

    But you’re sure it’s not true, i.e. this isn’t about Buchanan’s ideas. Yet you’ve indicated repeatedly that his kind aren’t even worth paying attention to, so how do you know?

  55. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    19. May 2016 at 14:06

    “Yes, Trump acting like a moron is all part of the secret plan.”

    -It’s a pretty open plan: it’s called “win the Presidency”.

    “Suppose Putin takes back the Baltics, because he assumes Trump doesn’t care, but then finds out the US is under pressure to honor its NATO commitments.”

    -You’ve been reading too much Russophobic propaganda, Scott. Take a break. Russia has no interest in a costly and futile reoccupation of the Baltics. Remember, Putin was President in 2004. And, remember, Trump has given warnings, so Putin knows he cares.

    “Trump is the candidate most likely to get us into a nuclear war.”

    -Actually, that’s Clinton, who is a very dangerous woman. In your guts, Scott, you know she’s nuts.

  56. Gravatar of Prakash Prakash
    20. May 2016 at 00:00

    I read a piece that some chinese were more bullish on trump because he would not be as insistent as Hillary on human rights in other countries, reducing the chance of conflict between the 2 most important powers.

  57. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    20. May 2016 at 09:18

    Mark, Good quote from Shiller. I actually did a post on that.

    Justin, You said:

    “If one wanted to represent the essence of what Trump says he’s looking for in a supreme court justice, you’d say “He’s after someone like Scalia”.”

    Is this a joke?

    Brendan, You said:

    “Scott, you must at least be curious about how so many folks who agree with you on so much of macro, micro, culture, role of govt, etc. support Trump.”

    Not really. I’ve read hundreds of their comments left here in the comment section, and they are almost uniformly moronic. No matter how ridiculous Trump becomes, they defend his every utterance. So no, I’m not really interested in learning more about them. Nor am I interested in learning more about why some North Koreans revere their “dear leader.” Why should I be interested?

    If they offered even half way persuasive arguments then I’d be very interested. I don’t have any problem with someone opposed to immigration, if they offer sensible arguments. But when they defend that buffoon’s inane comments then I know there’s no need for me to take them seriously.

    Prakash, The US is not going to war with China over human rights. I might actually agree with Trump on some foreign policy ideas if I knew what they were, but he hasn’t told us. He’s made lots of policy jokes, but he hasn’t yet started to tell us what his actual policy views are on any issue. Until he does, on what basis would I vote for Trump?

    He’s joked about who he’d pick for the Supreme Court, he’s joked about banning Muslims, he’s joked about a wall, he’s joked about paying off the national debt in 8 years, he’s joked about his tax plan, he’s joked about defaulting on the public debt, he’s joked about expelling 11 million immigrants, he’s joked about the minimum wage, and he’s joked about a million other issues. When will he stop joking around and start telling us what he actually believes?

  58. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    20. May 2016 at 10:27

    “When will he stop joking around and start telling us what he actually believes?”

    -He has already told you. If only you would listen.

    “If they offered even half way persuasive arguments”

    -What would they look like, exactly?

  59. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    21. May 2016 at 05:29

    Harding, Yes, he told us, but then later denied the things he told us. So what to believe?

  60. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    21. May 2016 at 12:20

    Sumner, you must believe whatever is most consistent with Trump’s incentives and nature. Trump has an incentive to appear tough on immigration and not alienate supporters. As there certainly will be an outcry if he legalizes millions of illegals, you can be pretty sure that won’t happen. He has also frequently emphasized the Muslim shutdown, so that’s probably going to happen, too. He has also been anti-free-trade since at least the 1980s, so you can expect Trump to appear tough on jobs moving overseas as President. He was also a supporter of same-sex marriage in the past, but his incentives this year are mostly in the opposite direction, so expect him to take a moderate Republican position on this issue as POTUS, not the anti-SSM warrior GWB was. Trump also pretty clearly believes AGW is a hoax, so he’s not gonna be tough on that. He got the endorsement of the NRA, and I’m sure he would like to keep it, so I’m sure he’s gonna be more pro-gun than Hillary. And so on.

    And, again, what would a half-way persuasive argument for Trump look like? Again, I voted for Trump largely based off his foreign policy.

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