Sunday Morning Reflections

Just this last week I read something on the web by Rich Lowry, Editor in Chief of the National Review.  He posited that if I desired a candidate for 2024 who wouldn't touch entitlements or start a foreign war Donald Trump was my guy.  Lowry's claim is that Trump is a genuine moderate.  

Interesting couple of insights Mr. Lowry.  My expectation would have been something more cerebral but this is worth unpacking.

First-off, the 800 pound gorilla in everyone's room is social security, Medicare and Medicaid.  I've touched on this subject before.  This year the combined cost of these programs (oftentimes referred to as entitlements) will exceed more than half of the entire federal budget. Ironically, it is at the heart of the debt ceiling drama and source of no small amount of budget heartburn.  Neither party will outwardly acknowledge this and no amount of clawing-back unspent COVID relief funds, shrinking the IRS or Medicaid work requirements is going to fix any of this.  

 

Face the music folks, something needs to change as the funding dynamics of these entitlements are totally messed-up.  Baby boomers are retiring in numbers not seen before.  Program beneficiaries are living longer than ever before.  The birthrate in this country is barely at a replacement rate.  Something needs to happen to extend the solvency of these three programs.  A grand bargain like Reagan and O'Neill struck in 1983 where both parties agreed to benefit and revenue changes that extended program solvency for decades. Trump is hardly Reaganesque and regrettably some of his most-popularized promises remain unfulfilled.  Border security, immigration reform and Obamacare come to mind.  Big Fat Nothing Burgers.  Ignoring this impending entitlement funding crisis is willful blindness.  It is hardly moderation.

As for starting a foreign war, I presume Lowry is making passing reference to the Russian invasion in Eastern Europe.  The last time I looked Joe Biden isn't waging war in Ukraine.  That is what Vladimir Putin is doing. I'm all for a legitimate and necessary debate about the degree, nature, costs and long-term usefulness of our aid to the people of Ukraine to defend against a senseless war they did not provoke. 

Nevertheless, I remain mindful of what former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had to say on the matter:  Give Kyiv what it needs to win, or it will cost the United States more in the long run. I am not naive.  That is a totally thoughtful and moderate observation.  Something you'd expect from the guy who graduated first in his class at West Point.

Conservatism is not to be confused with Trumpism.  A movement driven by absolute loyalty to a personality and embrace of the lie that the election was stolen in 2020 is not interchangeable.  I have never worshiped a living person or embraced conspiracy over truth.  Abandonment of aspiration for reprisal, compassion for anger and optimism for resentment.  Settling scores and exacting retribution in lieu of governing is not my style. It is immoderate.

 

Asking me to view and respond to my world with a mindset of offense and persecution and to fabricate an alternate truth when there is no evidence of legitimate grievance. To twist myself into knots to embrace this is a bridge too far. It's not how I was raised, it's not how I evolved and it's not in my wheelhouse. It is not moderate.

 

Leaders in the image of Larry Hogan, Chris Sununu and and Asa Hutchinson are so normal as to be summarily dismissed out of hand by a party co-opted by extremes and the theater of the absurd. It isn't aspirational like Nikki Haley.  It's lame.

 

A campaign platform of fear, preoccupation with gender dysphoria, Bud Light beer and election denial isn't making the cut for this guy.  Upon further reflection; conservative, independent and center-right voters aren't buying the anti-woke stuff.

 

We're not falling for any of it.  

 

And who drinks Bud Light beer anyway?  It's piss.