• Home
  • About
  • Vampire Vic Trilogy
  • Java Man
    • An Extra Shot From the Java Man
  • e-cave
    • Emails 1: First Meeting 2003
    • Emails 2: Working on Java Man
    • Emails 3: Comments and Feedback
    • Emails 4: Getting Published
    • Vampire Vic Excerpt
  • Press/Media
  • Contact

HARRIS GRAY

~ Telling You Stories

HARRIS GRAY

Tag Archives: Hillary

Oval Office War Games

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by harrisgray in The Imperfect Compromise

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2016 Election, Donald Trump, Election, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, The Donald, Trump, war games

Trump, Hillary, politics, Election 2016Judgment day is nigh. Like it or not America will end up with President Hillary Clinton or President Donald Trump. How to choose? We know who Hillary and Donald are. Both have well-documented histories; journalists have plumbed those pasts and analyzed their characters. But what would they do?

To answer that, we “war gamed” their presidencies. How would Trump and Hillary respond to a murderer’s row of foreign and domestic crises? What moves would they make on immigration, taxes, healthcare and the Supreme Court vacancy(ies)?

As long-time political junkies, we assumed it would be easy to picture Hillary’s presidency. But there was much to be discovered during this event-rich thought experiment.

And then there’s Trump. Sure he’s made a lot of promises, and threats. But it’s safe to assume things won’t go and people won’t play the way he’d like. He prides himself on unpredictability, with no idea what’s coming. That made our job fun and the results surprising.

We encourage you to check out our “Oval Office games” at The Imperfect Compromise. Here we summarize the 5 key outcomes:

  • Trump is no dealmaker. Real estate negotiations are child’s play compared to finding common ground with Congress and other nations. In business, both sides come to the table intent on making money, and usually leave with mission accomplished (at least initially). In politics, a deal means nothing but lost votes—the absolute last thing any politician wants. Trump becomes exhausted when the world doesn’t behave the way he demands.
  • Hillary battles Congress and special investigations. Yes Trump is subjected to investigations as well, with endless opportunities to unearth his dirty financial skeletons. But an unprecedented level of suffering awaits Hillary, for whom Republicans have a generation-spanning antipathy bordering on hatred. Gridlock doesn’t do justice to the Right’s delight in blocking and harassing her every move.
  • Trump offers the potential for radical change. Hillary wields executive power in the Obama vein, adding new rules  to existing laws, increasing regulation incrementally. Trump radically revises trade, taxes, immigration and healthcare, quantum leaps previously deemed impossible.

These unprecedented upheavals usurp Congress’s lawmaking power. But strength lies in the initiative. We’ve seen it the past 8 years, presidential orders requiring years of extreme effort to challenge in the courts, with varying degrees of success. Trump goes much bigger than Obama.

To that end, Trump is in no hurry to fill the Supreme Court vacancy; 4-4 stalemates suit him.

  • The national debt balloons under both. Neither candidate is allergic to spending. With the Fed’s interest rate reductions failing to stimulate the economy, Hillary finds creative ways to conjure new government jobs and dole out funding. Trump does likewise, and slashes taxes. When coupled with Trump’s drastic regulatory reductions, long-term economic growth should result. But deficits are huge. In both cases but particularly with Trump, interest rates inevitably rise and the debt becomes unsustainable.
  • Neither candidate is a real hawk. Trump’s unpredictability doesn’t cow our adversaries from challenging us. They understand he’s a bully who fears a bloody nose; it’s one thing to take aggressive military action against ISIS, but quite another to commit the nation to real war. And Hillary is an inveterate negotiator, scarred by Libya and occupied with building coalitions.

Both presidents search for a way to finesse it, to do everything short of war. Russia crosses the bright NATO line in the Baltics and Iran pays terrorists to blow us up. We do not go to war with either.

How to sum up? It was more exciting to role-play Trump. The nutshell comparison: Trump smashes boundaries, Hillary stonewalls Republicans. But “exciting” doesn’t necessarily mean enjoyable. Under a Trump presidency there is greater potential for a dramatic, unfavorable shift in the world’s balance of power.

Choose Hillary to stay the course of expanding federal government and deepening partisan rancor. Choose Trump for revolutionary potential; he may very well blow things up. Playing this war game in the military sense, we the generals must choose between the low risk, low reward Hillary strategy, and the exact opposite with the Trump gambit.

We’ll see what kind of generals we are on November 8th.

Advertisement

Hillary and Trump, How to Do Better

09 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by harrisgray in The Imperfect Compromise

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2016 Debate, 2016 Election, Election System, Electoral College, Hillary, Presidential Election, Trump

Trump, Hillary, politics, Election 2016Hillary versus Trump has been such a celebrity train-wreck, we have thus far given a pass to the culprit forcing us to choose between 2 horrible candidates:

The election system.

Then we had the vice presidential debate. Pence and Kaine subjected us to Trump and Hillary sans their bigger-than-life personas, forcing us to acknowledge their awful essence. And now substantive issues have completely disappeared from the campaign with the latest released tapes and transcripts. Regardless how the election ends, the next 4 years will be more of the same.

The time has come to ask: What can we do to ensure this never happens again?

The electoral college is ingenious in its design. Assigning electoral votes equal to each state’s number of Representatives and Senators protects small-state citizens from irrelevancy. And an all-but-forgotten feature positions the electors in a final line of defense to prevent the country from falling sway to the destructive allure of the demagogue.

But the system is flawed in its execution. The electoral vote is winner-take-all in every state but Nebraska and Maine. Most states are solidly Democrat or Republican, so candidates focus nearly all their resources on a handful of “swing” states that make up only 1/3 of the population. Meaning 2/3 of our citizens’ votes—in small and big states alike—effectively don’t count.

And then there is the 2-party monopoly. Republicans and Democrats spend no time responding to challenges from 3rd-party candidates, because everyone knows a votes for them is meaningless.

Calls to do away with the electoral college and move to a direct popular vote are misguided, for the reasons stated above. And removing the electoral college does nothing to bust the 2-party “trust.” Fortunately we have a way to keep the College and reform the system.

First, states must end winner-take-all and award electoral votes proportionate to the popular vote. This is crucial to guaranteeing all voters that their ballots do indeed count.

But it presents a challenge. A proportional system increases the odds that no candidate will reach the required 270 electoral votes. And it does nothing to increase the viability of so-called 3rd-party candidates. So the states must implement a second, companion change: ranking, instant run-off voting.

In this system, voters rank their preferences for president. Assume a ballot with 4 candidates. You cast your vote for Candidate 2, Candidate 4, and Candidate 3, in that order. The polls close and the votes are tallied; if a candidate receives at least half the 1st-choice votes, your state’s election is over and electoral votes are awarded according to each candidate’s share of the 1st-choice votes.

If no candidate receives at least 50% of the 1st-choice votes, we move into the instant run-off. The last-place candidate, say Candidate 2, is eliminated, and ballots like yours that had ranked that candidate as the 1st choice are reassigned to those voters’ 2nd choice.

In this example, your 1st-choice vote is now assigned to Candidate 4. The votes are re-tallied. If a candidate has now reached the 50% threshold—say Candidate 4 has 55%, Candidate 1 garners 35% and Candidate 3 receives 10%—the contest is over, and electoral votes are awarded proportionately. Otherwise, the cycle is repeated.

This approach is utilized in a number of local elections to deemphasize partisan politics. Employing it for the presidential election means your vote for a 3rd-party candidate is never wasted. If your first choice doesn’t make the run-off, your vote still counts, now cast for your next-favorite candidate.

By combining ranking, instant run-off with proportional electoral voting, we ensure every vote counts, the 2-party monopoly is broken, and one candidate is likely to win the minimum necessary number of electoral votes.

And we keep the electoral college in place. Until this election we might have dismissed as outdated our Founders’ fear of a tough-talking demagogue riding a wave of populist discontent to the Oval Office. Is that Trump? That it’s debatable proves the continuing value of the College with its electors as a final line of defense.

Subscribe Harris Gray on Twitter Facebook Google+ Goodreads

Subscribe to our newsletter!

Now Available!


> Purchase on Amazon <


> Purchase on Amazon <


> Purchase on Amazon <

Read for Free!

An Extra Shot from the Java Man by Harris Gray>> Take your extra shot! <<

New Cover!

>> Purchase on Amazon <<

Recent Posts

  • Oval Office War Games
  • Hillary and Trump, How to Do Better
  • Trump or Hillary – or Both?!
  • Robot Writers
  • The Question of the Road: to Share or to Rule?

Harris Gray on Twitter

  • Riding the Goldwing to Alaska. T - minus 18 days. #castlerock #hondsgoldwing #motorcycletrip #bucketlist https://t.co/J7OT6Sm0zS 8 months ago
Follow @HarrisandGray

Facebook Fan Page

Facebook Fan Page

Archives

  • October 2016
  • August 2016
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • May 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Subscribe for updates:

RSS Feed RSS - Posts

RSS Feed RSS - Comments

Things we like...

  • Crowfoot Valley Coffee & Bar
  • Publicity by Jen Halligan

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • HARRIS GRAY
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • HARRIS GRAY
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...