Make America Great Again

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You can tell he's stupid because his lips are moving

This is, as you surely are aware, Donald Trump's campaign slogan. It always strikes me in a number of ways as being kind of tone deaf and off-putting. First of all, why aren't all the other Republican 'American Exceptionalism' candidates shrieking that America is the greatest country in the universe, and Donald is saying we're NOT great? I suspect because even they don't want to claim an America lead by that noted Marxist/Kenyan/Nazi Barack Hussein Obama could possibly be great, even if it America, which is always great. Or something.

But what is that Trump is saying? What would make America great again? Why, it's about growth, and business, and trade, and making good deals, and creating jobs, and building infrastructure - Walls, lots and lots of WALLS - and deportations, and military power, and threatening adversaries, and threatening allies, and all the other things you'd expect when you combine entitlement, bluster and ignorance.

Now, ask yourself: What do all these things have in common? Money. They all cost money. Trump is essentially talking about undertaking a series of large-scale investments, to the tune of several trillion dollars over two terms. Plus, he's now proposing very large deficit financed tax cuts. Of course, he just waves that off - he's too SMART to have investments cost money - but we know that's just because he's a.) too lazy to actually do any research and b.) dishonest enough to be willing to promise everyone a free pony.  This at the same time he's claiming to be a great businessman, and he can't even speak to the value of good investments because of the Republican government spending obsession.

But there's the key trade-off in modern American politics. What will government do, and what will legislators fund? We're making a series of desperately poor decisions now, around how to fund the Highways and choosing NOT to fund infrastructure and R&D/Big Science projects. The refusal of the institutional Republican party to allocate any resources while everything just gets older and we fall farther behind is the most frustrating thing to watch I can imagine.

So here comes The Donald, saying no, no, we CAN do all these things, we just don't need to actually PAY for them. Donald Trump will not be the President of the United States, but people would do well to think about what he's saying - not the self-aggrandizing nonsense, but the part about how we need to invest in our own future, and we need to start NOW.
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