Is Donald Trump Turning Out To Be Just Another Politician?

Donald Trump became president in large part because many voters “had it up to here” with the unfulfilled promises by so many Washington politicians.  So there should be some alarm in the White House with fresh polling numbers showing a fifteen percent drop in public support for the statement that President Trump “keeps his promises” (59% against).

Yes, he nominated a conservative to the Supreme Court but “repeal and replace” Obamacare has yet to occur, nor has work on “the wall” begun.  He has recanted plans to get tough on China’s trade policies.  As for NATO, he no longer disapproves.  There are other changes in campaign pledges as well.

Perhaps the delays in action and the shift in policies are appropriate due to legislative complexities and new knowledge the president has acquired.

If so, the White House must do a better job of explaining to non-Washingtonians that these events are not typical political flip-flips rooted in campaign deception.

Otherwise, poll numbers will continue to decline.  More ominously, a cynical public will become more so.  That would not be good for the country’s cohesion, such as it is.

           
                    Happy Easter to All

Was Attack on Syria in the U.S. Interest?

Of course, the U.S. attack on a Syrian airfield is popular in America.  The Assad government’s poison gas attack on its domestic foes last week deserved a strong response.  But should the United States have delivered it?

In 2013, on several occasions, then-citizen Trump criticized the propriety of American involvement in Syria’s civil war.  What, after all he asked, did that fight have to do with us?

 

To be sure, the subsequent refugee exodus from Syria into Europe affected the security and stability of some American allies, but not that of the U.S. directly.

The violation of President Obama’s “red line” and the failure of its crossing by the Syrian government to draw a serious American response, was embarrassing to the White House.  However, Secretary of State Kerry claimed the 2013 chemical attack resulted in the removal of dictator Assad’s arsenal of such weapons.  [That Kerry was later proven mistaken didn’t change the calculations at the time that such forbidden tools of war were confined to Syria and posed no threat to the United States of America.]

So if national interest is to be the sole justification for performing American military might, was Trump right in 2017 in ordering the attack?  Sure, there are strong moral and humanitarian reasons that support the strike against Syria, but they rely on different standards.

In isolation, for reasons set forth above, America’s national interest was not triggered.

 

But President Obama’s announcement of a “red line” in 2012 could not be viewed in isolation.  His words constituted a commitment to action.  Obama put the country’s word on the line.  That declaration was heard, shall one say, outside of Syria, as well. 

So the question loomed large after President Obama’s threat: “Is America to be trusted?  Will it follow through?”  The country’s friends and foes wanted to know.  Future promises and warnings by the Administration would be evaluated with reference to the Syrian red line.  And they were.  Russia was emboldened in Ukraine and actively sided with Assad; North Korea ignored missile development restrictions and Iran entered into a nuclear deal on terms which would not have been available had it feared U.S. military action.  Our allies (diplomats reported) were unsettled.

Simply put, President Trump would have assumed Barack Obama’s status as a weak national leader had he failed to respond firmly to Syria’s chemical attack on its own citizens.  America’s national self-interest demanded it.

Is Health Care a Right?

Debate of the repeal/replacement of Obamacare has prompted a discussion again, seven years later, of whether everyone should have health insurance. 

Remember the claimed dire need to provide such insurance for the twenty million or so Americans without such coverage?  That was the catalyst for the so-called Affordable Care Act.

Yet the reality was that millions of that number didn’t want it, as was recognized by Obamacare architects.  Thus, the health care mandated universal coverage under pain of penalty for those who resisted.  In that sense, having health insurance became an obligation.  But the focus on insurance obscured the underlying – and real – policy:  the presumed right to healthcare.  After all, having health insurance, as such, cures and prevents nothing.  It merely provides a means of access to medical care.

[Leave aside for another time, consideration of Obamacare’s stark deficiencies, with its high deductibles and restricted options.]

However, as a matter of fact, not widely known, all Americans and those who are not have long been able to go to essentially any hospital ER and receive emergency treatment, at least, whether they have insurance or not.  Indeed, those treated will be billed, often at outlandish rates, with the hospital recognizing that payment of the amount due is often not to be expected.  The facilities, nonetheless, are required to provide necessary medical services. 

Does this reality mean that the recipient of what may be “free” care and treatment has a right to it?

No.  In the same sense that a person receiving welfare such as food stamps does not have a right to those benefits.  Of course, society may establish criteria by which a person may qualify to receive benefits, but it’s hardly a right in the way we all may utilize the First Amendment.

The opportunity to receive something from society in the manner of generosity is fundamentally different from the right to do something as in the free exercise of one’s religion.  The former, as with any gift, may be withheld in the future.  It is, in fact, only a conditional right.  Constitutional protections are permanent.

Still, in practice, both concepts do involve entitlements.  Free speech is obvious while healthcare is a mandated right in the sense restricted to those who – for the lack of a better characterization – are poor. 

In the American system, therefore, the right to healthcare is dependent on one’s economic status – the conditional nature of the entitlement.  Plainly, the right presently does not exist for most.

Those on the left would differ with this approach and propose that the entitlement is for all:  the old fashioned term for what they have in mind is socialized medicine.

A note on bipartisan economic folly:  One of the more popular features of Obamacare is the provision of insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.  Recognizing its popularity, the GOP’s replacement plan incorporates such coverage. 

That is bad policy which means higher premiums for everyone else without such problems.

Consider how an automobile insurance company would react if you called up and said you needed collision coverage for your car but wanted coverage to begin two days ago because your vehicle had been in an accident yesterday.