A Tale of Two Marches

I had originally intended to write about this yesterday, but Trump’s weekend announcement of his immigration order scuttled those plans. Now, sandwiched between the fallout from that order and the coming announcement of the President’s first pick for the Supreme Court (tune in tonight at 8/7c!), it is hard to believe that the March for Life was only a few days ago. Instead of finally getting major media coverage, it seems like the March got even less coverage than usual. Not that getting added coverage, let alone more favorable coverage, was ever a realistic hope no matter the circumstances.

But I wanted to quickly note the contrast between the March for Life and the Women’s March the previous week, before the former recedes from our collective memory even more (of course, the media will never let us forget just how big and awesome the crowds were at the Women’s March). There were no major violent incidents at either, it should be noted. But at the March for Life, love and compassion truly were the order of the day. Trump opponents and supporters marched side by side, protesting the indignity and evil of abortion but doing so respectful of its supporters. Typical signs at the event included “We Are The Pro-Life Generation”.

The Women’s March was, by contrast, composed entirely of Trump opponents, ridiculing Trump and, to a lesser extent, his supporters. Typical signs included “Grab Patriarchy by the Balls.”

Not exactly a contrast that will win the Left many new supporters, especially among the white working class.

Why Is Everyone So Shocked About The "Muslim Ban"?

I put “Muslim Ban” in quotes because Trump’s executive order Friday, which temporarily barred immigration from seven Middle Eastern countries, is not that. If it were, would Indonesia, with 203 million Muslims, not have been included? What about Pakistan? Afghanistan? Saudi Arabia?

The seven countries on Trump’s list (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia) are all majority-Muslim, true. So are many other countries around the world not included on the list. And all seven countries are, without a doubt, some of the most dangerous places on Earth, breeding grounds for terrorists. Somalia and Yemen are basically failed states without functioning governments, as is Libya. Everyone not named Gary Johnson knows about the situation in Syria. ISIS also remains strong in Iraq, and Sudan and Iran are hardly places that can be trusted to send only the best and brightest.

The point is that the order was largely a good decision. (Excluding the stupid decisions to implement it on a Friday afternoon, and to initially include green card holders in the order.) Had Trump actually enacted a ban on all Muslim immigration, it would have also been wrong and stupid, although arguably not illegal.

But if he had introduced a ban on Muslim immigration, it wouldn’t have been much if a surprise. Here’s the statement from his campaign in December 2015, discussing that very possibility. And here’s video of Trump reading the statement:

The policy as introduced in Trump’s executive order Friday is actually more similar to a suggestion by Ted Cruz during the campaign, tailoring any potential pause in immigration to specific high-risk countries.

Trump has been talking about banning Muslim immigration for over a year now. It is telling that the media is now in an uproar over a far better and more tailored policy, first promoted by a Trump rival.

Recapping the First Week of the Trump Era

Today marks exactly one week since Donald Trump took the oath of office and officially became the 45^th President of the United States. And what a week it’s been.

He issued executive orders freezing federal hiring, temporarily halting the creation of new regulations, and allowing executive-branch agencies to waive various parts of Obamacare, including the individual mandate.

He reinstated the Mexico City Policy, barring federal funding of groups that perform abortions overseas, including the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

He signed executive orders meant to expedite approval of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, bar federal funding for sanctuary cities, limit the flow of refugees from countries deemed to have a large number of terrorist sympathizers, and formally withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And, of course, he signed an order declaring his intent to construct a “contiguous, physical wall” along the southern border.

He also met with business leaders and the heads of labor unions, talked with foreign leaders, announced plans to meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May later today, and got into a Twitter spat with the Mexican President that led to the latter cancelling his planned trip to America next month.

Obviously, that was a bad way to end the week, and will probably come back to bite Trump—and all of us—later on. But overall, the first week went much better than I or many other critics of Trump during the campaign expected. He gave social, economic, and national security conservatives alike some real victories, of the sort we haven’t seen in years. They won’t be secure, lasting victories until Congress backs up the sentiment with the force of law, but change is already beginning. I was certain Trump, once in office, would not bring real change and would govern substantively no different from Hillary Clinton, based on his past record. If this first week is any indication, I was wrong.

May Week One be only the beginning.

Policy Spotlight: The United Nations

Following the Obama administration’s recent colluding to ensure an anti-Israel resolution passed the U.N. Security Council unanimously, all the old complaints from the Right about the United Nations began bubbling up once again. They should by now be familiar—systemic anti-Israel and anti-American bias within the membership and leadership; the amount of dues paid by the United States every year, with little to show for it; the joke that is the U.N. Human Rights Council, which counts such noted defenders of liberty as Cuba, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia as members; and the framework for international law and government that U.N. leadership seems insistent on setting up, at the expense of national sovereignty.

The question must be asked, and indeed has been asked with increasing frequency: What, exactly, does America gain by continuing its affiliation with the U.N.? Would it be a better use of both taxpayer money and national influence to simply withdraw entirely, and simply let the rest of the nations introduce an increasing number of useless resolutions?

It’s a valid point. But even though withdrawing from the U.N. entirely would feel good in the short term, in the longer run it would only harm American interests. We would lose the ability to exert any meaningful influence over the international community. For instance, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham recently introduced a bill to bar federal funding of the U.N. until the anti-Israel Security Council resolution is revoked—no small threat, as the U.S. currently provides over 20% of the overall U.N. budget, the largest single contribution by far. If we withdrew from the organization we would no longer have any leverage to stop or reverse bad decisions.

Plus, the U.S. has veto power over any Security Council resolution. It depends on a brave American representative and administration to exert it, and there’s no doubt that with Nikki Haley as U.N. ambassador, things will be much different in New York than they have been over the past eight years.

Or take another example—the effort by Iran, several years ago, to name as it’s U.N. envoy a former member of the Iranian radical group that sparked the Tehran hostage crisis in 1979. Ted Cruz sponsored a bill that put a stop to the effort, but if America were to withdraw from the U.N., the group could well decide to relocate from New York, rendering future legislative remedies to similar issues impossible.

The U.N. is a flawed organization, no doubt about it—seriously flawed. But a total withdrawal would only make it worse.

A Thought On Trump's State of the Union

The State of the Union address, of course, has become one of the most important ceremonial events of a presidency. All the major networks cover it; the president’s team spends months crafting the speech, aware that much of the business in Washington revolves around the annual ritual.

It was also never supposed to be anything of the sort. The Constitution only requires that “from time to time” the president offer Congress information on the state of the nation, and give recommendations. It says nothing about the pomp and circumstance that have grown up around the event, or even that the information must be conveyed in a speech at all. In fact, the State of the Union was regularly delivered to Congress in written form, without great ceremony, until the 1930’s, when FDR saw fit to turn the event into a major national speech, with the president at the center of attention.

There have long been arguments that future presidents should return to delivering a simple written report to Congress. But with Trump in the White House, maybe it’s time to think outside the box.

We all know how much Trump loves Twitter. Maybe he should tweet the State of the Union—send a formal, written report to Congress, and then tweet the basics for the rest of the world. It would be new, exciting, shake up Washington tradition—and, best of all, be a symbolic move that at the same time does something to reduce the oversized role the president now plays in the federal government.

Is it a crazy idea? Sure. Do I think it’ll actually happen? Probably not. But it would shake up Washington while returning the executive branch to something more closely approximating the Founders’ vision, all while using 21^st century technology. What’s not to love?

Now The Pope Is Comparing Trump To Hitler

Here we go again.

Pope Francis gave an interview on Friday in which he said that he was taking a “wait and see” approach to the incoming Trump administration, saying that he doesn’t “like to get ahead of myself nor judge people prematurely.”

So far so good. But then the pope is asked about populist uprisings in America and Europe, and the conversation takes a darker turn: “Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933. A people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened.”

True, Francis specifically refused to judge Trump before he has even taken any concrete actions. But the implications from his second quote are clear.

Now, I don’t know if equating political leaders with Hitler is as prevalent in Europe or South America as it is here in the United States. But it would be a little easier to take such comparisons seriously if we hadn’t lived through years of Democrats saying Paul Ryan is the second coming of Hitler for wanting to recalculate Social Security benefits, or that Mitt Romney was Hitler for having binders filled with the profiles of women applicants for his Cabinet. And that’s not even touching the legion of Bush-is-Hitler comparisons from a decade ago.

Just stop already. Obama was not Hitler. Bush was not Hitler. And Trump, though he could end up being a terrible president, will not be Hitler. There are more than enough valid points of disagreement with all three people, but making vapid accusations of being “the next Hitler” gets us nowhere.

President Donald J. Trump

In just a few hours, millions of Americans turning on their televisions will be greeted with the words that just a few months ago almost no one believed was possible: “I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear…”

As a side note, just imagine going back in time fifteen years. Imagine telling people that in just a few years, America would have a black president, handing over the reins of power to Donald Trump. I guarantee that absolutely no one would believe it.

This quadrennial ritual is one of the many things that truly makes America great. It symbolizes a peaceful transfer of power that has been occurring for over two hundred years, unique in all of human history. Some protesters will try to disrupt the event, but my prediction is that ultimately, they will be hardly noticed, or remembered.

Today is an important day in the life of our country. Trump, Congress and everyone attending the ceremony should enjoy it, because this afternoon the real work begins.

Farewell, Barack Obama

Finally, after eight long years, it has come time to say goodbye. Today is the last full day of the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. Tomorrow, Donald John Trump will be formally sworn in as the 45^th President of the United States.

On 60 Minutes last Sunday, Obama gave his farewell interview. Near the end, he was asked what he thought his legacy would be, ten years from now, and he declined to answer. Much can change in ten years. But it seems clear, with his eight years almost up and only days from the inauguration of a fervent political opponent as his successor, that the Obama legacy will be one of failure and wasted opportunity.

The 44^th President entered office with a landslide victory, sky-high approval ratings, and a Democratic supermajority in both houses of Congress. He could have achieved nearly anything. Instead, his signature legislative achievement was a health care bill that became a national joke and will soon be repealed entirely. He presided over one of the weakest economic recoveries on record, one that still feels like no recovery at all to millions of Americans. He gained office in part by railing against George W. Bush's high spending and expansive use of presidential power, and promptly doubled the national debt and made the pen and the phone the new symbols of the imperial presidency. And in foreign affairs, he presided over the rise of ISIS, the weakening of Israel, and the emboldening of Iran and Russia.

Even now, in the last months of his presidency when one would think he couldn’t possibly get any worse, he stabs Israel in the back at the United Nations, and commutes the sentence of a traitor that put American lives at risk all over the world. Perhaps the Founders would have given more serious discussion to curtailing the pardoning power, had they known a future President would use it in such an egregious way.

It is now far too late for Obama to turn his presidential legacy around, with almost exactly twenty-four hours left in his term. But he had eight years to get things right, and he failed. His tenure may have been groundbreaking as the first black President, but history will not look favorably on the results.

Please, Just Shut Up About Fake News

After Hillary Clinton’s surprise loss, Democrats scrambled for a way to rationalize the defeat. They blamed the FBI, and James Comey’s decision to briefly reopen the email investigation (unlikely, but plausible). They blamed Wikileaks (also unlikely but plausible). Then they blamed Russians hacking the election results (kind of conspiracy theorist-y, but still stemming from real events, the DNC hacks and Trump’s disturbingly close ties with Russia and bromance with Vladimir Putin.

And then out came the argument that it was “fake news” that deprived Clinton of the presidency. As if stories about her secretly being a sex-crazed child molester somehow swung the votes of hundreds of thousands of people across the Midwest, who had voted reliably Democratic for decades. (Side note: Ew. That’s obviously her husband, who many of those same voters apparently had no trouble supporting back in the day.)

This overuse of the phrase is rapidly making it one of those choice collection of syllables that make me cringe at their very sound, like the way some people feel about "moist". Or, for me, "pundit". For whatever reason, I despise that word and will do everything in my power to make sure I never use it again on this site.

Democrats are acting like fake news is some sudden phenomenon, springing from the ground of a world fertilized by Donald Trump tweets, and that it is being used single-handedly against liberals. Two points on that: first, fake news has been a thing for almost as long as real news. I’m sure the ancient Greeks were beset by stories about Pericles having affairs with goats and secretly running a brothel out of his basement. The Onion has been publishing since the 1980’s, and had an online presence since 1996. Social media has been in existence in one form or another for over a decade. And no one got the idea of sharing stories about “Hillary Clinton Spins a Cocoon” or “This Bird Has Been Stalking Obama for Years” until 2016?

And second, the idea that fake news can only harm liberals is ridiculous on its face. Dan Rather, anyone? The Duke lacrosse players? The saga of Rolling Stone and “A Rape On Campus”, and the emerging journalistic standard of “false but accurate”? I don’t recall any deep media reflection on fake news then.

Basically, the whole idea that fake news influenced the election in any meaningful way is ridiculous on its face. Just how gullible and stupid do liberals think we are?

Oh. Never mind.

Post-Partisanship Is All The Rage Now

When Barack Obama was first elected President, eight long years ago, it suddenly became fashionable to lionize him as the “post-partisan president”. Members of the mainstream media tripped over themselves to exclaim how he was transcending the two-party system and ushering in a new era of American politics.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight we can see how foolish those exclamations were. Almost every action Obama has taken, from the stimulus to Obamacare to the Iran deal and executive amnesty has increased partisanship and division to a level not seen in decades. It is hard to overstate how big of a deal it is that at the final vote on the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature piece of domestic legislation, not a single Republican member of Congress, out of 40 Senators and 178 members of the House, could be convinced to vote for the bill. Even moderate and liberal Republicans like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Olympia Snowe ultimately could not be persuaded to support it.

Now many commentators are saying something similar about Donald Trump, that he has blown apart traditional standards of partisanship with his embrace of issues as diverse as ending illegal immigration, curtailing free trade deals, and endorsing a massive new infrastructure bill. Personally, I think the evidence that Trump will upend traditional notions of partisanship is much more compelling than any similar evidence regarding Obama, although I think that he will merely redefine it more than transcend it. But still, there is a case to be made.

But “post-partisanship” of this sort is not, in my honest opinion, not all that it’s cracked up to be—at least as it’s generally been defined. Lessening tensions between the two major parties is good. Honest, friendly dialogue is good. But muddying the ideological waters is not. For at least the past several decades, if not longer, America’s two major parties have been essentially organized around two different interpretations of the Constitution, and the valid role of the federal government.

If Trump follows through on many of his campaign pledges, and ignores the natural conservative bent of many of those in his new Cabinet, a new dynamic could emerge—a Democratic Party of expansive government and a broad reading of the Constitution, and a Republican Party of nationalistic government and less of a careful adherence to the Constitution. The limited government view would no longer have a natural home in either major party.

It is for that reason that I’m praying that Trump will not be a post-partisan president. Less partisan, absolutely. Putting principles before party is laudable. But if post-partisanship means surrendering ideology in the name of pursuing the deal of the moment or achieving a short-term goal at the expense of Founding principles, count me out.

For Many States, Another Year Means Another Liberal Try for a VMT

The new year means, in addition to a new Congress and President, the start of new state legislative sessions in capitals across the country. Thousands of bills will be proposed, some good, some bad, some just plain stupid, and most of which will never even make it to a vote, let alone become law.

And in the several states that still have Democratic-controlled legislatures, one particularly bad idea will almost certainly be making a comeback: the Vehicle Mileage Tax (VMT), a scheme to essentially force drivers to pay a tax on every mile traveled, whether on vacation or a trip to the grocery store.

Nationally, Oregon, California, and Washington State are currently exploring the concept via pilot programs (Illinois also uses the system, though its use is restricted to the trucking industry), but it is likely that as the idea becomes more accepted and widespread, more states will begin looking into instituting their own systems.

A primary defense of the VMT is the argument that it will eventually be used as a replacement for state gas taxes, but it seems more likely that any final institution of the VMT would instead be used to supplement the revenue already raised by the gas tax—in effect taxing the same product twice. Yet concerns regarding any VMT proposal necessarily go beyond even the obvious negative repercussions of yet another tax.

A specific constitutional concern would be the fact that each state attempting to impose a VMT system would by necessity need a way to track not only the number of miles travelled, but also precisely where the car travelled. Constitutionally, a state could only tax those miles racked up within state borders—if Maryland, for example, attempted to tax a car's owner for miles travelled in Pennsylvania or Virginia, that would amount to an unconstitutional burden being placed on interstate commerce (shorter distances would be travelled, keeping many residents of one state within the boundaries of that state more often), as well effectively taxing an action that was performed within another state.

To circumvent these constitutional issues, a successful VMT system would need to do one of two things. Either the focus would switch to a national, rather than state, system—which would mean that, discounting drives to Canada or Mexico, only the mileage on a vehicle's odometer would need to be counted regularly—or, if the concept remained state-oriented, some form of GPS would need to be installed in each vehicle, in order to accurately determine where the vehicle had travelled and what miles would be taxable under the VMT regime.

And therein lies the final major problem with the entire VMT concept. As instituting an entirely new tax, one which would likely have a disproportionate impact on the middle class, would have little chance of passing Congress, the immediate future of the VMT likely lies in the states. Mandating that all private vehicles be equipped with a precise tracking system, for the sole purpose of being accessed by the government at periodic intervals, would be an invasion of privacy so severe that even many Democrats would be forced to draw the line.

The essential component of the VMT scheme, one that even its supporters concede would be necessary for the program to function, is also the component that—at least for the near future—ensures that most states will not be subject to yet another example of government overreach. For many Americans, the prospect of yet another tax, one which also requires government monitoring of every individual's movements on a daily basis, is a no-brainer.

Great Expectations

Senate Republicans have officially taken the first formal step to repealing Obamacare, approving a budget resolution that lays the groundwork for a later vote on full repeal.

This is, obviously, a good thing. I can think of no campaign pledge more defining for Republican candidates over the past six years than the promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, and being handed all the levers of power in the federal government and then failing to follow through would be an unforgiveable betrayal of the voters. And while I understand Rand Paul’s concerns about cutting spending, the chance to repeal Obamacare is one that is too important to conflate with any other issue, even something as important as federal spending. With Obamacare repeal, speed is key.

And yet repeal is only the first item on a lengthy wish list conservatives have for the new Republican government. Tax reform, approving the Keystone pipeline, cutting spending, instituting Congressional term limits, securing the border, guaranteeing a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for decades to come… The list goes on and on, and has had Republicans practically drooling for months. In just four years, the thinking goes, we can make it as if Barack Obama’s presidency never even happened.

But those big dreams seem to forget one of the biggest lessons of President Obama’s tenure: Many, indeed most, Republicans in positions of power in Washington are not as committed to sweeping changes as they claim to be on the stump. Republican and conservative goals do not always align. And many candidates who talk big about eliminating departments and slashing the national debt change their tune once in office.

This may seem like an obvious statement of fact to many, just over a year after John Boehner was forced to give up the Speakership. But for others, the headiness of unexpected Republican victory will cause memories to quickly fade. The draw of belonging to a team, especially a winning team, is strong, and it will be easy for many who proudly proclaimed their loyalty to principle during the Obama years to set those principles aside for greater personal power.

Personally, I expect Obamacare to be repealed. The promise to do so was so firm, was repeated so often, that it would now be suicidal not to. Whether it will be fully eliminated is another issue; the few popular provisions of the law, combined with the way other portions have already permanently altered the health-care industry, make the single-line repeal, “The Affordable Care Act of 2010 is hereby repealed,” of conservative dreams all but impossible.

On other issues, voters would do well to control their expectations. In four years, we will have the same number of federal departments as we do now. Federal spending will still be going up, though the rate of that increase may slow—hardly an achievement to get excited about. Keystone may be approved, if it is not already too late, and tax reform may pass, though it will be nothing like the flat tax of an ideal world. And there will be no federal term limits amendment passed by Congress.

I hope I’m wrong. Everything on the conservative wish list is possible. A radical pivot back to Constitutional basics could happen. But Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are not the men to lead that charge. A more reasonable, and still hopeful, expectation for the next four years is for a competent administration and Congress to limit what new damage the federal government can cause, while laying the groundwork for a future President and Congress to more aggressively shrink the government back within Constitutional boundaries.

Cory Booker Will Testify Against Jeff Sessions In An "Unprecedented" Move. I Wonder Why.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) has announced that he will testify against Jeff Sessions’ nomination as Attorney General. Per CNN, this will be the first time in history that a sitting U.S. Senator will openly campaign against another senator for a Cabinet position in such a manner.

Booker’s reasoning is really not very hard to figure out. Before the new president is even inaugurated, he hopes to begin positioning himself for 2020, establishing credibility with base Democratic voters for opposing Trump early on—and reminding those already pining for a third Obama term that there is another young, African American, first-term senator ready to fight for liberal causes.

This on the heels of a New York Times story speculating about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s own plans for 2020. Trump won’t be inaugurated for another ten days, and already the sharks have begun to circle.

The question is how much blood will actually be in the water in four years. Democrats have almost uniformly convinced themselves that Trump’s victory was a fluke, and that anyone not named Hillary Clinton should be able to beat him in a landslide. Both Booker and Cuomo are, therefore, laying the groundwork early, catering to every Democratic interest group they can think of. Both likely figure that if they can just sew up the nomination, the presidency will be theirs.

But if so, both underestimate Donald Trump at their peril. I say this as someone who opposed Trump throughout the primary and general election, but I will never completely discount him again, no matter how heavily the odds are stacked against him. After all, who could have expected, on that Saturday after the Access Hollywood tape was leaked, and party loyalists were abandoning him in droves, that he would go on to win the presidency a month later?

It is pure stupidity to attempt to predict the results of the 2020 election from four years out, especially after 2016. Trump could lose in a landslide. He could win in a landslide. But the point is that Cory Booker is playing a dangerous game if he thinks that orchestrating a Ted Kennedy-style smear campaign against Trump’s Cabinet nominees will give him the inside track to the White House. Will liberals in New York and Los Angeles love him for it? For sure. Will blue-collar workers in Ohio and Pennsylvania? Probably not so much.

We Must Re-elect Ted Cruz At All Costs

As politicians are fond of saying, the next election is never more than two years away. And now, before the 45^th president has even been inaugurated, mere days after the 115^th Congress has been sworn in, speculation is already beginning about the 2018 midterms, when Republicans will have an historic opportunity to expand their Senate majority.

But as every grassroots conservative knows by now, having a simple Republican majority is by no means a guarantee of good legislation, or any serious effort in Congress to shrink the national debt or the size of government. Character still matters, even today, and the quality and commitment to Constitutional principles of candidates for office matter more than whether that candidate has an (R) next to their name.

In an ideal world, I would not be writing a post in support of Ted Cruz’s Senate reelection, because it would be Ted Cruz, not Donald Trump, preparing to take the oath of office as the next President. But here we are. And so, as much as it pains me to think about the next national election so soon after 2016, I have to, because ensuring that Ted Cruz wins a second term in the Senate will be the single most important battle for conservatives, across the country, over the next two years.

Cruz has been such a prominent and vocal defender of conservative principles during his first term that it would be impossible to give a comprehensive list of all the issues on which he has led the way in Congress, from government spending to Internet freedom to defense of the unborn. Cruz’s friend Senator Mike Lee of Utah is the only other member of the Senate who rivals him in his commitment to conservative values. But Lee is more comfortable out of the spotlight of national politics, whereas Cruz seems to relish his notoriety in the media and among liberals. Together they make a formidable team.

Texas is a red state, but liberals and moderate Republicans alike will seek to make an example of Cruz in an attempt to stifle other strong conservative voices within the GOP—the former by seeking to recruit strong general election candidates who disguise their liberalism well, and the latter by recruiting an establishment Republican to challenge Cruz in the primary. In early polling, Cruz looks like a solid favorite to win both the primary and general elections, against several potential candidates, all of whom are either little-known or little-liked. But the election is still over a year away, and much can change.

That’s why conservatives need to be focused on this race now, supporting the Cruz campaign financially if they are able, promoting the candidate to anyone they may know who is a registered Texas voter, and otherwise supporting his candidacy. The 2018 Texas Senate race will be the single most important Senate election of the year, and indeed the most important in several cycles.

I’ve had my differences with Cruz, mainly with regard to tactics. I applauded his bold decision not to endorse Trump at the RNC, and was then disappointed when he reversed course several months later. I disagreed with how he embraced Trump so fervently early on in the primary, clearly hoping to win over the latter’s supporters when their candidate inevitably faded away. But none of that changes the fact that it is vitally important that Ted Cruz win another term in the Senate. That is where he is needed, now more than ever.

Israel: America's Most Vital Ally

There has been no shortage of critical articles and blog posts from the Right, condemning the Obama administration’s shameful betrayal of Israel at the United Nations—followed by John Kerry’s equally shameful farewell speech. And I agree with all of them. But I think it important to briefly lay out why it is so important for America to stand strongly with Israel, from both a strategic and idealistic viewpoint.

From a strategic (or realist) point of view, the arguments are simple. The simple fact is that Israel is the only stable democracy in the Middle East, which makes it the only country in the region generally favorable to American interests. The importance of such an alliance cannot be overstated. One hardly needs to be reminded about the number of threats to American interests currently lurking in the region, from Iran to ISIS to al-Qaeda and a variety of other groups dedicated to radical Islamic terrorism. (And, Israel is one of only a few world powers to—allegedly—possess nuclear weapons.)

Israel is the only nation in the region that shares the same goals as the United States, primarily because all of those actors hate Israel almost as much as they hate us. A relatively stable island of democracy and Western values in what for centuries has been a sea of wars, coups, and general turmoil, Israel serves as a beacon of peace and promise for the Middle East.

Which leads to the idealist’s reasons for steadfast support of Israel. Having a stable democratic partner in the Middle East is not only good for American interests, it is good for humanity’s interests. Just as America has become, as Ronald Reagan famously put it, “a shining city on a hill”, so too Israel has the potential to become, and indeed is already becoming, a shining city and a model for the rest of the Middle East.

Most of the Middle East would vehemently deny that, of course. But over the past several years, as the rise of ISIS and the prospect of a nuclear Iran has rattled Israeli and Muslim governments alike, nations that once refused to recognize Israel’s very right to exist have begun reaching out—most notably Saudi Arabia. Israel’s willingness to engage with former adversaries has won it points with many of those same countries, and its political stability has likewise earned respect from those who assumed the tiny state would be quickly swallowed up by its many Arab neighbors soon after its founding.

At the heart of the matter is the fact that for many Americans, the story of Israel is also the story of the United States. We may have played no formal role in the founding of Israel as a nation, but many American Jews did—and they brought with them the ideals of freedom and democracy that have made this country so great. We inherited many ideas from Great Britain, our parent country, and adapted them. Through some of the many people who made the modern state of Israel a reality, we passed on those same ideas.

Looking Ahead with the Libertarian Party

The 2016 presidential election presented a golden opportunity for the Libertarian Party, even more than other third and minor parties, to become a major force in American politics. Both the Democrats and Republicans nominated truly awful candidates, despised by both independents and large numbers of liberals and conservatives in the party bases. Mistrust of the federal government in general, and specifically insider politics as practiced by members of both parties, was historically high. The time seemed ripe for a third-party disruption, and the Libertarians, as the largest third party with an existing infrastructure and ballot access in all fifty states, seemed the ones to do it.

And then they blew it by nominating Gary Johnson, he of “What’s Aleppo?” fame, who was given several opportunities to make a sizable impact and even came close to reaching the 15% polling benchmark necessary to appear on the general debate stage, but never seemed presidential or serious enough to earn the votes of the many who were convinced that voting third-party would merely constitute a “wasted vote”. To earn those votes, the Libertarians needed a fresh face that appealed to the broader electorate, and an aging ex-governor most people had never heard of, who reminded many of a crazy, if good-natured, uncle, was not the vehicle they needed.

In the end, Gary Johnson received just over 3% of the national vote. In down-ballot races, the party’s best showing came in the Alaska Senate race, where Joe Miller, a conservative former Republican with high name recognition in the state, earned over 20% of the vote against moderate Republican Lisa Murkowski. There is currently one Libertarian state legislator, a Nebraska state senator who switched from the Republican Party following Donald Trump’s nomination.

So, what now? Libertarians must now figure out how to define themselves over the next four years of a Trump presidency, which will be both a challenge and an opportunity. Democrats will obviously be the major opposition party, but as the main liberal party in America, conservative voices of dissent against Trump’s policies will not often be welcome there. Libertarians therefore have a chance that would not have been available had Clinton been elected president, with Republicans united against her—the chance to gain support from conservatives opposed to some of Trump’s more liberal leanings. His proposed major infrastructure bill, for instance—something being embraced by many Democrats, taken seriously by many moderate and establishment-oriented Republicans, and viewed with trepidation by conservatives—offers an opportunity for Libertarians to gain a significant foothold within the GOP and begin gaining high-profile, strategic supporters.

Of course, this assumes the party at large actually begins thinking strategically and wants to win, something it has demonstrated itself incapable of in the recent past. But the opportunities for political triangulation and further growth are there, if the party has the collective will to seize them.

The 115th Congress Assembles

Today, the 115^th meeting of the United States Congress will begin. All 435 members of the House, along with the thirty-four Senators newly elected or re-elected in November, will be sworn in. Presiding officers will officially be determined. Rules governing the conduct of business in the new Congress will be voted on. No legislation will pass today, but it will be a busy and important day all the same.

From a purely historical, nonpartisan perspective, it is incredible. The Congress has been meeting in a similar fashion (if not on the same day) since the 18^th century, from the birth of our nation, through wars and economic catastrophes and political turmoil, to today, uninterrupted. Looking at the other countries of the world, how many can say the same?

This Congress has the potential to be one of the most consequential in a very long time. If it is successful in dismantling Obamacare, it would represent the first time in American history that a major piece of welfare legislation was undone. It already represents the first time in over a decade that the GOP has held both Congress and the White House, and the first time since the 1920’s that it has enjoyed such large majorities in Congress while also holding the Presidency. All this while dozens of states are also under total Republican control.

The opportunities for rolling back government overreach and enacting conservative reforms are immense. The question is now whether congressional Republicans, as well as the incoming Trump administration, will seize those opportunities. The whole country will be watching.

Political New Year's Resolutions

In the spirit of the New Year, I’d like to make some political commitments and goals, both for this site and for myself personally, to work toward in 2017.

1.      Give Trump a chance. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating—I was intensely critical of Donald Trump during the campaign, and with good reason. I take none of it back. But the fact is that he is now the President-elect of the United States, has not yet undertaken any formal action as President, and therefore deserves a chance to prove all the doubters and naysayers wrong once more.

2.      Give Democrats and liberals a chance. This one will be harder. But it is important to remember that liberals are people too, with sincerely held beliefs just as strong as conservatives. Those beliefs may be wrong or stupid, but there is usually a rationale behind it—and a difference between the idea and the person holding it. If Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg could have as strong of a friendship as they did for so many years, and yet disagree so vociferously on the bench, in such a public setting, we can do the same with liberals we may know and work with. Politics is never an excuse to destroy friendships and relationships.

3.      Be careful about attacking liberal ideas and actions unless you have a better solution. It may be stupid, but at least they are presenting a solution. Don’t mock liberal proposals unless you have a better, conservative answer. Leaving an argument at “that’s stupid”, without any follow-up, is a good way to lose both the argument and personal relationships.

And finally…

4.      Remember that there is more to life than politics. This will be the hardest resolution to keep to in 2017, but also the most important. Not every family gathering has to be defined by politics. Not every chance encounter in the store has to lead to some political discussion. If it does, fine, great—but keep it civil. And if it becomes ugly, pivot to something that unites rather than divides. Even today, there are plenty of things to talk about that have absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump or Barack Obama.

A New Year also brings new opportunities and possibilities. Let’s not waste it on the sniping that made so much of 2016 so tedious.