With more talk about impeaching Trump, the biggest beneficiary is perhaps Elizabeth Warren. It’s not so much that Trump has been weakened, because the people who hate him will continue to hate him, and the people who like him will continue to like him.
The whole basis for going after Trump now is that he asked the president of Ukraine to look into Joe and Hunter Biden and the firing of the prosecutor who was investigating the company that Hunter Biden worked for. No matter which side of the aisle you are on (or no side at all), it is hard not to ask about what happened with Biden.
Hunter Biden was being paid up to $50,000 per month working for an energy company in Ukraine by serving on the board. This was a man who had drug troubles, and his only real qualification was that his father was vice president of the United States. Joe Biden actually bragged at a CFR meeting that he threatened to withhold money to Ukraine if the prosecutor in question wasn’t fired. In other words, Joe Biden is unquestionably guilty of the exact thing that Trump is being accused of.
Even if Biden fans (are there any?) try to justify these actions, it is easy to understand that the American public at large won’t be so forgiving. The main reason Biden had been the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination is because he was seen as the most likely person to be able to beat Trump in a general election.
With this latest story, that is no longer the case.
The Rise of Senator Pocahontas
Elizabeth Warren was already gaining momentum before this story about Trump and Biden and Ukraine gained traction. She has now become the clear frontrunner for the Democratic Party’s nomination.
Trump likes to give nicknames to his rivals. It is his form of branding. Whatever you may think of Trump, his branding is effective. This is how he was able to fend off “Low Energy Jeb”, “Lyin’ Ted Cruz”, and “Lil’ Marco”. He was also able to beat “Crooked Hillary”.
The funniest nickname of them all is for Elizabeth Warren. She has long claimed to be a Native American. Trump calls her Pocahontas or Senator Pocahontas. It is actually quite hilarious.
Trump challenged her on this, and Warren was stupid enough to take a DNA test and publicly display it. She thought this was a wise political move, but it essentially backfired. Her Native American blood may be as little as 1 out 1,024. She may actually have less Native American DNA than the average European-American.
She has evidently survived her blunder, as the polls show. The problem is (for the Democrats) that she hasn’t really been tested in the Democratic debates.
If Warren wins the nomination and faces Trump in 2020 (assuming Trump is not removed from office), it is going to be a whole different ballgame. Is Trump going to call her Pocahontas on the debate stage? I sure hope so. And the more the establishment media complains about the disrespect he’s showing, the more he should do it.
When it comes to actual policy, is Warren going to keep responding that, “it’s just another Republican talking point”? That may work in a Democratic primary debate, but it isn’t a very effective answer when you’re talking about nationalizing healthcare or imposing a massive wealth tax.
Imagine if Trump were removed from office and Pence became president. Imagine if Pence is running for president next year against Warren. This would be so incredibly boring and predictable, and not in a good way.
Warren will have her challenges if she faces Trump. Trump will have his challenges too. If the inverted yield curve continues its historical accuracy in predicting recessions, then the economy may already be in the toilet by November 2020, which would be bad news for Trump.
President Pocahontas
Let’s say that the economy does turn south in the next year and Warren is able to win the presidency. What should we expect for 2021 and beyond?
One of the main reasons she is doing well right now is because she is something of a hybrid candidate. She is acceptable enough to the mainline establishment portions of the Democrats, and she is acceptable enough to some of the far left. There will be a few on the very far left who end up voting for the Green Party, but this is an acceptable loss in favor of having some appeal to the independents and other swing voters.
Biden is seen as too establishment, and now he has all of these problems with his past in Ukraine. Kamala Harris is also too establishment and has sunk in the polls. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is seen as too far to the left. He is more openly socialist than Warren. The establishment doesn’t care for him because he could be too disruptive to the status quo. I don’t think he would rock the foreign policy establishment vote, but he does say some things against the war state that are probably concerning to the establishment. The establishment will just say that Bernie is too far to the left and unelectable, or else they’ll at least hint that.
Warren is the compromise candidate of the far left and the establishment. This means she will be an establishment politician once she is in office.
She has big plans to nationalize healthcare and implement a wealth tax on the rich. While I have no doubt she favors these things, I think it is mostly for rhetorical purposes to satisfy the left.
The full nationalization of medical care in the United States will depend on the makeup of Congress. Even if the Democrats have a majority in both houses of Congress, it is no guarantee. Bill Clinton failed on this in 1993 and 1994.
As far as a wealth tax, I doubt that it will pass. Some of the senators will be doing harm to themselves. There are too many lobbyists and donors who would oppose it. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it isn’t likely.
In terms of overall spending and welfare, Warren does not scare me. How much worse can it get? The government is already running an annual deficit near one trillion dollars. This is during a supposedly prosperous time.
Consider that most of the federal budget is spoken for. Most of it goes to Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, the military, and interest on the debt. Maybe Warren would cut a little out of the military. That would be fine by me.
There is little room to expand the budget. It will be a fight over peanuts. A few million – or even billion – here and there between agencies isn’t going to have any kind of significant impact. In other words, while Warren will continue the status quo and promote things that are against liberty, I don’t think she will do any more damage than what we have already seen.
On an even more positive side, Warren is not really that likeable. She doesn’t come across as cold and calculating as Hillary Clinton, but she doesn’t come across as warm either. She comes across as a total phony to me, and I suspect that many others will see her the same way. She isn’t going to have a commanding presence as president. When you lack charisma, you aren’t going to be that effective in implementing your agenda.
In addition, Republicans will band together against her. They will fight again. They will care about out-of-control spending again. They seem to ignore these things when a Republican is president. We may actually hear some opposition to the budgets coming out of Washington DC.
Conclusion
When I make a libertarian case for a President Pocahontas, it doesn’t mean I, in any way, endorse her or support her or would vote for her. I think she is a liar, and I think her policy proposals are horrible.
However, I want other libertarians (and conservatives, too) to understand that it won’t be the end of the world if Warren wins the presidency. She may be one of the least bad options at this point. No matter who gets elected, we generally get more war, more sanctions, more welfare, and more debt.
If Warren is president, I don’t think she will be all that effective. This is the best that libertarians can hope for at this point, at least until we have more people on our side. We want an ineffective president because it means that less liberty will be taken away from us.