Against Strategery

Voters shouldn’t try to outsmart themselves.

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Former President Donald Trump disembarks his plane in Aberdeen, Soctland, on May 1, 2023. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Writing in the New York Times, Gail Collins (yes, again, for my sins) takes the bipartisan group No Labels to task, arguing that it could help to elect Donald Trump president, if Trump is the Republican nominee and No Labels runs a centrist alternative. “Repulsed by Biden vs. Trump? Tough.” So reads the hectoring headline. 

As I have been arguing for some time, one of the misfortunes that plagues our ailing republic is an epidemic of cleverness. It is a particularly narrow kind of cleverness—the kind that lawyers and op-ed columnists have—that has its place (thank goodness!) but that also can be mistaken for original insight or hardheaded analysis. It is a little more than glibness and a little less than expertise. 

That cleverness manifests itself in different ways, one of which is an excessive emphasis on what George W. Bush never actually called strategery. (Strategery was Will Ferrell, not George W. Bush; “I can see Russia from my house!” was Tina Fey, not Sarah Palin. Gerald Ford wasn’t actually clumsy. George H.W. Bush didn’t actually talk like Mr. Rogers trying to be John Wayne, as Dana Carvey described the formula for his impersonation. Etc.) What Collins is engaged in is parlor strategery. And she isn’t the only one: There are many people who are worried that No Labels could unintentionally help Donald Trump, including some people who are generally sympathetic to No Labels and its goals. Some people even whisper darkly that No Labels is some kind of Trumpist conspiracy.

That is, of course, preposterous. No Labels was founded in 2010 largely by the decided non-Trumpy troika of Nancy Jacobson (a Democratic fundraiser), Michael Bloomberg, and Andrew Tisch, co-chairman of the Loews Corporation. I have my doubts about No Labels’ priorities and its political model, but the idea that Larry Hogan, Joe Lieberman, and Benjamin Chavis are conspiring to further the interests of Donald Trump is moonshine. 

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  1. Chris S

    Here in Houston, chocolate often has 4 syllables, but that would be its pronunciation in Spanglish, Spanish, or when purchasing Chocolate Abuelita from the local HEB...

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  2. Ben

    Closing statement gold.

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    Walter.Sobchak.Esq

    Bankruptcy:

    2 points.

    First, bankruptcy proceedings are not about the debtor's obligations, which are conceded by the debtor at the outset, or his rights. They are about collective action problem among creditors and reducing their incentives to grab the debtors assets and freeze out the other creditors. The hope is that an orderly process will result in a greater return for the creditors.

    The debtors discharge is an outgrowth of the common law predecessor of bankruptcy, the assignment for the benefit of creditors. In an ABC, the debtor delivered his assets to a trustee for the benefit of creditors, who liquidated the assets and used the proceeds to pay off the creditors pro-rata. The debtor usually conditioned his transfer on a stipulation that any participating creditor would discharge the debtor. The legal maxim was that the honest debtor was entitled to a discharge.

    The social and practical benefits of the discharge should be obvious. Furthermore creditors can have no complaint that their rights are impaired by the discharge. All of the rights of any party to any contract are subject to the provisions of existing laws. The US has had a bankruptcy law in effect since 1898. The provisions of bankruptcy law are mandatory and may not be waived in advance (recall they are for the benefit of other creditors more so than of the debtor). If creditors don't like it, they should not lend money or advance credit in the US.

    2nd point.

    What you label as "the recent changes to how student loans are treated in bankruptcy" are not in effect. They are recommendations that will not be binding on the courts unless they are adopted by the courts.

    I still hope that Congress will address the subject. At a minimum they should allow for the discharge of interest, fees, and penalties, which often exceed the original loan,a and for the discharge of guarantors such as parents and grandparents who did not receive the benefit of the education. Congress should also make the colleges, who are the entities that actually get the money in these deals, responsible for the loss incurred by the taxpayers when loans are not repaid.

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  4. Jamesmajkowski

    Actually, I am in favor of reinstating a convict's franchise once his sentence has been served.

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    Walter.Sobchak.Esq

    " especially fried oysters ordered at a cheap restaurant in Lubbock, Texas, in the 1970s"

    I am guessing that those would have been bull calf organs* euphemistically called prairie oysters.

    Once upon a time, not long after your adventure, I was on a business trip to Amarillo TX, during which we dined at one of the finer establishments in that fair city. As I recall the menu feature a five pound beef steak with the promise that if you ate the whole thing at one sitting, your dinning charge would be remitted.

    I did not accept that challenge, but I was japed into an order of so-called prairie oysters. I gamely ate them. As I recall it was more like eating bicycle tire inner tube than a beef dish. I never repeated that adventure and will close out my days on earth without doing so.

    * as a clue for the clueless, it is the removal of those organs that turns a bull calf into a steer.

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    Ben Connelly

    “ a great number of people who take the time to respond to my work find it impossible to imagine that I would—or that they would, in my place—simply write that which I think to be true.”

    Which is hilarious because it’s pretty obvious that that is in fact exactly what you do (as I have pointed out before in the comments to other commenters who seemed to struggle to imagine that this is true).

    Good discussion of bankruptcy. I am not one of those libertarians who believes that bankruptcy law shouldn’t exist. There are good reasons for it to exist and the American bankruptcy system is a credit to our nation and a partner of free enterprise - a fact both Elizabeth Warren and Patrick Deneen seem not to be apprised of.

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    Jewls444

    Well Kevin, you made me laugh out loud three times! Thanks. Also, congratulations on being the Quote of the Week on a Dividend Cafe recently.

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  8. Korossy.Arpad

    Kevin, I believe that would be "Szücs" in Hungarian, vice "Szucz." (To the best of my knowledge, "cz" doesn't appear in any Hungarian words.)

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  9. Philip.R.M.Hunt

    "It is a great misfortune that George W. Bush’s “ownership society” ideas got derailed, along with much else, by those jihadist nutters. "

    I too regret that GWB's ownership society ideas got sidelined by the GWOT, Afghanistan and Iraq. Another good idea that got sidelined was his "compassionate conservatism." Both ideas got me to seriously consider voting for him. I didn't in the end because I think Gore was right we should have kept the balanced budget and not done the Bush tax cuts. We would have been in better shape debt-wise today. Also, we would have been better off dealing with climate change earlier like Gore wanted.

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  10. rickle

    “the United States has two major political parties because it has two major political tribes—not the other way around.”

    I don’t think that’s true - there is a vast population of centrist (the silent majority…) out there who feel that their party has moved so far away from the mainstream that they feel abandoned, and are hungry for a new tribe to belong to - a team Normal!

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    1. GreyHen

      But I think even among the centrists there are divisions - some may be more centrist when it comes to spending and welfare programs, yet lean much further in either direction when it comes to social issues - and vice versa.

      I'm with Kevin on this one - we have just the two tribes, but you are right that a whole lot of the moderates of either side just want some normalcy and compromise.

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      1. Philip.R.M.Hunt

        This has a good deal of truth to it. I consider myself a moderate Dem basically, not a centrist or independent. I vote mostly Republican at the local level, and occasionally at the state level, but straight Dem at the national. My county is reddish purple so Republicans are likely to win, so I focus on getting the more moderate and sane Republican in. We have open primaries here in WA, so I often vote for the moderate Republican in the primary even if I would prefer the Democrat to win the general. I am not going to "strategic vote" for the crazy and extreme Republican to give the Democrat a better chance. Am also not going to vote for the Dem in the primary. I believe what Karl Popper said about democracy - the most important thing is not put the best people in office but to keep the worst out.

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