The Million Dollar Bet that Wasn't

Being amused by something in the news does not always mean that it is funny. I am often amused but saddened at the time. This was the case when I saw many Democrats rejoicing over the results of Senator Elizabeth Warren's DNA test like some type of great victory had been won. The sentiments expressed by many Democrats were something like, “See, Senator Warren was right! She is vindicated! Should President Trump pay up and donate $1 million to Senator Warren’s favorite charity? Will he?”

Uh, no. What the President said was campaign shenanigans not to be taken seriously. He was speaking about what he would offer if he and Senator Warren ever debated, which shows he considers her a possible threat. Though the DNA test showing there was a high probability that she had Native American ancestry generations ago was probably necessary for her presidential candidacy, it was not a major victory, and Senator Warren and the Democrats would be wise to let it go.

The fact is, Senator Warren was unwise to designate herself as a minority in a directory of the Association of American Law Schools based on family stories. Harvard was equally unwise to promote her as a minority in an effort to increase diversity. Even if the designation never helped her career, and all indications are that it did not, hearing family stories of her ancestry is much different than growing up in a situation in which a minority faces socioeconomic hardship and discrimination because of their background. Senator Warren’s family struggled to remain middle class because of unfortunate health issues that affected them economically and had nothing to do with ethnicity.

Her past claim of minority status is certainly not an issue about her fitness for office, but neither is it a strong point to be touted. Her DNA test results were not a victory, just a political necessity to avoid defeat. Big difference. The results should be dismissed, just as the million dollar bet offer.

However, I can’t help but think it will be a continued distraction should Senator Warren announce her candidacy for President. Democrats will extoll the DNA results and Republicans will disparage them. This is, after all, the political atmosphere that exists today, concerned more with shenanigans than substance.

What if the first woman president is. . . a Republican?

That’s right. You read correctly. What a coup d'état it would be for Republicans if their party, now known as the (primarily) all boys frat club and bullier of women, somehow nominated a woman for president and she won the general election over a Democrat, the party traditionally seen as championing women. Good lord, historians hundreds of years from now will be confused!

As unlikely as that may seem right now, it is neither impossible nor implausible. Suffice it to say that there have been Republican thinking about it for a long time. In that time, the name of former South Carolina Governor and former (as of today) Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has inevitably come up.

As governor of South Carolina, Ambassador Haley proved to be intelligent, self-controlled, and politically savvy. A minority woman does not ascend to that office easily in South Carolina. Her opposers were legion and played every card possible against her, including the “slut” card. She was called a raghead, even though her parents are from India and are Sikh and even though she has long worshipped as a Christian. She was accused of tax fraud. Of being dumb. Of being insincere. You name it.

She survived those storms and many more, including navigating the swamps of race and gender issues in South Carolina, and South Carolina is know for its swamps, geographically and politically. Francis Marion, the Revolutionary War hero from South Carolina know as the Swamp Fox, navigated those swamps artfully and used them to his advantage. Nikki Haley has done the same. Ambassador Haley would campaign as far right as needed to win primaries. In governance, she remained conservative but placed herself more toward the center whenever possible. She could appeal to a lot of undecided voters, including undecided women, especially if she were presented as the new face of Republican party concerning women.

There are many examples of her political savvy. When a white male with racist motives murdered nine black South Carolinians, including a state senator, while they attended Bible study at their church, in a volatile situation she behaved admirably in what I believe was a sincere effort to address the issue. Sincere or not (and I believe she was), politics was on her mind. Right at the end of a presidential primary in which she backed someone else, she was quick to link racist rhetoric that permeated the Trump campaign as contributing to such crimes. A victim of racist rhetoric herself, she stated "I know what that rhetoric can do. I saw it happen.” She then landed a spot in the Trump Administration, not the most coveted, but a post nonetheless, that conveniently kept her from the limelight but also gave her needed foreign policy experience. In basketball, that’s like bricking a shot but getting your own rebound and then scoring. Two points!

When North Carolina passed its notorious bathroom gender law bill stopping transgender individuals from using public bathrooms representing their sexual identity, then-Governor Haley dismissed the need for such a law in South Carolina as unnecessary, irrelevant, and an example of intrusive government overreach. Swish! Three pointer! Nothing but net!

The Confederate flag issue was more touch and go. The Confederate Flag was removed from flying over the State Capitol in 2000 (where it had flown since 1962) to a monument on statehouse grounds, and then taken down completely in 2015. It was a swamp carpeted with land mines with sharpshooters who were descendants of Confederate soldiers lying in ambush. Even though removing it had garnered the necessary 2/3 majority from both state legislative houses, which means many Republicans voted for it, Governor Haley became the target of some Republicans, including some already supporting Trump in the primaries who vowed they would never forget. Originally in favor of allowing it to stay on statehouse grounds, as Governor of a state seeking business investment, and after giving a hearing to black South Carolinians about how the flag affected them, she later reflected that it should not have been there in the first place. No swish here. However, the fact is, many Republican politicians in South Carolina are much farther right than the majority of citizens and even many Republicans, especially younger Republicans, and many in the state were sympathetic to her support for removing the flag. She was on the foul line in a 1 and 1 situation and sunk 1 out of 2. Not bad.

So, what is next for Ambassador Haley?

Senator? If a Senate seat in South Carolina opens up that is a possibility. That depends on the plans of Senators Scott and Graham. Will Lindsey Graham get a cabinet post (Attorney General?) and Ambassador Haley be appointed in his stead? Possibly. Perhaps Senator Graham’s performance during the Kavanaugh confirmation set well with President Trump. In SC the governor appoints someone to fill a midterm vacancy in a senate seat, and the governor is the former lieutenant governor who served under Ambassador Haley, though until this upcoming 2018 election the governor and lieutenant governor ran separately. There would be some vocal opposition, and Governor McMaster is running for reelection, so it depends on where his support lies. However, can you imagine the conservative state of South Carolina having one black Senator, Tim Scott, and one minority woman Senator? That in itself is a pretty big coup.

Cabinet post? President Trump is full of surprises, so I would not eliminate that, but I’m not putting any money on it.

Is President Trump looking for a new VP to replace Mike Pence? That would be very, very risky with the Vice President’s connections, unless he is voluntarily moving elsewhere.

Whatever it is, it will be interesting to watch. Ambassador Haley has a way of landing on her feet. She is young and smart. Of course, politics is fickle and a lot can happen between now and 2020, 2024, or 2028. However, I don’t doubt that a lot of Republicans who will want to move the Republican Party away from Trumpian politics as quickly as possible would consider Ambassador Haley a good choice. Reactionary populism is a wave, and that wave eventually hits shore.

The Trumpian News Cycle

If there were a Pulitzer Prize for controlling the news cycle, without question it would go to President Trump. Either out of sheer brilliance or obscene narcissism, he has the passion and penchant for making sure that he is being talked about in the news. Constantly. Ubiquitously. Unendingly. Without fail. Day in. Day out.

His latest coup to win back his preeminence in the news (Well, not latest. There have been several more. I just can’t keep up.) was his blunt attack on the credibility of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

First, for the sake of clarity, let’s grant that the accusations have not been legally proven.

Second, ouch! Let’s throw discretion to the wind and just get naked as a jaybird, roll around in the mud, and then stroll into church and sit muddy and naked on the pew of the most sensitive topic on America’s radar right now, sexual assault. Nothing out of place there.

Whether you believe the allegations made against Judge Kavanaugh by Dr. Blasey Ford or not, the President’s mocking rant was as insensitive to those who have been victims of sexual assault as it was steeped in ignorance about the subject, an ignorance that so many are working so hard to eradicate. First, by talking about Dr. Blasey Ford’s lapses in memory, President Trump ignored the overwhelming amount of established data indicating that traumatized sexual assault victims can often recall some details of the assault but not other peripheral details. This phenomenon is not only common, it is largely typical pf sexual assault victims. Then, he promoted the stereotypical idea that women who bring such allegations at a later date are liars or troublemakers, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that two thirds of sexual assaults go unreported and a great deal are reported after the fact, simply because women do not want to relive the trauma and face the type of ignorant, hurtful accusations that so often accompany reporting sexual assault. In just a few sentences, President Trump became the poster child, and I mean child, for all the ignorance, sexism, insensitivity, and bullying that has made sexual assault the unreported plague that it is.

Yet, it was a move that played well to his followers in the atmosphere of a campaign-style rally. Really well. Incredibly well. Unbelievably well.

Will President Trump pay any penalty?

Well, it could backfire among moderate and independent voters, particularly women, in the upcoming midterm elections.

It was a move that made some Republicans cringe, which could erode support among Republican lawmakers.

It could give more credibility to the #MeToo movement, and possibly more energy.

However, if the past is any indication, much of the negative backlash will disappear with the next Trump-controlled news cycle. President Trump’s followers will dismiss it without any further thought. Republicans, even those that decry it, will tip-toe around it and then move on with their agenda when the coast clears. Political opponents of President Trump will soon have to move on to address his next attempt to control the news cycle.

Even if it it contributes to some Republicans losing in the mid-term elections and the Democrats gain the majority in the Senate, it won’t affect President Trump. He will say the Republican candidates who lost were too weak, that they were losers, low energy, or did not support him enough. After all, it couldn’t be his fault they lost. His followers will agree, and it appears that his loyal following may be most important thing to President Trump. When he retreats to the warm, secure atmosphere that exists in the confirmation-biased cocoon of his campaign-style rallies, President Trump, like a butterfly, emerges new and transformed, ready to move on to his next battle. And the next news cycle.