John Judis
When Muhammad Ali was still Cassius Clay
I am a generation older than Josh so I have a different, earlier memory of the guy who was then called Cassius Clay. I saw him win the Olympics as a light heavy weight, and listened to the first Liston-Clay fight on the radio in 1964. It wasn’t televised. It was in theater TV. Liston, who was a Mike Tyson in his prime type – one punch and you were out, and he’d never been knocked down — was a prohibitive 7-1 favorite. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My friends and I speculated afterwards that Liston must have taken a dive. But if you watch the fight on video, Clay was so quick he was unhittable, and destroyed Liston with his long left-handed jabs. (The second fight, where Liston got knocked out in the first round, still looks to me as if Liston didn’t want to fight. The right-hand that took him out was not even extended. It was more like a hard jab.) When Clay turned Ali and refused to go to fight in the Vietnam War, he was sent to jail in the middle of his career.
Trumponomics Explained — Sort Of
Much of what Donald Trump says is bluster and demagoguery designed to win over a Republican primary audience. He often contradicts himself. And who knows what he would really do if he were elected president – I wouldn’t want to take the chance to find out. But there is sometimes a hint, or sometimes even the presence of, an arguable position in what he saying. And it’s important to understand this because it means that in some cases, Trump’s voters and the voters for Democrats share certain reasonable positions that have generally been taboo among Republicans.
That was the case with the underlying theme of restraint in his foreign policy speech last week and is also the case with the interview that Fortune did with him about his economic views.
Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech should be discussed not dismissed
I’ve tried to steer clear of the debate (if you call it that) over Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech in Washington yesterday — I have to get a book done — but the torrents of dismissals that have rained down upon it has driven me to write something. If you don’t know what I am talking about, look at Clinton operative David Brock’s collection of these responses charging that Trump’s speech was “pathetic” and “not exactly coherent.”
I am not driven to write in defense of Trump, whom I am not supporting for President, nor of what he espouses, but of the sheer arguability and coherence of the principles underlying his speech. I won’t say they’re right, but I will say they are coherent and arguable and also preferable to those that govern, say, the views of people like Lindsey Graham or publications like the Washington Post that are still unrepentant and unthinking about their enthusiastic support for the Iraq War.
Two Thoughts on Donald Trump’s Chances in the Fall
I think it’s now reasonable to look toward a general election contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I have two thoughts. One of the key voting blocs that has gone Democratic over the last fifty years is professionals. It’s a census category and after the November election, there will be surveys that will allow us to chart their vote, but in the meantime, you can get a rough estimate by looking at voters with advanced degrees. These are not the same as voters with the highest income. They make up about a fifth of the electorate nationally and close to a quarter or more in states like Maryland, Oregon, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
I know who I am not voting for next Tuesday
The Maryland primary is coming up next Tuesday, and I know whom I am not voting for. I live in Chris Van Hollen’s district in Montgomery County, which is dependably Democratic. Last January, national wine mogul David Trone threw his fedora into the ring. Trone is spending as of this date $12.4 million to buy this seat. It’s the most a candidate has ever spent of his own money on a House seat.
I am worried about Hillary Clinton again
I don’t know who “won” the debate, or even how to decide who won, but I am worried, as I was after the Michigan primary, that Hillary Clinton, who is the odds-on Democratic nominee, will have difficulty in the fall even against Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. I don’t understand why she can’t put the Goldman, Sachs question behind her. I initially assumed that she either didn’t have transcripts or that what she said was the usual milquetoast stuff politicians offer up. But her continued refusal to provide transcripts (which I now assume must exist) suggests that there must be something damning in them.
It’s a good thing to see Deutsche Bank, PayPal, Bruce Springsteen and these other bigshots and big institutions boycotting North Carolina because of the state law overturning Charlotte’s law on which bathrooms transsexuals can use. And it’s a good thing to see the state backtracking. But you wonder with Alec MacGillis why none of the high rollers thought of boycotting the seventeen states that have denied Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act to millions of their low-income citizens. Millions. And that includes North Carolina. I am afraid it goes back to something I wrote about twenty-five years ago: why social rights issues that cut across class and sometimes partisan lines (such as abortion and gay rights, e.g. Cheney family) can summon enormous influence on their behalf, while those that predominately affect the poor and low-income people cannot. Moral appeals are clearly not enough in these instances.
I’m Voting for Bernie, but on One Condition
“He’s not going to get the nomination, is he?” my wife asks anxiously as she gazes out of the kitchen window at the Bernie for President sign on our front lawn. No, I assure her, and he certainly won’t win Maryland on April 26. I’m voting for Bernie, and my wife may, too, but we’re doing so on the condition that we don’t think he will get the nomination. If he were poised to win, I don’t know whether I’d vote for him, because I fear he would be enormously vulnerable in a general election, even against Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, and I’m also not sure whether he is really ready for the job of president.