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I like Sam’s thoughts here but the proposal can’t work. I was called by maybe 20 journalists on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Three tv stations. Four radio shows. From five different countries. People cannot help themselves. It’s too dramatic. /1
Trump knows this. He’s the master at it. But I don’t agree with Sam that Trump cannot be moved. He abandoned his racist claims about Judge Curiel and largely abandoned his critiques of Gold Star parents. Because a lot of people made a lot of noise about norm preservation. /2
I think we’ve seen something similar here. Making noise about preserving norms of good governance does raise the costs of Trumpian bombast and mendacity. It’s the rolling over and the straining at putting a thoughtful narrative on a thoughtless critique. /3
To put it differently, to those who want more accommodative monetary policy and see Trump’s institutional bulldozing as helpful to the cause, ask yourselves: what institutional norm would I fight to preserve even at the expense of a short-term policy loss? /4
If the answer is “Nothing; short-term policy victory is the only goal, whatever the long-term consequences”, then we’re just talking about power politics and institutions don’t matter at all. /end
