Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 7, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2016 Trump, the great betrayer By DAVID BROOKS New York Times News Service Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Sheri Salber, a public health nurse, shows where vaccines are kept in the Clatsop County Public Health Department office. The Health De- partment offers immunizations for children, teens, and adults. Bacteria evolves as public health wanes $1 spent on disease prevention yields $5.60 in healthcare savings he egregious shortage of funding for Clatsop County Public Health reported Friday by Kyle Spurr is a gap echoed around the state and region. It is a failure in public policy that will come back to haunt residents who rarely give public health a second thought. As we reported, Clatsop far from defeated. According County has three full-time to the biotech organization nursing positions — split Aeras, around the world among six individuals — “Each year, more than 9 mil- to serve our 37,000-person lion people become sick with community. Over the past TB and 1.5 million people ¿YH \HDUV WKH ORFDO KHDOWK die of the disease.” agency has received nearly $600,000 less than what was latsop County Public budgeted. Rising costs and Health is tasked with a need to pay more to staff plenty more than just staying mean constant erosion of the on top of potentially deadly agency’s purchasing power. disease outbreaks. It runs a Among many genuine general clinic, makes home advances in medicine and visits, helps with family healthcare in the past century, planning and assists with it’s likely nothing has made key aspects of the Women, more of a difference in alle- Infant and Children (WIC) viating suffering and extend- program. ing lifespans than the system- Public Health Director atic efforts made by public Brian Mahoney notes a dis- health services. In our area, tinct shortfall in existing this work effectively ended services in the area of help- an assortment of nasty germs ing confront and manage that once spread among the chronic diseases, several of population. It is easy to forget which are rife in the county. that communicable diseases He cites heart disease, high nearly wiped out our region’s blood pressure and diabetes, Native American population. to which we would add sub- Whites also contracted these stance addiction, as problems illnesses. Despite somewhat the agency could play an stronger immunity, many expanded role in addressing. The agency is continuing to died. The age of communicable build collaborative relation- disease ebbed for decades fol- ships with other key players, lowing the advent of immu- including Providence Seaside nizations, antibiotics, clean and Columbia Memorial hos- water and other innovations. pitals, to achieve its complex Authorities now fear a resur- set of missions. But there ultimately is no gence as bacteria evolve and substitute for more money, public awareness wanes. One man with tuberculous made reliably available year recently exposed more than after year. Public health is not 100 people in the county. DEDWWOH¿HOGRQZKLFKD¿QDO 3XEOLFKHDOWKVWDIIKDGWR¿QG victory can be claimed. It where the person with TB requires constant and consis- had been, how long he spent tent diligence, traits that are in those places and who was at odds with current public exposed. Every one of those ¿QDQFHVDQGDWWHQWLRQVSDQ At least on the local level, people had to be tested and budget writers must bear in some had to be treated. TB is a scourge that U.S. mind that a dollar spent on citizens have mostly for- disease prevention yields gotten, but which once $5.60 in healthcare savings. killed tens of thousands of 7KLV LV D FRVWEHQH¿W UDWLR Americans each year. It is that warrants action. T C ow, at long last, the big guns are being brought to N bear. Now, at long last, some major Republicans like Mitt Romney are speaking up to lay waste to Donald Trump. For months Trump’s rivals and other Repub- licans have either retreated in silence or tenta- tively and ineptly criticized him for exactly those traits that voters like about him: David for being a slap- Brooks dash, politically incorrect money-hungry bully. %XW QRZ ¿QDOO\ ² DW ORQJ ODVW ² major Republicans are raising their heads and highlighting Trump’s actual vulnerability: his inability to think for an extended time about anybody but himself. +H VHGXFHV SHRSOH ZLWK KLV FRQ¿- dence and his promises. People invest time, love and money in him. But in the end he cares only about himself. He betrays those who trust him and leaves them high and dry. It’s unpleasant to have to play poli- tics on this personal level. But this is a message that can sway potential Trump supporters, many of whom have only the barest information on what Trump’s life and career have actually been like. This is a message that can work in a sour and cynical time among voters who already feel betrayed. This is a message that can work because it’s a personal- ity type everyone understands. This is a time when it is not in fact too late, when it may still be possible to prevent his nomination. The campaign against Trump has WREHVSHFL¿FDQGUHOHQWOHVVDVHULHVRI clear examples, rolled out day upon day with the same message. Donald Trump betrays. It can start with Trump University, where Trump betrayed schoolteachers and others who dreamed of building a better life for themselves. Trump billed his university as a place people could go to learn every- thing necessary about real estate invest- LQJ$FFRUGLQJ WR D ODZVXLW ¿OHG by New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, more than 5,000 peo- ple paid $40 million, a quarter of which went to Trump himself. Internal Trump University docu- Carlos Osorio/AP Photo Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves as he arrives at a rally at Macomb Community College, Friday, in Warren, Mich. ments suggest that the university wasn’t Jennifer McGovern had trusted really oriented around teaching, but Trump and went to work for him. But rather around luring customers into buy- she got stiffed in the end. In 2008 a ing more and more courses. New York state Supreme Court judge According to the New York lawsuit, ordered Trump Mortgage to pay her the LQVWUXFWRUV¿OOHGRXWFRXUVHHYDOXDWLRQV $298,274 she was owed. The bill wasn’t WKHPVHOYHV RU KDG VWXGHQWV ¿OO RXW WKH paid. non-anonymous forms in front of them, “The company was set up in a way pressuring them into giving positive that we could never recover what we reviews. During breaks were owed,” she told students were told to call The Washington Post. The their credit card compa- The stories can go nies to increase their on and on. The betrayal campaign of investors when his credit limits. They were given a script encour- casino businesses went against aging them to exagger- bankrupt. The betrayal ate their incomes. The RI KLV ¿UVW ZLIH ZLWK Trump Better Business Bureau KLVÀDJUDQWSXEOLFDIIDLU has to be with Marla Maples. gave the school a D- rat- ing in 2010. betrayal of Amer- specific and The “They lure you in ican workers when he with false promises,” relentless: decided to hire illegals. one student, Patricia The people left in the Donald Murphy, told The Times wake of other deba- in 2011. Murphy said cles: Trump Air, Trump Trump she had spent about Vodka, Trump Finan- $12,000 on Trump Uni- cial, etc. betrays. versity classes, much These weren’t just of it racked up on her risks that went bad. credit cards. “I was scammed,” she said. They were shams, built like his cam- The barrage can continue with paign around empty promises and Trump Mortgage. On the campaign trail, on Trump’s fragile and overweening Trump tells people he saw the mortgage pride. crisis coming. “I told a lot of people,” he The burden of responsibility now has said, “and I was right. You know, I’m IDOOV RQ 5HSXEOLFDQ RI¿FLDOV HOHFWHG pretty good at that stuff.” and nonelected, at all levels. For years Trump’s biggest lies are the ones he they have built relationships in their tells himself. The reality is that Trump communities, earned the right to be opened his mortgage company in 2006. heard. If they now feel that Donald Others smelled a bubble, but not Trump. Trump would be a reckless and danger- “I think it’s a great time to start a mort- ous president, then they have a respon- gage company,” he told CNBC. “The sibility to their country to tell those peo- real estate market is going to be very ple the truth, to rally all their energies strong for a long time to come.” against this man. Part of the operation was a boiler Since the start of his campaign room where people cold-called clients, Trump has had more energy and more sometimes pushing subprime loans and courage than his opponents. Maybe offering easy approval. that’s now changing. Clash of Republican con artists he ever heard of Nixon’s lishment wants to preserve “Southern strategy”; of the façade, which will Ronald Reagan’s invoca- be hard if the nominee is someone who refuses to o Republicans are going tions of welfare queens and “strapping young bucks” play his part. to nominate a candidate using food stamps; of Wil- By the way, I pre- dict that even if Trump is who talks complete nonsense lie Horton? Put it this way: There’s the nominee, pundits and on domestic policy; who a reason whites in the Deep others who claim to be believes that foreign policy South vote something like thoughtful conservatives 90 percent Republican, and will stroke their chins and can be conducted via bully- Paul it’s not their philosophical declare, after a great show Krugman ing and belligerence; who attachment to libertarian of careful deliberation, that he’s the better choice given cynically exploits racial and principles. Then there’s foreign policy, where +LOODU\¶V FKDUDFWHU ÀDZV RU VRPH- ethnic hatred for political Trump is, if anything, more rea- thing. And self-proclaimed centrists gain. sonable — or more accurately, less ZLOOVWLOO¿QGDZD\WRFODLPWKDWWKH But that was always going to hap- unreasonable — than his rivals. He’s sides are equally bad. But both acts pen, however the primary season ¿QHZLWKWRUWXUHEXWZKRRQWKDWVLGH will look especially strained. of the aisle isn’t? He’s belligerent, but Equally important, the Trump phe- turned out. unlike Rubio, he isn’t the favorite of nomenon threatens the con the GOP The only news is that the candi- the neoconservatives, aka the people establishment has been playing on its date in question is probably going responsible for the Iraq debacle. He’s own base. I’m talking about the bait to be Donald Trump. Establishment even said what everyone knows but and switch in which white voters are Republicans denounce nobody on the right is induced to hate big government by Trump as a fraud, which supposed to admit, that dog whistles about Those People, but Yes, he is. But is he more the Bush administra- actual policies are all about rewarding fraudulent than the tion deliberately misled the donor class. establishment trying to Trump’s a America into that disas- What Donald Trump has done is stop him? Not really. trous war. tell the base that it doesn’t have to con man, Actually, when you Oh, and it’s Ted accept the whole package. He prom- look at the people mak- Cruz, not Trump, who ises to make America white again but he ing those denunciations, seems eager to “carpet — surely everyone knows that’s the is also you have to wonder: Can bomb” people, without real slogan, right? — while simulta- they really be that lack- to know what neously promising to protect Social acting as appearing ing in self-awareness? that means. Security and Medicare, and hinting Donald Trump is a a whistle- In fact, you have to at (though not actually proposing) “con artist,” says Marco wonder why, exactly, higher taxes on the rich. Outraged Rubio — who has prom- the Republican estab- establishment Republicans splutter blower ised to enact giant tax lishment is really so that he’s not a real conservative, but on other KRUUL¿HGE\7UXPS<HV neither, it turns out, are many of their cuts, undertake a huge military buildup and bal- a con man, but they own voters. people’s he’s ance the budget without all are. So why is this -XVWWREHFOHDU,¿QGWKHSURVSHFW DQ\ FXWV LQ EHQH¿WV WR con job different from of a Trump administration terrifying, cons. Americans over 55. any other? and so should you. But you should “There can be no The answer, I’d sug- DOVREHWHUUL¿HGE\WKHSURVSHFWRID evasion and no games,” thunders Paul gest, is that the establishment’s prob- President Rubio, sitting in the White Ryan, the speaker of the House — lem with Trump isn’t the con he House with his circle of warmongers, whose much-hyped budgets are com- brings; it’s the cons he disrupts. or a President Cruz, whom one sus- pletely reliant on “mystery meat,” First, there’s the con Republicans pects would love to bring back the that is, it claims trillions of dollars usually manage to pull off in national Spanish Inquisition. in revenue can be collected by clos- elections — the one where they pose As I see it, then, we should actu- LQJXQVSHFL¿HGWD[ORRSKROHVDQGWULO- as a serious, grown-up party hon- ally welcome Trump’s ascent. Yes, OLRQVPRUHVDYHGWKURXJKXQVSHFL¿HG estly trying to grapple with America’s he’s a con man, but he is also effec- spending cuts. problems. The truth is, that party died tively acting as a whistle-blower on Ryan also declares that the “party a long time ago, that these days it’s other people’s cons. That is, believe it of Lincoln” must “reject any group voodoo economics and neocon fanta- or not, a step forward in these weird, or cause that is built on bigotry.” Has sies all the way down. But the estab- troubled times. By PAUL KRUGMAN New York Times News Service S
