OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
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
OUR VIEW
Give each other
benefit of doubt
M
aybe because we’re used to depending on one another
here on the wild outer edge of America, we bring a
more humane and pragmatic sensibility to our politics.
We rely on each other to saw through fallen trees and get the
lights on after winter storms. We are bound to meet each other in
our small number of grocery stores and favorite restaurants.
We have a mutual affection for that most competent and self-ef-
facing of federal agencies, the U.S. Coast Guard. We attend the
weddings and funerals, church bazaars and chili feeds of local
people without caring who they voted for.
We speak to one another at summer markets, at football games,
in the letters section of the newspaper. Our hearts swell with
pride at the thought of all who preceded us here — from a mighty
Indian civilization, to Lewis and Clark, to the loggers and fisher-
men and undaunted women of many nations who came together
here to create the neighborhoods we cherish today.
In short, we build and nurture communities — diverse in our
opinions but united by a shared belief in one another.
The importance to us of what happens beyond the confines of
this spectacular coastline fades more and more with each moun-
tain and valley of the Coast Range, Cascades and Rockies. Sure,
things like federal taxes and rules have an influence on our lives.
But feeling oppressed — or at least peeved — by the high-handed
dictates of the mighty is part and parcel of being human.
It was so in Mary and Joseph’s time more than 2,000 years ago
and it is no less true today. Even in our modern democracy, it is
foolish for ordinary people to fight with each other over such mat-
ters that are truthfully beyond our control.
We have far more in common with even the weirdest resi-
dent of this coastline than with any politician from east of the
Mississippi — or maybe even east of the Snake. The people
we see on TV from 3,000 miles away will never scan our hori-
zon searching for a child missing in the surf. They will never say
“thank you” to a tired sheriff’s deputy for rescuing a hunter lost in
our deep woods. They will never set aside petty disagreements to
cheer as a local boy or girl makes a great layup or makes the right
choices during the perilous path to adulthood.
All that is fundamentally good about our lives comes from
here, not from the outside.
We imagine a better future for our children and grandchildren,
one in which they can create their lives as we have, working at
something they enjoy, hopefully making enough money to be free
from want and worry. Many are still too far away from this dream,
left cobbling together a living from week to week, hoping for a
decent crab season or an honorable part-time or seasonal job after
the current one runs its course. Too many struggle to find afford-
able housing, and are left wondering how they might ever buy a
place of their own. Healthcare still is too uncertain, with amazing
medical advances out of reach for many because they can’t obtain
or keep adequate insurance.
How plausible is it that any of this will be fixed by a politician
in Washington, D.C.? No matter what, the glory days of old indus-
tries will not return. One machine can do the work of 20 loggers
a team of oxen, or of 50 union steelworkers or coal miners. An
industrialized river and ailing ocean won’t support anything like
the legendary salmon runs of old.
In these and other ways, the facts inform us that if we want
more good-paying jobs, we ourselves need to establish the con-
ditions for them by investing in education, by making our towns
more enticing, by crafting local regulations and support structures
that aid high-quality businesses.
We can and must continue making our communities inviting
to all good people of every faith, race and sexual preference. This
coast was one of the first outposts for Pacific Rim commerce and
interplay. Our openness and inclusivity have germinated a cul-
ture rich in the arts, culinary masterworks, splendid and welcom-
ing accommodations. Modern immigrants demonized by ignorant
fools elsewhere in the nation are part of the bedrock of this coast.
We must continue to stand with them as vital friends in this won-
derful experiment called the United States of America.
A quick look at Facebook or any national news media will find
countless assertions that our country is broken, or wrecked, or
doomed by the choices made in last week’s election, and by the
social divisions that led to a surprising choice for president.
Disappointment is understandable after any election, espe-
cially one so hard fought. But despair is ridiculous — an insult to
the brains, bones, muscles and sinews of our ancestors. We simply
don’t yet know how the next president will work out. And even a
casual study of history suggests that few are either so bad or good
as to be remembered very long after they exit the national stage.
The blood of all those who created this nation courses through
us still. It’s up to us to make certain it survives. This certainly
means standing in opposition to tyranny, bigotry and stupidity. But
it also means giving each other the benefit of the doubt.
Let us continue depending on one another, speaking to one
another and trusting one another in this spectacular part of a won-
derful country.
Always forward.
How new Republican
majority can succeed
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
W
ASHINGTON — Don-
ald Trump won fair
and square and, as Hil-
lary Clinton said in her concession
speech, is owed an
open mind and a
chance to lead. It is
therefore incumbent
upon conservatives
(like me) who have
been highly criti-
cal of Trump to think through how to
make a success of the coming years
of Republican rule.
It begins by recognizing Trump’s
remarkable political instincts. As
Paul Ryan noted in his morning-af-
ter olive-branch news conference,
Trump heard “a voice out in this
country that no one else heard.”
Trump spoke to and for a work-
ing class squeezed and ruined by
rapid technological and economic
transformation.
One of the principal tasks for the
now-dominant GOP is to craft a gov-
erning agenda that actually alters
their lives and prospects. In the end,
it was this constituency of those left
behind by the new globalized digi-
tal economy that delivered the presi-
dency to Trump.
Obamaism
Nonetheless, this election was
not just about the social/economic
divide. It was also about the ideo-
logical divide between left and right.
The most overlooked factor in the
election is the continuing deep and
widespread dissatisfaction with
Obamaism.
It tends to be overlooked because
President Obama remains personally
popular (56 percent in the latest Gal-
lup). As a charismatic campaigner,
whenever his name is on the ballot,
he wins. But when it’s not — 2010,
2014, now 2016 — the Democrats
get shellacked.
The reason is no mystery. The
problem was never with Obama him-
self, but with his policies. Before
each of those losing elections Obama
would campaign saying that his
name wasn’t on the ballot but his pol-
icies — and now his legacy — were.
The voters made clear what they
thought of his policies and legacy.
Simply put, from the beginning of
his presidency, Obama overreached
ideologically, most spectacularly
with his signature legislative achieve-
ment — Obamacare. The spike in
Obamacare premiums and deduct-
ibles just two weeks before Tues-
day’s election proved a particularly
damaging reminder of what Obama-
ism had wrought.
The key to
success
for a Trump
presidency is for
the Reaganite
and populist
elements in
the party to
be willing to
advance each
other’s goals.
Hence the other principal task
for the now dominant GOP: Undo
Obamaism. Begin with canceling
Obama’s executive orders on every-
thing from immigration to climate
change. Then overturn his more elab-
orate legislative adventures into
overweening liberalism, starting, of
course, with Obamacare.
The promise of a Trump presi-
dency is that, if it can successfully
work with a Republican Congress, it
could turn Obamaism into a histori-
cal parenthesis. Republicans would
then have a chance to enact the Rea-
ganite agenda that has been incubat-
ing while in exile from the White
House.
For years Washington gridlock
has been attributed to GOP obstruc-
tionism. On the contrary, serious leg-
islation, such as Medicare reform
passed by the GOP House, was either
strangled in the Senate by Demo-
cratic leader Harry Reid or died by
veto on President Obama’s desk.
Prospect of doing
Beyond the undoing, there’s now
the prospect of doing. Serious bor-
der enforcement, including a wall,
for example. That’s not only a good
in itself, it would offer leverage in
a grand bargain that would include
eventual legalization of resident ille-
gal immigrants, an idea supported
(according to the exit polls) by more
than seven in 10 voters.
Another given is a reshaping of
the currently rudderless Supreme
Court with the nomination of a con-
servative justice to replace the late
Antonin Scalia.
During the campaign, Trump’s
populism often clashed with tradi-
tional Reaganism. The key to GOP
success is to try to achieve an accom-
modation, if not a fusion. Two agen-
das: one ideological, one socio-
economic. They both need to be
addressed. Onto the Reaganite core
of smaller government and strict con-
stitutionalism must be added a seri-
ous concern for the grievances of
the constituency that animated the
Trump insurgency, the long-suffer-
ing, long-neglected working class.
If Reaganite conservatives want
to head off wrongheaded solutions
— such as massive tariffs, mercan-
tilist economics and trade wars —
they must be prepared to accept such
measures as federal wage subsidies
and targeted restraints on trade. This
involves giving up a measure of eco-
nomic efficiency. But the purpose is
to achieve a measure of social peace
and restore dignity and security to a
stressed and sliding working class.
Some might even call it compassion-
ate conservatism.
The key to success for a Trump
presidency is for the Reaganite and
populist elements in the party to be
willing to advance each other’s goals
even at the cost of ideological purity.
This will require far-reaching nego-
tiations between a Trump White
House and a GOP Congress. The
Republicans have gained control of
all the political branches. They have
the means to deliver. They now have
to show that they can.
In Arizona, a cautionary tale for Trump
By TIMOTHY EGAN
New York Times News Service
H
e was Donald Trump before
Trump — his political god-
father. The racial profiling,
the authoritarian streak, the robust
defense of easily
refutable lies — all
are part of the rep-
ertoire of Sher-
iff Joe Arpaio of
Maricopa County,
Arizona.
On Tuesday, the man who was
emblematic — at least in the South-
west — of Trump’s attempt to hold
back the demographic tide of the
new America was resoundingly
defeated. It was a vote for decency,
for common sense, and no small
amount of revenge from many of the
victims of his strong-arm policies.
After six terms as the chief law-
man of the most populous county in
Arizona, Arpaio was defeated by a
former Phoenix police officer, Paul
Penzone, a Democrat.
“There’s a new sheriff in town,”
Penzone said. You could say that
time, and federal law, finally caught
up with the 84-year-old sheriff. He’s
been under court order to stop tar-
geting Latinos. Last month, federal
prosecutors charged him with crim-
inal contempt for allegedly defying
that court order.
Finally tossed
None of that seemed to bother
Arpaio’s white supporters. But
enough of them were disgusted with
his war on immigrants and others
that Arpaio was finally tossed. Even
as Trump basks in his stunning tri-
umph, the vote in Republican Ari-
zona offers a look at what could hap-
pen to his forces down the road.
Arpaio was the sheriff who set
up checkpoints and raids to nab peo-
ple who looked or sounded His-
panic. Many were citizens. He
kept prisoners in a tent city at hell-
ish high temperatures, gave them
pink underwear, and laughed at their
discomfort.
A passionate, grassroots cam-
paign led by a group called Bazta
Arpaio — Enough Arpaio — helped
to oust him. They registered many
first-time voters, staged music fes-
tivals and plastered “Vote Against
Hate” signs all over the sprawl-
ing desert megalopolis of Maricopa
County. One memorable parade fea-
tured a giant inflatable replica of
the sheriff — handcuffed, in jail
pinstripes.
Like Trump, Arpaio relied on
the hothouse of cable news studios
to flourish. Early on, he seized on
the birther fantasy, sending people
to Hawaii in search of phantom evi-
dence that President Barack Obama
was not an American-born citizen.
Even after the president released his
long-form birth certificate, Arpaio
insinuated that the document was
most liked “a fraud.”
Many of his constituents won-
dered what that particular investiga-
tion had to do with enforcing the law
in Arizona. Arpaio’s high-handed
histrionics and court battles cost tax-
payers almost $50 million, while the
sheriff’s office was neglecting things
like child sex crimes.
After nearly a quarter century in
office, he could no longer hold back
the future.