How Trump?

Just quickly: my thoughts on how Donald Trump got elected.

Every person who gets elected has a variety of people voting for him or her, with quite different objectives.  They hope they can get the candidate of their choice elected, but of course, with a large electorate, it isn't a sure thing.  [I try to explain below the amazingly diverse sorts of people who may have voted for Trump, but understand that there is just as wide a variety of people who probably voted for Hillary as well.  Unfortunately, many of potential Hillary voters probably stayed home, not being able get up the enthusiasm to venture forth on Election Day.]

This time around, there were a lot of diverse voters [or rather, a great diversity of voter objectives, and many categories of voter], none of whom could have won the election for Donny by themselves:

1. There were the disgruntled members of the white working class (as Noam Chomsky observed), who did not get anything (from Obama) except Health Care, and didn't really care too much about that, both because of their belief in the lies of the conservative Press (the only information they believe), and because they have never been interested in health care, and have no basis for assessing the quality of a healthcare system.

2. There were the frustrated Republicans, who were furious about the gains the Liberals had made under Obama, despite the fact that the gains were not spectacular.  Some of these were desperate to get a conservative judge into the supreme court, and they don't understand that very few judges are as heedlessly political as Scalia, who was partisan to the last.

3. Some of those under the heading (2) above might have been disgusted with the advancement of the LGBTQ community.  There is a significant number of people who hate the very thought that gays and lesbians no longer need stay in the closet.  The same can be said of those who hate equality of women.  These gains had little to do with Obama; they would have come no matter who was in the White House; their arrival was hastened little, if at all.

4. Some simply could not deal with a black or a minority president in the White House, and wanted an affluent white businessman to be president, simply because it fit in with their image of what a president should look like, even if he didn't talk right.

5. Some hated the very guts of Hillary Clinton, for various reasons.  They could not identify with her culture, her voice, her husband, the fact that she was a Democrat insider.  Some simply could not reconcile themselves to having a woman in such a high office.  This is exceedingly sad.

6. A few did dislike the large number of immigrants in modern US society.  Very possibly, rural folks in Pennsylvania and Indiana and Ohio just do not like to see brown skinned folks walking their streets.  Ironically, some brown-skinned folks do not like it either.

7. As I have suggested earlier, there probably is a large group of people out there that despise highly-educated people; they like people who talk with a vocabulary of fewer than 50 words, as Trump does.  He's a down home boy to them.  A fat white guy with a limited vocabulary who repeats himself endlessly: just the thing!

8. And finally, there are a vast number of former Bernie Sanders supporters who were persuaded to either stay home, or vote for Trump.  These are probably kicking themselves in their secret hearts, but are likely not going to confess that they're disappointed.

Some commentators believe that this (effective, but not intentional) coalition of voters was engineered by some genius.  The geniuses engineered a few details of the circumstances, but I doubt whether the entire thing could have been predicted, except in a very general way.  Unfortunately, many of those who voted at all are not intelligent enough to understand the consequences of the outcome, and the long-term effects of Trump being President.  I doubt whether Trump himself understands them completely.  He certainly realizes that ignoring the health of the air and the water will--temporarily, in his mind--mess up public health, but he probably thinks that the boost to the economy of permitting unlimited use of fossil fuels will offset the return of heavy pollution.  This is probably the single biggest fallacy that drives the conservatives and Big Business.  Business will save America.  And if it doesn't, it will (at least) reward Trump.

So Trump will, unwittingly, destroy America, and never see it coming.

I once read a novel in which something very like this happens.  The surface is stunningly polluted, but people live on, in highly decorated cities insulated from the devastated environment outside, their health supported by an invisible sub-race of janitors and workmen, who live in caves below the cities, who emerge late at night to pick up and clean up after the main population that spends its time in one continuous party.

A number of political commentators on both sides are furious at Trump violating the understanding that Presidents must put their investments into a blind trust, to avoid violating the Emoluments Clause.  One of them has blogged about possible avenues to hold Trump accountable without depending on the heavily Republican Congress.
It seems as though Trump is the only president in modern history who has been determined to exploit the commercial possibilities of being President of the US (though of course there is some reason to suspect that the Bush family benefited from the Iraq Wars).

I do not know whether Trump's exploiting his hospitality enterprise located in Washington D.C. is a source of embarrassment to some citizens (it certainly is an embarrassment to me), or whether they feel that the conflict of interests interferes materially with the running of government (it probably will, since foreign heads of state can bribe their ways into obtaining preferential treatment by the White House via gifts disguised as custom for his companies).  I try not to get upset over the total lack of class of the Trump family and administration; it is almost as if they deliberately set out to grind any sense of Presidential Style we may have had into the dust.  No class in speech, no class in action.

If the Trump Administration were to do something positive for the poor working class, the unemployed, the elderly and other weakest members of society, it would have to be something enormous, to offset my sense of disgust at the way they carry on.  From what I hear, the Supreme Court nominee has potential, and is regarded with some respect.  I am suspending judgment.

The Republican Party, too, is on thin ice with me (of course).  I expect less than nothing from the leadership of the National and State GOP, and all the Republican intellectuals I know are carefully distancing themselves from the Trump Administration, only rushing out occasionally to endorse an appointee whom they support.  There is some support for Betsy deVos from members of my extended family, mostly because they teach in New York State, where they feel that their activities are micromanaged too much by the NY Board of Education.  But I can never bring myself to believe that private enterprise can be entrusted with things such as Health Care and Education, and I expect both to go to hell in a handbasket if privatized.  The Pennsylvania Senator, Pat Toomey, is apparently a spineless sycophant.  His appointment to his second term is huge victory for stupidity over reason.  Unfortunately, his opponent in the election Katie McGinty was not a very charismatic campaigner, which made it an uphill struggle to elect her.

So, it is a bleak picture.  Only the fact that so many of my friends, with whom I seldom discuss any political matters (since we usually agree so completely that we don't need to, or we disagree so completely that we don't dare to,) seem to articulate reasonable opinions so well gives me enormous satisfaction.  Even a local conservative political leader remarked to me recently that "We're all in this together!"  I did not feel confident to pursue the matter, but I get the impression that they despair of managing the President, and even the local GOP leadership, to keep government working for everyone.  At the local level, even the Republicans know that it is one thing to jettison the safety-net put in by Democrats of the Franklin Roosevelt era completely, and quite another to keep a city or the county working as it should.

Arch

Shutting down the Department of Slacker Phrases

A recent article on the website called Grammarly comes out gunning against what is seen as superfluous words and phrases, which  they call filler phrases.

Let's look at a few of these.

At all times : Watch out for flabby phrases at all times.

OK, let's agree that this particular example doesn't really need the additional "at all times" qualification in exactly that way.  But saying Watch out for flabby phrases doesn't get across the urgency of Always watch out for flabby phrases, which the grammatical prophet, or grammatical personal trainer would prefer.

Each and every: Look for filler words in your writing each and every day daily.

(And root them out, please.)  I can see the use of each and every being annoying when it isn't needed.  (I was going to say actually needed, but I had gotten a bit intimidated already by the Flabby Police.)

As yet: We don’t know as yet whether we’ll succeed.

Now, this one really needs to be put in the trash.  There are some people who talk this way: "At this point in time, the outcome of the plan under consideration is not known, but ..." but the word yet is available, and it does have a use.  Some things are not known, and other things are not known yet.  What's the problem?

In order: Eliminate excess verbiage in order to clean up your writing.

Hmm.  There are some places where I simply have to use in order to.  Compare these sentences:
It was necessary to use the words "in order to" in order to draw attention to their possible usefulness.  Compare with:
It was not necessary to use the words "in order to" to draw attention to their uselessness.
I don't know; it doesn't quite work without them.

Basically, essentially: These words basically don’t add value. They’re essentially useless.

Oh, I don't know.  They're pacing words.  They alter the rhythm of a sentence in order to (there we go again) to throw emphasis on something different from how it would sound without the word "essentially".

Totally, completely, absolutely, literally, actually

Well, yeah.  These add color; they're useful in dialog; you have to be careful with literally, because most times you don't mean anything literally unless it's obviously literally intended.

Very, really, quite, rather, extremely: These very common words are really not useful. They’re rather dull.

Oh yeah?  So you see no difference between "I'm upset," and "I'm very upset"?  This article has been written by someone who writes non-fiction, obviously.  Just the facts, Ma'am.

That: This is a word that you should only use when you need it for clarity.

Fine.

Up, down: We don’t care whether you stand up or sit down to write, just write cleanly!

Sit down, fall down . . . well, these are common phrases, and when people write like they speak, why not?  Falling down is understood; I mean, you can't fall up.  My wife keeps saying "Fall down", and I can't make her stop.

In the process of: We’re in the process of learning to remove wordiness.

WTF?

As a matter of fact: As a matter of fact, Your skills have improved.

I use this phrase to mean you might be interested to know (whatever) ... Which actually means: I expect you couldn't care less, but let me place on record that (whatever).

All of: All of Your readers will enjoy reading cleaner copy.

Some of your readers may enjoy the cleaner copy, but if you charge by the word, all your readers will appreciate the economy of verbiage.  (All of is a deplorable low-class Americanism, which you must forgive me for having it in for.)

As being: You’ll be known as being a proficient writer!

That one went right past me.  I guess some people use this phrase inappropriately.

Being that: Being that Because you’re the best writer in your class, you’re sure to get good grades.

I think this phrase being that is used in the sense of "Seeing as how," or "because".

During the course of: During the course of the writing lesson, we learned some new tricks!

Well, when did you learn these tricks?  All at once, the minute the lesson started, or ... as the lesson went on?  We've got to beware of these quick-fix gurus who have cures to make writing punchier and racier.  It might work for sports writing, but it sure makes one's expression a lot less exact.

For all intents and purposes, For the most part: For all intents and purposes, Our writing has improved.

"Algernon was designated as Monty's chauffeur, but he was, for all intent and purposes, a nursemaid."  How you gonna fix that to convey the meaning we want?

Point in time: You don’t need to use filler words at this point in time now.

Let me endorse this phrase for elimination with all enthusiasm.  This is also one of those pacing words, but, damn, it's the stupidest word of that sort.

Arch

Gaslighting - I just found out what it is / The example of Venezuela

Here's one instance in which not watching movies slowed down my understanding of a commonly-used term: gaslighting.  Apparently it has little or nothing to do with gas or lighting (except for maybe some tangential element in the movie Gaslight).

As I understand it, it is the systematic psychological attacks on a person's grasp of reality.  The methods have to do with constantly making the person doubt his or her reason, by a constant onslaught of stupendously contradictory disinformation.  The link above will give you a better description of how it is done than I can, since I'm new to the idea.

In an earlier post, I discussed how Donald Trump was the source of a stream of confusing statements (many of them via Twitter) that ultimately had the effect of forcing a large number of voters to look to him exclusively for The Truth, since he (and many on the Alt Right) maintained that the Press was untrustworthy.  This could be considered an extension of the idea of gaslighting, on a massive scale.

Meanwhile, in another post, a Venezuelan writer explains how a dictator can polarize a country in such a way that the minority which can clearly see the harm that is being done can be made out to be The Enemy, and no appeal to reason or science or common sense can save the targeted scapegoats.  The writer does not suggest a plan, but you should read the post anyway.

The Women's March, 2017

I have just finished listening to Gloria Steinem.  Oh, what an inspiration; this was America at its classiest.  Articulate, gracious, insightful, determined!  So many wise observations.  She said, at one point, that one of the advantages of being long-lived, is that you can remember when things were worse.  Amen.  But we survived the deaths of Lincoln, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and so many numerous inspirational leaders who were snuffed out, and we still were here to see Barack and Michelle Obama occupy the White House with such grace and decency, and to see Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton stand for election.  They are still alive, and there is still hope.

Gloria Steinem said that when we elect a "possible" president, we elect him and go home.  But we have an impossible president, and we're never going home!  What a great sense of humor!  But most of all, her long perspective allowed her to be optimistic and enthusiastic about the march.  It was an unprecedented gathering, and we must all hope that the women at the march caught fire with the success of it, in terms of the turnout.

Constant pressure: that's imperative.  If we tire of the effort, this administration will have an easy time of dismantling everything that not just Obama achieved, but Clinton, Carter, and even a few reasonable laws passed under Reagan.

[More later.]

Place the Mask over your own nose and mouth . . .

For those who have never traveled by air,

just before the plane taxies off to the runway, a designated flight attendant stands before the passengers, with instructions about what to do if there is a pressure loss in the cabin.  Oxygen masks will automatically drop down from the ceiling (triggered by the lower pressure), and you're expected to place the mask over your nose and mouth.  But if you have a child (or even an elderly person, or a handicapped person) near you, put on your own mask first, and then proceed to help the other person with theirs.

The idea behind this instruction is that you're not going to be any use to anyone around you if you succumb to the loss of air first.  (Falling air pressure is, fortunately, not usually instantaneously fatal.)

Drawing a (very tenuous) analogy with this state of affairs, I believe that one of the most important things we can do in this --what I see as-- very stressful and worrisome combination of political circumstances is to keep ourselves thinking positively, and feeling positive.

Obviously, we're not going to feel super positive; that's impossible.  But there are ways to combat this steady onslaught of sheer nonsense that emanates from the White House and Trump Tower.

We did not join the marches in Washington, but we saw them on TV.  (At the time, we were thinking that there would be a march beginning at noon.  What apparently happened was that the crowd was so enormous that it filled the entire route of the march.  So they stayed put in front of the speakers' platform, and listened to scores of future leaders, some of them seasoned orators, and others just practicing their oratory in front of an audience, probably for the first time.)

Most of the speeches were amazing.  (I was thinking that Scarlett Johansson's speech would have been a better article; it was long and considered, and was cut off before she was finished, but I look forward to seeing it in its entirely on the Web.)  Other speeches, too numerous to mention individually, were awe-inspiring, and incredibly articulate.  Some of those ladies had the knack of speaking about unmentionables in amazing euphemisms that make us laugh and become angry at the same time.  But the wonderful thing about these speeches was how they kept to the high ground, regardless of the depravity of the facts that they were recounting.  Now that's class.  One felt furious, but one felt positive.

Another tool for remaining sane in these times is to seek out the humor in the furiously inconsistent statements coming out of the White House.  (Hah.)  Steve Colbert and Trevor Noah can be relied upon to see the funny side of these pomposities, but I do wish that Noah would put his gloves back on; on one hand, he rarely completely crushes his targets, but I do remember a time when he wasn't quite as harsh.  Still, I am sure the viciousness level of his observations is lower than those of comparable commentators on the Alt Right, and much more intelligent.  Seth Meyers is another reliably funny commentator, and, for those with much greater tolerance, Bill Maher.

Some of the legislation in place --enacted by the Democrats, with the help of Independents and progressive Republicans-- was not in order to help their voter base, or even to annoy the GOP, or to deplete the coffers of the government.  They were the rational things to do to serve the population, especially its weakest members.  For instance, there are shelters for abused women.  There are shelters for recovering drug addicts.  There are shelters for ex-convicts, whose families do not want them back.  At one time, Republicans in Washington could safely assume that all these "losers" were probably either Democrats, or apolitical.  But those in the know are aware that many of these victims are from staunchly Republican backgrounds.  Democrats helped these people not in order to gain votes, but because it was the right thing to do.  But it is quite possible that when the Republicans take away the little support that the government extends to these people, that the former recipients of this help will turn their backs on the Republicans.  Of course, allowing money in politics enables the enormously rich stratum of the population (i.e. the 1%) to partially offset the desertion of this group of people by increased money from the Koch Brothers and other such wealthy jokers.  If moving into an underground barter economy is what it takes to keep money out of the hands of the wealthy, that's something we should certainly look at.

Arch

I had a fabulous title for this post, but I've forgotten . . .

Well, under Franklin Roosevelt, the Democrats became the party of the underdogs, and a reluctant pile of southern former slave-owners joined them, because of course they weren't going to join the party of Lincoln, who screwed up that whole thing.  When Lyndon Johnson (yes, the one with B as his middle initial) became president on the death of John Kennedy (the one with F), and once Johnson had to deal with the powerful Civil Rights movement, and decided to sign off on the new legislation, the Southern White contingent was deeply unhappy, but they were somehow kept within the Democrat fold.  After the train wreck of the Seventies ground to its final pileup, the battle changed direction: the Democrats took up the fight about economic justice, and equality of women, and Choice, and the GOP retreated to lick its wounds.  Eventually, they would settle on the so-called Pro Life, Pro Guns, Anti-Taxes, and Anti Soviet Union planks.  Their members who were passionate about each of those issues were largely unconcerned about the other issues; for instance, there were many Pro Gun republicans who were perfectly moderate about Pro Choice.  But it was a fragile coalition that was still strong enough to withstand the Democrats, especially since an energy crisis and the fall of the Shah of Iran ran in to distract the population from the fact that the Democrats were more likely to make life livable for the ordinary folks.

After the Reagan-Bush era, Clinton occupied the White House for eight years.  He famously gave the Republican Congress numerous excuses for mounting hostile personal attacks on him, attempting to impeach him, etc, etc.  Many of those attacks, some of them led by one Kenneth Starr (formerly a member of the Beatles*), put Clinton on the defensive, and paved the way for the slackening of checks and controls on Banks, in particular, Wall Street investment banks, which in turn led the way for the vicious lending practices of credit card companies, and ultimately the home mortgage crisis of 2007.

Despite their frequent missteps, in my view, the Democrats have usually kept the welfare of the ordinary people foremost.  However, the laws they passed, and the mechanisms they created for the relief of poverty were abused by a few: Reagan famously described a so-called Welfare Queen, a recipient of welfare who parlayed these entitlements into supporting what was considered a lavish lifestyle.  Such abuses were far from being of epidemic proportions, but the GOP quickly learned that those sorts of mental pictures did not need to be accurate true to be effective.  It was quite possible to speak about some fictitious situation that gets the population mad against some group or other, and the population has now been conditioned into retaining those feelings of indignation long after that fictitious story has been thoroughly discredited.

Another tactic that the GOP deployed with, from their point of view, great success, is simple obstructionism.  It is a distortion of the Credit Game: the Republicans sabotaged every initiative brought forward by the Democrats, simply to be able to claim that the Democrats were ineffective in office.  Learning quickly, and not having the perspective to see where this policy could backfire, the Democrats also fell back on the same idea to obstruct Republican initiatives, but without much success, being in the minority.  What the Republicans are doing with "Obamacare" is also simple obstruction for its own sake, a transparent effort to destroy Obama's legacy.  As one observer pointed out, the implementation of Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was carefully crafted to appeal to the largest number of Republican lawmakers, to enable it to pass both houses of Congress.  Almost any implementation the Republicans can devise is sure to be more left-leaning than the ACA.  But the GOP is determined to find a way to do it, which is amusing in the extreme.

The important thing is that any Democrats out there, you should not lose sight of the main goal that has driven the Democrats for decades: to make the lives of ordinary people easier and rewarding.

Many Democrats, smarting under Trump's unexpected victory, are determined to make Trump feel their ire.  Trump will not suffer under such a slap on the wrist for very long; neither is it likely to make the lives of ordinary people easier or rewarding, and nor is it likely to prevent other Republican hopefuls from adopting the same rhetorical tricks in the future.

Republicans, too, are not happy with the Trump Presidency; in fact they are a lot happier about their majorities in Congress and the Senate.  They too are wondering how to get what they want while Trump is in office, while Trump is busy getting what he wants.  My theory is that Trump wants to change the legislation that taxes the very rich.  In addition, there must be some commercial basis on which Trump can benefit from the Presidency, and you have to look to minds more acute than mine to be able to predict what Trump's angle is.
[Added later: my suspicion is that offshoring of jobs will rise under Trump to unprecedented levels, and he will probably blame some inoffensive piece of Democrat-initiated legislation, e.g. the minimum wage, for running amok with offshoring.]

My Republican friends are eager to persuade me that there is a large number of Republicans who also want what is best for the ordinary folks of the US (as opposed to the very very rich).  I find this hard to believe, but on the outside chance that it is true, we should not lose opportunity to collaborate on any initiatives on which we see eye-to-eye with these fabulous Republicans whom I have never seen or heard of.

The ball is firmly in Trump's court, and that is something we cannot change.  Preemptive strikes, as advocated by youthful hotheads, will move matters onto the line between uncivil and reckless behavior and common decency, on which politics has been dancing for the last several decades, with only a few Democrat leaders holding themselves above the brawling.  Brawling, verbal or physical, is a direction in which I for one prefer not to go.  But the minute Trump makes a move, I think the Democrats must respond decisively.

It is still not clear, but there is an even chance that Trump's cabinet nominees will be approved with only token resistance from the various Senate committees.  But there is a chance that at least some of the members of these committees, even Republicans, take their offices seriously.  It is baffling how little thought working class Republicans give to Education.  If they think a voucher program is to their benefit, either they know something that I don't, or they have no brains at all.  I am fully aware that most of my friends (and my readers) believe that Republicans are all fools, but I find that hard to believe.

At any rate, it ain't over until the fat lady sings (or the slightly overweight lady), and I'm simply advocating that the response of those who are concerned about the likelihood that the President will do something utterly stupid should be: be careful.  Wait until we really know what he has decided to do.

Arch

*Just to see whether you're paying attention.

Greetings from Post Electoral College America

If there's any Trump supporter reading this, please stop reading now!

(Well, it was worth a try; after all, these people did what they were told, namely to vote for Trump, despite common sense.)

It's just a little too early to muse on the demise of the United States of America as we knew it; we really don't know exactly what is going to happen next, after all.  The conservatives and the big business leadership got what they wanted: a businessman at the controls.  But things are not as simple as they seem.

The GOP (and the Libertarians) wanted to win the White House, Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, and they're about to get what they wanted.  Now, the cheerleaders will turn to the coaches and the quarterback and say: OK, what do we do next?

The GOP strategy has been, in many ways, reactive.  In other words, they don't understand what is going on, but they have absolute faith that everything the Democrats do is bad, and they have to get rid of it.  (They just might re-brand the things and put them right back, but that's another story.)  The Fiscal Conservatives don't like high taxes; they don't like a budget deficit; they don't like Federal Spending.  These things are articles of faith; most of them being businessmen or industrialists, or flunkies of these things, simply cannot tolerate money going into the Treasury (even though a lot of it finds its way right back into the hands of Big Business anyway).  The Neoconservatives like to bully foreign nations into accepting American political leadership (hegemony, a word I have always hated), which in the present situation means being nasty in every possible way to ISIS (or ISIL, or whatever).  Most liberals are disgusted with bullying for its own sake, and have been for decades, but the GOP has not outgrown that phase.  The GOP also wants freely and cheaply available energy.  (The Energy companies would prefer to control the flow of energy, just to skim off the profits, but the rest of the GOP had cheap, clean energy available in vast quantities tomorrow, and it if could be used for transportation (e.g. in trucks and planes), they'd happily take it, even if the Koch brothers are unhappy.

So now, here is the opportunity to (A) roll back so much that the Democrats got done over four years, and (B) loosen all controls on business craziness, except those few controls that give the GOP darlings the tariffs that make them rich and influential.  (For instance, I can see how the highways might be privatized, so that everyone has to pay tolls to get anywhere, but the GOP pets get to take the tolls home!  Sounds like a good racket to me.)

Donald Trump is gradually becoming aware of the messiness of Government, which is why he has simply handed over the management of Government to the fellows who are probably most pushy about policy.  The Steve Bannons and the Rex What'is'names probably gave him no peace, and so he gives them the keys to the Land Rover and says: you drive; I want to take a nap, and maybe get off a few tweets.

Liberals have historically been protective of the poor, and women and minorities of all sorts, because, well, they have been those most in need of protection.  The ultra-rich, suffering with a lingering sense of persecution, has only the GOP to run to their aid.  But they are just a little too confident that they can make wealth out of thin air.  There is a belief that money just multiplies, like bacteria.  No; wealth is extracted from the rest of us.  At the moment, we're still not penniless enough for us to disappoint the businesses; though some of us are starving, we still postpone paying the rent to make sure Disney makes a killing.  As long as we have credit cards, we add to the wealth of Wal-Mart and those other guys.  Even if we owe the hospitals big money for the last time we got sick, we still pump gas into our cars, to make sure the Koch Brothers have a good Christmas!

But the fact is that the Capitalist Class needs the middle class and the working class.  We're the geese that have thus far laid the golden eggs.  Actually, more like plastic eggs, but still eggs.  Without buyers, the sellers have nothing.

So I'm advocating that we wait until it becomes clearer what can be done to obstruct the Trump machine; the strategy of delegitimizing Trump is sort of a marginal thing; the people who want Trump in the White House are not particularly upset that we're upset about him shooting his mouth off at the wrong time.

Some of the silly things they're saying that they will do, though, such as occupying both the White House and their big house in Manhattan, at Government expense, is going to annoy some people on their own side.  I don't know the relative size of the expense, but it has to worry the fiscal conservatives (but I must admit that the fiscal conservatives appear to have taken a holiday since Trump's great victory this November).

Arch, settling down to watch.