FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A23
D
on’t believe the hype. President
Trump’s last-minute flurry of
(de)regulations will not help the
economy. But then, they were
never really meant to.
For the past four years, the Trump
administration has claimed, without evi-
dence, that its deregulatory agenda has
turbocharged economic growth. And for
four years, surrogates and lazy pundits
have repeated this false claim.
They could have simply looked at
pre-pandemic trends in, say, gross do-
mestic product growth or hiring and
noticed that Trump’s record was nearly
identical to President Barack Obama’s.
This is despite Obama’s alleged reputa-
tion as a job-killing, over-taxing hyper-
regulator, and Trump’s as the savior who
liberated the economy from Obama.
Or perhaps commentators could have
examined what Trump’s deregulations
did, and whether it’s remotely plausible
that these magic beans could sprout a
macroeconomic beanstalk.
So let’s consider some of the record
number of “midnight regulations” the
Trump administration is jamming
through on its way out the door.
Last week, the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency issued an interim decision
allowing farmers to use a pesticide
linked with brain damage in children.
Sure, if you’re one of the few companies
whose business model depends on poi-
soning kids, I get how this is good for
you. But as a macro matter, it’s hard to
argue with a straight face that more
childhood brain damage is good for
either children or the economy they may
someday contribute to.
A few days later, the EPA finalized a
rule rejecting tougher standards on soot,
which is emitted by industrial opera-
tions, vehicle exhaust, smokestacks and
other sources.
This deadly air pollutant is linked with
asthma, heart attacks and other illnesses,
including covid-19. EPA scientists have
noted that these fine particle emissions
disproportionately harm low-income
and minority communities, and in a draft
report last year agency, scientists cited
evidence that modestly tightening the
standards could save thousands or even
tens of thousands of lives per year.
But no matter, big polluters gotta
keep polluting — because growth. Or
something.
On Wednesday, the EPA finalized a
“meta” rule of sorts: one designed to make
it harder to issue new clean-air safe-
guards in the future. It achieves this by
rigging the accounting in the cost-benefit
analyses required to justify new rules —
specifically, by forbidding the agency
from counting huge categories of ben-
efits, while still counting all the costs.
This kind of gives away the game. Of
course it’s easier to claim that allowing
more pollution is good for the economy if
you make it a policy to ignore evidence
that suggests otherwise.
These are just some of the more than
125 environmental safeguards the Trump
administration has been rolling back.
More last-minute, pro-pollution EPA
rules are expected in the next week; that
way, they might be able to legally take
effect before Joe Biden becomes presi-
dent, according to an internal agency
email obtained by E&E News.
Other agencies, meanwhile, are rush-
ing to finish up their own 11th-hour
poison-pill regulations.
Some would curb visas for interna-
tional students (whose education-
r elated travel contributed about $44 bil-
lion to the U.S. economy last year) and
various other legal immigrants. Another
would force virtually all existing Medic-
aid regulations to automatically expire
unless re-reviewed by government
health officials, who would therefore
have to spend all their time making sure
the system doesn’t accidentally implode.
Yet another would narrow eligibility for
food stamps, in the midst of a hunger
crisis. Another would allow federally
funded homeless shelters to essentially
turn away transgender people.
These and other proposed regulatory
changes seem more likely to lead to net
economic harms, at least if you don’t
cook the books. The harms would be
disproportionately felt by Trump’s per-
ceived political enemies: immigrants,
poor people, transgender Americans and
so on. And apparently, any economic
damage they incur doesn’t count. Or
perhaps it’s even desired.
Yes, the incoming Biden administra-
tion can reverse many of these actions.
Some reversals are likely to be slow,
however, given the cumbersome legal
requirements for issuing new regula-
tions. Courts could intervene as well
(and they have, with major Trump regu-
lations failing legal challenges more than
80 percent of the time). Trump officials
skipped over some procedural require-
ments to rush rules through before
Jan. 20, citing national security emergen-
cies and other (seemingly bogus)
grounds. This corner-cutting will make
these policies even more vulnerable to
legal challenges.
Trump and his underlings know this,
of course: They r ealize their last-minute
rule changes will eventually get un-
wound. But they also know this unwind-
ing process will waste a lot of time,
money and government resources.
And hey, what better way to prove you
really, truly want to shrink government
than by giving it more work to do?
[email protected]CATHERINE RAMPELLTrump’s
deregulation
poison pill
I
t is the dubious achievement of
U.S. politics that both its major politi-
cal parties have entered existential
crises at the same time.
The GOP crackup is the more obvious,
pathetic and dangerous. The party has
seen litmus tests before, related to ideol-
ogy (i.e., conservatism) and to policy (i.e.,
opposing abortion). But it is quickly be-
coming a requirement of GOP loyalty to
believe that a nationwide conspiracy of
election fraud — implemented both by
urban machine politicians and by red-
state Republican officials — elected Joe
Biden as president. This criminal enter-
prise is evidently so brilliant and efficient
that it tampered with election machines,
offloaded bushels of fake ballots and re-
peatedly recounted the same Democratic
votes without leaving a single trace of its
existence.
This is the litmus test of lunacy. The
affirmation of demonstrably false state-
ments has long been one of President
Trump’s loyalty tests. His followers must
agree that his inaugural crowd was larger
than Barack Obama’s. Or that the Ukraine
call was “perfect.” Or that hydroxychloro-
quine was a “game changer.”
But this instance is far more ambitious.
The allegation of widespread and con-
certed electoral fraud is groundbreaking
in its absurdity — more like contending
that Obama’s entire inaugural crowd was
computer-generated imagery, or that
Ukraine is actually a fictional country, or
that hydroxychloroquine is the long-
sought elixir of eternal life. Trump is no
longer asking his followers to believe the
implausible. He is insisting that they ac-
cept a story as incredible as Pizzagate or
the CIA assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Implausibility, however, is the least of
this conspiracy theory’s problem. It en-
tails a belief that the constitutional order
— the whole American system of govern-
ment — has failed. Some conservatives
have criticized woke liberals for asserting
that the problems of the criminal justice
system are “systemic.” But Republican
and populist wokeness now demands a
belief that the American form of self-
g overnment is systemically corrupt. And
this, according to a post shared by
Trump’s former national security adviser
Michael Flynn, may require the president
to “temporarily suspend the Constitu-
tion” and declare martial law.
The ultimate explanation for such sub-
version? Many Republicans have ceased
to serve a higher cause and instead have
become the servants of a single damaged
man.
The problems of the Democratic Party,
at least, don’t involve the overthrow of the
republic. Its leader, President-elect Joe
Biden, is decent, qualified and main-
stream. But Democrats are undergoing
an identity crisis of their own.
Trump’s two elections solidified Re-
publican dominance among White voters
without a college degree. (He won nearly
70 percent of them in November.) This is
what has driven GOP gains in the Upper
Midwest and allowed for Trump’s 2016
victory.
When Democrats talk fearfully or dis-
missively about the Trump’s political
base, they may think of fanatical evangeli-
cal Christians. But, viewed from another
angle, the Trump base includes an awful
lot of blue-collar Whites.
Forgive the question of an outsider, but
what can it possibly mean to be a Demo-
crat without appealing to the working
class? At least since Franklin
D. Roosevelt, Democrats have identified
themselves as the party of those who work
with their hands — o n farms, in factories
and on construction sites. At their best,
Democrats have combined a passion for
civil rights with a concern for working-
class struggles. They resonate in both
African American churches and union
halls.
Today, that political model is broken.
Trump’s successful working-class appeal
has been cultural rather than economic.
He has shown almost no interest in public
policies that would specifically benefit
blue-collar workers. Instead, he takes
their side in various cultural arguments
against condescending elites — opposing
kneeling during the national anthem, or
imposing tear-gassed order on le ftist agi-
tators. He publicly embraces religion and
nationalism — even as he corrupts true
religion and deconstructs the nation’s
institutions. Trump has a limited mastery
of spoken English but communicates flu-
ently in cultural iconography.
The most powerful political question
from a citizen to a politician is not: How
will you benefit me? Rather, it is: Do you
value me? It is on this test that Democrats
have failed in dealing with many
w orking-class voters.
Trump’s coalition is nothing close to a
majority of Americans. In 2016, he won
with 46.1 percent of the popular vote. In
2020, he lost with 46.8 percent. But these
votes are located strategically if your goal
is to win in the electoral college, in which
the slightest breeze of fate can determine
the outcome.
The Republican Party has a hard task if
its goal is to win a majority of votes in a
national election (something GOP candi-
dates have achieved once in three dec-
ades). It must disentangle itself from
Trump’s tentacles and expand its appeal
without alienating Trump’s legions.
The Democratic challenge is less ur-
gent but equally complex: A party led by
college-educated Whites must gain and
hold the trust of working-class America.
[email protected]MICHAEL GERSONThe parties’
existential
crises
BY DENNIS C. BLAIR
R
etired Army Gen. Lloyd
J. Austin III’s planned nomi-
nation as defense secretary
has unleashed a spate of
breathless encomiums to “civilian
control of the military” that are
conceptually inaccurate, insulting
and, frankly, silly.
It is as though those of us who have
worn the uniform and achieved sen-
ior rank are somehow stunted. It is as
though, because of our service, we are
incapable of understanding the wid-
er context of the role of the armed
forces in the country, whereas those
who have not served are singularly
capable of understanding these wid-
er considerations.
In the first place, the phrase
“civilian control of the military” is
inaccurate and misleading. A more
accurate phrase is “the people’s con-
trol of the armed forces through
their elected representatives,” which
could be shortened to “democratic
control of the armed forces.” The
armed forces are the most powerful
institution in the country, with well-
trained troops and awesome weap-
ons. This power must be used wisely
for the defense of the country and its
security interests, but not turned
against the country to oppress
U.S. citizens or take over the govern-
ment in a coup d’etat.
In a democracy, both law and
practice ensure that it is the elected
representatives of the people who
control the size, structure and use of
the armed forces. The elected presi-
dent is the commander in chief. The
elected Congress passes the budgets
that fund the armed forces, and the
Senate confirms the promotion of
every officer. Over the years, presi-dents and Congresses have used
these authorities often. As impor-
tant, the ethos of the U.S. armed
forces, taught in our war colleges and
passed on from generation to genera-
tion of military officers, has been to
follow the lawful (congressionally
approved) orders of the chain of
command.
The defense secretary is the top
unelected official in the military
chain of command, and this person,
too, is appointed by the president and
confirmed by the Senate, just like
military flag officers, and for the same
reason. The bedrock of democratic
control of the armed forces is the
authority of elected officials, provided
by Congress through the funding of
the armed forces and appointment
and confirmation of both military
and civilian appointees.
The bedrock is not some mystical
superiority of the knowledge and
integrity of those who have never
served in the armed forces.
In fact, with the exception of
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who led
U.S. forces against “Bonus” marchers
in Washington after World War I, it
has been senior military officers who
have been more aware of their duty to
serve, not oppress, Americans. The
recent opposition by senior military
leaders to using the armed forces to
maintain order on the streets of
American cities is the latest in a long
tradition of uniformed officers resist-
ing the use of U.S. troops against
Americans.
It has been elected presidents and
appointed civilians who historically
have been more ready to turn the
tools of government against Ameri-
cans. And even a cursory study of the
past 30 years will reveal that uni-
formed military leaders are generallyfar more reluctant to advocate the
use of our forces overseas than have
been civilian presidents and appoint-
ed civilians, which is what the Found-
ing Fathers would have wanted and
what the mothers and fathers of the
soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines
who do the fighting and dying also
want.
The charge that senior military
officers are somehow warped by our
military experiences, that we are
somehow incapable of understand-
ing the wider responsibilities of mili-
tary forces, that we are single-
m inded killing machines that have to
be controlled by more erudite and
sensitive people — all of this would be
laughable if it were not so widely
accepted. Senior military officers
generally are better educated than
comparable civilians; they often have
a wider range of experience, both in
this country and internationally. And
they surely know many more people,
including many immediate relatives
in the military, who would be put in
harm’s way when the time comes for
deployment overseas.
The best of them, such as Austin,
lead by listening, by thinking and by
example, not by shouting, “And that’s
an order.”
Democratic control of the armed
forces is well established by law and
custom in the United States. The
defense secretary needs to be wise,
experienced, dedicated and forward-
looking. Above all, he or she needs
character and integrity. These are the
criteria by which the Senate should
measure Lloyd Austin.The writer retired as an admir al after a
career in the U.S. Navy. He served as
director of national intelligence from
January 2009 through May 2010.What Lloyd Austin’s critics
don’t get about ‘civilian control’
DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Retired Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III i n Wilmington, Del., o n Wednesday.with his appointees. That’s obviously true
with his picks for secretary of state,
defense and national security adviser —
Antony Blinken, retired Army Gen. Lloyd
J. Austin III and Jake Sullivan, respec-
tively. They’ve all worked smoothly with
Biden in the past.
The comfort factor extends to keeping
powerful interest groups happy, too.
Biden’s commitment to assembling the
most diverse Cabinet in U.S. history is
unambiguously positive. But in terms of
ideological diversity, it’s worrying that
potential nominees who drew fire from
the left, such as Michèle Flournoy for
defense or Michael Morell at the CIA,
seem to get bypassed in favor of blander,
safer choices.
Biden should add intellectual firepow-
er with some contrarians who’ll urge him
to take risks. Professors, think-tank
ch iefs, top executives at our best technol-
ogy and consulting companies who can
help rethink policy toward Russia, China
and other countries, perhaps as ambassa-
dors. Bringing on such luminaries would
accelerate Biden’s takeoff.
Biden tiptoed across the finish line,
with a relatively low-energy, self-
p rotective campaign and without bold
plans about the future — other than the
essentials of dumping President Trump
and getting the pandemic under control.
If he and his team are going to inspire
enthusiasm for the future, we’ll need to
see some boldness once the electoral col-
lege has voted Dec. 14 and this is truly a
done deal.
Biden and his team should get the
“vision thing” going in four areas that
need drastic attention after the Trump
years. The first is racial justice. The nation
hit an inflection point this past summerT
he “comfort-level” Cabinet that
President-elect Joe Biden is as-
sembling has some obvious ben-
efits, especially after four years of
the petulance and backbiting that turned
the White House into what one Trump
chief of staff reportedly called “Crazy-
town.”
Yes, Biden needs to help the United
States take a deep breath, without presi-
dential appointees sniping at each other
and jostling for position. He’s gathering a
Cabinet that mirrors his own strengths —
sane men and women, each one likable
and competent. Like Biden, they can play
the old tunes so well that maybe Ameri-
cans will begin to forget what they’re so
angry about.
But the virtues of calm and collegiality
can be overstated. A team of elbows-in
former colleagues and aides may end up
looking more like a Senate staff than a
dynamic Cabinet. Biden understandably
doesn’t want a fractious “team of rivals,”
as Doris Kearns Goodwin dubbed Presi-
dent Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet. But he
shouldn’t have a team of retreads, either.
Biden’s challenge is that after cooling
the national fever, literally and figura-
tively, he needs to shake things up. The
federal government is a mess. The distri-
bution of economic rewards is so palpa-
bly unfair that it embarrasses even Wall
Street tycoons. Military strategy and pro-
curement need to be reinvented to cope
with a rising China. The intelligence
community, similarly, needs visionary
leadership for the future, not just a repair
job after the abusive Trump years.
Biden has appeared conflict-averse in
his initial Cabinet picks. His primary
metric, in addition to competence, seems
to be his familiarity and personal easeafter the killing of George Floyd. There’s a
constituency for creative change — not
anti-police but pro- community. As Lyn-
don B. Johnson told cautious advisers
when he became president in 1963, “what
the hell’s the presidency for,” if not to
tackle big issues like this.
A second twin task is economic justice.
The unfairness of how the United States
distributes rewards is part of what got
Trump elected and what many of his
74 million voters are so angry about. Every
prominent business leader knows this
needs to be fixed. To make real change,
Biden will need the support of business
leaders (yes!) who understand the urgent
need for change: If Biden is so scared of
offending progressives that he doesn’t
build such alliances, shame on him.
The intelligence community is the
third big challenge. Trump’s crazy talk of
a “deep state” has been damaging, but the
real problem is that digital technology is
transforming every aspect of the spy
business — collection, analysis, secret
cover, reconnaissance and advance warn-
ing. The right leaders will break some
crockery and offend colleagues as they
update how things are done.
The final challenge is the Pentagon.
The United States doesn’t have a clear
strategy for dealing with China, and it
doesn’t currently have the right weapons
for the job. Preparing for this adversary
means a rethink, top to bottom. It’s the
biggest management and technology
challenge the new administration faces.
If Austin is the right person to lead this
transformative effort, he needs to show it.
Biden has chosen a low-maintenance
Cabinet. That’s sensible, up to a point. But
as Biden might say: Folks, it’s not enough.
Twitter: @IgnatiusPostDAVID IGNATIUSBiden’s Cabinet prioritizes comfort