WILL TRUMP SABOTAGE THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH IF HE LOSES IN NOVEMBER?

…The is Judy Shelton, the woman that Trump has nominated for the Federal Reserve

If Trump loses, some expect him to leave the Executive Branch in flames.

Do you think that anyone in the Trump administration thinks that Trump may lose the November election?

Well, it appears that both the president and his team have come to the conclusion that there is a good chance that the president may have very little chance to beat Joe Biden.  And the polls, that are never a sure thing, but their trending is continuing to say that Donald Trump could be in deep doo-doo.  And please just remember, that Donald Trump is a big believer in both TV ratings, and the polls.  And he's down in both.

So, why do I think he and his people may feel this way?

OK, let’s look at what he and his team are doing to some areas that would be inherited by the Biden administration, if Biden won.  It appears that Trump’s fellow Republicans are helping the president by starting to sabotage some key institutions that the next, presumably Democratic president would inherit.

This week the Republican-controlled Senate Banking Committee approved Trump’s latest two picks for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. 

One of these nominees, Christopher Waller, would be a competent, reasonable, totally qualified addition to the most powerful economic body in the world.  That sounds pretty good for either party in control.

But the other Trump pick is a Ms. Judy Shelton.  Shelton, is known as a professional crank.  She has previously suggested that the Fed shouldn’t even exist. She has repeatedly likened the Fed to a “Soviet State Planning Committee” because the Federal Reserve bank, rather than having the actual quantity of gold in Ft. Knox, controlling the money supply, it’s instead controlled by the Fed's Board of Governors.  Shelton has spent her entire career trying to bring back the gold standard, a monetary system that was abandoned worldwide and it is roundly rejected by all recognized economists.

Now, that has been her views for years…..up until recently.  Once Trump nominated her to the Fed, she just happened to immediately change her tune.  Now the key problem with the central bank, she says, is that it is not "political enough" and ought to “pursue a more coordinated relationship with the US president”.  This just happens to be exactly what Trump wants: a Fed that serves his narrow political interests, rather than the economy’s.

This is classic Trump.  Never mind that the Fed must be politically independent in order to function.  That's as, Argentina, pre-euro Italy, and other basket-case economies have illustrated, many times over.  A central bank cannot credibly commit to stable prices, if the money supply is even mildly suspected of being controlled by any politicians.

Republicans have for the past 3+ years indulged Trump’s choice to install charlatans elsewhere in the executive branch.  But GOP senators had previously always drawn the line at having unqualified picks for the Federal Bank. The US central bank was way too powerful and too important, to leave in the hands of buffoons and yes-men, or women..

So, as with some other quacks, Trump has now advocated Shelton for the Fed.  Until very recently, it looked as though Shelton’s nomination would fall on its face.  Especially, when the economy hit its worst numbers since the Great Depression and it became clear that the Fed was the country’s only competent economic policy-making body.

After all, Shelton has long been considered not only a total quack, she has always been on the fringe, even by hard-line Republicans.  In fact, she was previously considered too outlandish to even testify before the GOP committee.  The same committee that just approved her for a Fed seat. “The idea of even calling her as a witness for something was beyond the pale,” a former Republican Senate Banking Committee aide said as Shelton faced her confirmation hearings.  That was just earlier this year.

So what has changed to make Trump and his team think they may lose ?

For one thing, Trump’s poll numbers have not only kept going into the tank, they have been totally consistent.  Polls are obviously not guarantees, but historically, if the polls have remained consistent, as they have with Trump, and there are no outlier polls, that usually means that the polls are probably correct.  And Biden’s poll numbers have just kept going up, as Trump’s poll numbers and job approval ratings have kept tanking.

There is, even according to Republican lawmakers, no economic upside in putting Shelton on the Fed.  In fact, praise for her is so faint, it’s virtually inaudible.  Republican senators have suggested the best thing about her is . . . that she’d be just one voice among many and would therefore be unable to unilaterally implement her worst ideas, such as reinstating the gold standard.

That’s their best-case scenario: that Shelton would have no influence whatsoever.  But the worst case is that she could definitely cause total chaos, including her taking her paranoid talking points to the Fed officials.  But think about it.  Perhaps a less functional Fed is more desirable for the GOP, if you’re seriously expecting Joe Biden to be the president, come next January.

It’s reasonable to suspect that the Republicans might advocate personnel or policy changes that are damaging to the economy, simply because a Democrat is the US president.  They’ve done this before, back when Barack Obama was in office.  In the aftermath of the financial crisis, such advocacy then, came in the form of open letters and negative op-eds of fear-mongering that low interest rates and any Democratic stimulus plan would stoke.  And these are actually Ms. Shelton’s words, when she spoke of “ruinous inflation.”

If Shelton is ultimately confirmed to the Fed by the full Senate, which today is very likely, those crank calls would only be coming from inside the Democratic House, which has no vote.

Outgoing presidential administrations in the past have engaged in petty, trivial pranks against their successors, such as stealing “W” keys from computer keyboards.  This actually happened when the George W. Bush administration left the White House. This administration may be seeding something much more sinister, and across multiple, critical institutions.

So here is what we civilians may be left with: This landmine living in the Fed, a hollowed-out State Department, brain-drained statistical and scientific agencies, and a shredded social safety net. 

Then add a, gutted immigration system, that today, is so financially mismanaged.  (And by the way, 75% of the immigration dept. employees are slated for a furlough in two weeks.)

 

Biden would also be stuck with a hobbled higher-education system, once the envy of the world, but now struggling to attract global talent.  This is because this administration has made it way too difficult for that international talent to study in the US.   Then add to that, perhaps a permanently lost tax-revenue stream from the past many years of unrealized capital gains.

Of course, there is much that could change before November.  What might Trump do if, after so much destruction and earth-scorching, he would actually win his reelection?

However, based on what we know of Mr. Trump, he probably hasn’t thought that through, or that far ahead.

Personally, I think that since Donald Trump hates to lose anything, and he has said that he hits back twice as hard as when he gets hit, my guess is that he will take General Sherman’s approach, if he is forced to leave the White House.

Trump will most likely, leave everything around him in flames. 

When we consider the last 4 years under Trump, he does appear to prefer having everything on fire, around him at all times.

Copyright G. Ater 2020