Machiavelli Would Have Loved This Year's Midterms.
Trump may not be on the ballot, but he will be on everyone’s mind.
'The stakes — already sky-high — for both the Trump administration and the Democratic Party in the coming congressional elections have been raised even higher by the struggle over the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.
Not only will the outcome be interpreted as a renunciation or vindication of the Trump presidency, it will also determine whether Democrats have recouped since the 2016 disaster and where the balance of power within the Republican Party lies.
Should the House change hands (a likely prospect) and possibly the Senate (much less likely), President Trump’s exposure on two potentially inflammatory subjects will be exponentially greater. Congressional hearings and investigations will display to the public the tangled web of Trump’s financial, real estate and tax dealings, and his relationships with, and payoffs to, women with whom he allegedly had extramarital affairs.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The November election will also determine whether the regulatory decisions of executive branch agencies, especially the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency, are subject to critical review.
Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are already armed with 64 subpoena requests on subjects running from Russian election interference to foreign payments to the Trump organization to charges that the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services withheld documents on the Trump administration’s child separation policy.
If Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, becomes chairman, he will no longer make requests to hold committee hearings and write letters asking for subpoenas. He will schedule hearings and issue subpoenas.
The determination of Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee to take on Trump and demand that the Treasury Department turn over his tax filings will be reinforced by the disclosure of a long history of Trump family tax evasion in The Times this week.
As long ago as Feb. 28, Bill Pascrell, Democrat of New Jersey and a member of the Ways and Means Committee, issued a statement asking,
What financial ties exist between Trump and Russian oligarchs? Is the Trump family susceptible to bribery or blackmail? What are Trump’s conflicts of interest as he offers new proposals on taxes and foreign policy? The American people deserve answers and Congress must follow the money. No longer can congressional Republicans reject transparency in order to politically protect the president.
To date, Trump and his cabinet appointees have been able to operate without fear of review or oversight by a compliant Republican House and Republican Senate.
Democrats have vowed that this will end if they win a majority in either branch. Democrats “will not shy away from standing up to President Trump and conducting oversight,” Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic House whip, told CNBC in August. . .
In an expansive question on a goal of foreign policy, the Chicago Council asked if “it is more important to be admired than feared.” A solid 71 percent of non-Trump Republicans picked admired over feared, while 58 percent of Trump Republicans said it is more important to be feared.
This recalls the famous Machiavelli passage from which the Chicago Council’s question is adapted — which will, in a sense, also be on the ballot in November:
whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children, as I have before said, when the necessity is remote; but when it approaches, they revolt. And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined, for the friendship which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of spirit is merited but is not secured, and at times is not to be had. And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligation which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/opinion/trump-kavanaugh-midterms-democrats-republicans.html?