In November, Once Hillary is Declared the Winner...

Now that I have your attention...Brain Dump after Trump wins Indiana and becomes the presumptive GOP nominee...Mostly speculation...

I don't think this election is over and I don't think that a Hillary election is a certainty.  However, Donald Trump has said things in the primary election that he can not un-say, and it will be very costly to him in the long run.  If he can overcome this, more power to him.

The first thing to understand is that a Hillary victory in November will not be the end of the world nor the end of the Republican Party.  In fact, it may be better for the GOP in the long run if Trump loses.  The party is more likely to learn lessons that they need to learn in order to win.  Most importantly, it will be best at this point to look forward and not backward. Therefore, let's look forward to what will happen after the 2016 election, and perhaps use it as a new way to drive the debate of this election.  After all, we need to discuss something other than Trump's wall and where women are bleeding from.

First of all, after 2016, the GOP will look forward to the mid-term elections of 2018.  There will be a chance for the GOP to take back the Senate, if they lose it in 2016, with key races in Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana and West Virginia.  Every member of the House of Representatives will be up for a vote.  They will be running against what has happened in the prior two years.  If you remove yourself from the rhetoric, it will be easy to see what is on the horizon.  I speculate that these issues will be on the voters mind at that time.

By 2018, the economy will likely be in recession again.  The signs are currently pointing downward.  Target bathrooms will no longer be a debate point as Target will be one of many retailers struggling for life.  However, some will blame the bathroom controversy as a tipping point.  By 2018, K-Mart/Sears may be closing the last of their stores.  JCPenny may also be almost gone.  Even the mighty Wal-Mart may be closing stores.  Malls across the country may be empty.  Many other retailers that we used to shop at will be gone and hardly a memory.  And there will be no one to take their place.  And because the Democrats have been in the White House for 10 years by 2018, they will no longer be able to blame George W. Bush for the state of the economy, although many pundits still will try to and certainly President Hillary will try to as well.  By 2018, popular opinion will have turned even more against both parties and incumbents, but more so against the party in power.  They always do when things go bad.

Most in the GOP will blame the recession on the minimum wage increases approved early in the Hillary administration and on Obamacare.  Some will blame Congress and Hillary for repealing the Bush tax-cuts.  Some will blame base closings (keep reading).  However, most of this has been in the works for a long time, but the other shoe has yet to drop.

Social issues will evolve in 2 years.  Same-sex marriage will not longer be a major debate.  Many conservatives will accept the reality that it is legal even if they still do not approve of the practice.  And some LGBTQ advocates, not all, but some, will allow them that privilege.  However, there will still be some debate over wills and adoption.  And certain debates will never completely go away.  The debate will evolve more toward the gender identity issue.  And it will be far beyond Target's bathrooms.  Gender identity will be a battle fought in every school board in America and this will be extremely contentious.  Many of these battles will make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

The major economic debate in the next two years will be whether or not to tax Internet sales.  Wal-Mart and Target CEOs will likely seek the opportunity to testify in Congress that not taxing internet retailers is a major advantage for the online retail industry and costs jobs.  Expect that there will be many sad stories of former retail employees who are out of work to be on the evening news regularly.  Internet retailers will be blamed.  Many communities in America, of every size, in both Red and Blue states will testify that the loss of sales tax revenue is the reason most of them are dealing with budget deficits and the reason why pot holes are no longer filled or why police aren't available when you call to report a crime.  But this battle will mostly be fought in the states, and not at the federal level.  Republican will fight against taxing on-line retailers.  While Democrats will lead the fight to allow it.  However, in most states, referendums to allow sales taxes to on-lines sales will be introduced.  And in 2018, they will be voting on such taxes.  Some will pass, while others will not.  Therefore, this debate could be at the forefront of the 2018 election.

Immigration will become less of an issue, as the economy in the US keeps many immigrants at home.  However, there will be another push for comprehensive immigration reform in Congress.  This debate will never, ever go away and immigration will never be solved.

The other struggle that the US will have in the next few years will be regaining respect overseas.  There will be another round of base closings, and this will include withdrawing troops from Germany and England as the perceived threats are elsewhere in the world and there are military bases that are closer.  People will fight against this as Putin's Russia is still a perceived threat.  There will still be US troops in Europe, but far fewer.  The North Korean threat will lead to a build up of the Japanese military, and there will be much saber rattling in the far east.  I doubt any of this will come to war.  Many US troops will be moved to bases in South Korea and the Philippines.  Because the economy in the US is struggling, it will elsewhere in the world as well, and the United States and her economic policies will be blamed.

Not all industries will struggle.  The IT Security industry will boom, especially as there are more high profile hacker attacks.  However, traditional hardware-based vendors will loose ground to more affordable and salable cloud-based solutions enter the market.  Most software will be cloud- and subscription-based.  Software companies will move out of Silicon Valley and Seattle and into cheaper costs centers like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Salt Lake and Denver.  While the rest of the country is suffering, these cities will thrive.

The final nail in the economic coffin will be an new BRAC, and the closure of many military bases in the US.   It could be the most massive BRAC yet, with as many as 33 domestic bases closed and many civil service jobs lost.  My hunch is that this will also include Hill AFB in Utah, with the logistics component being sent to Travis AFB in California.  Most of those closed bases will be in the interior of the country, as the military decides to be closer to where the real threats are and gravitates to the coasts.  If there is a state line between you and the coast, your base is at risk, and the more state lines you have to cross to get to the ocean, the higher the risk.  There will be exceptions, but the exceptions will need to be obvious...like Offutt AFB.  Utah, however, will survive without Hill.  There will be other communities begging Congress for a reprieve as their bases are all that support their communities.  Even though many on both sides of the isle will put up a fight, military commanders will argue that keeping bases open is wasteful, and congress will reluctantly agree.

All of this happens no matter who wins in November.  The next two years will be difficult.  This will all add up to trouble for the President in 2018 and the party of the eventual winner in this election.  Therefore, I am going to say something that I think Republicans all over the country need to hear.  Cheer up.  Things are not so bad.

The economy will not be so bad that there will calls for Trump to run again, there will be some, but not many as the loss will be so one-sided that Trump will be blamed.  There will be those who want Mitt Romney to run again.  However, Mitt understands why Trump won, even if he doesn't like him.  The GOP needs to learn lessons.  Those lessons are: come up with fresh faces and new ideas.  They are out there.  That is what Trump represents, even if those new ideas are less than savory, and really old ideas made new.

If I am a debate moderator for this election, here are the ten questions that I would ask:

1.  Do you think that there should be another round of base closing and why?  If so what criteria do you think the BRAC should consider in deciding what bases to close?

2.  Are you in favor of repealing the Bush tax cuts?

3.  Many retailers in the country are closing their doors, creating job losses throughout the country.  How do you plan to help the retail industry?

4.  What are the details of the immigration plan you will submit to Congress?

5.  Do you think the Senate should move forward with confirmation hearing on Merrick Garland?  What do you think should be the criteria for nominating new Supreme Court Justices?

6.  What are your plans to improve the overall economy of the United States?

7.  Do you plan to take any steps to support start-ups and other small businesses?

8.  Do you support a minimum wage increase?  How high should it go?

9.  How do you think schools in America should handle the sensitive issue of Gender Identity?  If you propose changes over current policy, how should those changes be funded?

10.  How can we make higher education more affordable?

Finally, my advice for Republicans and all Americans in 2016.  No matter what you think of Trump, do not stay home on election day.  There are other candidates for other offices that need your support.  They are the ones who will be turning the screws over the next two years, and certainly they are the ones that can improve things.

What Could Happen if the Electoral College is Done Away With

Every action has unintended consequences, but not all of them are bad.  And not everything about the US Electoral College is bad.  But before I spout off on that, let me explain why the college of electors was created in the first place.

When our Founding Fathers were putting together the Constitution, the found that in order to finish the task compromises had to be made.  One of those compromises was the electoral college.  Some convention delegates wanted a direct election of the President.  Some wanted the states to elect the president.  Others wanted a parliamentary system.  That is a system that many Americans are not familiar with.  In the parliamentary system, the leader of the majority party in the parliament becomes the Head of State.  It would not be the Speaker of the House of Representatives, but the House Majority Leader, currently California's Kevin McCarthy.  Also, in a parliamentary system, all of the "ministers" as they are called in England, or Cabinet Secretaries, as we know them, would come from the lower house as well.  The Secretary of State would likely be Ed Royce, who is currently the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.  In a parliamentary system, there is no third branch of government, as the executive branch would be part of the legislative branch.

But the Founding Fathers decided to have an executive branch.  Some delegates wanted one vote per state, some wanted Congress to choose the President and some wanted the people to choose.  Therefore, the electoral college was invented as a compromise.

In our history, there have been three elections where the majority of the people disagreed with the Electoral College.  As it turns out, in order to become the President, you simply have to win the right states, and not necessarily the majority of them.  Eliminate the Electoral College and that changes.

In today's America, we can already see how that will change.  The Democratic Party controls, with almost no exception, the large cities in the United States.  While the Republican Party, with almost no exception, controls rural America.  Without the Electoral College, the battle for the White House every 4 years will almost certainly be fought in the Suburbs.  That is similar to the way campaigns are played out now, except for one difference.  Instead of concentrating on only the swing states like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida and ignoring states that are predictable, like California except when they need to raise money.  The candidates will see that suburbia, even in New York and California are in play and will work harder for the votes there.

That is not to say that Republicans will completely ignore the big cities and Democrats will ignore fly-over country, as the race will need all the votes it can get, but they will spend less time in areas that are reliable.

That does, however, disprove the myth that if the electoral college were eliminated that the candidates would be more focused on the people because every vote would count differently.  But that is not true.  Take Los Angeles for example.  Why would the Democratic candidate need to focus on the city when the vote is already firmly in his corner?  Why would the Republican candidate waste time in neighborhoods where he or she would not be welcome?  Both candidate would focus on areas where they can swing the voters in one direction or another, like the San Fernando Valley and the Gabriel Valley, where there are more undecided voters and where voters tend to go into different directions depending on who the candidate is.  These are areas which mostly get ignored in presidential elections today because California has been solidly democratic since the 1990s.

The same story goes for many states all over the country.  Utah, for example, is solidly Republican, except for the communities on the north half of Salt Lake County, some of which have money to burn.  Utah, the state, is ignored in presidential elections today, but would be difficult to ignore without the electoral college.

However, there is not system that would get the candidates to focus on the problems of the country as a whole.  And that is why we have Congress.  Members of Congress, especially the House of Representatives, are tasked with solving the problems that they see in their individual districts.  If you really want to reform elections, there is a better solution that eliminating the Electoral College completely.  That would be to eliminate the winner take the entire state, but do what Nebraska and Maine already do.  The winner of each Congressional District gets the elector from that district.  That will bring the focus of each election where many problems exist, and possibly bring power from the White House to the House where it was meant to be in the first place.