The Scaramucci Option – Defending General Kelly through Game Theory
Game theory isn’t just for mapping out preemptive nuclear war – a time-honored form of warfare implied in the Constitution and thoroughly Democratic in nature!
It can, and must, be used to defend an embattled, but useful, Presidential Chief of Staff.
To put it diplomatically, the moral grandstanding of anti-Trump about Kelly’s handling of Porter leaves me unmoved by anti-Trump’s opportunistic piety: If it were up to anti-Trump John Podesta would very likely be Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton; a role he would be able to serve without hearing a peep of objection about his supposed “Pizza parties” or other bizarre extracurricular activities from the Democrats. Meanwhile, establishment Republicans would only offer their usual, laughably ineffective, “opposition” to Podesta’s lifestyle choices.
I am equally scornful towards the mere concept that any Chief of Staff should be held responsible for baby sitting the private marital problems of White House staffers. Such an obligation can only be an obstacle in the way of legitimate White House operations given how murky and unclear what is actually going on behind the scenes of any marriage or sexual relationship is to outsiders. If there were domestic abuse problems in the Porter household it should be the job of the police and the courts to sort out what happened, not the CoS.
This brings us to the thermonuclear weapon in this drama that will deter Kelly’s opposition from pushing the matter – Scaramucci.
With one carefully worded trial balloon, Trump should threaten to replace Kelly with Scaramucci. Although widely hated, Scaramucci is media savvy, ruthless, and nourishes the more aggressive instincts of Trump. This trial balloon will be enough to send establishment Republicans into retreat on the Kelly issue because they fear nothing more than a Republican operative who fights savagely enough to defeat Democrats. Democrats for their part will suddenly appreciate Kelly’s moderating influences on Trump.
Guns
The Florida shooting will soon be forgotten by Democrats in all but rhetoric; rhetoric that will never be matched by meaningful action. Gun control legislation simply doesn’t fly in the competitive Senate and House races being held by Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana, North Dakota, and so forth.
A cosmetic Senate bill that cannot pass should be put up by McConnell so Republicans can claim to have “done something” while simultaneously making vulnerable Senate Democrats take difficult votes on watered down gun control bills.
Immigration
DACA legislation was, as I anticipated, empty posturing by the Democrats.
For the sake of opportunism and extremism they rejected Trump’s moderate compromise of amnesty in exchange for border security.
Now that the Democrats have set themselves up for the blame, let the issue be a stick with which to beat them all the way to November.
Infrastructure
An infrastructure bill is more likely to be accepted by Democrats than the DACA compromise because Democratic supporting unions want a large cut of the spending pie.
Still, Trump should keep in mind that despite union grassroots lobbying there is still an incentive for Democrats to sink the bill in order to prevent Trump from claiming another legislative victory. To maximize pressure on Democrats he should meet regularly with the many governors who have already expressed strong support for an infrastructure bill.
Some sort of informal (but heavily advertised) White House-Governor committee on infrastructure should be established where Governor’s can express their ideas to Trump and Congress. Governor input, in turn, will keep infrastructure in local headlines that will reach key swing voters in the Rust Belt before the midterm elections.
The greater its visibility the harder infrastructure legislation becomes for Democrats to vote against.
Pragmatically Distributed 
Trump has slim pickings to enjoy this week. A variety of issues exist upon which concession-based deals could be brokered, but all of which would seriously harm him and fellow Republicans with their beleaguered base later this year. Blue waves do not appear to be materializing; however it does appear that gridlock will remain post-2018.
Chances seem good that Trump will be more or less contained and unable to pivot into his agenda as time goes on. While this doesn’t necessarily put a great damper on his 2020 chances, it does suggest that the progressive establishment will survive his presidency largely in-tact and ready to continue its course by 2024 at the latest. Inquiring minds would still like to read your taxonomy of this opposing camp.
A variety of issues exist upon which concession-based deals could be brokered, but all of which would seriously harm him and fellow Republicans with their beleaguered base later this year.
Now that immigration reform is dead there is no remaining issue where compromise would alienate the Republican base.
Infrastructure might alienate budget hawks to a degree. But otherwise infrastructure makes up for itself many times over with independent voters and Rust Belt Democrats.
Chances seem good that Trump will be more or less contained and unable to pivot into his agenda as time goes on.
If they hold the House the GOP should net at least +5 Senate seats and then Trump’s ability to pass more of his agenda increases.
Inquiring minds would still like to read your taxonomy of this opposing camp.
In good time. The project at hand is vast…
I don’t count the immigration score settled yet, at least not to the satisfaction of conservaproles. Gun control is shaping up to be another base-defying issue as well. Holding on to mid-western gain while bringing the southern bloc out is a difficult task.
The latter are blue states in waiting and cannot be counted on endure a snub. Alabama was a bellwether of that phenomenon. All that is required to push these states over to the progressive camp is a bit of (proven effective and ubiquitous) targeted advertising and lacking enthusiasm on the part of the white proles.
I don’t count the immigration score settled yet, at least not to the satisfaction of conservaproles.
The conservaproles, and all white proles across the entire West, are worthless to Conservatism except as far as they can be persuaded to vote for Trump. They were more than happy to pull the lever for Democrats for decades in the false belief the Democrats were (moderate) Proletarian Socialists; in reality Progressive Democrats have viewed the proletariat for 200 years as much their class enemies as the non-Progressive bourgeoisie. Looking at the white proletariat’s feeble state that Marx ever thought they could be some sort of “aristocracy”.
If proles barely realized Progressives view them as class enemies, the master persuader, Trump, will have no problem persuading them that the immigration stalemate is the Democrat’s fault. And he would be right on the facts as well as on strategy: Trump offered the Democrats a generous compromise in exchange for border security, Democrats rejected it, and now he has the opportunity to make it an effective campaign issue for the rest of the year.
Gun control is shaping up to be another base-defying issue as well. Holding on to mid-western gain while bringing the southern bloc out is a difficult task.
Trump’s gun control proposal is excellent strategy.
All it does is tweak existing background check protocols, ban bump stocks for which there was broad agreement to do after Paddock used bump stocks to convert his weapons into near-automatic assault rifles, and raise the age to get rifles to 21. The last proposal might be unconstitutional since the 2nd Amendment applies to all adults, but it will take years to work through the court system if it gets that far.
In exchange for marginal gun regulation changes, he gets the appearance of “doing something” to moderates without alienating gun owners in a significant way.
It also lures the Democrats into a trap. Since they have been refusing to compromise with Trump in favor of their maximalist Progressive platform, it is likely the Democrats will be tempted to add more restrictive gun measures into the legislation.
If they try to make gun laws more restrictive beyond Trump’s proposals it is Democrats who will alienate gun owners in an election year when the Rust Belt will be decisive. If they take Trump’s offer, they depress their base turnout.
Alabama was a bellwether of that phenomenon.
Alabama was a fluke Democrat win due to pedophilia charges, not “gun rights”. Roy Moore’s circumstances won’t translate to other conventional Republicans.
Trump is playing an excellent legislative game – if he can’t pass legislation he sets the Democrats up to take the blame at the ballot box.