The Case That Trump’s Presidency Is Not Much Different than Hillary’s Would Have Been

Last week the biggest political debate was over the role which FBI Director James Comey played in Donald Trump pulling off his massive upset of Hillary Clinton and becoming president. I am one of those who agrees that, if Comey had done nothing in the last two weeks of the campaign, Hillary would have almost certainly won. I am in a likely smaller group, however, which is convinced that, at least as of now, it really wouldn’t make much real difference if that had been the outcome.

With the obvious stipulation that it is still very early in his presidency, I defy anyone — especially the members of Trump’s cult — to make a rational and fact-based argument that a whole lot would be currently different if he had lost. While I doubt anyone is able to do this, I will try to here to make that case as objectively as I can, myself.

Clearly had Hillary won (and everything else, specifically the makeup of Congress, been the same), Neil Gorsuch would not be on the Supreme Court right now. As a conservative, I am hopeful that, like rent accrued from a property you paid WAY too much for, that this move will at least pay some dividends for years to come.

It is important to note that even Trump’s signature (only?) achievement so far, came at the price of eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Also, had Hillary won, the two scenarios would have been an eight person court, or a moderate Merrick Garland getting the seat, with the filibuster still intact. This would not have been as good an outcome for conservatives as we seemingly currently have, but it would not have been, at least not currently, catastrophic.

The stock market, which I personally thought would do poorly in the aftermath of Trump’s election has performed tremendously well so far. Almost all of those gains, however, either have nothing to do with Trump, or are based on the expectations of a massive tax cut which may never actually materialize (and thus are gains which are easily reversible). This is partly why recently the market’s momentum has basically stopped.

Similarly, it is absurd to give Trump any credit to good jobs numbers which just came out as they clearly would have been exactly the same under Hillary. I love that Trump cult members want to give him credit for any good economic data which comes out, and yet they can’t point to anything that he has actually done which could have even theoretically provoked them.

Legislatively, it is very difficult to see how anything at all would be different. Nothing of significance (other than a very liberal spending bill) of has passed through Congress and even Trump’s great “win” on the healthcare bill appears to be doomed in the Senate.

I would argue that, if Hillary was president, a Republican Congress would have already passed a stellar repeal of Obamacare, safe in the knowledge that Hillary would veto it. While this wouldn’t have changed the law, it would have had very significant political implications because it would mean that Democrats would still completely own Obamacare’s imminent demise. Instead, Republicans may likely get the worst of both worlds; most of the blame, without ever even having passed their own law.

If Hillary was president Obamacare still would be the law of the land, but this is hardly the only thing which would still be the same. Under that scenario the following would also certainly be true:

• The budget would overwhelmingly dictated by liberal agenda items.
• There would be no action on the building of a great wall on our southern border.
• There would be no trade war or renegotiation of agreements with China.
• We would still be in NAFTA.
• NATO would not be considered “obsolete.”
• We would still be in the Paris climate accord.
• Obama’s DACA executive order would still be protecting so-called “Dreamers.”
• There would be no “extreme” immigration vetting, no increase in deportations, and “sanctuary cities” would be still be fully funded by the federal government.
• Taxes and spending would be unchanged.
• There probably would be no massive infrastructure plan implemented (though there would be a better chance of one).
• The “swamp” would not be remotely drained (though it might actually be LESS “swampy”).
• There would be no independent prosecutor to investigate Hillary’s alleged crimes.

Now, to be fair, there are a few things which would likely be different in a Hillary administration. The influx of illegal immigrants would not be dramatically down (though, since Trump appears to be all talk and no real action on this front, there is a good chance that this eventually changes). Trump has, at least in tone, tried to reduce the burden of governmental regulations. He also got the Keystone pipeline finally back on track.

Obviously, a lot of how one evaluates all of this is based in how you view Trump’s many executive orders. His cult thinks he is a King and that these edicts have real power. I view them as PR stunts which are not substantively much different from the Wizard of Oz granting the Cowardly Lion his courage (or, for that matter, the Scarecrow getting a degree from Trump University).

Perhaps the most interesting realm with regard to how different, or not, a Hillary presidency would have been is that of foreign affairs. It seems as if she would have also done the Syrian strikes and dropped the “Mother of All Bombs” in Afghanistan. However, it is very doubtful that she would have praised numerous dictators and murderers around the world and that we wouldn’t have to worry about whether our president was fundamentally compromised by Vladimir Putin.

In short, as a conservative, the Trump presidency might be currently marginally better than what we would have gotten with Hillary. The price we would have paid (giving up our principles, our credibility, and our political future) would have been FAR less. Right now, it seems like hiring the guy famous for the “Art of the Deal,” is the worst political transaction of our lifetimes.

John Ziegler hosts a weekly podcast focusing on news media issues and is documentary filmmaker. You can follow him on Twitter at @ZigManFreud or email him at johnz@mediaite.com

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.