"Clinton may be the best option"

or so, ostensibly, said charles koch, of the koch brothers.  The Post published the story, and the real quotation is more equivocal.  When asked if he could support Clinton, he said, "we would have to believe her actions would be quite different than her rhetoric, let me put it that way.  But on some of the Republican candidates we would -- before we could support them -- we'd have to believe their actions will be quite different than the rhetoric we've heard so far."  I'm really not sure what the pundits might make of this, but it seems to be a tremor of the quake to come.

Before I say anything else, let me set aside some of the divisive point issues of the conservative base -- say for example, gun "control" laws.  If the NRA has made sway, it's not entirely a matter of money and donations to candidates, it's more the annoyance factor.  People on either side of this issue tend to care deeply and irrationally about this issue.  On the one side, no one is trying to take away ALL the guns, only those that serve no particular civilian purpose.  The sportsmen can rest assured that they will be secure in the ownership of their hunting weapons, and those concerned about self-defense can still have access to weapons appropriate to personal defense.  I'm pretty sure, however, that one can't justify ownership of military style automatic weapons, unless one is "hunting" a rival narco-gang and "defending oneself" from the onslaught of a gang similarly armed -- unless one is concerned about the "coming race war" and must arm one's self against the onslaught of the "inferior races."    On the other side, it's pretty clear that guns are a "public health issue," and as such, should be "regulated."  We require licensing, registration and insurance for the possession of most motor-vehicles, in part at least to reduce the menace on the road.  Why not similar "regulation" for gun ownership?   Yes the "gov'ment" will have some discretionary say about whether we have guns or not, but they already have discretionary say over many, many things and "we the people" have given it discretion for good reason.

My point, however, is this:  no where in this do I see a "core" party-based issue -- nothing that will determine the shape of this country in the years to come.  It's important, but politically it's more a distractor, a way for both parties to tap those so-called hot button icons with guaranteed sorts of responses from the "base."  Ditto abortion.  And for the most part, ditto religion, though that's a bit scarier.  If something like dominionism actually DOES gain real power, we will begin more and more the christian mirror to saudi arabia's muslims, but I want to believe that the secular america ensconced in the constitution can survive even eight years of a ted cruz.  

The "core" party-based issue has been and will be money.  Koch cannot support a trump, mostly because he is a loose cannon.  The ban on muslims, the thinly veiled xenophobia and racism, the America-first neo-nationalism, et cetera, may appeal to the biker-base, but tit also makes him something of a loose cannon.  His policies would undo many years of persistent political activity on the part of the big money oligarchs, who for the most part are internationalists favoring the trade agreements that reduce restrictions on the free flow of capital and labor across borders.  Cruz too is a loose cannon.  Although the Americans for Prosperity supported tea-party brought candidates like Cruz into their seats, Koch cannot really support him, not because of his bellicose "make the sands glow" sorts of language, as he asserts, but because he just might be crazy enough to see his election as a mandate for evangelical dominion, and one should remember that one of the mountain over which they want dominion is "business."  Just what that might mean is anyone's guess.

So we come to Clinton.  She is "soft" on many of the issues that the Koch brothers DO care about, like the minimum wage, which, of course, they oppose.  She is also, at least, "softer" on climate change, which, of course, as gasoline refiners, the Koch brothers dismiss.  Although she favors cap and trade as one answer to climate change, it is a "market based approach" unlike the outright tax favored by Sanders.  She is "soft" on trade issues as well.  Although initiated by the first Bush administration, NAFTA was signed into law by her husband.   She has also supported, though a bit lukewarmly, the Trans Pacific Partnership.  As one Huffington Post blogger, Dave Johnson, put it, she is the "continuity candidate:"

America’s well-to-do elites think everything is going fine. Their stock portfolios are way up, so they’re feeling good. They’re writing op-eds about how well things are going and how our corporate paradigm is doing so well for us and the world. The elite “donor class” is giving huge sums to “continuity” politicians. This is elites talking to other elites and not at all hearing what is going on in the country.

Clinton is not an oligarch, at least not quite like the Kochs, not one of the one-tenth of one percent, but she is one of the well-to-do elites.  She is a member of that "class" on which the on-going enterprises of the  oligarchs absolutely depend -- let's call it the technical professional class.  Not unlike Obama, she is one for whom current versions of the American dream have worked out well, thank you very much.  She went to the right schools, no doubt worked very hard, and has as a consequence enjoyed considerable success within her "field of expertise," within "politics."  Although their attitudes are more liberal than the oligarchs, or at least the libertarian Kochs -- that is to say, they tend to see government as a source of potential "solutions," not the problem in and of itself -- their "liberalism" stems from the world view of the "professional," where life appears to be a succession of "problems" -- or better, "challenges" -- for which there are always good "technical" solutions.  They are, in other words, the people to whom the oligarchs delegate their "problems" for "solution."

The oligarchs are frustrated, in part, because they do not always get to define the "problem."  As Dave Johnson goes on to write:

Donald Trump is not dependent on this donor class and he is saying that things are not fine, that wages are not going up, that jobs are hard to find, that trade is killing us. So people for whom things are not going fine, for whom jobs are hard to find, for whom wages are not going up and who trade is killing are listening. And that is most people in the U.S.

Donald Trump is an oligarch who wants to define the "problem," and the problem, mostly, for him, is that he is "not president."  Of the college-presidents that I served in the past, I used to make a mental distinction between those who wanted the job to "do" president, and those who wanted the job to "be" president -- those that had a vision for the school and wanted the position to implement it, and those that simply who had a vision for themselves and wanted the position to fulfill it.   Donald Trump falls in the latter category.  I don't believe for an instant that he actually wants to "govern," but he certainly wants to "be" president, and the more recent, toned-down Trump simply indicates that he is listening to the technical professionals who are providing "solutions" to the "problem" of not yet having fulfilled his ambition.  He is willing to tap into the rage and mostly misplaced resentment around the "problems" of the average American in order to "be" president, but for the vast majority of Americans, who are neither oligarchs or  well-to-do technical professionals, the real problems begging for solution are, indeed, the lack of decent, living wage employment which comes with the benefits of health insurance and a retirement plan.

Koch too is an oligarch who wants to define the "problem," and the problem for them, mostly, is anything that threatens to diminish their ability to extract wealth.  They, however, want to "do" president, or more precisely hire a technical professional willing to "do" president in their way,  and as a consequence tend to be more "principled" than someone like Trump and what they want is a more "pure" form of capitalism.  They oppose legal and regulatory restrictions that inhibit the free flow of capital and labor across borders, in part because they believe in "free trade," but in larger part because "free trade" allows them to maximize the return on their capital.  They oppose taxes, in part because taxes are policy tools to enact legal and regulatory restrictions, and in part because they redistribute their wealth in ways that may not meet with their approval.  They oppose hikes in the minimum wage and collective bargaining, in part because the minimum wage and union worker represents that segment of the labor market that cannot be "exported" and has not yet been automated out of existence.   

The oligarchs have been, until recently, been fairly adept at displacing the rage and resentment of the populace with slogans like "we fight for freedom" and "we protect the American dream by fighting each day for lower taxes, less government regulation, and economic prosperity for all," but their own rhetoric is wearing thin in the face of reality.  Where is the promised "economic prosperity" for all?  Although they have been, until recently, been fairly adept at vilifying Obama as a "socialist" to maintain any creep to the left, the emergence of Sanders as an actual (well, almost) socialist who, not unlike Trump, criticizes both Obama and his heir apparent as "continuity candidates," those who might be more liberal than their oligarchic donors, but who nevertheless have benefited from the donor class.  He too is tapping into the disappointed hopes of many Americans for whom the American dream has become a pipe dream -- for whom "lower taxes" of the Reagan and Bush (and Obama) years have had little to no effect on their personal situation -- for whom unemployment, under-employment, and wage stagnation are day-to-day realities -- for whom health care is essentially not existent and at the same time increasingly expensive. 

They have been, in other words, fairly adept at "defining" the problem that needs solution, and the well-to-do technical professionals have been fairly adept at providing what have been, at best, stop-gap solutions that satisfy the broader populace, but have done nothing to change the under-lying status quo, which increasingly benefits the few at the expense -- literally, the expense -- of the many.  We need structural change, less capitalism, more democracy ...