I keep thinking of the quote attributed to Sam Phillips prior to the discovery of Elvis Presley, to the effect that he could get rich if he could find a white singer who could provide the Negro sound and the Negro feel.
For the Republican Party in 2024, the challenge is to find someone who has Mr. Trump’s ability to tap into anti-elitism but without coming across as mean-spirited and self-centered. Note that the failure to sound mean-spirited and self-centered may be interpreted as a lack of conviction or a sign that one has been captured by the establishment.
Here are some thoughts about the required message, but without getting at the important aspect of sound and feel:
–praise America’s virtues rather than damn its faults
–equal rights, not affirmative action
–police are better than social workers at dealing with crime
–parents choose better schools than government schools
–don’t send soldiers to try to fix other countries
My guess is that in 2024 we will not see a Republican candidate support free trade or immigration, although I would hope that one can get away with sounding less harsh than Mr. Trump on those issues.
I don’t think we will see a Republican go anywhere with ideas for cutting government spending or getting government out of health care.
Of course, we don’t know what issues will arise in the meantime.
But the key point is that there is a grass roots right that distrusts normal-sounding politicians because the populists distrust what sounds normal.
Tucker Carlson might be that guy
You describe a dynamic similar to what existed in the transition of leadership in the GOP from the Goldwater conservatives to the Reaganites during the late 1970’s. Reagan’s ability to articulate a positive and optimistic vision transcended the negativity that the mainstream media attributed to the Goldwater conservatives. It also was an effective message in comparison to Carter’s pessimism.
Was going to comment. But doing so would seem like I was copying yours. I think that Trump tapped into a strain of populism that too badly fractures the GOP, isolating its laissez faire faction.
The “Time for Choosing” has already happened and it is a choice with a decidedly anti foreign bias component to it [to summarize an idea learned from Bryan Callan]. I don’t even think Reagan, himself, could right the GOP ship back on a better course.
When it comes to immigrants on the lower end of the SES, I’m for sure suffering an extreme case of the anti-foreign bias. In my head, I refer to it as anti-foreign realism.
1) we don’t need more low skilled labor as we are already digesting massive waves of such immigrants (and their offspring) over the past 20+ years.
2) low skilled immigrants consume far more in government benefits than they contribute in taxes.
I say, let’s advise these folks that it is OK to work from home for the foreseeable future in their home countries.
I would be willing to bet that Trump is the nominee for 2020.
You win. He was indeed.
Why would the populists not distrust a politician who sounds normal? The normal politicians in their lifetime, left and right, have spoken of issues that matter to most people in this grouping, and upon attaining office continue to pursue a course that is unresponsive to those concerns.
Normal sounding politicians and the class of operatives and hangers-on then seek favors for connected interests, agree to compromise only when their political class attains benefits, cycle out of office to lobbying, think tank and political action entities, NGOs and similar feeding troughs. The uniparty types dismiss subsidiarity and federalism because their concerns of mostly a globalist nature (including immigration policy, climate change, monetary policy, and only selective application of the rule of law) require adherence to what might be crudely characterized as the elite consensus policy.
Experience has shown that reasonable, go-along-get-along types are co-opted into these agendas. Add to that the administrative state inertia or deep state agenda if you prefer, and it appears that an effective disruption requires breaking some of the rules of this beguiling consensus.
+1
pretending massive fraud isn’t a problem is a cope
There’s no 7 million vote fraud. Thinking so is a dangerous delusion.
thank you for caring for my sanity
how much of the 7g is ca and ny and therefore irrelevant to the issue of fraud?
and what does it say about your mental state that you needed to respond with a non sequitur?
Oh please. You’re as bad as the Hillary dead-enders. Georgia, of all places, has certified. Learn to lose with dignity.
Yeah, put your pussy hat on and march and screeeeeaaaam your rage #Resistance, try to assassinate some congressmen, have your deep state insects plot against the president, have your tame media studiously ignore the whole thing, try to get the president impeached, burn Minneapolis, Portland and a few others down in a snit, then blatantly steal the next election. Dignity.
If the statistics and actions of election officials indicated that there was no serious fraud in the key swing state cities, I might believe there wasn’t enough fraud to change the election.
But the statistics indicate fraud. As do the actions of election officials in the Fraud cities: Atlanta, Philly, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Phoenix; Milwaukee.
There was massive panic fraud after Trump’s support, 10m more than 2016, overwhelmed the semi-legal ballot harvesting of Dem operatives.
Around 10 mph over the speed limit is “semi-legal”, because it’s expected to not be enforced. There was little or no enforcement of anti-ballot harvesting laws.
After a Fraud election, there is no “normal”, and it will be somewhat silly to pretend that there is, or should be.
Ask Bill f’ing Barr.
This is nuts. Just plain nuts.
Nothing to stop them from repeating the same playbook on demand. So if this works out, I consider it a pretty good argument that the Republic as such is over. We did it, we actually did it. We got to see the end.
Voting will henceforth not express the will of the people but be a purely affirmative ritual of … uh, not nationalism, of course, but a belief in … uh, something, something nice I guess?
hear hear
this was the point I was trying to glibly say
if fraud works this time then the GOP can nominate a Jesus Christ / Arnold Kling ticket in 24 and onward and they will still lose
the only way that what kling is thinking makes sense is if you audit (or better yet redo) PA and MI and get the same results
otherwise you are looking for your keys where the guy who stole them is pointing his flashlight
because you don’t want to believe someone would be this dishonest
Why did so many so passionately support Trump? The passion of his supporters went way beyond, “I don’t trust (or like) Hillary”, or “I don’t trust the government.” And it was regardless of any actions he took.
It’s because he called out the political correctness increasingly embraced by mainstream media. In 2016, Trump was the only candidate in either party who called out political correctness. The plurality of people who loved that message enabled Trump to win the nomination in a crowded Republican field, and were the tipping point in the industrial Midwest that gave him the general election.
I think a candidate who combines a willingness to oppose political correctness with an optimistic, pro-growth message could be successful in 2024.
“coming across as mean-spirited and self-centered”. Coming across as? It was in his bones, he wasn’t just “coming across as”.
“failure to sound mean-spirited and self-centered may be interpreted as a lack of conviction” Yeah, well maybe. The end game might be a country at each others throats eventually. Be careful what you wish for.
Most Trump critics accuse him of things but fail to mention specifics.
Like Hillary’s lies and illegal server and Bribery Foundation.
Like Obama’s “you can keep your doctor” lie to pass Obamacare, which made many lose their doctor.
What specific Trump policy was so mean-spirited?
I agree Trump is self-centered — but in policy less so than Obama. Most Trump-hate is hate of style.
For the Republican Party in 2024, the challenge will be to stop Trump from sucking up all the oxygen in the room in a replay of the 2016 primary.
Joel Kotkin has a piece with similar considerations at Spiked: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/12/04/why-trumps-america-will-live-on/. It ends with “The question will be whether a more sober, less nativist, and focused populism will emerge from the wreckage or be replaced by something more troubling.” The latter option is of course guaranteed. Whoever the Republicans nominate will be labeled as a horrible person and a threat to humanity by the state media complex and allied syndicates as sure as the sun rises in the east.
Dr. Kling surely is correct that other issues will arise in the meantime. Perhaps most importantly, replacement of the electoral college with a popular vote presidency is going to happen one way or another however much traditional conservatives oppose it.
Undoing the compromise that the electoral college represents should be force politicians to answer fundamental questions. For example, may a state that doesn’t wish to submit to a popular vote regime be permitted to exit the union peacefully?
But more important and more fundamental is the question of the original first amendment as adopted from the Virginia Declaration of Rights and proposed by Madison:
“First. That there be prefixed to the Constitution a declaration, that all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.
That Government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their Government, whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purposes of its institution.”
This, unfortunately, was not adopted and now would likely be labeled treasonous or worse. Nevertheless, the likelihood of continued oppression by entrenched interests and the lass of protections against majoritarian tyranny make this the most urgent of necessities. Voters ought to know whether a politician views them as vassals or as free and independent people whose personal liberties transcend subordination to the state apparatus.
Perhaps it was spending too much time in law school but I think that having Madison’s proposal as a first amendment would make just about zero difference. It would be interpreted away.
We already have something like it in the 9th and 10th Amendments, part of the original Bill of Rights:
Amendment 9: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
An example (partly hypothetical) of “interpreting away”:
The present First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Step 1: In a case involving an annoying, morally dubious plaintiff, the Supreme Court says that it is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” that governments can regulate the “time, place, and manner” in which such rights are exercised, that such regulations are not abridgements, and that the plaintiff must abide by the regulations.
Step 2: Numerous cases come to contradictory results as to which time, place, and manner regulations are constitutional.
Step 3: The Court, now with an illiberal majority, says that there is a long history of regulating speech and assembly (proving that regulations are not abridgements), that the regulation need not be restricted to “time, place, and manner”, that the regulation before the Court has good reasons behind it, and since the Court does not lightly reverse the decisions of the people’s legislative representatives, the regulation stands.
Step 4 …
Yes, you are right our current kritarchy doesn’t work and merely that citizens rights to control the government should supersede bureaucratic control won’t make it happen. Nevertheless declaring citizen primacy over the bureaucracy would be a start and would imply and open the door to reasonable controls on the powerful such as national referenda, protections for subsidiarity, and other restraints on unlimited and out of control arbitrary exercises of power. For chrissakes bureaucrats are running around bragging about how they lied to Trump to keep troops in Syria. Here is a great summary of how bad the situation has deteriorated: https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/12/04/the-deep-state-and-democratic-party-join-hands-against-america-1002336/
Indeed, you point out a big obstacle: “Whoever the Republicans nominate will be labeled as a horrible person and a threat to humanity by the state media complex and allied syndicates as sure as the sun rises in the east.” Like in all elections since 1960 the Republican candidates will be denounced as horrible persons, new Hitlers.
It’s, however, the second big obstacle. The first one will be the campaign to cancel the Republican Party because of its responsibility for the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans in 2020 and 2021. The rotten and corrupt D-Party with the complicity of the press and social media will soon start the campaign. You have to laugh at Biden’s calls for unity because they know that whatever the outcome of the 2020 election, they didn’t win the majority to impose the radical leftists’ program, and may lose the House in 2022. They need a strategy to grab enough power to impose their program and the only “reasonable” option is to defund and cancel the Republican Party.
You are right. A one party state is more than likely. One wonders whether people promoting the notion of Republicans taking the House in 2022 are naive or cynical. One wonders what exactly is supposed to assure us that there will be free and fair elections.
In early- to mid- 2016 there was some talk of the GOP needing a candidate who was “a sane Trump”. Then someone pointed out that Pat Buchanan had been the sane version of Trump, and his run for the presidency hadn’t gotten too far. Of course, maybe a Pat Buchanan figure would have fared far better in Revolt-of-the-Masses 2016 than in 1992.
In 2020 an incumbent Republican president who abandoned the populist rhetoric that got him elected lost to a weak opponent. It’s always dangerous to make predictions outside of expertise (“the worst is behind us”) but it seems that sooner rather than later a populist candidate will sweep the political field and it could as easily be a Democrat as a Republican. That’s why I remain basically libertarian. Readers of this blog may like Tucker Carlson or whomever, but once that power is given, watch out.
“That’s why I remain basically libertarian.”
Yeah, the losertarians have basically nothing useful to add at this point. Pick a side already and be done with it.
Intelligent comment by someone who adopts the name of movie character. Pick a side I will. I pick libertarian.
Go ahead and pick losertarian. I’ve got no issues with that. What do you guys have to offer? More open borders and drug legalization?
“But the key point is that there is a grass roots right that distrusts normal-sounding politicians because the populists distrust what sounds normal.”
There are other ways besides Trump’s to sound not-normal. Trump’s not-normal sound concealed a lot of normalcy beneath. There was a lot of show on the surface about a willingness to buck the establishment, but under the surface, no real stomach to actually do one tenth of what was necessary to buck it.
If anyone actually articulated that stomach and credibly communicated a willingness to eliminate entire department and functions of the government and to go to total political war with the many institutional obstacles that would try to stand in his way – and such a total war is now necessary to effectively pursue even a fairly mild program in terms of policy – then he would seem so far off the reservation and beyond the bounds of respectable opinion that he would achieve the necessary salience in terms of distinctiveness.
“go to total political war with the many institutional obstacles that would try to stand in his way – and such a total war is now necessary to effectively pursue even a fairly mild program in terms of policy”
This requires a President leader and a supportive House of Reps.
I was hoping Trump would win and create that support in the House.
But those who want a Dictatorship of the deep state succeeded staving off that outcome.
Not yet do enough voters understand that the deep state is, literally, running the government. It IS the gov’t. I has it’s own institutional interests at heart, not “the people”.
Excellent questions by ASK.
However ASK shied away from globalization issues.
Perhaps the employee-class of developed nations has figured out globalism doesn’t really work for them.
Whether it is to clean their toilets or to work in the factories, the upper-class wants cheap labor, and has little use for such trivialities (often dismissed as nativist) as national character or culture.
It’s way way too soon to be so interested in 2024 — 2020 isn’t yet totally over. Tho I think Biden wins (95%), part of Trump fighting will be to get Reps focused on “Free, Fair, Elections”. To avoid deep state stealing of all future elections.
Do the Reps win in GA Senate? I think so, but expect fraud there, too.
With fair laws, it’s possible that Republicans come back and retake the House in 2022. Or not. How Pres. Harris (still Biden? I don’t think so) acts will also be important.
As above, Trump will absorb lots of the oxygen in the room. Especially if he continues to play with running in 2024; but also if he continues to be targeted by Dems – as I fully expect.
Plus what about the calls to target “Trump supporters”? I’m sure there will be more “martyrs” being created by such injustice. Not sure how important that will be.
No successful Rep will be big on cutting gov’t, and there might even be some alt-Rep health plan to “normalize” US health care, but that remains a mess.
So easy to forget to mention – ASK has great message:
–praise America’s virtues rather than damn its faults
–equal rights, not affirmative action
–police are better than social workers at dealing with crime
–parents choose better schools than government schools
–don’t send soldiers to try to fix other countries
+1 yes, our host nailed it.
Doesn’t matter who they run, they will win. The majority isn’t going to vote to reelect Harris. Curious what the betting markets have on Biden still being President January 1st, 2024.
“police are better than social workers at dealing with crime”
Here is an example of a silly libertarian response to a police encounter. Why the need to escalate? What are you trying to accomplish?
https://youtu.be/5NCZZaCnTQ0
FWIW – My wife and I carry concealed basically always and would never respond this way. We value our lives over our immediate rights.