Many of us have talked about the Trump-era class war. You can call it Somewheres vs. Anywheres. Bobos vs. anti-Bobos. Managerial elites vs. populists. But both sides need one another, or at least they are stuck with one another. This suggests that some sort of Hegelian synthesis is likely to emerge. What it will look like?
My first thought is national socialism. It needs another name, because of all the Hitler/holocaust baggage, but here is why it makes sense.
The nationalism would include immigration restrictions, protection of “culturally significant industry” (e.g., wine in France), and cultural pride. This would appeal to the anti-Bobos. The socialism part, which requires technocratic management of economic outcomes, would appeal to the Bobos.
To get to national socialism in the U.S., the left would have to give up its attachment to multiculturalism and the right would have to give up its attachment to free markets (which Alberto Mingardi says has happened). Right now, it is easier for me to imagine the latter than the former, but maybe if the left loses one more election that could change.
And no, I do not want to see national socialism, even without the baggage. But it strikes me as a very plausible scenario.
A politics that’s inclusive, multi-ethnic, pluralist, federalist, preserves universal healthcare, preserves the liberty of individuals and their right to make their own choices without trying to legislate cultural attitudes, that defends civil liberties, demands equality of opportunity, curbs and regulates speculative finance, recognizes that markets are not value neutral or sacrosanct and encourages economic policy to improve the material well being of Americans without returning to reactionary nativism or neo-mercantilism, that ends wars that can’t be won and doesn’t start new ones without a clear threat or national interest that can be expressed in terms of political outcomes and for which people above the rank of sergeant will be held accountable
Parts of his essay remind me of Martin Gurri, in their description of the mood of revolt and nihilism that is in the air. His preferred solution strikes me as the left giving up the most Inquisition-ist form of multiculturalism but otherwise getting its way. My guess is that we will see something worse.
And I almost see the opposite, Multiculturalism grows and limits on left other goals, in the long run:
1) Right Center Parties have been cleaning up elections in Europe. Macron landslide victory (larger than Reagan 1984) showed the limitations of this Nationalism approach and in fact the EU/Euro seems a lot more popular with Europeans after the Brexit & Trump. (Note: I know an election in the UK but the right center has not rejected Trump either.)
2) Trump is not governing like a Nationalist but standard Republican. Frankly, I think he is too lazy and incompetent to make significant changes to trade deals with China (mostly off the table at this point) and NAFTA. (In which the Iowa farmers will scream.)
3) The Democrats may go with a left center minority candidate and win an Obama-off Primary. (Ruben Gallego is my darkhorse candidate!) Remember a minority candidate can pander better to the WWC than HRC did.
4) Trump is still not popular despite being new and having sub 5% unemployment. So we have to see what happens when a crisis actually happens. (Also means wages are finally going up which will weaken socialism appeal to millennials.)
And maybe the future is not determined by the West:
5) Probably the final piece might be determined by the Middle East. Judging by the diplomatic crisis of Saudia/Egypt/etc. v Qatar the region is ready for a WW1 type war against each other. At this point, this crisis probably does not go to WW1 dominoes but these actions show a Saudia/Others & Iran/Others war is increasingly likely. And isn’t Yemen/Saudia war a bit of a Saudi/Iran cold war?
I agree, especially with your conclusion.
Such a bargain would only work if we could stabilize demographics, but even without immigration all those under 18 NAMs coming of voting age will fundamentally change the equilibrium. Not to mention younger whites have been heavily indoctrinated since youth, even the Progressive Inquisition going full insane probably couldn’t budge the white vote share too much (some whites would rather try to buy their way into the inquisition as their form of defense from it).
I would also note something very important, which is that its not just about government policy. If the government doesn’t officially enforce progressivism at gunpoint, but every single private institution essentially does, then you effectively have the same outcome. People need to work, which means they have to deal with HR departments, which is about as close to a government bureaucrat as you can get. My own father’s Barbershop group had to stop singing one of its songs because someone walking through the halls of the building they practice in decided that one of the words was offensive. No government involved…but a tyranny nonetheless.
The most likely outcome is a bankrupt society run by progressive commissars and unrestrained by the democratic process (both because they can rely on NAMs for votes and because they control the courts and bureaucracy). The grand bargain you mention above is a lot better then that.
However, its hard to see progressives turning down all the power that having a successful religious institution bestows on them. Just think about it, you just cry racism and you can destroy your enemies and get free stuff. And feel righteous about it. Too tempting.
You fight a religion with a religion. Pragmatists are price takers, they choose the optimal path only after the rules of the game have been set by the true believers.
Leaving behind the ‘religion’ part, I think the biggest problem with pro-Nationalism political movements is most large multi-national companies don’t like that part message. (FYI I worked at a large multinational for decades.)
1) Look at the customer set for a large multinational corporation. You not only see a diverse customers in the US but they are buying & selling to a lot of international customers. What happens to an US Oil/Gas supplier if comes out they dislike Muslims populations? Sure they catch hell in the US but they get riots in the Middle Eastern nations they are buying from. Or a Hollywood movie executive complained about East Asian populations? Now their films are boycotted in China! Good luck getting ~$700M in foreign grosses on your next animated movie that costs $200M.
2) Not only do you have a customer base, there a lot of employees both in the US and foreign nations. Take Apple has a lot of employees in China to buy and sell their equipment. And the US Apple employees have to work with them to improve their bottom line. I was not that high up in multinational but still dealt with co-workers in Mexico, Brazil, numerous EU nations, Australia, Canada (including travels), India and Japan. And my current employer is from Canada.
3) Having been at some global corporate events, the message to employees is our company is growing and profitable because of our global strategy and products that work in all markets. (Of course, the sublimal message is you will keep your job, and your kids can go to college!) I have suggested this is where people can get their ‘religion’ to dedicate to their employers in the future.
4) Realize our news hits foreign nations a lot more. Remember the killing of several Indian Immigrants (the shooter thought they were from Iran) in Kansas a couple months back? It was bigger news in India than the US.
So without the richest and most powerful companies in the US, I don’t see how this nationalism movement survives long term without Trump. The evil right center globalist leaders, Merkel & Macron, that reject Trump are cleaning up elections in the EU. And although I suspect Arnold Kling is ‘Trump Sympathies’ because he tells SJW to shut up but long term I don’t see how he supports it if it slows down the movement of people & goods. (And what happens to SJWs when they start working at globalist companies?)
Obviously, multi-national executives aren’t the group such a political program is meant to appeal to.
They are also only like 0.001% of the population. Their interests aren’t supposed to dominate society under any political theory I can think of.
“Of course, the sublimal message is you will keep your job, and your kids can go to college!”
Except their average employees aren’t keeping their jobs (which many of them don’t particularly like anyway) and they can’t afford college. In a globalized race to the bottom, most of the first world loses.
(And what happens to SJWs when they start working at globalist companies?)
They force poor baristas making min wage to have conversations with customers about police shootings:
https://news.starbucks.com/news/race-together-conversation-has-the-power-to-change-hearts-and-minds
Then they sponsor a bunch of government policy that makes middle class lives worse to make themselves feel better and try to carve out special exemptions for themselves.
Look, we all know whats short/medium term good for a narrow slice of elites. It’s just that society isn’t supposed to be organized for their benefit at the expense of everyone else.
Obviously, multi-national executives aren’t the group such a political program is meant to appeal to.
Again, at their corporate global meetings there are hundreds and thousands or employees and they all have the similar goals (sell more at higher prices) and intereact globally. I was nowhere near the .0001% but had a fair amount of international interacting. Also aren’t the .0001% CEO and Arnold Kling’s economic goals about 95% equal? I may dislike some Koch Brother’s political goals but they run great businesses which seems to smarter to follow.
Except their average employees aren’t keeping their jobs
Yet look at the data and employee retention is near all time highs. (It is not 2009/2010) This could/will change next recession but the data is showing a lot of employee retention today.
In a globalized race to the bottom, most of the first world loses.
I wonder if this globalized race to bottom is near bottom. Outsourcing office jobs stopped ~2011/2012 and in fact some former call center jobs have come back since the Great Recession. China’s outsourcing seems to have already peaked a few years and only Mexico is taking a few factory jobs these days.
And yes the Starbucks race discussion was really stupid thing to do. And how much is the Middle Class diminishing in the US? Data is not showing significant drops here and a lot of the ‘middle class’ are going to upper class. Now I do believe some of this is minorities (especially Hispanic-Americans) are increasing becoming middle class.
“at their corporate global meetings there are hundreds and thousands or employees and they all have the similar goals”
This is beyond confusing. I certainly don’t have the same goals as the people running my company. I serve them to the extent that its the best possible option to me in the current equilibrium, but I would certainly welcome a different equilibrium which presented different options to me. This is like saying slaves that don’t run away from their masters because picking cotton is better then getting whipped have the same interests as their masters.
“Yet look at the data and employee retention is near all time highs.”
Labor force participation has been falling for a long time and median wages have been stagnant for decades.
The impression I get is those that are currently in the system are just trying to hold on, those that get laid off can’t get back in and drop out, and young people below a certain IQ threshold never even get started.
“Now I do believe some of this is minorities (especially Hispanic-Americans) are increasing becoming middle class.”
Hispanics have a median household income of $39K compared to $57K for whites. The Hispanic poverty rate is over double whites. Those relationships haven’t changed much over time, they driven by lower Hispanic IQ.
This is beyond confusing. I certainly don’t have the same goals as the people running my company.
Actually, the advice I ever heard from a retiring territory manager is give them what they want and you tend to get better annual reviews and higher bonuses. And the goal of companies is sell more products, higher prices, better customer service, etc. and it is your job to fulfill these. It is not political goals but career goals.
Labor force participation has been falling for a long time and median wages have been stagnant for decades.
Again it is creepy back up and getting near 2007 levels. (Not 2000.) And median wages have increased since 2014 .
Hispanics have a median household income of $39K compared to $57K for whites.
That number is median wages and with any demographic group there are ranges on IQ and wages. In SoCal there are a lot more middle class Hispanic-Americans than the generation before because in our free society the smarter hard working ones can attain this status. (Also I bet the IQ scores between white and Hispanic-,African-Americans are converging as the environment for minorities has improved. And secondly, I bet there is some measurement errors on young Hispanic-Americans due to English as second language.)
In terms of IQ and the Bell Curve, we are the next generation and finding out the smarter minorities are attaining better economic mobility against the lower white IQ scores. (The lower IQ whites were protected by segregation before 1965 and then environment the next generation.) So in terms of the Rust Belt we have seen the higher IQ people move to the South/Southwest since 1982ish. (Actually this movement started in teh 1960s.) So the Bell Curve realities against Minorities in 1994 have turned against Rust Belt WWC.
is give them what they want and you tend to get better annual reviews and higher bonuses.
Picking more cotton and being compliant might get you an extra ration, but what would be even better is not having to be a slave. Your agreement with your employer takes place within a context, and politics is part of that context. Your employers desire for the context in which you reach an agreement is different from the context which you would prefer.
Again it is creepy back up and getting near 2007 levels. (Not 2000.) And median wages have increased since 2014 .
Yes, we know there has been some recovery since the recession, thats happened after every recession ever. Its stagnant to down over the last few decades. If we look at just males its non-stop decline.
In SoCal there are a lot more middle class Hispanic-Americans than the generation before because in our free society the smarter hard working ones can attain this status. (Also I bet the IQ scores between white and Hispanic-,African-Americans are converging as the environment for minorities has improved. And secondly, I bet there is some measurement errors on young Hispanic-Americans due to English as second language.)
Why “bet”? You can look up all that stuff on Pew Research and other outlets. The answer to all your assertions is no. We can use data to answer these questions, not your own biased anecdotes.
In terms of IQ and the Bell Curve, we are the next generation and finding out the smarter minorities are attaining better economic mobility against the lower white IQ scores. (The lower IQ whites were protected by segregation before 1965 and then environment the next generation.) So in terms of the Rust Belt we have seen the higher IQ people move to the South/Southwest since 1982ish. (Actually this movement started in teh 1960s.) So the Bell Curve realities against Minorities in 1994 have turned against Rust Belt WWC.
Truly bizarre. One would expect high IQ minorities to do better then low IQ whites. The problem is that the ratio of high IQ to low IQ is much worse among NAMs then among whites. The existence of a successful “talented tenth” was already found by Murray in The Bell Curve. He showed that that talented tenth was already achieving parity in outcome based on IQ by the time the Civil Rights Act passed. They’ve since started to do even better then their IQ scores state, likely due to favorable affirmative action giveaways.
Low IQ NAMs, which make up most NAMs, are performing as poor as ever, and don’t benefit much from the affirmative action system (they are too dumb even for corporate sinecures). Blacks make up the group worst hit by the Rust Belt phenomenon. The reason all those northern cities have so many blacks is they moved north to get those factory jobs that disappeared.
Taking a step back I have never understood the Paloconservative rants of blaming Clinton Ds on Rust Belt decline of manufacturing jobs. The high point of manufacturing jobs was the Spring of 1980 before Volcker slayed inflation and Reagan Revolution occurred. And the whole 1992 election was disrupted by the second wave of manufacturing jobs cuts after the S&L jobless recovery. (FYI I graduated college 1992 the high point of unemployment rate at the time.)
And I believe the reason why the manufacturing job model was disrupted was not the Fed or Reagan but Japan Inc. It was their manufacturing style and dedication to building quality cars that got higher gas mileage. While Toyota and Honda were making Corollas, Camrys, Accords & Civics, the US makers rolled out Pintos and Gremlins. The Japan models are still being made and the US small cars were the villain Lemons in Cars 2. (It was all manufacturing but Cars was the most obvious example.) So in terms of Trump conservative supporters, I have never understood how they don’t deal with this Reagan and Japan history. (Also I have quite understood Japan Inc. became Japan lost quarter century either! Although I go back to a Econ Professor who said Japan would have a huge labor supply in the future.)
Also, comparing a mid-level successful person at a large multinational corporation to slavery seems kinda of weird. I am as cynical as anybody at the office but the company does pay and treat employees fairly. (And yes my compensation improved after winning big deals.)
And over the arch of history, isn’t the most successful assimilation occurs you have work and sell to somebody different than yourself?
My BEIN feed got cut this morning (BEIN is owned by folks in Qatar). No Serie A in August. That’s a big deal. Thanks Trump!
The synthesis is going to be extremely mild.
Basically the elitesame assumed everything was fine because they were fat, dumb, and happy. They still don’t get it.
As soon as they get it this will be over.
When all the experts agree – something else will happen.
With the rise of Bitcoin, it’s becoming more obvious that foreigners will shape the future of finance and banking, whether the US government and finance elites like it or not.
So my point is that the clock is ticking – it could easily be the case that in the next decade that some other country becomes a more compelling center of economic liberty and finance, such that US elites (Abstracts, Somewheres, etc) no longer hold the wealth and influence they do today. And they might arrive in exactly that situation because they are unwilling to give up on the more extreme versions of the statist Utopia that many of them fantasize about.
Thus it’s possible that a bargain that trades economic liberty for political appeasement might look attractive in the short term but could turn out to be a vow of poverty in the long term.
Bernie Sanders!
Doubtful.
Slap some brown skin on Bernie and give him some charisma. That is the future.
Kamala Harris. Maybe Corrie Booker. Both are two-fers, so they’ll need a Joe Biden figure. Jerry Brown is already 79, so too old. Cuomo maybe, though not quite avuncular enough. Bill Nelson would be good, though he’s also 74. Joe Manchin is 70, but from West Virginia, so maybe good for some swing state Deplorables.
My money is on Booker or Harris. Harris though is as lacking in dynamism, charisma, and intelligence as Hillary Clinton; Booker would be a more viable candidate.
What is “Bernie Sanders!” in response to? I know, “everything.” But is there some specific relevance here?
That is Bernie Sander’s platform for the uninformed.
1. I would guess that any political science analysis of a two-party democratic system such as ours would prohibit any kind of compromise or reconcilation deep enough to be called a synthesis. Instead, one is likely to see either adaptation to the halfway point and a fight over getting to 51%, or else victory by one side and capitulation by the other (think of post-FDR Republicans).
2. The future probably looks like California, so ‘Brazilification’. Cosmopolitan, Multi-Ethnic, ‘Multi-cultural’ (not really except perhaps among recent immigrants, just in the sense of Stanley Fish’s “Boutique Multiculturalalism”), and big government that does lots of redistribution and arrogant ‘technocratic’ administration, and regulation, but has slightly moderated from the outright hostility to business of the Old Left, and tolerates enough ‘politically tamed’ market activity to permit a little economic growth and some people to become wealthy.
If there was a synthesis for a while, it might have been ‘Neoliberalism’ or ‘The Washington Consensus’, when the New Left suspended operations on the Economics Eastern Front at the end of the cold war, and shifted the focus of their firepower to the Western Front culture war where they’ve achieved remarkable success.
3. I think perhaps the Trump phenomenon has focused the minds of intellectuals far too closely on the cynosures of Class Norms or Nationalism. While Nationalism does indeed constitute a major political split of opinion and personal interest, is only one facet of the crystal of our deeply entrenched ideological divisions. There really is no way to get to the heart of the issue without identifying progressivism by name.
Re: 2 >big government … tolerates enough ‘politically tamed’ market activity to permit a little economic growth and some people to become wealthy.
You are assuming big government will forever hold the high ground and the initiative over the wealthy. With Bitcoin (and the Internet) that is becoming less true over time. Imagine that in the near future US wealth move their assets to Singapore using Bitcoin, while paying for their Starbucks using S$ denominated credit cards. Employers start paying salary in Bitcoin under the table. Big government (in the West generally) might not have much fiscal basis other than whatever tax revenue it can squeeze out of sales taxes on consumer goods.
…shifted the focus of their firepower to the Western Front culture war where they’ve achieved remarkable success.
And with victory in hand on the Western Front….?
You’ve identified the greatest danger of our time, which, naturally, gets zero attention. If the increasingly hysterical and nasty mopping up operations of the culture war stop performing their political function for the left, in terms of being the highest ‘poltical ROI’ crusade in terms of producing coordination, loyalty, motivation, and so forth, then they’ll reallocate their efforts and return to economic leftism and the long slide towards increasing control of the economy by the central state.
Now, the effects of the culture war victory are and will be increasingly bad, but the market engines of prosperity and technical progress are still running adequately. But if they turn their sights on the market and denigrating property and enterprise, the Venezuela scenario becomes more plausible. A socially conservative Venezuela disaster is still worse than a properous country with social pathology norms.
Of course Venezuela is not very socially conservative anymore, and shows us that it’s certainly possible to suffer the worst of both worlds.
Have a nice day.
Victory in the culture war necessitates victory in the economic war. Someone has to pay for social pathology, and its sure as hell not going to be individuals paying for the consequences of their “brave and inspiring” choices. Someone has to pay for utopian social visions, all interests groups must get an equal part of the pie, by force if necessary. The idea was never to win the culture wars to be left alone, it was to win the culture wars and then take the spoils.
Paying for social pathology is expensive but a comparatively minor problem for two reasons. First, If you exclude the mandatory programs, national security, and interest on the debt, all other discretionary spending, including all those welfare programs, are a drop in the bucket at the federal level.
But second, given our current technological level, a functional free-ish market produces enough surplus that it can bear a great deal of confiscatory taxation and redistribution. And probably given political mechanisms in a democracy, pathology is tolerated precisely to the extent we are rich enough to pay for it.
The taxes to pay for the problems are bad and problematic but not themselves horribly dangerous, at least anywhere near current levels. The danger is an accumulation of technocratic regulations, arbitrary mandates, and souces of ruinous liablity that make it increasingly unprofitable to start businesses and produce output or hire workers.
The problem in Venezuela was not that there wasn’t enough tax money to pay for all the promised welfare programs, it was (in addition to a lot of other evil imcompetence and corruption) that a combination of price controls, expropriations, quotas, ‘worker protections’ (ie. you can’t fire them no matter what) made the act of merely selling food a money-losing proposal, and so there’s no incentive for any private agent to provide the demanded quantities of it.
This, not higher taxes, is the real problem we face. There is no way for the left to stop agitating to move further left, that is the inevitable political dymanic of the absolutist egalitarianism principle at the heart of progressivism. In a way, the emergence of the identity-politics New Left and the end of the Cold War provided a brief respite from this most critical failure mode of degeneration as the left become preoccupied with “cultural oppression and equality” matters. Now “Love Wins!” and they are mostly done with that crusade, which is evidenced by the right’s effective abandonment of the battlefield, and not just the mainstream, respectable right, but even Trump himself. So the economic regulation front bekons.
In what may be a very dark and ugly ‘consolation’, there is perhaps one thing holding that back and keeping the fires permanently turned up on another crusade which will keep attention focused somewhere else than on economic matters, and that is measures-based racial equality. To put it bluntly, they may be insisting on the impossible, which means there is no way to resolve the complaints of various disparities and ‘win’ sufficient to allow the left to move on to other causes.
That’s hardly ‘good news’, it’s actually quite awful, but it may still be “better than the worst possible news.”
Have a nice day.
Yes, you can tolerate a lot of ruin in a nation. Not infinite ruin though, and not certain kinds of ruin.
First, there is some limit past which taxes can’t go. It’s unclear if post baby boomer retirement America will pass that limit.
Second, though social pathology is tolerated to the extent we can pay for it, that’s still a bad equilibrium. It’s no way to live for one.
Also, pathology is self reinforcing, pathological parents tend to produce pathological children, and its not like our demographics are getting less pathological. We may find the costs of pathology are exponential rather then scalar.
Third, direct welfare payments have logical limits, nor do they solve the primary progressive urge:
1) Nobody is going to support welfare payments that make those that work exactly equal to those that don’t, nor would that be good for the economy of society.
Moreover, most people don’t like being on welfare themselves. They want to feel equal in worth, not just have equal money. This is one reason why paying reparations to blacks would do nothing to end racial hostilities. A check can’t buy what they want.
2) Naturally, this will mean there will be
differences in outcome that progressives can’t tolerate. They will seek to redress these in non-direct transfer payment ways.
3) Many “essentials” are not something the underclass is capable of saving for and paying for themselves. Health insurance comes to mind right away. Retirement savings as well. I know Charles Murray hawks UBI, but he always glosses over the fact of how the UBI would be lower then what most retirees receive in assistance today. No way that flies.
Since the underclass, especially an underclass beset by pathologies, can’t really plan ahead or manage itself, it will oh so naturally fall on the progressives to manage complex systems for them. Such systems will be far more expensive then direct transfers (compare Obamacare to EBT cards), but once 51% percent of people see it as a right, their only option, or both, there will be no way getting rid of them.
I just don’t see a way to keep identity politics out of economics. Differences of outcome will require ever more onerous and ridiculous regulations. We cover $0 copay condoms as part of “health insurance” because to do otherwise would be anti-woman. We pay millions for people to mutilate themselves in sex change operations. We have a terrible education system that focuses almost entirely on trying to alter IQ scores and a real estate market driven by trying to get into he right school district. We can’t keep order in non-elite cities because doing so would have a disparate impact. There is no logical limit.
Growing portions of pathological groups will mean having to spend more and more buying them off. How many affirmative action slots will there need to be when non-whites are 51% of the electorate, I’m guessing more then the 10% their given now.
I don’t think its possible to “buy off” radical identity politics. Each victory brings a desire for more victories. Increases in non-white vote share increase the power of progressives and diminish the productive capacity from which they can draw funds to buy people off.
Could always call it “Socialism within one Nation”.
I think you guys think too big picture. Trump is a pig, his own worse enemy and the media is totally unfair against him. Given that, his poll numbers should be viewed as a positive. The dems are nuts. Repeat, the dems are nuts. They will go all in on climate change and single payer healthcare. Along with the normal anti white, anti straight, anti business stuff. Those are issues that decide the next 2 elections. I could be wrong, but I do not see dems on right side of these issues.
I think pubs increase hold on government, which will cause dems to go more nuts. That is short term future. Either way US become more less willing to be world’s policeman. The difference is if it is a dem, they lead from behind. A pub just says not our fight.
Maybe less regulation. A bit more market around edges. But to me lessen from Obamacare and attempts to replace it is once you give people something, you cannot take it away. Key problem of Obamacare is no preexisting conditions. Yet this is popular. Pubs know it is a problem yet cannot take it away. So only get more makets when does not take anything away from anyone.
All Dems have to do is stop being nuts. When they finally realize that jumping the SJW shark is n9 longer in the black they will react quickly. But they spent the last decade telling themselves their fringe demographics were their destiny. The cognitive dissonance will take a while. The ultimate pivot will be fast.
Demographics are destiny. Trump did lose the popular vote and pull a swing state inside straight. The only flaw in the democratic coalition projections is not realizing that the swing states about about 1-2 elections behind the trend.
They may or may not pivot on some issues in the short term, but deep in their hearts dems are waiting for the day where no matter how outrageous they are nobody can do anything about it. Such a demographic moment will come in our lifetimes.
Keep in mind too that the Dem primary is composed entirely of the fringes. We will get a Brown Bernie and the UMC white liberals that unleashed these forces won’t be able to stop him.
Democrats have and perhaps always will win the popular vote. Until we change the electoral college, all that means is that they are sub-optimal.
How slim did Trump win PA by 0.7%, MI by 0.3%, and WI by 0.7%. I would hardly say he’s got an electoral college lockup.
Let’s not forget that Texas and GA flipping are not very far away.
What? The 2016 Democratic primary yielded a neoliberal candidaye with hawkish FP tendencies and absolutely middle-of-the-road policy positions.
Arguably, we had national socialism after WWII until 1980-Galbraith’s New Industrial State and all that, then we departed away from it on a classical 19thC liberalism fad and now it’s drifting back to national socialism again.
I think we sort of had that during the Obama years.
As with a number of things progressives claim to care about, often some of it is just posturing and theater. While they claim to champion multiculturalism, they chase away lower income immigrants from their neighborhoods and schools with zoning, building restrictions, etc.
Educated immigrant professionals from other countries are OK, of course. While progressives like to brag about their excursions outside of their bubble to visit ethnic eateries, it’s the anti-bobos who end up with the daily multicultural experience, which might explain some of their agitation.
People have argued about Obama’s immigration record. The very fact that people even have to debate about who deported more, Obama or Bush, tells you that his record was not good [from a pro-immigration perspective].
During the Obama years progressives deported in great numbers despite the sagging economy, and still get credit for being immigrant-friendly. Weird.
Along with conservative abandonment of free markets, we also have Obamacare.
So yes, we effectively end up with a country that is ever more hostile to dynamism.