Tyler Cowen recently linked to some interpretations of the 2016 election that differ from mine.
My most pronounced views are:
1. Be careful not to over-interpret the election. It was very close. Had the ball bounced differently, we would be reading few essays about the populist revolt and many essays about the political strengths of Mrs. Clinton and the Democrats. I believe that the election of President Obama was assigned excess significance by pundits, and I believe that the election of President Trump is being assigned excess significance squared.
2. I believe that the best interpretation of the populist revolt is that it reflects anti-Bobo sentiment. Bobo, of course, is David Brooks’ shorthand for bourgeois bohemian. It describes those of us who are well educated, well off financially, socially liberal in outlook, bourgeois in important respects, and bohemian in superficial respects. In his book published in 2000, Brooks painted a mostly favorable portrait of the Bobos.
However, it turns out that many Bobos became increasingly smug about their cosmopolitan social morality, to the point of not being able to hide their contempt for those who do not adopt the Bobo ethos. They became moral narcissists, meaning that
What you believe, or claim to believe or say you believe—not what you do or how you act or what the results of your actions may be—defines you as a person and makes you “good.”
One of Tyler’s links goes to Andrew Sullivan.
Modern neoliberalism has, for its part, created a global capitalist machine that is seemingly beyond anyone’s control, fast destroying the planet’s climate, wiping out vast tracts of life on Earth while consigning millions of Americans to economic stagnation and cultural despair.
I have grown wary of the term “neoliberalism.” It gets used as an undefined all-purpose boo-word. Want to explain the financial crisis? Blame neoliberalism. Want a simple theory to explain the phenomena cataloged in Coming Apart and Our Kids? Blame neoliberalism. Upset that Donald Trump won the election? Blame neoliberalism.
The term also comes up in the other essay to which Tyler links, by Henry Farrell.
They also provide, potentially a diagnosis of what has gone wrong since the 1980s. Embedded liberalism is dead, and neo-liberalism has triumphed in its place.
If neoliberalism is the ill-defined boo-word, then social democracy is the ill-defined yay-word, which Farrell employs enthusiastically. He all but insists that social democracy is what Trump voters really need, and they just need to learn what is good for them.
Again, I read the election differently. The way I see it, in 2016 there were some voters in key states who decided that they would be better represented by an anti-Bobo in the White House.
Arnold, you need to get out more. Maybe take up woodworking, or maybe folk dancing.
We just saw in the European elections that right-wing, seemingly fringe parties, came in first in France and the U.K. This is a response to the continuing austerity policies of the European Community that have kept unemployment rates high and blocked national efforts to stimulate stronger growth.
Right, and Bernie Sanders’ unexpected run of success in the Democratic primary was fueled by voters who thought Hillary was too anti-business.
I think anti-BoBo sentiment rose when they continued accelerating on the path from smugness to contempt and then to outright social radicalism and dangerousness, blaming everything on a few archetypal villains and increasingly indulging in the precursors to “eliminationist rhetoric”. Sometimes you forget yourself and raise the heat in the pot too fast and the frog jumps a little.
This “populism” meme is clueless.
It was “cultural anxiety”. Can’t speak for the UK, but this “cultural anxiety” has been around since the Civil Rights Act was passed. Throw in a flawed candidate like Clinton(though nowhere near as flawed as thought); the first election since the Voting Rights Act was attacked; and the first GOP candidate that pandered to “cultural anxiety” right up front instead of by using dog whistle politics, and we get an authoritative madman in the WH.
“In the wake of Trump’s surprise win, some journalists, scholars, and political strategists argued that economic anxiety drove these Americans to Trump. But new analysis of post-election survey data conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic found something different: Evidence suggests financially troubled voters in the white working class were more likely to prefer Clinton over Trump. Besides partisan affiliation, it was cultural anxiety—feeling like a stranger in America, supporting the deportation of immigrants, and hesitating about educational investment—that best predicted support for Trump…..
Controlling for other demographic variables, three factors stood out as strong independent predictors of how white working-class people would vote. The first was anxiety about cultural change. Sixty-eight percent of white working-class voters said the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence. And nearly half agreed with the statement, “things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own country.” Together, these variables were strong indictors of support for Trump: 79 percent of white working-class voters who had these anxieties chose Trump, while only 43 percent of white working-class voters who did not share one or both of these fears cast their vote the same way.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/white-working-class-trump-cultural-anxiety/525771/
“Cultural anxiety” is about overturning the Civil Rights Act? Right, and leftist protests are all about anxiety over the fall of the Soviet Union.
People make way too much out of the ‘remember the good old days’ sentiment, as though it’s some acute phenomenon in Trump voters inspiring their little revolt. It isn’t; it’s a ubiquitous phenomenon as old as time. Sanders and Clinton used it to refer the ‘good times’ before neoliberalism killed manufacturing and lowered the tax rate and destroyed our sense of community; he’ll, JFK’s campaign slogan was eerily similar to Trump’s. “Let’s get America moving again” or working again, I forget. Few characterize him as a retrograde.
Anyway, it’s pointless to try to attribute an unusual phenomenon to a sentiment that is literally ubiquitous across time and space.
We will not know the try reality for until 2024! Addtionally:
1) It is best to understand Trump pulled an Electoral College inside straight here and HRC made some serious campaign mistakes of putting Georgia over Wisconsin. After the convention, she lost the Campaign Narrative and Trump had a strong simplified message. Also, we have to remember Obama reelection was Party opposite of 2016 except Obama was more popular and the incumbent. History often is Monday Morning Quarterback on the Victory side as well. (We now act like the Obama campaign always knew they would win Florida when they really did not.)
2) I really don’t get the economic libertarian of let the PSST fail and supporting Charles Murray “Coming Apart” narrative. Charles Murray and libertarian long for a local community support system and PSST model theories the Luddites must be left behind. That is the biggest contradiction I see with Conservatives right now.
3) We remember HRC won with voters earning less than 75K and Trump won with voters over 75K. (Trump did better better with under 75K than Romney) So any election analysis must take that into account and Bobo analysis does not answer this reality very well. (Additional points for why the Bobos in France went heavily for Macron versus Le Pen.)
4) Long term the big question appears to be WWC feel like the government, economy and economic elites have turned against them. It really does feel strange to view the map of WJC win in 1992/1996 versus HRC loss in 2016. Given the weird Perot run and Trump victory during bookend Clinton elections will give Poli Sci PHd Thesis over the next century.
5) On the opposite end of the spectrum, in the Southwest, there is a lot voters upset that the heavy anti-Illegal Immigrant campaign was not just the ‘Illegal Immigrants.’ So we saw campaign against the Hotel Union Maids in Las Vegas voting Friday night at Cardenas and I am not how these workers & voters hurt the WWC in the Rust Belt.
6) It does appear the US Parties are changing their demographics and 2012 was the last of the Reagan/Clinton coalitions and 2016 is the ?/? coalition. I don’t know if Republicans go full Trump at this point (or if Trump becomes a Carter was for Democrats) but it will be interesting
Bill won the Scotts Irish. Hillary lost them. Not primarily the lowest end of the Scotts Irish (they are either still voting D or not voting at all), but the lower middle and middle middle class that do work for a living.
Smugness certainly plays a role. Bill spoke rather empathetically to those people, Hillary called them a basket of deplorables. However, the trends in the Scotts Irish began long before this election. In some ways they were waiting for a Republican that spoke their language rather then a smug plutocrat play acting as an evangelical.
While there are any number of things for these people to complain about in HRC and her ilk, the fact that their children are getting destroyed by the potent combination of SSDI + Oxycontin + Robots/China is certainly a big part of it. Democrats were offering what? To expand Medicaid and push even more free Oxy into their communities? To mandate transgenderism be taught to their kids?
The Dems thought they has imported enough Latinos to forget about these people they fought a War on Poverty for. Turned out all those Latinos only lived on the coast. A couple election cycles too early to flat out tell the Scotts-Irish to die off.
Instead of a “smug plutocrat play acting as an evangelical,” what the GOP offered these voters in 2016 was an insecure plutocrat play acting as a populist. And, what do you know, it worked.
Worst case Trump ends up a less insulting version of what the GOPe had to offer. When your comparison is that, everything is upside.
Trump may well be less insulting to the sort of voters we’re talking about, but his administration’s domestic policy is turning out largely to be a continuation of the GOPe. GOPe figures like Stephen Moore, Grover Norquist, Larry Kudlow seem to have anticipated this, as they accommodated themselves to Trump quite readily. To me, it looks like the GOPe has exchanged one dishonest façade for another. Behind the façade, it’s the same old donor class agenda.
Such probably amounts to the median expectation of the Trump admin beforehand. There have been positive developements on the immigration front that wouldn’t have happened under the GOPe. There have also been positive social effects.
So Trump is mildly positive in some areas and not a negative compared to the alternative elsewhere. Glad I voted for him.
If it makes you feel better if there is no wall in four years I won’t vote for him again.
Who you vote for is not a concern of mine. But given that Trump’s budget director is an open-borders type, I doubt you’ll be voting for him again.
Trump has improved immigration enforcement, I acknowledge (not hard to do, given where it was), but not enough to change the trajectory we’re on. The recently confirmed Labor Secretary, Acosta, provides further reason for pessimism about where Trump’s headed on immigration.
Those who were hoping he would wind down our unhealthy over-involvement in the Islamic world might be interested to know that we are apparently on the cusp of a major escalation in Afghanistan – again. Presumably, this is something his appointees Mattis and McMaster think we should do, for the most urgent reasons of national interest. At this point, maybe we should just admit Afghanistan to the union.
Trump has followed through on his promise to appoint conservative judges (so far), but that was not something that moved his marginal voters.
The thing is, Trump’s failures to follow through on his “signature” issues may not matter to many of those who voted for him in the early primaries and the marginal voters who put him over the top in November. They may just like Trump for who he is, not based on any reasoning about how his policies will affect the country or themselves. A troubling thought.
His opponents were either open or defacto open borders. He’s taken some steps to close them. A positive.
I considered his opponents highly likely to commit significant ground troops to third world hellholes. Trump hasn’t done so thus far. If he does I’ll change my mind on him.
Supreme Court justices were number one issue on the minds of people I know who voted for him. Most were Christians that were highly offended by his demeanor, but were correctely convinced that a Hillary court would have practically outlawed Christianity and turned PC enforcement up to 11.
Trump has one thing that none of the other candidates has though it’s not related to any legislation. He doesn’t hate most of his fellow Americans. Leftist and the GOPe loath at least half the electorate if not more. Voting for someone that hates you and wants you to die off is incredibly dehumanizing. Trump told people they had a right to be alive, that they aren’t the oppressor that brought all evil into the world.
the fact that their children are getting destroyed by the potent combination of SSDI + Oxycontin + Robots/China is certainly a big part of it.
Where is the pull your pants speeches and its their own fault? Really what did HRC or Dems to cause Oxycontin? That is ridiculous utterly here. And HRC offered weak training stuff and drug programs if you listened to the tapes. (And investments of improved cell service.) Not strong stuff but at least something. And nothing is stopping them to move to Texas and in fact a lot young people did move there. Trump promised to bring all the higher paying jobs being tough on NAFTA and China, neither of which appears to popular with other voters and not happening on a large scale. So Trump told these voters he would bring back 1960 without any kind of plan
(I am not counting individual tariffs on soft lumber and selected products. Steel is still probably coming.) And HRC was terrible with these voters and has no ability to come back from a mistake like Trump or her husband.
And what is this grand plan of Hispanic Immigration? Hispanic-Americans were already 30% of the population in California, Texas, and New Mexico in 1990 and remember the Rs holding their chest out that Bush got 44% of the vote in 2004. Before 2006, this was not a Party issue. There is no Grand Plan and Democratic are stupid to assume demographic dominance in 2024 based on current party opinions. (Confident Yes, and Republicans should be concerned.)
I wonder if when you couldn’t articulate your socially unacceptable preferences they gothink funneled into things like lying to pollsters and taking out frustrations in the ballot box.
Weren’t the pollsters actually correct on the national vote in the US? RCP had HRC leading by 3.8% and she won the popular vote by 2.2%. (Margin of Error) In reality the national pollsters had small error in 2016 than they did in the 2012 election (2.6%). (Look at the French polls that had a huge error against Marcon.)
And didn’t Nate Silver write a post that?:
1) Stated Trump had 30% of winning.
2) There was a 10% chance Trump winning the electoral college but not the popular vote.
3) Noticed herding and poor state polls. The state polls were the issue in 2016 and probably had a lot to do with declining local newspapers.
Sounds like he knew something could break to Trump and stated 30% of a chance.
Well, I don’t know the statistics but it seems like the shy Trump supporter was a thing, and had Hillary known she might have visited more swing stares instead of running up the score in California and sitting on what she assumed was a lead.
No HRC did not spend much time in California other than fundraising. She wasted her time in Georgia, Arizona and Texas where it appeared after the convention these states were in play. (Only AZ was close at Trump +3) instead of true swing states. Those were landslide states. Secondly I had no idea why they did not run the negative ads of all the small businesses Trump Enterprises stiffed over the years. (Of course there all illegal aliens voting in our state!)
Although it should be noted that HRC loss in Iowa was greater than her loss in Texas. (No I don’t think Texas goes purple anytime soon.) So I do believe the map is changing.
I didn’t mean she spent time in California, but that is where the majority of her popular vote advantage sums from. So, if she could have traded votes in any way, she should have.
The point is that they really were blindsided by the upset. I have never claimed she is strategically stupid, so I assume she made bad assumptions.
Any scenario in which she won GA or TX where also scenarios where she won PA, MI, FL, and OH. Thus, she never should have been there.
The swing of the Scotts Irish was so obvious it should have been incredibly obvious to pollsters. Even Bill basically told Hillary what was happening and she ignored him.
I remember talk of her trying to even flop a red state or two, but not by shifting her messaging, by campaigning there presumably in lieu of states she did not realize were in jeopardy.
One way to trade some California votes would be to tack right on some issue.
I can’t help but wonder if the Left forms a stable coalition long term. Currently they are an odd combo of “victims” (primarily minorities), government workers and well-educated defenders of the underdog (primarily white upper middle class hobos). A few years ago the demographers were rejoicing that diversity (primarily Hispanic immigration and birth rates) would tip the scales toward the left.
But what do blacks and Hispanics have in common with upper class white bobos? Why would they allow an elite group of Ivy League know-it-alls run their party? It seems the long term dynamics are self negating.
Demographics did make the Democratic coalition an unstoppable juggernaut, but the swing states are a decade behind the popular vote.
“But what do blacks and Hispanics have in common with upper class white bobos?”
Those UMC whites give the minorities lots of free shit paid for by the government. They also give them lots of non-government based social power (“diversity = strength” means like of cultural and social power, as well as sweet do nothing jobs at most large companies).
“Why would they allow an elite group of Ivy League know-it-alls run their party? It seems the long term dynamics are self negating.”
Long term, yes. Long term is quite awhile though, about a generation. Demographics have to be majority non-white before the non-whites can get more aggressive with impunity. That’s baked into the 0-5 demographic, but not the current likely voter demographic.
UMC urban liberals do not give two fucks about what happens in a generation (how many of them even have children). People live OK lives in gated communities in Latin America, and Venezuela’s are only occasional and a lot less likely then in America 2050. People figure they have the money to buy out of the system if it really does go bad.
What do they have in common in terms
1) Saying Democrats are all rich Bobos and poor minorities is awful Steve Sailer stats of mostly yesteryear or specific cities (say Chicago). There are a lot well off minorities and middle/working class whites here. Go to any tech company and they have a ton of diversity. (In fact, at my kids school, it is the WWC here that are inter-racial parents.)
2) Why are minorities voting more Democrat? Have you heard Steve King lately?
3) One aspect of diversity is if you grow up in multi-racial neighbors that becomes your reality. My High School and college were very diverse so it is perfectly normal to me.
4) The second term Obama economy minority real wages increased higher than white real wages. (Simply because more percentage of minorities in urban areas.)
Do I think it is stable Party affiliation on? Who knows and Party coalitions are never completely stable in the long run anyway. The Reagan/Clinton coalitions are broke down in 2016 and have to see if they do go.
And it seems what Trump voters wanted, considering he lied about and reversed course on almost everything since. Does one believe they knew they were being lied to, that they wanted to be lied to, or just didn’t care?
They did not reflect on how little they would care about locking Hillary up, for example, after the election.
Trump doesn’t even have to have known this, he just has to mirror their emotional states at each time point. After the election he has additional flexibility.
Yes everybody knew the Lock Her Up stuff was simply chants but Presidents have to govern like their promises to their voters. (Anyway this would hurt Trump politically today.) Sure Obama Health care was not his promises but most voters understood this reality. Trump promised to give these voter and the community they had. He is giving them respect at rallies but where are the plans for these communities? He has literally done nothing here and most of economic advisers are trying to get him to back down on NAFTA and China.
However, we don’t know how the next couple years go and Trump might still ease into the job and be reelected as incumbents have substantial advantages.
Is anything Trump has done worse then what would have been done by his opponents? Trump is an option contract with no downside compared to the alternative.
Mostly where he falls short is because isn’t a career politician, so his opponents should understand that his supporters might forgive a lot of this.
Not at this point of Trump doing anything worse, but what has he done well? He lost the optimal Honeymoon period and his firing of Comey is putting his administration in a corner. People forget how poorly WJC (or even Reagan) first two years went but he figured it out and the economy boomed as well. (And Bush Sr was very successful of first 2 or 2 1/2 years were.)
There is the cliché that his opponents took him literally but not seriously and his supporters took him seriously but not literally.
But I think I figured out the more effective explanation. Whereas the Clintons perfected saying whatever got them votes what they really meant was somewhere between that and what they had to say behind closed doors to tell lobbyit’s to get money. In this, having actual beliefs is a detriment.
But Trump exaggerated his words, but his supporters still believe he meant the emotion and desires behind his words.
I’ve always thought that the term “neoliberal” was invented to make classical liberalism sound like neo-naziism, by people who are trying to advance a statist “Progressive” agenda.
Separately, Progressivism is starting to look more and more neo-conservative: through speech codes and Dear Colleague letters it is starting to sound quite Victorian; its opposition to economic innovation seems quite Luddite; and its efforts to define people as “employees” rather than “independent contractors” and to funnel more and more social benefits – healthcare, family leave, minimum income – through employers is more than a little reminiscent of Feudalism.
“What you believe, or claim to believe or say you believe—not what you do or how you act or what the results of your actions may be—defines you as a person and makes you “good.””
Just want to make an observation. What you identify as “moral narcissism” has a striking similarity to the “faith alone” principle of most Protestant faiths, notably, following Luther and Calvin.
Luther denied that good works could save your soul, get you into Heaven. You had to Believe. Keep the faith, baby! Luther also believed that good deeds would flow naturally out of good faith.
Protestantism has been secularized. And I have noticed that that a lot of the “social justice” movement has emerged either explicitly out of Protestant denominations or from people who were educated in Protestantism.
What we see today is a Protestantism turned political, Protestantism turned into Progressivism. Once again, faith — both private devotional commitment and public affirmation — defines a person. And because we are all sinners, we must all feel guilty. And we must atone for our sins and confess our guilt. And the dogma may not be questioned, and heretics must be burned, and witches sought out and brought to justice.
Do you think it is a coincidence that Puritan / Congregational New England became the most Progressive part of the US?
You have noted how global warming seems to have turned into a religion. That is exactly right. I think it was Chesterton who said when men cease to believe in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything. If the old Bible is rejected, people look for a new Bible.
Interesting – and consistent with my feeling that Progressives are increasingly the New Victorians.