both the Democrats and the Republicans have their ready made, mostly true, and repeatedly self-confirming stories about the defects of the other. They need only read the news to feel better about themselves, and the academic contingent of the Democrats is better at this than are most ordinary citizens. There is thus a rather large cottage industry of intellectuals interpreting and channeling these stories to Democratic voters and sympathizers. On the right, you will find an equally large cottage industry, sometimes reeking of intolerance or at least imperfect tolerance, peddling mostly true stories about the failures of Democratic governance, absurd political correctness, tribal loyalties, and so on. That industry has a smaller role for the intellectuals and a larger role for preachers and talk radio.
It is characteristic of Tyler, and also of Robin Hanson and on occasion Bryan Caplan, to look at human behavior in terms of status competition. If you buy into that, as I do, then a reasonable way to differentiate the parties is in terms of whose status they wish to elevate and whose status they wish to demean.
1. I would say that for Democrats, the goal is to elevate the status of public sector workers, social scientists, well-educated people in general, urban residents, and members of groups who are willing to see themselves as oppressed groups fitting the Democratic narrative. They wish to demean the status of business owners, non-urban residents, strong religious believers, and working-class whites who fail to see themselves as an oppressed group fitting the Democratic narrative.
2. Note that Barack Obama hit most of the right buttons, in part simply by being black.
3. I would say that for Republicans, the goal is to elevate the status of members of the armed forces, non-urban residents, religious believers, small business owners, and working-class whites who prefer to blame their problems on society coddling immigrants and minority groups. They wish to demean the status of wealthy and successful progressives, particularly those in the media and entertainment industries. They wish to demean the status of unmarried individuals and of people they perceive as hostile to conventional families.
4. Note that Donald Trump has hit at least a couple of the right buttons spectacularly effectively: raising the status of working-class whites who prefer to blame their problems on society coddling immigrants and minority groups; and demeaning the status of wealth and successful progressives, particularly those in the media.
5. Note that many of Trump’s negative traits, including narcissism, authoritarianism, and uncharitable views of those who disagree with him, are shared by Barack Obama.
6. Denouncing Trump is a form of virtue signaling. That is, it is a cheap way to try to raise your status among well-educated people.
7. Notwithstanding all of these remarks on status competition, one may still think of politics in terms of ideology. And I think of Donald Trump as destroying the Republican Party as an ideological vehicle. In terms of Clay Shirky’s metaphor, the host (the Republican Party) has been taken over by a parasite (Trump). The Republicans I know tend to subscribe to a conservative/libertarian ideology. None of them would vote for Trump in a primary, and most of them would not vote for him in November.
8. From my point of view, the Trump candidacy has no upside and considerable downside. I doubt that a Trump victory would lead to policies that correspond to a conservative/libertarian agenda. And I think that he can only hurt Republican candidates for other offices. When those candidates are asked whether or not they support Trump, there is no answer that they can give that will not cost them votes.
9. Conversely, those on the Democratic side with an overt ideology are in a no-lose position. The ideological Overton window has moved very far to the left, somewhere between Bill Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Excellent analysis. Just for arguments sake, there may be pluses as well as minuses to “destroying the Republican Party as an ideological vehicle.” Open up a little sunlight for a third party, even maybe the Libertarians, to grow a bit? They have got three pretty good candidates right now campaigning for the nomination. I predict their share of the vote will be even better than Gary Johnson’s stellar performance last time around. And if Trump is actually elected, he may just be vindictive enough to bring Hillary Clinton and maybe even Obama to trial for their alleged misdeeds. Ending the DC logrolling would not necessarily be a bad thing.
Good post in general.
Destroying the republican party is a good thing. Republican ideology is bankrupt. Mostly on immigration but plenty of other things. Wonks on the right aren’t as smart as they think they are.
I’m a primary issue voter, that is there are lots of things I consider, but if you aren’t on board on the most important issue the rest doesn’t matter.
I believe strongly in demographics as destiny. I think its the most important issue. Since I believe in HBD, immigration seems to be an unmitigated train wreck. Other then self interest and self deception, I can’t see how the pro-immigration stance can be defended.
Perhaps what is worst about it is how unrecoverable and unrepairable the issue is. If the electorate screws up and passes prohibition, even into the constitution, we can later fix it. When Germany and Japan launched murderous and disastrous wars, they could rebuild.
With bad genes though, there is no recovery. Its a doom placed on our children and our children children. This isn’t as simple as Arnold’s throwaway line about those ugly proles blaming immigrants for their failures. It’s a documented empirical fact of paramount importance.
In 2100 Nobody is going to give a damn which policy proposals got implemented in the election of 2016. They will care what their countries demographics look like.
As noted over in the comments at Libertylawsite.org yesterday (3/2) with the change in predominance of the Federal Administrative State (which has no limiting principles) over the preceding constitutionally delineated government, the “functions” of “Politics” have changed; the functions of parties have changed; the function of candidacy has changed – with resultant impacts on the function of the democratic process by which the electorate can express power.
What appears to be left to the electorate is the power to disrupt. We may well be into an era of disruption that will continue (and increase) so long as the Federal Administrative State is the dominant source of political impact on the lives of the electorate.
I pretty much agree with your assessment, although I would add that I don’t see most of the other Republicans on offer doing much to advance policies that you or I might like, either. I think there are a lot of frustrated GOP primary voters who are in a “what have we got to lose?” frame of mind.
I think the only viable path to success for conservatarians is the reverse FDR strategy: run as a Democrat, talk like Bernie Sanders, get elected, rip the mask off, govern like Barry Goldwater.
This may not be as hard as it sounds. If you are willing to talk really loudly about all the insignificant things that move Democrats’ needle and then just not take money from Wall Street and trial lawyers you’d be almost there. Then all you’d have to do is promise to normalize hedge fund manager taxation and be somewhat appealing. The main problem is having to hang out and talk with those people. That may be why we never do it.
If I ever get rich and famous, I’ll run as the climate change candidate. I’ll drive around in an electric campaign bus (and make a big show out of stopping to charge the batteries every 30 miles or s), hand out solar-powered phone chargers to people at campaign stops, rant about the Koch Brothers, get very indignant with people who drive SUV’s, etc. I think it’ll work.
I AM a (the?) climate change candidate. The problem is it would never work because I promote basic research into nuclear, solar, and carbon sequestration. You know, the ACTUAL solutions. They get zero traction or interest.
Both parties are so pre-occupied with developing their “ready made, mostly true, and repeatedly self-confirming stories about the defects of the other” party that they can’t even identify themselves except in terms of how they aren’t as bad as the opposition.
This is why Democrats are so preoccupied with painting Republicans as climate deniers that they have zero to offer as for actual solutions, except maybe some new tax nominally tied to carbon, but undermined by having to be redistributive.
No upside? Trump denounced Bush II as a liar, and experienced no political repercussions. He is single handedly pulling the Republicans away from the neocons and their disastrous wars. Like or dislike Trump, this is a positive development for the country
Can you tell the philosophy that leads him to his position?
A little less philosophy would be a good thing right now.
“On principle” most politicians/wonks support things that are totally at odds with the real world.
Libertarians support immigration of people that vote against libertarianism.
Feminist support immigration of people that oppose feminism.
Free speech supporters don’t acknowledge that the other side isn’t going to respect their right to free speech simply because they respect their rights. The conflict is about power, not quid pro quo principles.
Neocons continue to support a failed and unpopular foreign policy because “they hate our freedoms!”
Etc.
Ideologues start with their a priori principles, then go searching for evidence in favor, ignore evidence against, and make up shit if all else fails. Somehow their answers always work out to whatever happens to advance the status, power, finances, or emotional rush of the ideologue.
So, back to the subject of interventionist regime change…
If you don’t have some kind of philosophy you just have “well, that turned out badly for the guy who had to actually make the decision, give me a shot.”
I would also assert that in your examples you have ideology backwards. Neocons aren’t that into protecting our freedoms. They are American global influence hawks who then tried to couch their objectives into terms of ideology so they could sell it to voters in the short-term. This is why Obama continued the same basic policy of regime change and nation-building just targeted more at different countries that could be painted more as oppressors to appeal to the voters of his party’s prevailing ideology.
The mode critique of libertarians on immigration is that they are seeking favor of the cosmopolitans. My “ideology” on immigration does nothing of the sort, which makes it easy for me to see we have nothing like open immigration when the high human capital peoples are kept out because the poor potential democrat voters have nothing to lose from the spectre of capricious enforcement.
You may not see it in their, but “Free migration” contains both that there is no cost, but also no subsidy to immigration. So, because of my ideology, I have no problem realizing that we should look for and eliminate synthetic subsidies to immigration that come at a cost of the citizens.
Without an ideology, you wouldn’t know something was likely to work or not until you tried it and the empirical evidence comes in, which it usually never does. Reality has too much causal density.
1) Welfare states are provided by governments.
2) Governments are selected by the people.
3) The composition of the people is primary in determining what kind of government they select, in the long run.
4) Immigrants tend to be people who support the welfare state.
So no, I don’t think you can be pro-immigrant and anti-welfare state.
If this makes it easier consider the following as well.
1) We have a decades long track record of illegal immigration and amnesty.
2) Political promises that contradict #1 haven’t been enforced and are unlikely to be enforced by any of the establishment candidates.
3) Given the demographics situation within and outside the west, it seems unlikely anything other then drastic action can maintain the old composition of citizenry necessary to elect governments that won’t implement disastrous policy.
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On the topic of ideology everyone needs some goals/purpose in life. My philosophy is goal oriented. I want my neighbors and myself to have fulfilling lives. That constitutes a lot of different objectives that need to be weighed.
I look to empirical experience mixed with theory to figure out what I think will best achieve those objectives. I tend to weigh more towards experience then theory because of the brittleness and poor track record of theorizing, but it has its place.
With ideologues they seem to put principals ahead of results. For instance, some libertarian will start with the non-aggression principal. Now of course they hope that the non-agression principal will lead to good outcomes, but the most committed would stick with the NAP even if it led to bad outcomes. If you can show that the NAP fails in such and such an instance they can either ignore the evidence (and people get paid a lot of money to provide them convincing sounding sophistry to defend the un-defendable), or they can say the principle is worth more to them then the result.
The latter is consistent and certainly more honest, but I would part ways with them. I seek outcomes, and my means I’m more flexible on.
So are immigration policies.
Both Democrats and Republicans have promised immigration enforcement.
Now the hopen is that Donald’s campaign promises on immigration he’ll make good.
Good luck.
I’ve said numerous times my preference is that immigrants would not get to vote immediately and would have to pay an immigration tax.
Trump’s ideas, if he even has any that he would stick to, have even less hope than mine.
At leaSt I could make a deal with Democrats.
Oh, and my idea would get the wall built. His won’t.
The wall costs a tiny fraction of the federal budget. Anyone could built it any time. It’s the will to do so that is lacking.
How likely do you think abandoning one man one vote is? Is America ready to have a slave army of second class non-voting residents? Didn’t we try this before in the south before 1865?
These little “keyhole” solutions are too clever by a half. I’d certainly support a huge fee to immigrate to America, but the main problem is not enforcing the law. And the law isn’t enforced because impoverishment of the middle class and the accumulation of clients is the entire point, its the goal.
Of people running for president, Trump is the only non-zero chance of getting the law enforced. He’s also the only non-zero chance of getting deportations. Quite frankly, he’s the only non-zero choice to avoid outright amnesty.
You’ve got to take what little chance you have. If we fail on this issue we fail on all issues. Arnold writes about issues like entitlement reform, what odds to we have of that in a majority non-white future?
When you run for president, send me your program, and I’ll consider voting for you.
Trump’s overall philosophy is “everything is negotiable”. It seems like a form of pragmatic realism. Thus, he claims he will work with Putin, and will not give Israel any special status. Compare to the establishment Republican position, where Israel is our eternal ally, and meddling with the internals of foreign nations is an important foreign policy tool. However, Trump is not afraid to project force. He’s no Ron Paul, but definitely not Paul Wolfowitz either
How would he have “negotiated” with Saddam Hussein?
Well, given that his stated position is that Middle East would be more stable with Saddam Hussein in power, I think it is hard to say. My personal belief is that Bush II was highly influenced by his advisers that wanted regime change in Iraq as far back as 1998. Would Trump have picked those advisers? If the present is any indication, probably not.
Is he against regime change, or just THAT regime change?
So, something a little more apparent. What would he have done with Syria? The only reason Putin is involved to be negotiated with is because he came in after the civil war and the rise of ISIS. I’m guessing half of Putin’s motivation is to rub America’s nose in it. What would he have done before and how would he negotiate now?
He has said that Syria is a debacle in the same way as Libya and Iraq. However, those are really just observations in hindsight. When asked off the cuff, at the time he was vaguely supportive of invading Iraq, and he was supportive in his video log of surgically taking out Gaddafi. Then again, at the time he wasn’t a politician making promises to get elected, and hopefully re-elected. So who knows.
Ultimately, we can’t know what people will do. Bush II ran on a theoretically restrained foreign policy, and we all know how that turned out. The best I can do though is say that I’d rather have a person willing to acknowledge that our policy has been a disaster than someone who continues to defend those decisions (everyone else but Sanders). I also want a person who is less susceptible to the purveyors of Beltway “wisdom”
“The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state.”
Mises, Ludwig von (2010-12-10). Liberalism (p. 59). Ludwig von Mises Institute. Kindle Edition.
Given the built in circumscription of the two party system, the parties are in effect “machinery of state” to be destroyed.
Around 2009, I read a description of Chicago politics that described it as a “Combine”. The parties took turns swapping out offices, but no policy or ideology ever changed, just who got the lions share of the loot for a time. That has essentially been what has been happening at the national level in the last decade. Now the Combine is panicking.
I have to agree the Republican party needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up and Trump is part of that, win or lose, though it will take more than one election cycle and one candidate to accomplish.
Good post.
In general the equilibrium effects of the Trump presidency are weird.
I actually think the best outcome might be him winning the candidacy and losing badly in the general election.
It’ll expose weaknesses in the Republican party, and maybe even create a pathway to a larger plurality of viewpoints that’ll get currency in mainstream politics.
I don’t want him to become President, but him getting *just* far enough could be a positive agent of change due to the shock it instills in incumbents.
They didn’t learn much from Bush winning or Romney losing.
What exactly do you think they will learn from Trump?
People published four years ago that Romney lost because of missing white voters. And anyone with a spreadsheet can tell you that even winning 20 year highs amongst minorities still wouldn’t be enough to win with 2016 demographics.
The only path forward for the Republican Party in the next decade is to become the party of white people (who surprise surprise are concentrated in the swing states).
Beyond a decade their only strategy for survival is to deport future Democrats. No matter how well they do with minorities, they’ll never get over 50% on those voters (assuming they don’t become even BIGGER government then the Dems), and you don’t win elections with under 50% of people voting for you.
All of this can easily be seen from the FWD.us pro-immigration electoral tool that shows the opposite of what they hope to show.
http://www.fwd.us/gopfuture
The Bush coalition of conning evangelicals is gone. You imported too many NAMs to make it work.
Of course, the GOPe plan isn’t to win. It’s to hold on to enough senate and house seats to obstruct the Dems, and thus demand particular pork handouts for their donors in exchange for cooperation, at least until everyone getting rich of the scam today has taken lucrative private sector contracts.
So us Trump the Conor McGregor and Sanders the Ronda Rousey of party politics?
When I finally watched Rousey vs Holm she looked terrible (at boxing). And if you love technical Brazilian jiu jitsu maybe McGregor probably doesn’t float your boat. But, pretending they had any competition, the UFC wants to bring in new fans to solidify their competitive position. But in doing this they threaten their MMA brand and risk alienating their core fanbase.
Then why is Donald Trump doing so well and taking over the Republican Party? He has a lot of supporters and is winning the nomination in a year the Republicans thought their candidates were the best in years. (Probably since 1988.) So you simply can’t discount just Trump here. (And I do know smart people in family that have come out of the closet to support Trump this month.)
If I have to guess it is most of the conservative/libertarian policies the last 15 years have made life worse for a portion of the Republican Party.
Mostly agree, but I think you have point 8 backward. At least from the perspective of a significant percentage of the Republican coalition.
After somewhere between 7 years and decades of Repub failure to advance conservative principles (or at least energetically resist Dem advances), as defined by that segment, there’s no upside to candidates other than Trump. Even if there’s more downside than upside with Trump, p>0 of upside is better than p~0.
I’d also quibble with point 7. The Repub parasite is the ruling class membership that unwilling to countenance country class issues like immigration. Trump is the anti-parasitic, not the parasite. Would he be effective? Who knows, likely not. But if he’s the only drug in the armamentarium you use him.
I wonder how much movements like #NeverTrump will lure in on-the-fence Democrats that are not thrilled with Hillary.
I can’t help but speculate that letters of condemnation from Romney, et al, might have the effect of endorsements to the wider electorate.
” From my point of view, the Trump candidacy has no upside and considerable downside. I doubt that a Trump victory would lead to policies that correspond to a conservative/libertarian agenda”
It’s not too hard to make a lawerly “hold your nose and vote” argument for Trump, even for conservatives and libertarians. It goes like this.
1. Let’s face it: for better or worse, the most important thing in our political system is who has control of the Supreme Court. And it’s the thing that stands out as an enormous and critical difference between Presidents of different parties.
2. Because of the timing of Scalia’s death and the ages of the other Justices (Ginsberg, Kennedy, and Breyer especially), and the details of the, um, ‘jurisprudential persuasions’ of those four, the next President is probably going to be able to undo the balanced equilibrium we’ve grown accustomed to over the last generation. It was a kind of judicial ‘Great Moderation’, and now it’s going to end. People aren’t ready for that, and if you think the country is getting close to a nervous breakdown now, then just wait. The court is either going to go very progressive (i.e. Warren Court 2.0) or very conservative like, um … the Fuller Court (?)
3. If Hillary wins, then obviously we get Warren Court 2.0. Conservatives and Libertarians will, for a whole generation at least, be reduced to a penny on the tracks of that oncoming freight train, just like they were after FDR.
4. So the main thing is to beat Hillary, by any lawful means necessary.
5. And unless she’s indicted – and maybe even then! – neither Rubio nor Cruz can do it. Your mileage may vary with this one, but it’s pretty clear to me they don’t have the qualities required to stand up to a full-on assault by the Clinton machine and the rest of the entire progressive apparatus. Not with the Court at stake they don’t. Not a chance. ‘Electability’ polls of hypothetical match-ups at this point and taken prior to this onslaught are thus worthless. They also have zero appeal to the Trump Troops that are coming out in record numbers, and motivating turnout is how elections are won these days. They can do no better than Romney.
6. But, like him or not, Trump has those, um … unique … qualities, and he motivates lots of what are, typically, low-frequency voters. His chance of beating Hillary is still very, very remote, however, the ‘tail risk’ of a Trump win, due to his special electoral characteristics, are still much higher than for Cruz or Rubio.
7. And if he gets elected, he will appoint better judges than Hillary. He can’t just apoint cronies, it doesn’t work. Bush tried and failed with the disastrous Harriet Miers fiasco. Trump will have to pick from accomplished jurists already on the bench and who have made it through all the rounds of establishment gatekeeping. And, thanks to Calabresi et al, today that means members of the Federalist Society. Trump has already named Pryor and Sykes, and, from a Conservative or Libertarian perspective, these two are enormously superior to any judge that would make it to the top of Clinton’s list.
8. And here’s the thing. Any conservative can use this as a sincere, and also socially acceptable, excuse. He or she can say that Trump is loathsome and vile and a phony fraud without shame or principles, however, one is voting for him, with extreme reluctance and great inner moral turmoil, “only for the sake of the Court and the Constitution, which are bigger and more important than Trump or my preferences.”
9. And, because of the timing issue, a conservative or libertarian can also say that as soon as the party has used Trump to save the Court, then the rest of the Republicans can make sure he doesn’t get anything else he wants that violates conservative and libertarian principles. And that furthermore, as soon as the job is done and secure for a generation, they will surely get rid of him and give him the boot after one term. Heck, one can promise to vote for the Democrat in the next election to make it up to the country, so long as the judicial balance of power is maintained.
10. So, for conservatives and libertarians that agree with the above argument, voting for Trump is rationally choosing the just slightly less evil Devil they can get rid of, to achieve the one thing that really matters in this country, and when the alternative of Warren Court 2.0 is even worse, and practically a sure thing in any other scenario.
I feel people are held hostage to the party by these mechanisms. Not only do you have to swallow the horrible package, I’m not even convinced the Supremes they nominate will be that much better, and this allows Hillary to nominate not only leftists, but poorer quality leftists than might otherwise be the case.
I’m starting to agree with Carrol Quigley.
Cowen is pretty much Krugman-lite, so I don’t really see why he spent the time he did on his post. Partisans like Cowen will always tilt their analysis in favor of their preferred group.
The reality is that *most* people can’t be divided neatly into two groups. Cowen repeatedly goes back and forth between implicitly defining “Republicans” and “Democrats” as politicians, then as members of the general public. The two are very different. Shoe-horning the general public into these two groups is something only people who are 1) consumed with politics and 2) a partisan would do. His post is nearly as absurd as Krugman’s.