Category Archives: Politics

Trump Explanation to Flatter the Left

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Arlie Russell Hochschild writes,

You are patiently standing in the middle of a long line stretching toward the horizon, where the American Dream awaits. But as you wait, you see people cutting in line ahead of you. Many of these line-cutters are black—beneficiaries of affirmative action or welfare. Some are career-driven women pushing into jobs they never had before. Then you see immigrants, Mexicans, Somalis, the Syrian refugees yet to come. As you wait in this unmoving line, you’re being asked to feel sorry for them all. You have a good heart. But who is deciding who you should feel compassion for? Then you see President Barack Hussein Obama waving the line-cutters forward. He’s on their side. In fact, isn’t he a line-cutter too? How did this fatherless black guy pay for Harvard? As you wait your turn, Obama is using the money in your pocket to help the line-cutters. He and his liberal backers have removed the shame from taking. The government has become an instrument for redistributing your money to the undeserving. It’s not your government anymore; it’s theirs.

Pointer indirectly from Tyler Cowen.

She sees this as a narrative that explains Trump. Perhaps she is correct. But it is suspiciously self-serving to the sociologist-author who is proud to be more properly attuned to the oppression of minorities) and uncharitable to the Trump supporters.

I am not the first person to notice that many economists came up with books after the financial crisis of 2008 that purported to show how the crisis confirmed their worldview. Yet none of these economists predicted the crisis. For example, Joseph Stiglitz will gladly tell you that the crisis confirmed his worldview, even though he notoriously co-authored a paper which concluded that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were completely sound.

So with the unexpected emergence of Donald Trump, I get very suspicious of “explanations” that flatter the author and members of the author’s intended audience.

Instead, I again recommend the Martin Gurri explanation, which he wrote before Trump became a candidate.

The New Voodoo

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John Cochrane writes,

Economics is a work in progress. But it is certainly brand-new, made-up-on-the spot economics, designed to buttress policies decided on for other reasons.

He is describing the economic analysis that claims that policies to distort labor markets to try to increase wages will increase aggregate demand, so that instead of reducing employment these policies will raise employment.

I am reminded of the made-up-on-the spot economics of the Laffer Curve, which claimed that cutting taxes would reduce budget deficits. That became known as “voodoo economics.”

So where once we had supply-side voodoo economics, we now have demand-side voodoo economics. Just what we needed.

Temporary Benefits of the Trump Candidacy

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Today’s WaPo writes,

scholars of the presidency say that Barack Obama, George W. Bush and their predecessors have added so many powers to the White House toolbox that a President Trump could fulfill many of his promises legally — and virtually unchecked by a Congress that has proven incapable of mustering much pushback for decades.

It’s nice to see the Post say something positive about checks and balances. Of course, if Mrs. Clinton wins in November, I expect the paper will return to bemoaning Congressional obstructionism and gridlock.

The WikiLeaks Story You May Have Missed

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In its coverage of the story of the leaks about the Democratic National Committee and Bernie Sanders, the Washington Post has covered many angles, including the possible preference of Russia for Mr. Trump being a factor in the leaks. However, the WaPo has had no coverage of one interesting fact to emerge, which is the cozy relationship between two of its prominent staffers and the DNC. Even if you think that no journalistic ethical boundaries were crossed, just the tone of the relationship is smarmy. It makes me want to say to the journalists and the Democratic staffers, “Get a room.”

As for the DNC itself, I am reminded of Richard Nixon’s Committee to RE-Elect the President, which went by the appropriate acronym, CREEP. Given the dirty tricks that the DNC contemplated against Mr. Sanders, imagine what they have been doing to Republicans.

UPDATE: It appears to me that the Post is (a) really going out of the way to stress the Russia angle and (b) that this is probably in coordination with the DNC. But I never thought that linking in the public’s mind the words “Russia,” “email,” and “Clinton” was a good plan for the Democrats. Mr. Trump seems to agree.

Should you vote Libertarian this year?

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From a Facebook friend, not a reader of the blog, this came via email.

I’m pretty sure I remember that you are a Libertarian (or had promoted Libertarian ideas at one point). I have issues with both major candidates in this year’s election and I’ve actually been pretty intrigued by Gary Johnson’s platform (or at least what I saw on his website). However, I’m getting a lot of “don’t throw your vote away”.

What’s your thought about Johnson and voting for a “3rd Party” in general?

This year, other people who are friends outside of my political/economist/blogging circle but who are vaguely aware of my libertarian leanings have asked similar questions. My thoughts:

1. In Maryland, any vote in the Presidential election is a throw-away. We live in a state that always votes Democratic.

2. Still, I plan to vote as if my vote mattered. Although I plan to vote for Gary Johnson, his libertarianism has almost nothing to do with my preference this year.

3. I am disturbed by the temperaments of both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton. Moreover, I think that a victory by either one will lead to four years of worsening bitterness in politics in this country. A Johnson Presidency has the potential to be less divisive and make me less afraid to read the day’s news.

4. One way to think about this year is that Mr. Trump is the 3rd-party candidate, in the tradition of Ross Perot and George Wallace (with a core constituency inherited from those two), who happened to capture the Republican nomination. Johnson is a more credible major-party candidate who happens to be on the ballot as a Libertarian.

5. My first choice would have been for the Republicans to run a major-party candidate, meaning someone other than Mr. Trump or Dr. Carson. Had they done so, I would probably not be voting for Gary Johnson. So I am not such a dedicated libertarian, with either a small or capital L.

6. I sometimes say that there are philosophical libertarians and there are pragmatic libertarians. Philosophical libertarians base their views on fundamental principles. Pragmatic libertarians believe only that the libertarian approach often turns out to be correct.

7. The philosophy of libertarianism is that individuals should not be coerced into making decisions. Instead, your transactions with other people should be based on voluntary consent. They should be based on peaceful persuasion and, in the case of economic transactions, on choice and competition. This philosophy sees government programs and regulation as coercive and therefore wrong in principle.

8. I put myself in the pragmatic libertarian camp. I do not make my stand against government action on principle, but I say that in practice government can be counted on to be less effective than nongovernmental processes. For example, when markets produce bad outcomes, I expect the competitive process of private entrepreneurs to do a better job of fixing things than the political process.

9. Part of the libertarian view is anti-interventionist in foreign affairs. The philosophical libertarian says that undertaking coercive acts abroad is at least as wrong as undertaking them at home. The pragmatic libertarian notes that the government that is going to intervene abroad is the same government that is inherently clumsy, stupid, and prone to producing adverse unintended consequences at home.

10. You should note that the libertarian view is antithetical to American government support for Israel. This follows from non-interventionism.

11. Moreover, I know libertarians who go beyond non-interventionism and who personally talk about Israel the way that the far left talks about it, holding Israel unilaterally responsible for the conflict with Palestinians. To me, this comes across as denying any moral agency to Palestinians, because it treats as irrelevant the past actions and current threats made by Palestinians against Jews. I believe in treating the Palestinians as having moral agency, with the power to change their situation by changing their approach. In any case, on this issue I do not agree with rigid, high and mighty libertarians.

12. Speaking of which, libertarians are temperamentally prone to being high and mighty, contemptuous of those who disagree. I very much do not wish to be associated with that temperament. I believe that nobody is 100 percent right 100 percent of the time.

On Trump and Hitler, from the comments

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The commenter writes,

Should Trump win the election, he will take it as proof of his infallible instincts. How does an infallible man behave in a position of power? A bit like Hitler, no?

I never defined authoritarian, but if I had I would come up with something close to that. Let me define an authoritarian as someone who believes that being in a position of power entitles that person to make policy decisions by fiat. Further thoughts:

1. The nature of the Presidency, as an elected office occupied by a single individual, lends itself to authoritarianism. It inspires awe among journalists, worship among citizens, and sycophancy among aides. It selects for narcissists.

2. I think that in the United States, the “Overton Window” has moved mostly in the authoritarian direction over the last century.

3. Woodrow Wilson very much wanted to go in the authoritarian direction, and our entry into World War I gave him a bit of an opportunity to do so. Calvin Coolidge went in the other direction.

4. FDR moved the U.S. in authoritarian direction. Ike tried to go in the other direction.

5. On domestic policy, I believe that Lyndon Johnson was not authoritarian, in that he played by the existing rules. However, with Vietnam, he set a precedent for deception and unilateral warmaking.

6. Richard Nixon unintentionally caused a reversal in authoritarianism. Congress impeached him and also tried to (re-)assert authority over the budget process.

7. Because Barack Obama is convinced of his own absolute moral righteousness, he acts as if his instincts were infallible. Thus, I believe that he meets the commenter’s definition of authoritarian. Of course, those who share Mr. Obama’s outlook woulds say that he has merely responded appropriately to Republican obstruction.

8. By my definition, Mr. Trump speaks like an authoritarian.

9. However, I am more worried that the the country will move in authoritarian direction if Mrs. Clinton wins. Many in Mr. Trump’s own party are opposed to his authoritarianism. Not so with Mrs. Clinton and her party. She is Nixon without anyone to play the role of Howard Baker.

10. Hitler was more than an authoritarian (by my definition). He used murder and physical intimidation to try to eliminate all opposition. I am not worried about either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton doing that.

How Authoritarian is Donald Trump?

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Reviewing the written version of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech, Matt Welch writes,

here are seven* lines that drip with alarming levels of authoritarianism: [Welch proceeds to list the lines]

My question is, compared to who?

Compared to some mythical libertarian ideal, Trump is an authoritarian, but so is every politician in the two major parties. In fact, I am pretty sure that you could find a speech by President Obama with more alarmingly statist rhetoric and even more of what Welch calls Great Man rhetoric (it is not as if Mr. Obama is shy about using the word “I”).

My Facebook feed is filled with comparisons of Trump with Hitler, which I find unconvincing. Hitler was the leader of a very large paramilitary organization. When Hitler was appointed chancellor (he was not elected), his paramilitary organization went about killing and intimidating men, including other Nazis, that Hitler wanted removed as threats. The Nazis in the Reichstag (Germany’s parliament) physically intimidated their colleagues into approving a law that essentially gave Hitler dictatorial powers.

Donald Trump has fervent supporters, but they are not an organized paramilitary. He has neither the plans nor the means to carry out any plans to alter the Constitution to establish a dictatorship.

Many of us believe that Mr. Obama violated the spirit of the Constitution and took Presidential power too far. For example, waivers and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act were created administratively rather than by Congress. Another example would be his decision to not enforce immigration deportation.

Some of us believe that the appropriate response to Mr. Obama is to return to the spirit of the Constitution. That view appeared to be represented in the Presidential race by Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Instead, Trump supporters seem to be saying that they want to respond with a power-aggrandizing President of their own. I enjoyed Jay Nordlinger’s quip that what Trump’s acceptance speech needed was a Republican response. I still plan to vote for Gary Johnson.

It is fair to say that Mr. Trump is further from libertarianism than the other contenders for the Republican nomination, but I think to go beyond that is hysterical. I am yet to be convinced that he is more of an authoritarian threat than what we have already experienced, or even that he is a more authoritarian threat than his opponent.

As Reihan Salam points out, Trump’s language fits my model of the conservative civilization-barbarism axis, even though his platform has little in common with recent conservative policy positions. I think it is that intense civilization vs. barbarism tone that leads people to see him as authoritarian. But to a libertarian, an intense oppressor-oppressed tone also comes across as authoritarian.

Tocqueville, Nisbet, and Kling

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Near the end of an Ezra Klein podcast, at about the one hour and twelve minute mark, when asked to name three books that have influenced him, Yuval Levin lists works by those three authors. He is careful to say that Specialization and Trade is not in the same class as the other two, but still. . .

My favorite part of the podcast begins just before the 18-minute mark, when Levin recites his view of how a typical Baby Boomer would have experienced the decades starting from the 1950s. I think his take is both accurate and interesting.

Klein’s response is also interesting. He says that what Levin has just presented is the white male view of history, and his generation is more attuned to women, ethnic minorities, and sexual minorities. I think as a representation of Klein’s generation, that, too, is spot on. I get the same take from my daughters.

Previous generations of young people were insufferable because they thought that they invented sex. Klein’s generation is insufferable because they think they invented social morality.

Wither the Suburban Homeowner?

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The American Interest has a special issue devoted to Plutocracy and Democracy. On Thursday, the Hudson Institute hosted a discussion featuring various speakers, including Tyler Cowen. I watched some of it from home.

Apart from Tyler, the speakers in the first hour were dreadful. When a poli sci professor starts telling me that the root cause of the Trump phenomenon is people resenting the Citizens United Supreme Court case, I think that it is more likely that the root cause of the Trump phenomenon is people resenting narrow intellectuals like this poli sci professor.

As for the magazine, on line I read the article by Walter Russell Mead, which I strongly recommend. (Be careful–you are only allowed to read one article unless you subscribe. Keep an extra web browser handy.) He draws an interesting parallel.

The contemporary crisis of the middle strata in American society is perhaps best compared to the long and painful decline of the family farm. The American dream we know in our time—a good job and a nice house in a decent suburb with good schools—is not the classic version. The dream that animated the mass of colonists, that drove the Revolution and that drew millions of immigrants to the United States during the first century of independence, was the dream of owning one’s own farm. Up until the 20th century, most Americans lived in rural communities.

What Mead goes on to sat is that the family-farmer dream came to be replaced by the suburban (and small town) homeowner dream. However, he raises the prospect that this latter dream may be in the process of fading out. I wish he had developed this idea further. Let me try:

In the three decades following World War II, the lifestyle that people aspired to, and often could achieve, involved ownership of a house with a yard and reliance for transportation on a family car. Nowadays, many young professionals do not aspire to that lifestyle, preferring to live in urban condos and apartments and to dispense with personal automobiles. Meanwhile, the postwar lifestyle has become harder to achieve for many people.

Mead refers to the threatened class of homeowners and homeowner-aspirants as Crabgrass Jacksonians.

Crabgrass Jacksonians do not trust the professional class anymore: not the journalists, not the professors, not the bureaucrats, not the career politicians. They believe that if these folks get more resources and power they will simply abuse them. Give the educators more money and the professors will go off on more weird and arcane theoretical tangents and the teachers’ unions will kick back and relax. In neither case will they spend more time helping your kids get ready for real life. Give the bureaucrats more power and they will impose more counterproductive regulations that throttle small business. Give the lawyers more power and they will raise prices and clog commerce with lawsuits and red tape. Give the politicians more time in office and more tax money to spend and they will continue stroking the fat cats while calling rhetorically for change.

Again, I recommend the entire essay.

Tyler Cowen on Brexit, Steven Pinker, and Joseph McCarthy

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And also other topics. The link goes to a Twitter post with a video.

Judge for yourself, but to me it sounds like he is telling a PSST story. He says that, for better or worse, the UK spent the last twenty years working with a set of rules on trade in services with other European countries, and now that those rules have been cast into doubt by the Brexit vote, the British economy is in trouble. It is a very different take from that of those who think in GDP-factory terms.

Also, in my other post today, I mention an event on plutocracy co-sponsored by the Hudson Institute and The American Interest. Tyler Cowen makes remarks that have little or nothing to do with the article that he wrote for the event. Two of his more provocative opinions:

1. Steven Pinker may be wrong. Rather than mass violence following a benign trend, it could be cyclical. When there is a long peace, people become complacent, they allow bad leaders to take power and to run amok, and you get mass violence again. (Cowen argues that there are more countries now run by bad people than was the case a couple of decades ago)

2. Joseph McCarthy was not wrong. There were Soviet agents in influential positions. Regardless of what you think of that, the relevant point is that today Chinese and Russian plutocrats may have their tentacles in the U.S. and may be subtly causing the U.S. to be less of a liberal capitalist nation and more of a cronyist plutocracy.