Thursday Open Thread [5.12.16]
Matt Yglesias says says you cannot talk about Donald Trump’s success without talking about racism.
Over the weekend, Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin in the New York Times published a 2,000-word account of how Donald Trump managed to execute “a hostile takeover of one of America’s two major political parties.” Remarkably, the idea of racism never appears in the article.
Race is alluded to at one point in the article, but it’s kind of backdoor and offered essentially as a form of false consciousness argument attributed to Robert Putnam. Closer to the top, the authors observe that “Trump is an unlikely spokesman for the grievances of financially struggling, alienated Americans: a high-living Manhattan billionaire who erects skyscrapers for the wealthy and can easily get politicians on the phone.”
What they don’t consider is that one reason Trump is an unlikely spokesman for the grievances of the financially struggling is that he isn’t a spokesman for the grievances of the financially struggling. Some of his supporters are poor, of course, but they mostly aren’t. And most economically struggling Americans aren’t supporting him. To understand the patterns of support and opposition to Trump, you have to talk about race.
Trump is not the candidate of the poor, or of the working man. He is the candidate of white resentment. Not economic resentment towards the 1%. But racial resentment. Hence, there is no crossover appeal to true Sanders voters. If someone says they are a Sanders voter and sees appeal in Trump and intends to vote for him over Hillary in the fall, that is because they are racist, and were supporting Sanders only because they opposed Hillary.
The Republican Party is coming apart, and Donald Trump is leading the charge. The GOP establishment, now aware of the existential crisis they face, is in full panic mode. Media elites and most of the punditry class appear to have been taken completely by surprise.
But this turn of events wasn’t just foreseeable — it was inevitable. Which is why I’ve been writing about it — and of all things, doing TED Talks on it — for years. (See Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming.)
The pitchforks are coming and Trump brought them. But I think that Donald Trump himself has far less to do with the fall of the GOP than the GOP itself. Because from the point of view of the typical GOP voter — their 99% — the modern Republican Party has been one of the most epic failures and betrayals of all time.
The modern GOP as a political construct has principally been an alliance between two interest groups: urban economic elites and rural social conservatives. The reason the party is disintegrating is that it has over-delivered to the former, and completely failed the latter.
A group of Bernie Sanders staffers and volunteers is circulating a draft proposal calling on the senator to get out of the presidential race after the final burst of Democratic primaries on June 7, and concentrate on building a national progressive organization to stop Donald Trump.
Operating under the assumption that Sanders will win the California primary but still fall far short of amassing enough delegates to claim the Democratic nomination, the document calls for the Vermont senator to exit the race and launch an independent political group far larger than any other recent post-campaign political operations, such as those started by Howard Dean or Barack Obama.
We have Kentucky and Oregon next Tuesday, May 17. Bernie could win both, or lose both. Then you have the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico primaries on June 4 and 5, and both will be won by Hillary. Then on June 7, you will have California, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. Hillary will win California, New Jersey, and New Mexico while Bernie will probably win the Dakotas and Montana. You think Bernie is going to win California? Well, Bernie’s state director just quit, and Bernie has just gone dark in California. That’s right, no ads. That doesn’t bode well.
David Wade: “We already know Sanders isn’t going to win the Democratic Party’s nomination; Hillary Clinton has amassed more than 92 percent of the delegates needed to secure the nomination, and she’ll easily pick up the rest. So right now, Sanders’ campaign is the walking dead: a zombie. And having worked for John Kerry during the slugfest of the 2004 primaries, I’ve seen up close how much damage this sort of prolonged ‘zombie’ candidacy can inflict on the eventual nominee—and what’s ultimately at stake for the country.”
“I don’t claim that the dragged-out primary made the difference in November 2004; the race came down to the wire, and big forces—including post-9/11 anxiety and ‘Swift Boat’ smears—loomed large. But in presidential campaigns, the one resource that’s never renewable is time. Zombie candidates can’t win the nomination, but they squander vast amounts of time and slowly chip away at the prohibitive front-runner. Some of the damage is obvious—the endless series of public dents in the candidate’s reputation; some are subtle, noticeable in ways that perhaps only political operatives can appreciate.”
Harry Enten: “You’re going to hear a lot about the Electoral College this cycle. At various points, one state or another will be declared pivotal. But stay calm, especially with so long to go until Election Day. It’s too early to take any poll too seriously. We’ll have plenty of time to get into the weeds of different Electoral College scenarios in the months to come.”
“For now, if you’re interested in whether Trump or Clinton is likely to be our next president, I’d pay attention to the average of national polls. Let’s wait until we’re closer to the election and we have a lot more state polling before we zoom in closer than 30,000 feet.”
“Joe Biden took months to decide he wouldn’t run for president — but he was sold on Elizabeth Warren as his running mate from the start,” people familiar with the situation told Politico.
“And he still thinks the Massachusetts firebrand would be Hillary Clinton’s best choice to replace him as the nation’s No. 2 in January 2017.”
I’m convinced it is going to happen. Warren solves the Bernie problem completely, and she has been auditioning for the role of attack dog during her Twitter War with Trump. And she is awesome. Clinton-Warren!!!
Donald J. Trump’s behavior in recent days — the political threats to the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan; the name-calling on Twitter; the attacks on Hillary Clinton’s marriage — has deeply puzzled Republicans who expected him to move to unite the party, start acting presidential and begin courting the female voters he will need in the general election.
But Mr. Trump’s choices reflect an unusual conviction: He said he had a “mandate” from his supporters to run as a fiery populist outsider and to rely on his raucous rallies to build support through “word of mouth,” rather than to embrace a traditional, mellower and more inclusive approach that congressional Republicans will advocate in meetings with him on Thursday.
Mr. Trump’s strategy is replete with risks. Roughly 60 percent of Americans view him negatively, according to pollsters, who say more-of-the-same Trump is not likely to improve those numbers. While a majority of Republican primary voters said they were looking for a political outsider, Mr. Trump will face a majority of voters in November who prefer a candidate with political experience, according to primary exit polls and several national polls. Many Republicans think they will lose the presidency and seats in the House and Senate if he continues using language that offends women and some racial and religious groups [and everyone else not named Archie Bunker].
“Nothing to see here. Let’s move on now” is not an acceptable substitute for transparency on Trump’s taxes. New York Times reporters Patrick Healey and Alan Rappeport observe “Making tax returns public is not required of presidential candidates, but there is a long tradition of major party nominees doing so. Joseph J. Thorndike, who tracks presidential tax returns as the director of the Tax History Project at the nonpartisan Tax Analysts, said Mr. Trump would be the first major candidate since 1976 to not make any of his full returns public. President Gerald R. Ford released a summary of his tax returns that year…Dr. Thorndike noted that President Richard M. Nixon released his tax returns while he was under audit, starting the tradition of presidential candidates making their returns public.”
Either Trump has defrauded the Government for decades (very possible, and the Government suspects this given his constant audits) or Trump is not as rich as he claims, a massive blow to his ego.
The best hope for what’s left of a serious conservative movement in America is the election in November of a Democratic president, held in check by a Republican Congress. Conservatives can survive liberal administrations, especially those whose predictable failures lead to healthy restorations—think Carter, then Reagan. What isn’t survivable is a Republican president who is part Know Nothing, part Smoot-Hawley and part John Birch. The stain of a Trump administration would cripple the conservative cause for a generation.
This is the reality that wavering Republicans need to understand before casting their lot with a presumptive nominee they abhor only slightly less than his likely opponent. If the next presidency is going to be a disaster, why should the GOP want to own it?
Why did almost everybody fail to predict Donald Trump’s victory in the Republican primaries? Nate Silver blames the news media, disorganized Republican elites, and the surprising appeal of cultural grievance. Nate Cohn lists a number of factors, from the unusually large candidate field to the friendly calendar. Jim Rutenberg thinks journalism strayed too far from good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting. Justin Wolfers zeroes in on Condorcet’s paradox. Here’s the factor I think everybody missed: The Republican Party turns out to be filled with idiots. Far more of them than anybody expected.
Trump's national polling bounce since clinching the nomination. Average bounce? 2.5 points. Median bounce? 1 point. pic.twitter.com/zz5urmylcG
— Harry Enten (@ForecasterEnten) May 11, 2016
If you don’t vote for HRC it is because of racism and white resentment….right, keep trying.
“Warren solves the Bernie problem completely”
But… but… what about BernieBros? Sexism! Misogyny!
@stat …or you have a problem with women being in charge. One of those three.
Puck… you are right. Not completely. But if they won’t vote for a Clinton-Warren, which is probably the most progressive ticket in all history, then their problem is not ideological, it is that they don’t like women.
@Stat: No, but if you do vote for Trump, it’s because of racism and white resentment. Keep trying yourself.
This is why I say that those supporting Hillary on social-issue grounds are fighting the last war. This is from a Newsweek piece by Emily Cadei:
“Gallup polling that asks voters about their top priorities for candidates shows that the percent of Republicans who consider abortion an “extremely” or “very important” issues has dropped in the last three election cycles, since 2012—from 46 percent to 43 percent to 34 percent in 2016.”
Obviously battles are still being fought, but there is no path to victory for their side, which will shrink drastically in the next 10 years as old folks croak.
Depressing new look at the shrinking middle class. It’s like those regular reports about how the earth is warming even faster than we thought. Remember a large middle class is the key to political stability, so the wacky politics this year are no coincidence.
If you still have a job and you think your income is OK, remember all those people losing jobs and income are your customers somewhere along the line.
In other news, Trump still sucks.
The biggest problem is that even new manufacturing jobs pay less than $15/hour.
People keep talking about manufacturing jobs when what they mean is good-paying jobs. Manufacturing paid better because much of it was unionized. It had nothing to do with the nature of manufacturing jobs themselves.
If service jobs paid better, we’d have far less need for manufacturing, which brings a lot of negatives with it compared to service industries — pollution, for starters.
In local events, what do you think of this?
http://attorneygeneral.delaware.gov/executive/Wilmington092315.shtml
@a “If service jobs paid better, we’d have far less need for manufacturing, which brings a lot of negatives with it compared to service industries”
You cannot build a great nation with service jobs. One of our biggest problems is that there are already far too many service jobs. Another problem is that too many of the best students head for careers in the service industry (as opposed to engineering and science).
“You cannot build a great nation with service jobs.”
So what kind of jobs do you propose?
@p “So what kind of jobs do you propose?”
Just think about it. You cannot have a society where everyone is doing service jobs. If you have too many bankers, lawyers, doctors, waiters, store clerks, auto mechanics,… then you are headed for a major decline. For prosperity, you actually need to create something of value.
So… Who creates things of value? Farmers, industrial workers, engineers, scientists,… That’s why STEM jobs are so important… and by extension STEM education.
What’s the difference between jobs for “industrial workers” and “manufacturing jobs?”
“So… Who creates things of value?”
The Chinese. If you don’t believe me just look at what is in our stores.
” That’s why STEM jobs are so important… and by extension STEM education.”
And that is why foreign workers need to be greatly restricted, so that American businesses are forced to hire and train American workers like they used to, with apprenticeship programs if need be. And then Americans will have incentive to finish school for those good STEM jobs that will no longer be going to imported labor bidding down salaries.
And the bogus skilled labor shortage had been debunked over and over again.
@p ” And then Americans will have incentive to finish school for those good STEM jobs that will no longer be going to imported labor bidding down salaries.”
This is one area of immigration that the Republicans are pushing, just for the benefit of the 1%. Oddly, Trump doesn’t seem to find these foreigners objectionable (unless they’re mexican or muslim)…
@LE: Stay out of the deep end. Jobs are jobs. Manufacturing jobs by their nature do not pay better. They historically paid better because unions demanded higher wages, among other things. In the gig economy, new manufacturing plants are paying workers as “independent contractors” at $12/hour.
This information is widely available:
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/producing-poverty-the-public-cost-of-low-wage-production-jobs-in-manufacturing/
Here, let’s try again, for all those of you who keep claiming you want to talk about stuff beyond Hillary and her weaknesses:
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Money-monster-What-if-the-problems-capitalism-not-the-candidates.html
@a “Stay out of the deep end. Jobs are jobs.”
I’m not sure what you do for a living, but if you think all jobs provide equal value to society, you are sorely mistaken. Deep end? You’re still in the baby pool, and I deign to visit you there.
Sure… Go ahead and just pay people to dance in the streets. See how long your society will last. And one of the largest problems with America is that too many jobs are about as valuable as paying people to dance in the streets…
Do try to keep up. We’re talking about economics, not your job. Do you think jobs manufacturing more junk for Americans to buy are more important than services like social work? Which pays better? Does the pay represent its “value to society”?
You don’t even know where the deep end is, sister.
People like you parrot the phrase “manufacturing jobs” as if there’s some magic pixie dust that makes those jobs better-paying. They were unionized, and most service jobs aren’t. That’s the only reason for the differences in the pay scales, because you can be trained to work a construction line (or heavy machinery, for that matter) much more easily than you can be trained to do social work (though we don’t act like it).
Your stupidity would be less annoying if you were less arrogant about it, or showed some realization of your own limitations.
The kind of manufacturing jobs that could be enticed back here (or created) would likely be decent paying jobs. I say this alot, but no one is ever going to make a plastic fork in the US again. And as long as disposable fashion is a thing, it is going to be tough to get back those kinds of jobs.
Manufacturing that requires a more technical skillset (to run the fabricating machines) AND requires a pretty high quality is what we can get back and what we should be aiming for. Manufacturing that is focused on road and bridge building would take off if we would just invest in our own infrastructure. I don’t think it would ever reach the last century’s peak, but there is a path to some jobs, we just need to get serious about it.
Again, there is nothing magical about manufacturing jobs.
According to basic economics, wages are based on supply and demand. Higher skills are in demand, so they usually pay better. As most manufacturing is turned over to machines, the demand for labor shrinks, the supply is excessive, wages drop.
Unions interrupted that cycle by limiting the people who could hold the jobs — artificially restraining supply, if you prefer. That, not skill, is why manufacturing jobs paid better. Or do you have a better explanation of why auto manufacturing plants now have two pay scales, one for legacy employees, one for newer hires?
As most manufacturing is turned over to machines, the demand for labor shrinks, the supply is excessive, wages drop.
Except that there is demand for people who can run those machines. It isn’t enough to replace what is lost, but there is some work. It is high-skilled, intensive training work, so it usually does pay well. Which is why I think this is a good niche to develop. The Germans certainly did. There will never be a one for one replacement of what is lost, but there is a potential for manufacturing jobs that I don’t think we are working at well enough.