In case it's not clear yet to Trump supporters, let the Pennsylvania special election be a further reminder in a series of reminders since these elections have begun -- there are no other Republicans who will run on, let alone put into effect, the major issues that scored the president an upset victory.
That means: economic nationalism and re-industrialization, a non-interventionist military, restricting immigration, and leaving the social safety net in place -- if anything, adding single-payer healthcare into the mix.
The Republicans are only going to run on the zombie-Reagan agenda that ruined our nation in less than a generation, and that voters are sick to death of -- especially the post-Boomer generations who did not get in on the ground floor of the looting of our country. These Reaganites include Bill Clinton types who simply presented a mild pushback against the overall agenda, while inflaming voters with anti-American multiculturalism in the social domain.
There is no such thing as "the Paul Ryan GOP" or "the RINOs in the GOP" or "the GOP Establishment" -- that is the entirety of the party. Trump is totally sui generis, and that's why they savaged him so brutally during the primaries of 2016, and why they continue to obstruct his anti-GOP agenda on tariffs, trade, war, and so on.
The GOP is not "going to learn" from the lessons where "Trump taught them how to win". They are an ossified party at the terminal stage of hegemony. How long can they be given to learn how to win? Trump destroyed their vision back in 2016. If they're still ignoring his winning platform, they will not be pursuing it anytime soon. "Give them another year, two years, three years" is not going to convince a normal person. More realistic is 15-20 years, when they will be the mild pushback party under a new Bernie-style paradigm that will last for several generations.
Indeed, the only party showing signs of learning from bruising losses is the Democrats. Bernie has 16 co-sponsors for a single-payer healthcare bill, most of whom endorsed Hillary and painted him as too pie-in-the-sky just a couple years ago. They flipped deep red seats (Alabama Senate, PA-18) by running white guys who talked about social obligations to the bottom 80% of the class pyramid, rather than SJWs. And the only elected officials who are openly in favor of Trump's tariffs and trade war have been Dems.
The Republican party's vision for the future has been utterly rejected by voters as too bleak, too anti-American, and too Social Darwinist. Voters want radical change, now, and they threw their weight behind Trump in order to thoroughly transform the party from within. Since dominant parties at this late desperate stage are too ossified to reform themselves, next time the voters will go for more of a firebrand from the opposition party (Bernie or someone like him).
The alienation of the voters from the GOP will only accelerate in the next years of the Trump administration, as the personnel continue to shift in a more neocon direction.
Some populists and nationalists were hopeful when the Bannonites were in the government -- they got mostly purged last year, with only a few trade hawks remaining (and they aren't promoted to the top, or allowed to see their policies become implemented without dilution).
Some moderates were hopeful when the Manhattan Democrats in the Javanka faction looked like they could influence policy. They are getting purged and demoted as we speak.
That removes any source of heterodox, unconventional, breath of fresh air politics coming from a GOP administration, which will only get more and more typically Republican as General Kelly consolidates his influence on behalf of typical Republican power groups like the Pentagon.
Nobody who took part in a "change election" wanted to see the outcome be George W. Bush: The Resurrection, but that is largely where things are going. Remember: even W got steel tariffs. And remember: the Iraq War didn't kick off until his third year.
As bad as people like Tillerson and Cohn have been, just wait until it's Pompeo and Kudlow. If you hated McMaster, wait till you get John Bolton. It's a final desperate attempt to shock the corpse of Reaganism back to life -- supply-side economics, Cold War interventionism and proxy wars, and austerity on social spending at home (unless you work for a defense contractor or Wall Street bank).
Most of this is beyond Trump's control, as he's only one guy with minimal political capital. Whenever Trump does some firing, the GOP does the hiring. But as time goes on and he goes along with their agenda rather than fight for his own agenda, against his own party, he too will lose some of his luster in the eyes of formerly hopeful voters. We wanted someone who would fight the Republican Establishment, not become their enabler and rubber-stamper.
But regardless of how much voters blame Trump personally, they will give up on the hopeless GOP.
All the action is taking place on the Democrats' side, and since the shake-up and re-alignment is just getting started, Trump supporters can get in at the outset and make a real difference. Unlike the hardened fossil of the GOP, which cannot be reshaped, the Democrats are more like a pile of wet clay that has not been shaped, let alone baked, just yet.
If one of your pet issues is not represented there, it's because you're wasting your time on Republican business fags. The only major Trumpian issue not being championed, yet, by the Dems is restricting immigration -- but then, neither is that being delivered by the Republicans, who control the entire government. Unlike the locked doors of the inward-looking GOP, the gates of the Democrat party have been left open and unattended -- so just invade their territory and dig yourself in as the immigration restriction camp of the Dems.
Like it or not, you're going to have to modulate your anti-immigration message if you want to reach a national audience. Make it less about the threat of violent crime, which is a typical losing Republican theme. Would it matter if we're demographically replaced by hordes of docile Chinese drones rather than gang members from El Salvador? Make it more about cheap labor, and sheer numbers -- the country is full, with too many Americans already struggling to make ends meet. Much more in line with Democrat themes than failed Republican themes about violence, crime, and death.
Reviewing the garbage takes on PA-18:
ReplyDelete1. Lamb ran as a Republican / conservative, so it's no rebuke of the GOP / conservatism
Lamb ran on supporting labor unions, tariffs, pensions, more generous healthcare; against entitlement reform, right-to-work laws, and other business fag issues.
Social issues are distractions, so the Dems caved on these in order to not muddy the distinction on economic issues.
Thorough rebuke of the GOP's main agenda, which is economic elitism and globalism, not the phony culture war it pretends to wage (only during campaigns, never delivering in office).
2. Lamb is a unicorn, cannot be replicated
Lamb is part of a broader pattern already evident (Northam, Jones, and scores of state-level victors).
*Trump is the unicorn* in his party, not Lamb, Bernie, et al.
3. Lamb didn't face a primary, which would've selected for a far-left whacko; this cannot be replicated nationwide
How many SJWs do they think there are in this country? If the Dems actually put the effort into fielding candidates all over the country, many of those races will not feature bruising primaries for the same reason they did not in PA-18 -- it's not a Democrat stronghold, so there will only be one person running.
In places where there are primaries, what percent even have SJW candidates to choose from? Not every district is a loony college town.
Ditto for voters -- how many districts are full of SJWs who can determine primaries, against a more moderate or socially conservative electorate? Not every district's local economy is based on gay bath-houses and yoga studios.
*It is the GOP* whose primaries keep fielding awful candidates that go against the Trump themes. Corey Stewart lost to Ed Gillespie in VA governor, Mo Brooks lost to Strange and Moore in AL senate.
In general, the activist voter base is far crazier on the GOP side -- and unlike the Dems, whose whackos are restricted to ultra-urban or college town districts, these Tea Party whackos are far more broadly distributed around the country, and can fuck up primaries north south east and west.
4. Lamb will vote with Nancy Pelosi, is Pelosi in drag, etc.
Voters want someone, of any party, who will vote with Pelosi and against Paul Ryan on taxes, social safety net, healthcare, and trade and foreign policy (where Pelosi sucks, but is marginally less sucky than Ryan).
They don't care if the Dems end up pursuing cultural liberal policies -- at worst, it's the bad you take with the good, and at best, they can be blocked from doing so in the first place by voter pressure.
The newcomer Dems cannot rest on their laurels, and must remain more faithful to what they campaigned on, like being cultural moderates, or immediately surrender their fleeting gains.
5. Anything to do with candidates' personalities and campaigns
Material fundamentals matter, and candidates' issues matter, not theatrical bullshit.
Bernie is the opposite of "straight out of central casting" and had zero brand recognition at the outset of the 2016 primaries, and nearly dethroned the Clinton dynasty.
Doug Jones is not a photogenic Millennial, nor a charismatic performer.
No one cares about this irrelevant optics BS -- only whether their lives will be made better with the person in office.
The most clueless on this reality are the culture warriors, on both sides, while materialists and pragmatists can see through it.
If someone is both a culture warrior and a materialist, they'll reveal which side dominates their thinking by how much they emphasize these dramatic and theatrical aspects.
Another great post from akino. This one is exceptional. I was only rooting for Conor Lamb so that when the dems take over, they are forced in a more pro white-working-class direction. The dem establishment must be held in check on race and sjw stuff before they can get to passing (which I doubt) populist economic legislation. I mean, Lamb is an ivy league lawyer and will sell out to the swamp, so don't get too optimistic. Even the most incorruptible of them all, Kucinich, is selling out some to sjw "liberals" to win the primary in Ohio. His mass emails have not yet mentioned single-payer as far as I have seen. But even if Lamb sells out, having that pro-white-working-class presence will help in the halls of Congress when dems take over.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand either party. I voted for Trump for the original agenda which emphasized the white working class. Now, what have I learned since then? Even if Trump means well, the country is too big/diverse and too corrupted--the system eats everyone up. We face a systematic problem rooted in the rule of elites and their puppets on both sides; but we keep getting sucked into petty liberal vs. conservative fights. Heck, even our modern definitions of left and right have been wholly shaped by the elite and are not rooted in historical fact. So we end up with the Obama and Trump admins: more or less the Reagan agenda in populist and social justice clothing.
Then we get the dreaded policy: regressive taxation, trashy healthcare for profit, endless wars, mass immigration, and now the war on unions. This tragic war on unions has been the last straw for me with Trump. Janus vs. AFSCME, in which Trump/GOP supports the right to work, and for gov't workers not to pay dues while still (for the time being) having union representation, is a case that scares me. Because while there are indeed problems with the administration of unions, it is never wise to wholly scrap them. It is sad that the entire non-public-sector workforce has been conditioned to hate on the public sector, largely because of the affirmative action-based corruption that pervades gov't. We should all support unions for each other regardless of sector; purge affirmative action, not unions. The fact that the public sector is the last and only stalwart for strong unions, and has better pay and pensions, should be a reason to model the rest of the economy that way, not drag gov't workers down to poverty (I thought the GOP was against dragging down the slightly more fortunate). Count me in as a supporter of closed shop. If unions get bashed in completely and we go full-blown 3rd world, don't come crying when people turn en masse to authoritarianism, communism, and fascism.
Everything considered, I have no faith in the mainstream, our established political institutions, nor even in the alternative media. Tbh, this country is full of mostly selfish and shallow people with no sense of solidarity, labor, ethnic, or otherwise. But when I occasionally glance over at the goings-on of the swamp, I am encouraged by the existence of archetypes like Conor Lamb. An extremely faint and tenuous glimmer of hope.
would love to see this happen, but there is no evidence of it now
ReplyDelete"In general, the activist voter base is far crazier on the GOP side -- and unlike the Dems, whose whackos are restricted to ultra-urban or college town districts, these Tea Party whackos are far more broadly distributed around the country, and can fuck up primaries north south east and west."
ReplyDeleteWhat GOP activists? Small business owner and Evangelicuck Boomers, with a decent dose of early Gen X-ers (who we shouldn't let off the hook for inflicting damage by being me-too Boomers, not least because they are much larger in number than mid-late 70's births)? Google N-gram shows that use of the phrase "invisible hand" substantially rose in the late 70's-early 90's, with peak usage in 1995 after which it petered out. On sites for younger Trump voters (like MPC), virtually no-one beats the drum about typical GOP hobby horses like muh small government. On Sailer's blog, concerns regarding economic populism and realistic national security WRT war, trade, and immigration superceded Reagan/Clinton era garbage years ago.
I think the Tea Party was a death spasm from TrueCons. I really can't say for certain just how many true believers are still hanging on, but their numbers have to be dwindling. One hopes.
Also, WRT the Left, a lot of Lefties are f'n crazy these days. I live in the suburban Midwest and I hear middle-aged Dems repeat MSNBC talking points from time to time. A lot of "mainstream" Dems now believe a lot of hysterical crap, like Russia supposedly stealing the election and Donald Trump supposedly being a Neo-Nazi or at least a Nazi sympathizer. People like David Brooks openly celebrate the idea of "insensitive" ideas being effectively banned from mainstream and public discourse. Back in the 2000's, a lot of people had Bush stickers in the area where I live. I hated Bush by 2004, just like everyone else, but I never felt driven to harass anyone over it. Political stickers in general, Trump or otherwise, have become much less common in the 2010's. Partly due to resignation about the system failing us, but also due to fear of reprisal from political opponents.
Also worth noting is that my area is much more diverse now than it was 15 years ago. 15 years ago, 75-80% of the population was American white. Now when I go out to shop, I see all kinds of nationalities, and more American blacks, on a regular basis. Foreign accents are now commonplace. The cynicism towards politics that has always plagued the Sun-belt and Mid-Atlantic is now spreading further and further North and West. Politics is going to become, as it always does, about racial spoils once you tip an area into being further and further below about 80% one particular ethnicity. And people will grow more unsettled and bleak in their outlook about everything, politics included. Aging American whites who don't know jack shit about full-scale underclass revolts and coups don't really appreciate the future that is in store. All's most of them has ever know is fighting with other whites. When non-whites began to far outnumber whites in more and more territories, it's going to create the conditions for harassment of whites that will cause more whites to think about politics in strictly ethnic terms. You see stuff like McDormand's Oscar speech and it's evident that even some white liberals are growing concerned about trying to placate restive dark(er skinned) people.
Aud. Epigone did a post recently showing that among non-liberals, those under 35 are much more concerned about immigration than older voters. Older people can obviously sense changes we might be going through, but many of them can't kick the memories of the past, which become conflated with the present. Older voters grew up in an America that was much less crowded and much more ethnically American. Younger voters missed out on that "version" of America, and are much more likely to blame (correctly, I might add) immigrants and the CoC for robbing younger generations.
McMaster out! DJT taking control?
ReplyDeleteThese moderate white men who've won in VA, AL, and PA haven't said anything about immigration because they cannot say anything restrictive about immigration at all without getting BTFO.
ReplyDeleteIf you think waiting for the GOP to shift away from corporate shills to middle American populism is going to take too long, how long are you willing to wait for the Democrat party to offer even a bit of rhetoric in the direction of controlling immigration? Anyone who does will be Pelosied. The same thing happened to Bernie Sanders, who is WAY more open borders now than he was five years ago. When was the last time he said anything in the direction of potential slowing the flow of immigration into the US?
Republicans are shifting. CPAC was a good illustration. Open borders globalists got booed and shouted down.
De Leon came within a hair of getting the Democrat endorsement in California as he's appointing illegal immigrants to state government positions. The GOP is going to be hard to infiltrate. The Democrat party is absolutely impenetrable, though.
ReplyDeleteNo one said the favorability of the Dems rests entirely on immigration -- but that they were better suited to populism generally and de-globalized trade specifically, as well as less of an expansionist military policy (another aspect of de-globalization).
ReplyDeleteRepublicans are garbage on those issues and show no signs of improving.
The GOP has also failed to deliver anything on immigration -- even though that's supposedly their comparative advantage, they control all three elected bodies and have a their balance on the Supreme Court, and the president ran openly on a hardline immigration policy.
The closest they came to passing a bill would've amnestied 5 million illegals in exchange for no change in legal immigration until 10 years (never), and extending the fence on the border rather than building the wall (solid, not see-through).
So even if you thought the only important issue was immigration -- and that was *not* what won Trump the Rust Belt, but the whole combination, and especially trade -- you'd still have to conclude that the Dems and GOP are equal on outcomes for immigration, despite differing rhetoric, and that the Dems are better on the other two of three issues central to Trump's campaign.
I'd be careful about putting too much emphasis on immigration -- it's not the #1 issue for any sub-group of Americans, nor for Trump's winning coalition.
The Dems have not tried to pass amnesty when they've had control of all three elected bodies -- '93-'94 and 2009-'10. So we can reject hysterical claims that we know they will if given the chance, based on their track record.
ReplyDeleteIt's the GOP's track record that is garbage -- at least the White House and/or the Congress has to be controlled by the GOP for a major amnesty to be attempted.
Of course the big one under Reagan in '86 (GOP White House and Senate).
Then all those attempts under W. Bush, with or without a GOP Congress. And then the 2013 attempt which was only narrowly blocked in the GOP House due to Cantor getting primaried by Brat (which has not been repeated).
The one big thing that both all-Dem governments have attempted is healthcare -- the abortive Hillarycare and then Obamacare. Next stop: the real deal with single-payer (Berniecare).
Along with drawing down our military expansionism, healthcare is the only other constant of all-Dem governments. Garbage military policies require at least GOP control of one or both houses of Congress, and/or the White House.
Maybe the Dems would risk triggering a civil war by passing a major amnesty without any Republican input, but so far they have not.
It's not the CPAC audience that controls policy, but the Chamber of Commerce, when the GOP is in power.
ReplyDeleteWe don't need to poll the CPAC audience in 2018 -- we already have the GOP primary results from 2016, and Trump won resoundingly. What has that translated into on Capitol Hill? Jack.
The cultural analysis of our immigration policy is a dead end -- they don't seek to replace our culture / community / genepool / ethnic group / race. They simply seek cheap labor in order to boost profit margins, and that means foreigners from low-wage countries.
That's why the GOP will never relent to the Trump primary voters. The industries that use the GOP as their vehicle to control public policy to their advantage are all highly sensitive to the price of labor, agriculture especially.
And since the Great Plains are the reddest part of the country historically, the GOP will never do anything that would devastate that sector. Which means: no restriction of immigration (illegal or legal on guest-worker visas), and no gutting of free trade deals (we export agriculture in a de-industrialized economy).
Breitbart has made a very good transition to the material / economic analysis of immigration. That's where it's got to go in order to catch on with the general public and, yes, even among aspiring Democrat politicians in not-so-blue areas.
At that point, it won't matter if they throw Trump under the bus, as long as the outcome is correct. "Now, just to be clear, I think Trump's motivation for restricting immigration was horribly racist and fear-mongering. But y'know... that doesn't mean there aren't working-class reasons, or environmentalist reasons, for restricting immigration. Just because he had the wrong racist reasons, doesn't mean the policy goal wasn't right."
A DACA expiration is not nothing. Democrats haven't pushed a partisan amnesty yet because they still have Feinsteins. The de Leons will push for a partisan amnesty.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any indication of a Democrat anywhere saying anything restrictive about immigration at all in the last year? In the entire country?
Maybe you're right. You're one of the most perspicacious people out there, but it's hard to square with the fact that all the elements on the Democrat side that should be sobering up on immigration have become FAR more hysterical in their open borders rhetoric over the last several years. Not a single one of them has become more restrictionist, or even hinted that they might become so. Not Elizabeth Warren, not Bernie Sanders, nor any other from that wing of the Democrat party (and of course there is nothing from the corporate wing, either).
In contrast, Republicans are sounding better. All the Republicans who should be seeking re-election but aren't are horrible open border cucks. The only partial exception is Trey Gowdy, who is okay on immigration (but not great), and he's probably getting out to keep any accidents from happening to his family members.
ReplyDeleteGood news Dan Lipinski won yesterday he's and old line Larbor Union/machine Dem as opposed to a populist but his opponent tried to ran a culture wars campaign against him. Looking at the cross tabs on a poll it was White Boomers who backed her, he won younger voters and Hispanics.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000161-f929-d21f-abe5-fffdbb2d0000
There is absolutely zero chance of using modern democratic party as a platform to enact immigration policy restrictions, maybe it could have been possible as late as 1990s when there still were politicians like Byron Dorgan of North Dakota in the Senate, who by the way was instrumental in killing the 2006 and 2007 amnesty pushes. Guess who replaced him the chamber of commerce cuck John Hoeven of the namesake Corker-Hoeven amendment in 2013 amnesty push.
ReplyDeleteRight now the only opportunity to enact any kind of immigration restrictions is to continuously remake Republican Party, as we have seen over past year you don't have to be in majority to enact changes, we should learn from democratic apparatus extending from grassroots to judges on how to do it.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/01/studlib.png&w=1484
ReplyDeleteThe graph starts in 1990; college freshmen of the 90's and subsequent decades tend to identify as moderates. So we're talking about those born in circa 1972 and thereafter not wanting to be associated with the loudmouth extremists (e.g., Boomers) bred by the culture war who've dominated both the Left and the Right since the late 80's. Although Millennials in the Bush and esp. Obama era appear to have trended more liberal, but some of this can be put down to Millennials being less white than Gen X-ers.
Like Matt Stone and Trey Parker have said, "we're not conservatives but we're really not fucking liberals". And they were born after the 60's.
"A quarter-century ago, college professors were about 16 percentage points more likely to identify as "liberal" or "far-left" than their first-year students. By 2014, professors were close to 30 percentage points more likely than freshmen to call themselves liberal."
Most professors were born before the 1970's, and as we all know, many 60's campus radicals have ensconced themselves into academia and aren't leaving anytime soon. Silent Gen professors were more moderate, but most of them have been replaced by Boomers.
If our nation crumbles, we all know who's to blame. The Boomer (and to a lesser degree, Gen X) coffee klatches that often descend into hysterical finger pointing and name calling are becoming a a big source of annoyance and embarrassment to people under 40, who are tired of "adults" acting like 2 year olds. Yeah, great, you left home when you were 18 (or 17....or 16.....), but so what? Boomers often ended up homeless for a reason; people get sick of their shit and they burn all their bridges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cDLflyQ8TA
The black Boomers on the panel look pissed at Milo; this the generation responsible for the 1980's NHL having record high levels of fights and penalty minutes, and gave us stuff like the 1989 "Body bag" game in the NFL. Their whole lives they've wanted to push everything further and faster, and now they're chafing against younger generations who've had enough.