tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post6866740047472138437..comments2024-03-27T23:28:20.274-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Trump as the Jimmy Carter of the GOP? And Bernie as the Reagan of the Dems?agnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-63701608409472149642018-01-27T05:57:32.939-05:002018-01-27T05:57:32.939-05:00One mention of Bernie as the Reagan of the Dems, i...One mention of Bernie as the Reagan of the Dems, in fact by Skowronek himself, just after the election:<br /><br />https://www.thenation.com/article/what-time-is-it-heres-what-the-2016-election-tells-us-about-obama-trump-and-what-comes-next/<br /><br />I agree that Bernie's platform of 2016 won't be the "reconstructive" major new thing. He'll have to mostly adopt Trump's platform, while ditching the old-era parts of it -- like the military build-up, the evangelical Christian topics, and tax cuts & deregulation.<br /><br />Populism and "nationalism" -- Bernie might re-brand it as "localism" or something. Trump had a much larger vision for the economy -- re-industrialization -- vs. Bernie saying those jobs are gone overseas, and everybody is going to find plentiful high-paying jobs as coders and graphic designers while going to college for free. Wrong.<br /><br />Re-industrialize the economy, shift education to prepare for that (high school apprenticeships, not pointless college degrees with tons of debt), close down foreign military bases and switch from an invasive to a defensive military posture, open a few new military bases back home to protect us and show goodwill toward military people and provide an end-point for some industrial activity.<br /><br />And yes, keep the American population at carrying capacity, rather than continuing to over-burden it with immigrants. Deport the foreigners, using progressive liberal rhetoric about labor market and housing market pressures, Malthusian rhetoric, whatever does not have an ethnic or racial tinge to it.<br /><br />The state of our economy does not, and never will, support more than a few hundred million people. Not without another revolution like the Industrial. The extra 50 million foreign-born people we have should leave, to put us at or below carrying capacity.<br /><br />That's the kernel of the would-be Trumpian re-alignment. Drop the other holdover positions from the Reagan era (including amnesty and importing millions of foreigners, which was part of the Reaganite strategy of cheap labor to boost corporate profits uber alles, and continued through the pre-emptive and articulative presidents as well, and now under this disjunctive one too).<br /><br />Basically, have Bernie pow-wow with Steve Bannon, and politely ignore anything that would've been received wisdom under Reagan and the Bushes.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-13079238820061999432018-01-26T20:28:48.997-05:002018-01-26T20:28:48.997-05:00Agnostic, you recently tried to make the case that...Agnostic, you recently tried to make the case that Dem elites were trying to pick up the pieces by entombing 2015-'16 rhetoric that denigrated lower class whites, but what's that....It's crooked dipshits like Dick Durbin saying that "chain migration" is offensive because blacks were brought here in chains. Gee, I'm sure that baggy jeans and ball hat wearing guys named Scott or Jeremy, who grew up listening to AC/DC and Iron Maiden, really want to be represent by such pandering oxygen thieves. <br /><br />It's really a cynical and low place we're in right now. The level of bad faith, the craven practices, among Right corporate/Pentagon apologists, and Left ID warriors, is astounding. Right now I just don't see a way out. As I've said before, the civil war was about one generation having it's biggest and worst dick measuring contest to the apathy and/or horror of younger generatons (some of whom are shameful quislings of the me generation), and right now it looks like the same thing is happening all over again.Ferylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01336057631877941839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-56632261061246997032018-01-26T20:25:07.522-05:002018-01-26T20:25:07.522-05:00"Seems like its the dead-end identity politic..."Seems like its the dead-end identity politics that's keeping lefties -- even so-called class-oriented lefties -- from seeing Trump as Bernie's opening act.<br /><br />In their minds, and in the minds of some of Trump's strongest fans, the election was decided on immigration, which touches on race and ethnicity."<br /><br />Back when I was keeping tabs on the MSM, I read stuff from Thomas Frank and Thomas Edsall (?), among others, who tried to keep the focus on economics and away from Orange Hitler crap. It's the Boomers who remember old school liberalism/populism. It's very difficult for X-ers and Millennials, who grew up in the culture war and high striving era, to even conceive of "pure" economic progressivism....With minimal distractions revolving around ethnicity or divisive cultural issues. There's also the fact that X-ers and Millennials grew up amid far greater diversity, and thus they feel compelled to shy away from anything that would make Tyrone and Jose feel upset. 90% of Boomers spent their first 20-50 years of their lives in communities where most or all people spoke English, were born in America, and were mostly white. Thus do Boomers feel a greater sense of kinship with their generational peers and countrymen, and they don't feel shame about patriotism and ethnic pride to the same degree that younger generations do.<br /><br />And it's become de rigueur for the Left to deride older time periods and generations. Why? Muh racism and nativism. To an ever growing degree (what with the rapidly growing non-white and non-Western populations, and Western countries now evidently beholden to such people), Dead White Male economic populism from a bygone era is a non-starter. Man, we sure have come a long way from oh, 2008, when Obama was marketed on his <i>lack</i> of racial connotations and he ostensibly opposed gay marriage.<br /><br />The Left now habitually crows about the demise of the last demographically traditional Western generation (the Boomers), as whites born since 1970 are fewer in proportionate number (in the case of 70's births, absolute numbers) vis a vis prior Western generatons. Moreover, whites born over the last 45 years simply don't have the same cameraderie and sense of belonging....To something, anything, that earlier generations did.Ferylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01336057631877941839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-6964577651324807752018-01-26T18:25:39.235-05:002018-01-26T18:25:39.235-05:00Seems like its the dead-end identity politics that...Seems like its the dead-end identity politics that's keeping lefties -- even so-called class-oriented lefties -- from seeing Trump as Bernie's opening act.<br /><br />In their minds, and in the minds of some of Trump's strongest fans, the election was decided on immigration, which touches on race and ethnicity.<br /><br />That was only one plank of his platform, and did not even get him out of the GOP primaries -- he won a lot of his delegates in the Northeast, and lost big-league in the Plains (esp Texas) where the immigrants are over-turning the regional communities.<br /><br />He certainly didn't win the Rust Belt on immigration -- there's no immigrants here. Why would they want to come here, where the historical jobs magnet is historical? Plus all the snow in the winter.<br /><br />If you start with the premise that Trump's campaign was mainly about immigration, xenophobia, racism, bla bla bla -- then of course you won't see him as even the opening act for Bernie.<br /><br />But then you've lost the analysis and the strategy for how to win next time. You see your job primarily about championing open borders for all 10 billion of the globe's population, and amnestying the 10s of millions already here illegally.<br /><br />Nothing would come as welcomer news to the Chamber of Commerce than this confused leftoid push for maximum cheap labor. William Jennings Bryan, Joseph Stalin, Huey Long -- these lefties are not.<br /><br />If the Bernie people are serious about winning, they are going to have to accept that the election was about class, not racism, and that their strategy forward has nothing to do with distractions about race or ethnicity -- if voters wanted that, they'll go with a bona fide culture warrior like Hillary Clinton or Corey Booker, not Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard.<br /><br />They're going to have to accept that if they want to win back the Congress and White House, they're going to win back a lot of people who voted for Trump who don't want 10 billion cheap-labor immigrants dumped into the labor and housing markets.<br /><br />Maybe that won't be the mainstream of the new Democrat party, but it will be a substantial "wing" of the party. Disaffected Trump voters are going to crash their party whether they like it or not. We'll harmonize our policy goals with their rhetoric if that's necessary, but on the outcomes, we're not going to allow 10 billion immigrants to get waved on in by dinosaur liberal identity politicians like Maxine Waters.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-79942425585892191652018-01-26T17:25:05.405-05:002018-01-26T17:25:05.405-05:00It's the "Bernie as the Reagan of populis...It's the "Bernie as the Reagan of populism" piece of the historical pattern that's missing from other articles about Trump being a "disjunctive" president who oversees the end of a tottering regime -- in this case, the Reagan regime of tax cuts, deregulation, free trade, and soaring military budgets.<br /><br />I only checked the first five or so articles drawing on Skowronek's model, but none of them mentioned Bernie -- or whoever will replace him on the Democrat side -- as the natural follower of a failed Trump administration.<br /><br />Why are lefties such downers? Here they are showing in painstaking historical detail how Trump is going to be a Jimmy Carter president, and then leaving it there -- without mentioning we're about to get a landslide populist president from the other party, ushering in a whole 'nother way of running the country that will last for several decades!<br /><br />Are they just partisans who can't tolerate the notion that Trump is Bernie's opening act, ewww icky, don't contaminate my Bernie with that Trump? They need to remember how hopeful they were that at least Trump was running "to the left" of Crooked Hillary on trade, foreign policy, and healthcare (which Trump kept secret).<br /><br />At least they should feel in a good mood for the society being in the last dying days of the Reagan regime!<br /><br />Shit's going to hit the fan, but it's just tough medicine needed to make us better.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-28583228659231266772018-01-26T06:49:48.888-05:002018-01-26T06:49:48.888-05:00As for the dissident Right ("alt-right" ...As for the dissident Right ("alt-right" has become much more narrow by now, meaning mostly the identitarians / white nationalists), yes, having roots in libertarianism is a bad sign.<br /><br />I had roots in *left*-libertarianism from my college days, but that was still collectivist rather than individualist. That's probably the more important distinction. Individualism doesn't appeal to anyone beyond the Tea Party as a political force, and as a lifestyle choice only tells atomized people that it's OK to stay atomized and jerk off and smoke pot.<br /><br />The nascent re-alignment is mainly about bringing collectivism back, after the failure of mythological individualism / free marketeer-ism. Abundance allows for individuals to pursue their own path, while scarcity compels people to work together as a team.<br /><br />So if they were individualists, libertarians today won't have much to contribute to the re-alignment. But if they were "communitarians," they'll fit in and not sound so weird.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-76736940034130085732018-01-26T06:40:18.944-05:002018-01-26T06:40:18.944-05:00Post on Texas vs. California disproving "demo...Post on Texas vs. California disproving "demography is destiny" for partisan control:<br /><br />http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2018/01/electoral-map-reflects-patronage-not.html<br /><br />I wish the cultural conservatives would focus on real-world outcomes instead of whining about the poor GOP losing California.<br /><br />Getting flooded by foreigners makes you feel like a stranger in your own land, diversity corrodes social trust and destroys civic society (Putnam), and that massive influx into the labor and housing markets (beyond what intrinsic population growth could accomplish) is going to lower the standard of living -- lower incomes, higher housing prices.<br /><br />That dystopian outcome is true for both Texas and California, and no sane person would want to live there right now. If you grew up there, you might not want to uproot yourself, but actually moving there? Crazy.<br /><br />That's what they should focus on, not boo-hoo there will be fewer Republicans in Congress or the White House. That is the cheap-labor party anyway, and would only flood more foreigners into your state if they were in control.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-22233191236840311962018-01-26T05:04:03.073-05:002018-01-26T05:04:03.073-05:00Fair enough, but even if Ferguson and company migh...Fair enough, but even if Ferguson and company might miss some of the obvious about the Trump coalition, that paper does have their analysis of how industries, and the large enterprises within each industry, gave money during the 2016 election. Something I think that everyone around here will find extremely worthwhile. In addition to fun things like how Hillary's chances of winning the election declined in lock step with the chances of Democrats winning the Senate, which is at the very least very rare in American history. <br /><br />By the way, a question for the people here. I may be a lefty, but I do pay attention to Le Chateau Heartiste. And while I do think the writer/writers there are probably some of the smarter and more talented folks on the alt-right, looking through the archives raised what I think is an interesting point. I ended up stumbling on a post where le Chateau condemned, in fairly over the top terms, the ACA as the end of American freedom. The same ACA that was modeled explicitly after what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts as Governor. <br /><br />I think it's fair to say that in politics le Chateau and others on the alt-right eight years ago would have considered themselves to be libertarians economically, or at least would have identified far more with the GOP than they would the Democrats or anything further to the Left. Now while they might have made an exception for questions of immigration, the point remains that they still embraced Republican orthodoxy in terms of economics. <br /><br />Now the question is this. Would it be fair to say that, given the unpopularity of Republican economics (Dems voted against NAFTA 3:2 while the GOP voted for it 3:1, the senior members of the Republican coalition were the ones that were in favor of immigration as a supply of cheap labor, etc), that that previous loyalty has hampered the alt-right's ability to actually mobilize voters? I know it's not at all universal, but I wonder how much of the problems the alt-right faces in mobilizing support is that they come from a fairly traditional Movement Conservatism/Libertarian milieu. Which is even worse for them given that the reality is that no one really cares about rants about how Hispanics will destroy America or whatever Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged vs. what'll give them more money in their paychecks at the end of the day. <br /><br />By the way, if it ever strikes your fancy, might I suggest a deeper dive into the voting patterns of Texas vs. California. As you've pointed out, if any simplistic 'demography is destiny' routine was right, both Texas and California would be blue states. Or, if non-Hispanic whites entering into the minority provoked racial polarization with whites going to the GOP, California would have been a red state for the past two decades or so if non-Hispanic whites voted in California like they did in Texas. I already have a suspicion of what your answer would be, and it's what I've been mulling over in my head for a while, but I'd still love to read your thoughts on that given the chance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-5709421330290400372018-01-24T23:35:49.820-05:002018-01-24T23:35:49.820-05:00Because we don't want to devolve into being Sa...Because we don't want to devolve into being Saudi Arabia or Qatar (not coincidentally where so much of the resident population is foreigners brought in as cheap labor), and want to stay and become even more industrialized.<br /><br />Industrialization is what raised the value of unskilled or semi-skilled labor, narrowing the inequality gap between top and bottom that had been in place since the adoption of agriculture, where teeming masses generate a massive surplus that feeds and enriches the elites.<br /><br />If we want the good ol' 1950s, we need strong industry.<br /><br />If that means that the energy companies will make less profit -- so what? The goal of society is not to maximize profit, let alone for specific sectors against other sectors. Oil and gas companies will still be rich, just not richer than God, and their lower profits will be linked to higher costs of materials -- coming from a healthy steel sector that generates profits, wages, and salaries for a whole other swath of Americans.<br /><br />Hyper-specialization spells doom. What happens if we prioritize oil & gas so much, and de-prioritize industrial commodities so much, and there's a sudden drop in demand for oil, or a glut of supply from other countries?<br /><br />It's a volatile commodity, so it's bound to happen sooner rather than later. When it does, we starve for a few years or decades, or jack up taxes, or whatever else.<br /><br />We need a diversified ecosystem, ideally where we can make everything from start to finish. Then we won't be at the mercy of other countries, who don't have our best interests at heart.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-30960055492817050042018-01-24T21:58:33.273-05:002018-01-24T21:58:33.273-05:00But why not play to our strength in energy extract...But why not play to our strength in energy extraction and production (and related industries like shipping) and let our competitive advantage in these industries allow them to flourish without any trade wars? After all, we want to be able to sell all our surplus oil and gas around the world...Jeffrey S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10411126704920184190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-70343932461611135082018-01-24T21:49:47.927-05:002018-01-24T21:49:47.927-05:00That's a must-read post at N+1 Mag. Great over...That's a must-read post at N+1 Mag. Great overview of Skowronek's theory of regime continuity and change. Hadn't heard of him -- or anyone, really, but it's strange how much the Trump supporters are independently re-discovering as they try to figure out what the hell has happened since Inauguration Day.<br /><br />The steel thing is even simpler than private equity wanting to invest in China -- the energy companies are a senior partner in the GOP coalition. After the process of extracting the oil or gas from the environment, the most important thing they do is transport it -- via pipeline, which is made of steel.<br /><br />Because that's one of the most important pieces of their capital, they are relentless about cutting the cost of its materials. That means third-world rather than American steel.<br /><br />The energy companies put the kibosh on Trump's "Buy American" program for steel, as long ago as May 2017. See "Trump's American Pipedream":<br /><br />https://www.axios.com/trumps-american-pipe-dream-1513301903-c7b18456-55f8-4ed6-8414-5310b5c68903.html<br /><br />Democrats must absolutely focus on adopting the steel industry into their coalition -- promise to enact tariffs, or give massive subsidies (at the expense of subsidies to GOP beneficiaries like foreign military bases or mega-farms). It wouldn't hurt the interests of their own senior partners (finance, media, tech), and it would lock down many crucial voting blocs -- especially the keystone of Trump's coalition in the Rust Belt, Pennsylvania.<br /><br />If they invest enough in steel, they could even win back Indiana or make it a swing state -- #1 steel state in the nation, after foreign steel wiped out Pennsylvania.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-87098082240474968002018-01-24T15:39:27.474-05:002018-01-24T15:39:27.474-05:00FYI, Corey Robin made a similar argument about a y...FYI, Corey Robin made a similar argument about a year ago (https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-politics-trump-makes/). I didn't take it seriously at the time I must admit, I had figured President Trump would be candidate Trump in office instead of President Cruz, but given the utter disjointedness of Trump's coalition I can see it. <br /><br />For example, in the paper I linked to in the Fire and Fury post by Thomas Ferguson among others ('Politics in the Age of Hunger Games' or something like that), they did an analysis of the sectors and businesses that donated money to Trump. Trump got substantial support from steel and similar industries, but private equity also gave Trump a lot of support. Steel would like to see protectionist measures against China and private equity wants access to securities markets in China. To put it mildly, those are two contradictory aims. And add up all the other examples of such within Trump's current coalition, and that these donors are very different from the donors that Congressional Republicans tap, and whether it be President Trump or President Pence or whoever else you have a recipe for dysfunctionality.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-82031484963717798992018-01-24T14:39:00.862-05:002018-01-24T14:39:00.862-05:00On the other hand, Reagan and Bernie would be the ...On the other hand, Reagan and Bernie would be the same age relative to life expectancy at birth in their election year, which has increased by 10 years since 1980.<br /><br />And not being a Boomer, Bernie hasn't subjected his body to a lifetime of degeneracy.<br /><br />That is the only age-related thing that is against him -- being from the Silent Gen, who got entirely skipped over in presidential successions. There were a whole bunch of Greatest Gen presidents, then with Clinton it leap-frogged into a whole bunch of Boomer presidents.<br /><br />IIRC, generations don't get skipped over and then make a fluke comeback later as presidents.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-61563969748631483342018-01-24T10:22:47.725-05:002018-01-24T10:22:47.725-05:00Gotta agree with Ed, at least about Bernie. He...Gotta agree with Ed, at least about Bernie. He's 76 now, will be 79 on Election Day 2020. Relative to Reagan 1980 and Trump 2016, he's a decade older. (Reagan turned 70 in February 1981, Trump in June 2016). But maybe left-populism will live on with another standard-bearer. Some guy in Phillynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-80094967191071909682018-01-24T09:53:14.596-05:002018-01-24T09:53:14.596-05:00My prediction is that neither Trump or Sanders run...My prediction is that neither Trump or Sanders runs in 2020 because both will simply be too old. Its embarrassing how old the American political class is getting, its like the late Soviet Union.Ednoreply@blogger.com