If Donald Trump is the George McGovern of the GOP, what does that make Hillary Clinton?

If Donald Trump is the George McGovern of the GOP, what does that make Hillary Clinton?

Hitler. Duh.

I’ll try to be clear about this before the inevitable sniping: I expect (and always expected) Clinton to win both the primary and the general election. This is one of the reasons why both Sanders enthusiasm and Trump panic seemed a bit overdone to me.

That said, what does it mean for the left when (as seems by most likely) Clinton wins? I don’t think that the Nixon comparison can be taken too exactly. Nixon was a habitual lawbreaker in a way that HRC seems to be too canny to be.

I expect the failure mode of an HRC Presidency to be party realignment. There are essentially three groupings in the U.S. (if you agree with John Quiggin’s analysis, which I do): left, neoliberal, right. They fit uneasily within a political system that, mechanically, demands only two main parties. Right now neoliberalism attempts control over both parties: the Democratic Party through business money plus neoliberalism’s support for gender/race/sexuality issues, the GOP through business money plus neoliberalism’s attack on traditional left power bases.

If the GOP ever does finally fracture off the moderates, and the Democratic Party ever loses its left flank, you’d be left with the GOP as the hard right, the Democrats as the middle, and some kind of left socialist party. The challenge then would be to make sure the left party picks up the other U.S. two-party slot instead of the GOP.

If a Clinton presidency (assuming she wins) ends up being “preemptive” like Obama’s, I won’t just take it, I’ll happily order seconds.

I liked Puchalsky’s 4

Just for grins, I am searching for “Berlusconi” in the Virno/Hardt Radical Thought in Italy, 1995

“The “Forza Italia” party, with Silvio Berlusconi, the media magnate, at its head, combines an ultraconservative discourse typical of the Thatcher government with the nationalist and populist rhetoric of the traditional Italian Right, forging links with the former fascists. This conservative revolution claims it will maintain the Welfare State and bring about an economic upturn that will lead to the reestablishment of almost full levels of employment. ” …Carlo Vercellone

Antonio Negri, op cit

“Silvio Berlusconi is not a fascist—he is a boss. Berlusconi is a new figure of the collective capitalist, an emblem of capitalist command over society: in him communication and production have become the same thing. The Italian “revolution” that brought him to power is not fascist, but reactionary.

He develops and perfects the new postmodern and communicative capitalism, showing Italian society what it has already become in the past twenty years: a society in which
the enormous corruption that involved businessmen and politicians was nothing
compared to the corruption that infiltrated the thought and ethical consciousness
of the multitude. It may be true, then, in these terms, that this reactionary “revolu-
tion” is laying the groundwork for a future postmodern fascism.”

A little more Negri

Postmodern fas-
cism seeks to match itself to the realities of post-Fordist labor cooperation, and seeks
at the same time to express some of its essence in a form that is turned on its head.
“In the same way that the old fascism mimicked the mass organizational forms of
socialism and attempted to transfer the proletariat’s impulse toward collectivity into
nationalism (national socialism or the Fordist constitution), so postmodern fascism
seeks to discover the communist needs of the post-Fordist masses and transform
them, gradually, into a cult of differences, the pursuit of individualism, and the
search for identity—all within a project of creating overriding despotic hierarchies
aimed at constantly, relentlessly, pitting differences, singularities, identities, and indi-
vidualities one against the other. ”

But isn’t this Clinton?

I don’t know if Hillary is “authentic” and I don’t care either. But I do know that times have changed since the Bill Clinton administration. For example, no national Democrat is going to try to win back the Reagan democrats by pandering to their racism. She will continue Obama’s efforts to liberalize sentencing laws and wind down the war on some people who use some drugs. The ACA obviously isn’t going away and with a Dem senate and a closer house, it might even be possible to make some marginal improvements. Meanwhile, more states will give in and expand Medicaid. She’ll bully pulpit for social liberalism. As with mass incarceration, DOMA and don’t ask, don’t tell are water over the dam. (Not much about that is within the president’s purview anyway, it’s largely a state-level issue now that the military has been integrated and Obergefell, but still.) She’ll make decent Supreme Court appointments. Congress isn’t going to deliver meaningful financial reform anyway so it doesn’t matter if she’s best buds with Jamie Dimon, unfortunately. Anything that Elizabeth Warren does manage to get through, she’ll sign. She’s probably not going to bomb Iran or invade Libya, no matter her past. So I’m okay with it.

I read this OP through the lens of my personal recollections as someone whose first serious involvement in politics was as a teenage volunteer (15 years old when McGovern was nominated) in the McGovern campaign. I find it hard to reconcile aspects of the OP with those recollections or later thoughts about that campaign.

For one thing, Trump has gone out of his way to thumb his nose at his party’s elites. McGovern, though he ran as an anti-war and insurgent candidate, didn’t consciously try to alienate the Dem. elites, or such is my recollection. Anyway, Dem. elites were split in ’72. Most probably supported Muskie, but as his campaign faltered the elites went in different directions and there was, iirc, no obvs. establishment candidate after Muskie faded (though Birch Bayh might have tried to assume the mantle).

I understand the point Corey is trying to make by saying Trump is “the McGovern of the GOP”: it’s intended as a ‘structural’, not a personal, comparison. Even though I get that, I’m still bothered by the analogy. In terms of personal style, McGovern was the anti-Trump. McGovern did not make outrageous off-the-cuff remarks, but rather came across as, if anything, almost too earnest, too tied to his basic beliefs. That might not have made him a great presidential candidate, but it did endear him to a lot of people who passionately supported him. And actually, most Dem. elected officals, did, as I recall, eventually come around to McGovern, though some of that was lukewarm support. I don’t think it was like this year, when some Republicans are already announcing, even before the convention, that they will not support Trump.

I also think the Nixon-HRC comparison is a bit strained (Nixon was a more troubled, ‘inauthentic’ personality than HRC), but that’s a separate issue.

McGovern, though he ran as an anti-war and insurgent candidate, didn’t consciously try to alienate the Dem. elites, or such is my recollection.

The credentials committee threw out many state slates based on diversity challenges, and then installed their own. Alienation ensued.

Aren’t there inherent limits to what can be learned via a McGovern analogy. As much as can be made about McGovern’s effect on the DP establishment, isn’t it true that Nixon was over-determined to win even by a landslide in 72, not least by the state of the economy.

I’m not so sure that we can always count Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to have been a disinterested reporter.

Nixon famously sweated at the debate and Kennedy was better on camera. But the 1960 election was still very close. Kennedy won the popular vote by a 0.17% spread, one of the closest in US history. And Nixon appears to have believed that old Joe bought the election for his son.

Nixon justly earned his high negative ratings only later.

By contrast, Hillary’s high negative ratings have been mostly manufactured by Fox News.

You youngsters forget that, as with Obama, the GOP started to block Bill Clinton from his very first day in office. Two years later Newt Gingrich became Speaker, by accelerating the false rhetoric into an official, mainstream media newsfeed. The year after that, 1996, Fox News began broadcasting, and they immediately adopted Gingrich’s incendiary language. The hammering on the Clintons hasn’t stopped since then.

The hammering on Hillary increased when she became Secretary of State, because the GOP realized that she would be running for Prez again.

It doesn’t mean that Hillary’s negatives are going away, any time this year. Negatives are hard to reverse. Which is why the GOP is freaking out about Trump, because his negatives are even higher.

The opinion polls over the coming weeks will be fascinating for a number of very different reasons; political, economic, even sociological reasons.

And, how high can Trump go? We already knew that about 30% of the total US electorate is completely crazy (the “crazification factor theory” puts it at 27-28%). But Trump has only gotten up to 20% to date (= 45% of the GOP, which he just hit very recently). We have no clue as to how much more he might pick up now that he is unopposed.

I sort of wish Kasich hadn’t dropped out. Kasich couldn’t win of course. But the percentage of Cruz’s voters that Kasich would have picked up, would be another interesting data point on the GOP electorate.

One of my interlocutors predicts Gingrich for Trump’s VP, by the way. I hadn’t thought about it, but it is unlikely to me.

“Strong opposition from youth,”

As an actual young person, I’m here to say that stories of our antipathy to Hillary have been vastly exaggerated by people who want it to be true.

He did not run on a socialist platform, but rather one that focused on incremental reforms to improve the conditions of working people. (Unlike modern European socialist parties, the SFIO was very aware of the difference.)

What a strange comment! It seems to oppose the Front Populaire and today’s European socialist parties because the former was incremental and the latter (presumably?) obsessed with radical demands to the detriment of concrete realizations.

If this reading is the correct one, then I think it is good to remember that just as the Socialist Party now in power in France celebrates the 80th year of the election of the Front Populaire by supporting a radical business-friendly (to be polite) rewriting of labour law that has brought unions and students in the streets for the last 8 weeks or so, the Front Populaire, as soon as it gained power, gave consequential new powers to unions which they in turn immediately used to negotiate an average 12% raise in wages for workers while at the same time using the legislative way to reduce the working week from 48 hours to 40 hours and to institute two weeks of mandatory paid leave.

Within its first month in office, the Front Populaire thus achieved an average 40% increase in hourly wages (if my math is correct). Wait a year, and significant parts of the industry are nationalized (trains and aeronautics, for instance) and the price of wheat is controlled. That, according to JHW, was an incremental, not socialist except perhaps in name approach.

In reality, of course, among governments democratically elected in normal conditions and which then went on to operate in normal democratic conditions throughout, the Front Populaire was probably the most socialist ever (at least the most socialist I can think of in any major country).

20, actually, I don’t think the Sanders support by the young is vastly exaggerated. Exit polls and other polls have consistently shown that Sanders vote relies heavily on the below 35 cohort. To say this is not to say that all young people hate Clinton, but to acknowledge, as Clinton’s campaign people have acknowledged, that Clinton loses the under 35 demographic. Even when Sanders is slaughtered, as he was in NY, exit polls showed he won the 29 and under group by 30 points. That is big.
This is from the Ultra-clintonite VOX: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/20/11466376/bernie-sanders-future-democrats

“Sanders is the overwhelming choice of young voters, scoring 67 percent of voters under 30 in New York even while losing overall amidst a set of election rules that were highly unfavorable to his cause. National Reuters polls now show him with a large 56-38 edge over Clinton with voters below the age of 40.”

= = = By contrast, Hillary’s high negative ratings have been mostly manufactured by Fox News. = = =

If HRC’s campaign team and the DNC want to win they need to brutally excise this narrative from any campaign team member who brings it up. I don’t think it is true personally (and I’m far from being a “youngster”) but either way it doesn’t matter: they have to fight with the HRC perception we have not the one some think she deserves.

Maybe I need some Perlstein

A bit OT, but a while back someone with whom I was having a brief dialog at Corey R’s blog raved about Perlstein’s Before the Storm in such glowing terms that I decided to read the book. Am currently on p.224 (the whole thing runs to slightly over 500 pages).

The research is first-rate — very impressive indeed — but I find parts of the book overwritten. He loves long sentences with multiple clauses and dashes, and while this sometimes works nicely, at other times it becomes something of a chore to read. Some of the sentences are so intricate and packed with detail that I have to read them more than once. I’ve only dipped into Nixonland briefly, so I don’t know whether Perlstein continued this narrative style in that book or whether an editor mustered the courage and sense to tell him that enough was enough.

Of course, reactions to prose styles are *very* subjective, so YMMV.

not sure why this heavy play on unfavorability rating as a personal characteristic when the rating is largely a reflection of particularly large misinformation/mood of the electorate. maybe she’s just a capable and hardworking candidate who is being treated unfairly by people for various reasons.

hillary is like the GMO of the democratic party, or broccoli?

#21

there’s no need for stories, you can just read the polls – ignore them at your peril

“National Reuters polls now show him [Sanders] with a large 56-38 edge over Clinton with voters below the age of 40.”

Remember the recent thread where people were telling us that generations and generational divides didn’t exist?

Mark Jamison:
“There are three things Mrs. Clinton can and should do to have a successful administration:
1. Make solid Supreme Court appointments.
2. Make the Democratic Party competitive in state and local elections
3. Don’t let Bill do anything stupid (and perhaps harness her tendency towards defensiveness).”

I don’t mean to pick on a single person, but look at that list above. Really. If you read that and you don’t either laugh or cry, something is wrong. That’s what you need for a successful administration: stay the course! Be solid and competitive and not stupid! Don’t accomplish anything!

It’s like when js upthread happily signs up for another Obama Presidency: we evidently don’t need to do anything, just hold off the bad guys. Yes, I know that the ACA was supposed to have been a huge accomplishment that makes the last 8 years a high triumph, and Democrats are going to be saying that far into the future just as GOP diehards will still be going on about how we were right to invade Iraq.

Still OT, @LFC

Thanks to CT commenters, I also read Perlstein’s Before the Storm and thought it was excellent. I understood the conservative movement much better because of it. And, yes, seeing now the risk of a contested GOP convention made me also think of 1964. By the way, the description of the contested convention in the book is worth in and of itself.

Trump, however, is in a sense the anti-Goldwater. According to Perlstein, Goldwater ran on a highly ideological platform. Trump is Berlusconi: he’ll tell you anything if he thinks his supporters will be entertained by it. He can always half-retract later. On the other hand, the rage at the establishment that motivated many common US citizens to support Goldwater looks similar to the one motivating many to support Trump now. From what I understood, this seems in line to the analysis in Corey’s book on conservatism but I am not sure as I (culpably) have not read the latter.

@10 Cervantes, I hope you are right but I doubt it. I don’t see Hillary doing much for the left unless Sanders somehow extracts concessions. I easily see her bombing Syria or some other unfortunate nation. I can see her flip-flopping on TPP and TPIP and aligning herself more with corporate interests after bending to Bernie during the primary.

My hopeful scenario is that the economy continues to improve like the late 1990s with workers sharing in productivity gains b/c of tight labor markets and b/c the Fed doesn’t kill the expansion. The 90s expansion ended with the tech stock bubble but I don’t see any bubble in danger of popping besides possibly China.

Still an economy that finally delivers will help the left as the prosperous 50s and 60s saw the civil rights and anti-war movements and much else. We can elect more, better politicians.

Hillary’s campaign promises only plan for limited government spending and investment at $100 billion a year. This isn’t a enough, but a continued expansion with workers sharing in gains could help improve government budgets, with high tax receipts and less social spending. In 2000, Bush squandered a balanced budget on tax cuts for the rich and two wars of choice. Perhaps Hillary could be pushed to spend and invest more along the lines of Sanders’s campaign platform.

Why is it that when you say x can be fruitfully compared to y, people think you’re saying x equals y?

In agreeing with LFC I was saying, as I read him saying, just that it grates, not that your analogy might be wrong. The noise of Douchebag vs. Decent to me gets in the way of the argument around structural similarities.

Anyway McGovern’s breaks with mainstream Democrats were not handled quite as oafishly as whatever it is Trump is up to in any interaction with anybody. You see? Just can’t get around it.

I’m hoping McGovern’s negative impact on the house and senate races (not so big if it was a factor at all – don’t remember) will be far outstripped by Trump’s. It’s a huge opportunity.

Before the partisans here veer off into total insanity once again, two things should be pointed out.

1. Any President only gets one or two big, exciting things accomplished, at the most.

Why? Because it’s a lot of goddamned work, the existing System is complicated, and Presidents have term limits. This would be true also for Bernie, or whomever else.

2. No President is likely to solve the current economic problem.

Even economists can’t wrap their heads around it. So, it beggars the imagination as to how, or why, a politician would have the solution. Right now, most things addressing the situation are likely to be incremental patchwork.

Just remember: It’s not what you look like, when you’re doing what you’re doing — it’s what you’re doing, when you’re doing what you look like you’re doing.

Okay: back to dreamin’ on!

Just that these [i.e. preemptive presidencies—js.] are presidencies that tend to unravel in very unexpected ways. What particular form they take is anyone’s guess.

I had asked this in a previous thread but I don’t think I got an answer, so I’ll ask again: How exactly did Obama’s presidency “unravel”?

It’s simply not true that all Presidents accomplish one or two big things at most. Just in the 20th century and off the top of my head, I can think of G.W. Bush (Medicare expansion, Iraq War, general surveillance/torture/War on Terrorism policies), Reagan (started a whole era of American politics, broke unions, war on drugs, contributed to end of cold war), Nixon (China policy, Vietnam War ending, wide-ranging governmental agencies and reorganization), Johnson (Great Society, Civil Rights, War on Poverty etc.), FDR (too many to count), Wilson (WW I, Federal Reserve, suffrage), Teddy Roosevelt (trust busting, conservation, Panama canal). Obama was not a very effective President, and the people who tell you “it’s complicated” as if it has never before been complicated are not being realistic or commonsensical.

And, @48, you’ve provided a lot of examples each of which amounts to 1 or 2 or at most 3 big things, once you strip out the accidents, the unintended things, the nebulous judgments of history, and the ‘etc’s.

To Corey (if I may) or anyone here more in the know than I: any room for a late 3rd party run this year? If not, why not; if so, then what likely effects?

I did use the present political atmosphere in the US to help explain Kuhn in my philosophy of science class last night, since he argued that scientific revolutions possess many characteristics of political ones.

CR @51:

Fair enough. Though I will note that the point is—at least appears to be—made far more strongly in the post:

These are presidents who never make anyone happy, least of all their own supporters. That is why, in their moments of crisis, they often find themselves deserted, without any friends or allies.

“Presidents who never make anyone happy, least of all their supporters [emph. added]” doesn’t exactly fit Obama’s net approval rating right now (e.g.).

“Oh yeah, I really shouldn’t comment on a blog unless I have the prescriptions needed to fix all our problems.”

If there’s one thing you shouldn’t do, it’s respond bitterly to things which have not been said.

“I’ve already written, in this very thread, about the overriding priority that the next President should address”

Yes, I saw that. What should the next President do, exactly? How should s/he get it done in the face of legislative opposition? What plan can s/he pursue on climate change which will bring about a solution on your preferred timescale, which I gather is 100 days?

I don’t know whether it’s reasonable to describe Donald Trump as the George McGovern of the GOP, but taking the titular question purely as a hypothetical, the answer is easy: IF Donald Trump is the George McGovern of the GOP, what that makes Hillary Clinton is the next President of the United States.

Tom @36
By the way, the description of the contested convention in the book [Before the Storm] is worth in and of itself.

Haven’t gotten there yet (only on p.225, as I said) but I’m planning to finish.

Hillary is not like Nixon, he was a better lawyer, and a pretty good politician, not to mention quite possibly he was to the left of her. He also ended more wars than he started, and while he is remembered for failing to get national Health he extended Medicare guarantees for such expensive treatment as dialysis and he tried to do so for cancer.

which would also fit the net approval ratings.

Meant to say “favorability ratings”.

Where Presidents bog down is in trying to accomplish things that require Congressional cooperation (i.e. things that need new legislation). The legislative process by design is easily derailed by minority blocs of legislators.

Obama came to office with an idiotic idea (perhaps just rhetoric) about bi-partisan cooperation. I particularly like the comment about (I think from CT) that Obama tended to pre-compromise. He also apparently bought into mainstream denial of Keynesianism early in the crisis.

Whatever his contribution, the fact that ACA passed has to be due to a widespread consensus in both parties that something had to be done to address the health care crisis. (I’ve always speculated about what if Obama had thrown political capital behind crisis recovery and stimulus early on, could the DP survived the midterms and done ACA second. Dunno but one can dream).

Btw, Eisenhower was one of the most popular presidents in history (both parties wanted to draft him) so he is fairly unique.

“the fact that ACA passed has to be due to a widespread consensus in both parties that something had to be done to address the health care crisis. ”

So widespread was this consensus in both parties that precisely 0 Republicans voted for the law.

The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor the electoral victory to the candidate who’s ahead in the opinion polls, but that’s the way to bet.

“I still say it’s Trump’s to lose.”

You do, but you should make an effort to describe the electoral path you see.

Corey Robin @5

‘But it’s definitely the case that we needn’t think about the realignment that is coming strictly in terms of a Dem/Rep realignment. Just have no idea how it will break out.’

It’s not clear to me in what sense a development that leaves the Democrats and the Republicans as the two main parties could count as a realignment.

It’s not clear to me in what sense a development that leaves the Democrats and the Republicans as the two main parties could count as a realignment.

Really? To take the obvious example—post–Civil Rights, Southern Whites breaking en masse from the Democratic party to the Republican counts as a major realignment that leaves the main parties nominally identical.

Barry #66: “He was a nasty Red-baiter from the late 40’s.”

This apparently didn’t effect Nixon’s public approval ratings, because he received 49.55% of the popular vote in 1960. (Kennedy received 49.73%)

Rather than seeing Clinton as Nixon (a stretch at best) the better analogy is George H.W. Bush.

Both sought/seek to succeed popular two term presidents from their own party; both hyper-establishment who have been around forever; both lost to said two term presidents in the primaries; both offered and accepted jobs in administrations of said presidents; both just a little bit critical of said presidents for product differentiation purposes; both present(ed) themselves as safe choices; both from the more to the center wings of their parties, but prepared to range far and wide to secure votes.

Of course, Trump is not Dukakis. But if Al Sharpton and run for and won the Democrat nomination in 1988, the comparison would be complete.

@66

“You youngsters forget that, as with Obama, the GOP started to block Bill Clinton from his very first day in office. Two years later Newt Gingrich became Speaker, by accelerating the false rhetoric into an official, mainstream media newsfeed. The year after that, 1996, Fox News began broadcasting, and they immediately adopted Gingrich’s incendiary language. The hammering on the Clintons hasn’t stopped since then.””

Supporters of Hillary forget how badly Bill Clinton sold out the left in attempt to make “deals” with Republicans. Welfare reform. Crime Bill. Deregulation. Balancing the budget. He dropped his middle class spending bill after being elected. Alan Greenspan. NAFTA. WTO. And he was in negotiations with Newt Gringrich to cut entitlements when the Lewisnsky scandal broke.

I really don’t expect anything from Hillary. She’ll be worse than Obama who at least did health care reform.

As a Torontonian, I think of Trump as Rob Ford, our previous mayor, writ large.

Ford had an odd sort of bullet-proofness about him because his obtuse stupidity *was* his attraction. A lot of people felt looked down upon by the Liberal Urban Elites (and they weren’t particularly wrong), and this was their middle finger response to us.

Came as a heck of a surprise to those like me who didn’t know a single Ford supporter.

I do worry that Trump might manage a similar sort of victory, where every horrible thing he says gathers supporters simply because of the outrage it provokes in the rest of us.

= = = kidneystones: “I expect a robust, creative campaign to win over minorities and women [for Trump]”= = =

Um, kidney dude, you aware this is not 1947 but 2016? Digital video recording systems are cheap and plentiful, and every single obnoxious insulting life-threatening thing that Trump has said about women, ethnic groups, members of minority groups, etc is in the archives and waiting to be cut into brutal TV commercials, YouTube posting, Tweets, etc. Sarcastic comedians will be out of work for 7 months as the cutting free stuff floats around and around and around..

js. @81

>>It’s not clear to me in what sense a development that leaves the Democrats and the Republicans as the two main parties could count as a realignment.

>Really? To take the obvious example—post–Civil Rights, Southern Whites breaking en masse from the Democratic party to the Republican counts as a major realignment that leaves the main parties nominally identical.

That’s a fair point and I accept it. If this election triggers a switch in the partisan allegiance of (the bulk of) a large bloc of voters, I can see in what sense that’s a realignment. It’s still not clear to me whether that’s what was meant by the comment I was responding to.

kidneystones: “Trump won’t win any, HRC will lose some/many. How? Where? Who knows. But she will. Key Trump states – Florida, Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania. States Trump could win – Washington, Oregon, and maybe NY.”

This is fabulous rubbish. Trump has just about zero chance of winning NY (Obama won by 30 points!), Washington (hasn’t gone to a Republican since 1984) or Oregon (1988).

Obama won PA by 7 pts, Michigan by 9.5.

Ohio and Virginia were closer – about 3 pts, and Florida is certainly in play. If Trump manages to win all three – not very likely, given the polls we see today – he still loses.

I was thinking “so long” would turn out to be 3 days, but in fact it was only 6 minutes.

97 It’s this, or grading. I turn now to…

The Clinton campaign must be shitting bricks over the Fox interview. Trump builds bridges with Fox, builds the wall, provides path to citizenship for all undocumented workers. It’s like Nixon going to China, only a Republican can provide full voting rights to 11 million in the US, but only under certain conditions. What conditions?

As we used to say in the car business: ‘Let’s find out!’

Good times!

otpup @67

‘Btw, Eisenhower was one of the most popular presidents in history (both parties wanted to draft him) so he is fairly unique.’

That makes him unique — there’s no ‘fairly’ about it. Even if you’re using ‘unique’ to mean ‘unusual’, as so many people (for no good reason) now do, the correct description is not ‘fairly unusual’ but ‘extremely unusual’.

Portrait of Integrity: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/erick-erickson-de-register-republican-trump-nominee

As many may or may not know, many of the main proponents of the Trump=KKK meme were #NeverTrump. Erickson reprises the same to justify recognizing the voters just told him and the rest of the conservative pundit class to take a leap.

Every time a conservative purist acts publicly to help the elites retain control, Trumps chances improve. Eric and company know that they are now officially out of work, the only way they know how to earn a buck is by preaching crap to the choir.

Good thing that never happens in academic circles.

That makes him unique

There are probably many celebrities that both parties would happily draft, especially now that Trump has shown that celebrities can beat politicians at politics. Next election: Beyoncé v Oprah.

@kidneystones @106

I asked no question. I merely made an observation.

When you’ve managed to grasp basic English syntax, we can move on to more challenging tasks involving paragraphs and logical argument.

kidneystones writes (@76) that ‘… we cannot make many reliable predictions’ (dull, but fair enough) ‘… other than to say that Trump will find it far more difficult to defeat the entrenched interests of both political parties with his core group of zealous supporters alone’. So there is one exception to our inability to make reliable predictions.

No, wait, there are two. ‘Another safe prediction is that Trump will make a number of errors on his path to the election. HRC and the Dems will do their best to exploit these.’

No, wait, there are three. ‘Another safe prediction is that the 64,000 negative ads and 78 million spent trying to derail Trump will seem like a modest sum before this is over.’

Our one safe prediction is surprise! And fear! Our two safe predictions are surprise and fear! and ruthless efficiency … sorry, our three safe predictions are surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency, and … sorry, we’ll come in again.

As if on cue, we’ve got a paragraph without predictions while the memory buffer resets. We can use this time to reflect that the safe predictions made so far are indeed modest ones. But in the next paragraph we come in again, and there’s another prediction (but is this supposed to be a safe one?): ‘Trump is going to win.’ (Am I the only one who feels that an exclamation mark has been omitted?)

Then the next paragraph predicts that ‘Trump is going to win the largest percentage of the Democratic base since Reagan’ and consecutively, with no paragraph break, as if in support of this assertion, quotes an assertion made by somebody else and concludes: ‘This is a remarkably bold assertion to make less than 48 hours after a candidate, any candidate, secures the nomination. More so, given that Corey evidently feels free of any responsibility to provide any evidence to support this claim.’

Corey feels free of any responsibility to provide any evidence. If somebody else does not provide evidence for a claim, does that absolve me of any responsibility to provide evidence for my claims?

The comment eventually winds up with ‘I still say it’s Trump’s to lose’, which is a more modest prediction than ‘Trump is going to win’ and ‘Trump is going to win the largest percentage of the Democratic base since Reagan’, so were those not supposed to be predictions after all? They sure look like predictions.

@ I’m listening to Matt Lewis and Bill Scher engage in fairly good discussion on recent developments and you and Military Aardvark are parsing sentences. Those like j.s. who avoid my comments may not be aware of comments on this thread and others that do provide a great deal of evidence to support the assertion that Trump will win more Dem votes than any Republican since Reagan. That’s not a difficult claim to make generally, but your complaint has some substance. The Huffpost linked piece does provide some evidence. Try opening your ears, really: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/41250

Corey Robin @109

I chose with care the expression ‘It’s not clear to me in what sense [it] could count as a realignment’. It wasn’t clear then. It’s a lot clearer now. Is there a particular set of long established ideologies and interests that you think may be repudiated, or a particular new government orientation of ideologies and interests that you think may be propelled to replace it?

@ kidneystones, you’re a funny guy. As evidence for your certainty that Trump will win, you offer a pundit who says it is possible for Trump to win, as if the latter was the point in dispute. Of course it’s possible for Trump to win; it’s just not the likely outcome. Maybe you should grade those papers now?

@ 117 To be fair to my students, I should probably lie down first. But that probably won’t help. Far too much from me already.

kidneystones @76
Trump will … proclaim himself a kind of Hercules charged by the gods and the voters to cleanse the stables/temples and restore ordinary Americans to their rightful place as full equal citizens of their own nation of laws.

I think we’ve got the title for the campaign bio: Trump and the Augean Stables.

Layman @95

For both Oregon and Washington (and also New York), 1984 is the most recent year for ‘carried by a Republican Presidential candidate’; all three of them were carried by the Democratic candidate in 1988 (and in every election since).

@124 Fair enough. I’ve taken some time to compose a final post. And this is really is my final post

“How do you stop someone going ninety-miles an hour?”

“You don’t.”

Mika Brzezinki and Rush agree that winning votes matters more than delegates, or support from the media. Trump’s five victories following his smash 60 plus percent victory in NY stopped Ted Cruz dead. Wisconsin? Huh? More tellingly, as Rush notes, when could Ted expect to win big again? Like ever? Which leads to Hillary’s problems, problem Trump is certain to exploit. Here’s a preview of the Trump message to all voters, and Sanders voters in particular.

“The special interest fix was in from the beginning in both parties. It’s a rigged system. I [Trump] beat 17 men and women in a series of hard-fought contests. Governors, senators, Dr. Ben Carson, good people, some say the most competitive ever for either party.

Wall St., Goldman-Sachs, the big insurance companies who wrote, actually wrote, so much of the banking, trade, and health-care legislation for the Obama-Clinton democratic party, that made the rich far richer both in America and in China, are lined-up against you, the voter, behind Crooked Hillary Clinton, who shouldn’t even be allowed to run for office.

Crooked Hillary Clinton is the Jeb Bush of the Democratic party Low-energy, low. The difference is that Jeb isn’t crooked. But he’s the same candidate as Hillary. Everyone thought Jeb would win it all because no-nothing media types like George Will who nobody even reads said so. Didn’t happen. I didn’t want to run, but I had to. America needs to win again, another four years of failure, it’ll be too late.

Now it’s just down to two. I [Trump] beat all the other candidates and I did it, one by one by one. Until there were just three, well, really just one. And what a fighter. But even he fell in the end. Hillary only had to beat one – a socialist – and she couldn’t even do that, even with the 500 super-delegate advantage she had from the beginning. What a crooked system. Crooked Hillary is the candidate of a crooked system. Who chose Hillary Clinton? Nobody. Special interests chose Clinton, years ago as the Democratic candidate because they own her.

A year ago, the special interests thought they couldn’t lose. Clinton versus Bush – international companies win either way, their bets were covered. But then something special happened. Elevator ride boilerplate. And on the Democratic side, voters said wait a minute. We don’t want Hillary Clinton. That’s it? No choice? We don’t need Hillary Clinton. Democrats and Independents decided America needed someone who can’t be bought, someone who puts American jobs and Americans first, not people in China. Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton like a drum in primary after primary even when the system was rigged against him. In the end Goldman Sachs, Wall St. and the military hawks, and the political consultants stole Bernie’s votes and his victories, just like those protesters took the microphone away from Bernie at his own rally. Remember that? Bernie fought a good fight, but he was robbed. The people who voted for Bernie don’t matter to the special interests who paid for all those ads against Bernie and against me.

Won’t happen with me, folks. Won’t happen. Remember the former President of Mexico? The guy who dropped the f-bomb. When I first started talking about illegal immigration what did I say? We’re going to build the wall and Mexico is going to pay for it. When they told me about his f-bomb comment, what did I say? I said the wall just got ten feet higher. The know-nothing politically correct dishonest media went nuts. You can’t say that Guess what, the former president of Mexico just apologized, right about the same time voters chose me to defend America. He invited me to Mexico. That was very gracious of him. I’ll go. That’s what I do – I make deals. But I negotiate from a position of strength. I win. And that’s what America needs. America needs to win. That’s the kind of leadership America needs. America needs to win, again. Crooked Hillary, she would have apologized to foreign leaders, because she’s weak.

Does anybody really want 4 more years of NAFTAT, of TPPP, of American jobs going overseas, of stupid mistakes with Crooked Hillary who we know takes money from special interests and lies about it, and who claims to care about women, and then protects and enables the worst serial abuser of women in the WH ever? Is this what Americans want? Low-energy, no ideas, no jobs and no hope for their children? More wars? More young people in jail and on drugs because of a broken education system? No. America needs to win, again. We can do that. We can make America greater than it ever was before.

We’re going to make America Great again starting in November of this year.

Thank you. I love you. Don’t forget to vote.”

As Rush notes, the media loves Trump mostly because he sends ratings through the roof. Trump will continue to drive the media cycle. Even HRC supporters concede she’s a snore. Moreover, the most salient argument Trump has to offer is that HRC is the anointed candidate of an establishment hated and feared by many voters. Bernie is going to continue to push his issues right through to the convention, and HRC can’t win the general by running any/much further to her left. It’s a long post, but tis the last.

JHW @120

‘Second, economically disadvantaged white people (who, contrary to many media narratives, tend to vote Democratic at higher rates than economically advantaged white people) …’

Back in 2012, John Quiggin posted an analysis based on a dataset provided to him by Andrew Gelman, to this effect:
Non-white voters split 68D, 32R
White voters with annual incomes below $40K split 51D, 49R
White voters with annual incomes of $40k or over and with four-year college degrees split 53D, 47R
White voters with annual incomes of $40K or over and without four-year college degrees split 40D, 60R

(These four groups were constructed to be roughly equal in size; as far as I can tell from the pie chart John Quiggin provided, the three white groups are roughly equal in size and the non-white group somewhat larger — maybe 30-24-23-23?)

Van Jones explains why Trump will win. We hit some of the same points: https://www.facebook.com/vanjones/videos/vb.30042869909/10154143952024910/?type=2&theater

J-D Sorry, but I moved on from our short exchange at the beginning of 125. I’ve no interest in adding anything further.

kidneystones @131

Why do you say you’re sorry when you’re not?

On the prediction game, I think Trump indeed has a better shot than most people think because lots of things can happen in 6 months and he has proven himself to be rather good at this game. However, there is a big difference between the general election and the primary. In the primary, pundits were dismissing him but he was at the top of the polls almost the all time. Now, pundits still dismiss him but he is definitely not at the top of the polls. So he may have a decent shot (30% chance ?) but, at this point, he’s far from being the favorite.

Although, one thing I wonder is the turnout effect. Turnout is extremely low in the US (55% in 2012 vs around 80% in France). So demographics may favor Clinton but, with such a low turnout, this advantage might not be as important as we make it out to be (if anyone has some insights on this).

Finally, @JHW made a parallel between Trump and the French National Front (FN). I think it’s way off base. Le Pen is a typical far right guy in a way that Trump just isn’t. For god’s sake, one was a para in the Algerian war and may have actually tortured people himself while the other probably never tied his own shoes. Le Pen President is an order of magnitude scarier than Trump President. On the other hand, I also think that Le Pen never really thought he could win and was mostly having fun with us so there’s that.

Barry at 66: “I would say that I’m surprised by Robin’s comparison of Clinton to Nixon, but I’m more dismayed. IMHO it’s a symptom of a loosening grip on reality.”

Corey Robin: “IMHO, you should look at my comment at 38.”

I did. I can’t see anything informative about that comment. IMHO, in politics, saying that X and Y are like A and B should have some meat behind it.

Lee Arnold @44:

Just want to say, thanks for the Charles Wright quote. I recently graffitized it in our departmental hallway in riposte to a pretentious graffitizing of some other Charles Wright, a mere poetaster. (Just kidding)

Alan White @52:

“I did use the present political atmosphere in the US to help explain Kuhn in my philosophy of science class last night, since he argued that scientific revolutions possess many characteristics of political ones.”

Can you please expand a little on that? Interesting possibilities. (See Corey’s comment @110.) What exactly did you have in mind here? E.g., perhaps, a key component in the logical structure of a “theory of governance” is the conception of the role of government vis-a-vis the people: Hilary has a choice here. She can continue with the old neo-liberal theory wherein the role of government is understood as primarily to enable the rich to get richer, and to fall in line with whatever agenda the big corporations and rentiers want, or she can embrace Bernie’s revolution and reclaim the understanding of the role of government as (to use the expression Bruce Wilder mentioned twice in the other thread) a “countervailing force” to wealth and corporate power. But the idea of government as the means by which ethical principles are brought to bear on market interactions in defence of the powerless, who otherwise have no defenders, only becomes practically possible if a party’s winning of power is dependent not on the big donors, but on the people themselves (Bernie’s movement). I think it would be a big mistake if she chose to continue with the outdated “neo-liberal theory”. But I would be interested to hear what you and Kuhn were thinking about with regard to the nature of conceptual revolutions in the scientific and the practical political spheres. (And I think Bernie’s revolution is fundamentally a conceptual revolution.)

123: pretty sure HRC has a website where you could find out her message, as opposed to lazily making it up for her.

Barry: “would say that I’m surprised by Robin’s comparison of Clinton to Nixon, but I’m more dismayed. IMHO it’s a symptom of a loosening grip on reality.”

Yep.

Rich Puchalsky #141: “the gross cost of it would be $410 billion over ten years”

The gross cost of what would be $410 billion over ten years?

Rich Puchalsky at #141: “So I’ll just mention one detail. Bush’s Medicare expansion, if you measure by dollars spent, was a larger expansion than the ACA. CBO estimated the gross cost of it would be $410 billion over ten years, and that the net effect of ACA would be to save the government $140 billion over ten years. (Hmm, I wonder where those costs are being shifted to?)”

This is a really odd thing to say. The ACA represented a massive increase in social expenditures on health care access, so I’m assuming these numbers signify *net* impact on the federal deficit: the ACA reduced it and Medicare Part D increased it. Effectively, then, you are criticizing the ACA for being paid for. As to “where those costs are being shifted to,” part of the answer is individual and business taxpayers and part of the answer is health care providers via Medicare cost-cutting. Of course, the fact that Medicare Part D wasn’t paid for doesn’t mean that the bill never comes due, so we could ask the very same question about it.

The real significance of the ACA, of course, is not the dollars spent, but the expanded public commitment of the federal government to not just provide health care for the elderly (Medicare) or for the poor and disabled (pre-ACA Medicaid), but also to ensure that people with low incomes and people with expensive health care conditions can get health care coverage. There is lots that could be said about how the ACA could be much stronger in how it goes about accomplishing this goal, but presenting it as some sort of lesser analogue to Medicare Part D is, well, silly.

But don’t we need a Popular Front against a candidate

who just accused China of raping the United States,

who for no apparent reason at all just vindicated via Bobby Knight the dropping of atomic weaponry in Japan,

who has called for a ban against any one of the world’s Muslims from entering the US

who has people chanting that they’ll humiliate Mexicans into paying for a wall that will keep their rapists selves out of the US,

who accused American Muslims of celebrating in the thousands the destruction of the Twin Towers and thus incited violent hatred against an American minority,

who has said that American women should be punished for having had an abortion.

Just because some rather nasty Republican elites may join such a Popular Front against this terrifying demagogue does not seem to be any reason not to form one.

Rich Pulchasky #145: “I don’t see any historical criterion by which one makes a successful President and the other was a minor achievement.”

Then how do you argue that “Obama was not a very effective President” (#48)?

Lee: “Then how do you argue that “Obama was not a very effective President”?”

Obama has one and only one major accomplishment: the ACA. Bush Jr., if you evaluate his Presidency by the same general standards of major accomplishments, had three: Medicare expansion, the Iraq War, the extensive and lasting changes to surveillance/torture/War on Terror policy. Obviously this does not mean that I think that what Bush did was good.

Similarly, applying these same standards to other 20th century Presidents shows that quite a few of them had 3 or 4 major accomplishments. Going from Obama back to Teddy Roosevelt, there have been 19 Presidents (unless I miscounted) and the effective ones (TR, Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Reagan, Bush Jr., let’s leave out Nixon because of how he ended and Eisenhower and Clinton despite him in his way starting his own era and so on) have more than one big accomplishment. Even the ineffective ones often have one thing that they succeeded at.

“Obama has one and only one major accomplishment: the ACA. Bush Jr., if you evaluate his Presidency by the same general standards of major accomplishments, had three: Medicare expansion, the Iraq War, the extensive and lasting changes to surveillance/torture/War on Terror policy. ”

I think you’re going to have to offer some explanation of your criteria for ‘major accomplishment’.

re #153, “privation” should be “privatization”

“It is, to be sure, difficult to argue for anything when one’s side is constantly subjected to an expectation of an ultra-high burden of proof relative to the other.”

Especially if one spends one’s time whining about being asked to explain oneself rather than, well, explaining oneself.

“Ineffective:
– prospects for world peace, not improved
– civil liberties of Americans, not improved
– health care coverage, improved but less than it could have been
– economic estate of Americans, not improved
– outsized corporate power, not attenuated”

None of these are remotely close to a slam dunk, which means you’ll need to argue them if you want them to be accepted. I imagine there are a good many LBGT people who think their civil liberties are improved, and correctly attribute the improvement to Supreme Court nominations made by Obama rather than McCain or Romney, and to executive decisions not to defend DOMA, etc. I imagine there are people who lost their jobs in 2008 and 2009, and who have jobs now, and believe that to have something to do with the efforts if the administration. I imagine there are Iraqis who are not now being killed by American soldiers and airmen, who would be so killed under some other administration. You’re basically claiming a better counterfactual world, without bother to argue for it.

Edit. I tried to write “irony” in html format but the system swallowed it. Serves me right.

“Obama has one and only one major accomplishment: the ACA”

No, he did more than that.

For better or worse, he went “all in” on the bailouts (the ACA itself was part of this) after 2008 more than even Bush. People weren’t even prosecuted for fraud, which the GW Bush and the Reagan Justice Departments both did after smaller financial meltdowns.

The right charges that Obama interfered to prevent the enforcement of immigration laws. I am certain a deliberate policy of non-enforcement was done with laws against financial fraud, but I’m genuinely not sure about immigration, and suspect this is myth. But this did fuel the rise of Trump.

Obama probably kept the United States out of a major war with Iran and Russia. Based on his public statements, if his 2008 opponent, McCain had been elected the US would have gotten into a major war with Iran. Again based on their public statements, there was at least a greater risk of something like this happening in a Clinton or Romney administration.

There was also a bunch of smaller, mostly overdue, housekeeping stuff like diplomatic relations with Cuba.

One the main topic, looking at only major party US presidential candidates, the best parallel to Trump is probably William Jennings Bryan. Their personalities ara as different as you can get, as are their backgrounds, but their place in American politics of the time is pretty similar. But then their views on trade and probably monetary policy are polar opposites. Trump takes McKinley’s policies but gets politically positioned as Bryan. If there was an internet in 1896, and an 1896 version of “Crooked Timber” with the same types of commentators, all loyal to the Republican Party, you would be getting similar types of comments.

For Hilary Clinton, I’m stumped. Roscoe Conkling? But he was never nominated. Maybe Adlai Stevenson, which is more flattering. Or James Buchanan. But she is pretty much the continuity candidate in this contest.

I’m really mystified that more than one person has now listed finding and killing Osama Bin Laden as one of Obama’s major accomplishments. Other Presidents may have made policy, shepherded great realignments, and thought up and carried out initiatives, but this President did better: under his direction we found and killed a terrorist. I have to go back to “Tippiecanoe and Tyler Too” for a cognate to this one. I guess that the American classics never get old.

” I have to go back to “Tippiecanoe and Tyler Too” for a cognate to this one.”

Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh.

“and halfheartedly ended wars started by other Presidents as well.”

Isn’t this precisely what you credited Nixon for, in your original post?

imo the leftist crowd critical of obama would be more effective by focusing on a few key issues, such as the rent is too damn high problem.

Then there’s the different criterion advanced by that great statesman [cough] H. Kissinger:

For men become myths, not by what they know, nor even by what they achieve, but by the tasks they set for themselves. (A World Restored, p.322)

I was wondering when Ze K would chime in with the view from Kim Jong Un, or something…

LFC #171: “previous reference to Osama bin Laden”

Perhaps I should have specified “positive and lasting social accomplishments” at #44 to avoid confusing Rich Puchalsky at #48.

I wouldn’t call the elimination of bin Laden a major accomplishment (although, if there occurred recovery of information that may have a significant impact, it might be, how would I know). I was just trying to figure out the criteria by which Rich includes some things, and excludes others.

So let’s try it from a different angle. Let’s say that the Iraq War is indeed a major accomplishment, along with the other examples he listed at #48 that meet the “general standards of major accomplishments” (his phrase, #150).

(Now, I wouldn’t normally call the Iraq War a major accomplishment. Or at least, I wouldn’t normally claim this, to a bunch of educated readers. Because then, we’d be obligated to entertain useless inferences, such as maintaining that George W. Bush was more accomplished than Barack Obama.)

But let’s adopt Puchalsky’s usage that major accomplishments can be good or bad.

So then the question is: what are Rich Puchalsky’s “general standards” for these “major accomplishments”?

Is it changes in government expenditure? No, Obama did that — but he doesn’t meet the standards.

Helping or hurting people? Obama did — but he doesn’t meet the standards of enacting Medicare 2003.

Starting, ending, avoiding big wars? Obama avoided at least one (with Iran, a war which the GOP wanted badly) — but he doesn’t meet the standards.

Deal with big economic issues? Obama did — but he doesn’t meet the standards.

So what are the possible “general standards of major accomplishments” which remain?

Generating headlines? Being listed in an elementary-school history book? The acclaim of pundits? Notice or notoriety, in short?

Well then, eliminating bin Laden might qualify…

But alas, that cannot be it, either.

After Rich Puchalsky triumphantly absconded from the illuminating the mystery with his dizzying fait accompli at #161 — “If you can’t figure out what I mean by ‘major accomplishment’, then it isn’t worth my time to explain further” — he came back to inform us at #166 that he is “really mystified that more than one person has now listed finding and killing Osama bin Laden as one of Obama’s major accomplishments.”

Therefore, the “general standards of major accomplishments” do not include widespread notice or notoriety, either.

Mystification, all around!

@18: “And Nixon appears to have believed that old Joe bought the election for his son.”

Nixon thought then and later that he wuzrobbed, and put it about that while the election had been stolen from him in Illinois, he nobly Put the Country First and did not dispute the end result. In fact the GOP disputed the result vigorously in the courts and the press, without success. Nixon distanced himself from these efforts, but his aides were heavily involved and there was no way he was unaware or otherwise discouraged said efforts. “Old Joe’s” determination to put his son in the White House kept Nixon out of there for another eight years, so we have him to thank for that.

JHW upstream:

“There are many, many problems with the blithe thought that Trump is the populist hero who will rally the people disadvantaged by globalization into revolt against liberal and conservative elites.”

Here’s another: the people voting for Trump aren’t the people disadvantaged by globalization, exactly: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/

He may want to present himself as on the side of the little guy, but the real appeal, as far as I can tell, is to white male resentment. That resonates with the Republican base, and Trump got a lot of help from Republican elite bungling. It boggles the mind to think that it might work with the electorate as a whole. Whatever HRC’s deficiencies, I don’t think she’s as inept as the Republicans were this time around. (Pretty sure Reagan would clean her clock, but he’s dead.)

I’ve had my mind boggled too many times by the American electorate to say never, but damn, it would be a thing to see. Glad I kept my Canadian citizenship.

There is one similarity between Trump and McGovern: both are the most electable of the candidates vying for their party’s nomination. McGovern was much more popular, in all the polls of the time, than his rivals, Humphrey and Muskie. This is slightly less true of Trump – even in May, Kasich still wins, supposedly, over Clinton, which is something that Trump has never done. On the other hand, Kasich loses to Sanders, which I take to mean that eventually he’d lose to Clinton. 1972 was Nixon’s year – the odd thing about the paranoia that sparked watergate is that Nixon could, for once, be comfortable in an election. But that was impossible for him to do. In that sense, Nixon might be a bit like Clinton. I am hoping that, for the general, she takes cues from Obama.
This should be a walk.

Footnote to JimV (#185): I heard the debate on the radio (we didn’t have a TV) and I thought Nixon won. Less information.

As for earlier comments on Nixon-hatred – although he got almost 50% of the vote in 1960, he always generated more animus than most of his contemporaries; no one _hated_ JFK or Stevenson or Ike or Lodge or Rockefeller or even LBJ (then) with the same intensity. And by 1962, when Nixon lost the California gubernatorial race (and then lashed out at the press “You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more”), college students were sitting around singing (to the tune “Delia’s Gone,” as performed by Bud and Travis, IIRC) “Nixon’s Gone, One more Round, Nixon’s Gone, One more round . . .” His recovery between 1962 and 1968 adumbrated his almost equal recovery after 1974 – you gotta admire the man’s resilience!

When the U.S. finally withdraws from Iraq, we can decide then who to credit.

@184
Sorry but this is not at all accurate.

First – just because most of the people doing X are not Ys does not mean that Ys are not overwhelmingly doing X. Even if Silver is correct in his analysis, it doesn’t prove his thesis. Second, let us remind ourselves that Silver’s record this election cycle has been spotty – at best. Personally I think this cycle has been an embarrassment for him and his team. And the analysis you link to is nothing better. Most of his analysis breaks down once you properly account for the the relevant denominators (e.g. he compares absolute vote totals from a 2 way race to those in a many way race) and group identities (e.g. he compares incomes of most older trump voters to mostly younger sanders voters as if this was on face instructive, or his total failure to take the R-D divide seriously).

But more significantly: working class is not equivalent to low income, not even by proxy, and the implication here that it does derails the whole piece.

Regarding globalization:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/upshot/donald-trumps-strongest-supporters-a-certain-kind-of-democrat.html

I don’t think you can explain those geographic patterns without accounting for trade and globalization (which keep in mind also mean something different to your average Trump voter than they likely do to you). If it is true that “the people voting for Trump aren’t the people disadvantaged by globalization” then who are the people disadvantaged by globalization voting for? Clinton?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/upshot/the-geography-of-trumpism.html

Look at the findings on non-HS diploma, mobile homes, and labor force participation rate. Just as our theories about trade preferences would suggest: Trump has support from the low-skill worker most vulnerable to foreign competition.

The general finding has been that the strongest levels of support for Trump come from the demographic segments and geographic areas of America that have seen absolute declines over the medium term (in terms of life expectancy for the former, and social-economic conditions for the latter). Given this, your comment is an encapsulation of the sort of dismissive perspective that rallies support to Trump. You state that his support derives from “white male resentment” as if that were strictly incompatible with him having support from “the little guy.” The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of white males who consider themselves among that latter category, and no amount of ‘awareness’ of white privilege or whatever is going to restore their dying and depressed communities.

Also I want to strongly echo the argument that killing Osama bin Laden was NOT a major accomplishment.

How is the global War on Terror doing, on balance? Would you say that we have increased or decreased the dangers and incidence of terrorism world-wide?

Reflect on this before you decide to buy into the propaganda.

Jeffrey@192 — great comment

In thinking about Obama’s accomplishments, you have to put it in the perspective of the historical moment he came to power. By some kind of ‘normal times’ yardstick, he was a pretty good president — no big scandals, some significant if not historic legislative accomplishments, etc. (I don’t think that in the long run the ACA will appear historic — it increased subsidies to health insurance for the individual market and low-income people, but didn’t fundamentally change the health care system).

But he came to power just as the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression was happening, a disaster that could be seen as fundamentally discrediting a lot of the shibboleths of capitalism and neo-liberal governance and opening the door for something new. He came to power with very large majorities in both houses of Congress.

Overall, his policies and governance had quite a lot of continuity with neo-liberal Clintonite policies of the 1990s (he hired the entire crowd) and frankly even with GW Bush’s domestic policies. It’s not that he was a bad president, but he didn’t shift course fundamentally on the bad direction the country was moving in, when it appeared the financial crisis and the loss of the Iraq war might have offered the opportunity to do so.

JeffreyG @192

Both the sources you cite give some support for the view that racial resentment is a significant source of Trump support.

I don’t think anyone here is denying that racial resentment is a significant source of Trump support. I don’t follow?

My impression of President Obama (worth of course what nobody has paid for it) is that as the first Black President at a time when racial divisions are still bitter, one of his primary objectives was not to give conservatives and racists any ammunition to further those racial divisions, by meeting them more than halfway in legislative negotiations; not appearing vindictive towards domestic political opponents nor soft towards foreign opponents; and not pursuing any radical policy changes. He didn’t want to give them any plausible excuse to say, “See, having a Black President is a terrible catastrophe. Let’s never do this again.” Or so I think, maybe because that would my greatest fear if I were the first Black President of the USA. So I am inclined to consider his moderately successful tenure in office as a significant historical accomplishment – not as great as, but analogous to, that of Jackie Robinson.

“I long ago decided that since some people were never going to understand no matter how much I explained”

Someone with a bit more self-awareness – or substantially less arrogance – might begin to suspect that the problem was closer to home. You’re a smart guy, Rich P, but you’re an ass, too. Some of what you have to say is interesting, but a good deal of it is right up there with taking your ball home if you don’t like how the game is going.

Btw giving Richard Nixon “credit” for ending the Vietnam War is at best dubious and actually pretty absurd, considering he and Kissinger, in the name of “peace with honor,” prolonged the war for a few years after taking office at the cost of approx. 20,000 additional US soldiers killed and a much higher number of Vietnamese and Cambodians (via inter alia the secret bombing and then invasion of Cambodia). Kissinger and Le Duc Tho shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the ’73 agreement, something that I think prob tarnished the prize for a quite a while. Given Nixon and Kissinger’s “priors” and worldview and assumptions about US ‘credibility’ blah blah, they cdn’t have pulled out instantly, but the whole thing was prolonged in an agonizing way. No pt relitigating the Vietnam War, but really.

I think we need to differentiate between ‘major accomplishment’ in terms of overcoming domestic political resistance, and ‘major accomplishment’ in terms of geopolitical/policy success, defined in terms of outcomes.

Also LFC is on the nose wrt Nixon in Vietnam. There were many times when he chose to prolong the war for political expedience; at least one of those cases arguably amounted to treason.

@Rich Puchalsky

“I long ago decided that since some people were never going to understand no matter how much I explained…”

When your “explanation” fails to deal with basic political, economic and social realities, the audience ain’t the problem.

PatinIowa (@84) wrote:
‘He may want to present himself as on the side of the little guy, but the real appeal, as far as I can tell, is to white male resentment.’

JeffreyG (@192) wrote:
‘Sorry but this is not at all accurate.’

I (@198) wrote:
‘Both the sources you cite give some support for the view that racial resentment is a significant source of Trump support.’

JeffreyG (@200) wrote:
‘I don’t think anyone here is denying that racial resentment is a significant source of Trump support. I don’t follow?’

I think it’s odd, when you’re contradicting somebody, to cite in support references that largely agree with the person you’re contradicting.

To JeffryG at 192:

A couple of questions. I am genuinely curious.

With respect to the first article from the Times: “The estimates reflect the race as it was on Dec. 21, when Mr. Trump led a surging Ted Cruz, 33 percent to 20 percent.” Has anything about Trump voters changed since then? The percentages certainly have.

The article also analyzes Trump’s appeal as follows:

“His geographic pattern of support is not just about demographics — educational attainment, for example. It is not necessarily the typical pattern for a populist, either. In fact, it’s almost the exact opposite of Ross Perot’s support in 1992, which was strongest in the West and New England, and weakest in the South and industrial North.

But it is still a familiar pattern. It is similar to a map of the tendency toward racism by region, according to measures like the prevalence of Google searches for racial slurs and racist jokes, or scores on implicit association tests.”

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on there. I’m guessing that the data about class rings to you and that the data on their racial attitudes (which has its flaws) doesn’t. Is that so? How come?

The later Times article is more up to date, and explicitly downplays racial animus, so a little more on point. But to take West Virginia for example, is it globalization that’s harmed them as opposed to mechanization and de-unionization of extractive industries? (I imagine many believe that it’s globalization. But is it true? And if it isn’t true, does that matter?)

Meanwhile, to the question, “If it is true that “the people voting for Trump aren’t the people disadvantaged by globalization” then who are the people disadvantaged by globalization voting for? Clinton?”

40% of the American working class is Latino or African American. African Americans and Latinos are voting for Clinton in droves, and many of them have been hammered by globalization just as badly as the rest of the working class, arguably worse. Not many working class women are voting for Trump. So yeah, it would seem people disadvantaged by globalization are voting for Clinton. It would be really interesting if we saw Trump attracting some non-white working class votes. Think it will happen? If it doesn’t, how does that affect the “Trump’s appeal is to the losers in the globalization of the US economy” thesis?

Among white working class Democrats who voted in the Democratic primaries, Sanders did especially well. I found it interesting that Sanders got more white working class votes in New Hampshire (as an absolute number) than Trump did, even though more Republicans voted in their primary than Dems did. I have no idea what that means. I have no idea if it’s true in other states, as the number of Republican candidates diminished. Do you?

It’s emotion and mood affiliation, all the way down the thread.

= = = I will say I’m just the tiniest bit unclear how losing a war and being driven out counts as a major accomplishment.

The PNAC “stir the beehive” theory was to pick a likely candidate nation in the Middle East and smash it utterly to serve as an example to others. Mission Accomplished I’d say; that the war suppliers billed $750 billion or so to the USG was just a side bonus. Too bad the 2nd half of the concept – to rebuild the smashed nation as a shining example of libertarian governance – didn’t quite work out as hoped, but one has to keep one’s eye on the main goal.

I do agree with Rich P. and CR that the inability to objectively assess what the Bush/Cheney administration achieved against their goals is a blind spot in the self-styled reality-based community. Once Cheney self-selected himself for Vice President and the ‘compassionate conservative’ line was rolled out they never talked about what those goals were again, but based on what Cheney and the groups surrounding him wrote/said in the 1995-2000 period Bush/Cheney/Addington/Rove were clearly one of the most successful administrations in US history.

Unfortunately the goals they set out to achieve have IMHO (and I suspect the opinion of most posters here) been disasters for the long-term future of the United States and its general population, but (1) they achieved those goals (2) Dick “Smash the World to Alleviate My Fear” Cheney would disagree (3) the beneficiaries of the incredible concentration of wealth in the 1% / 0.1% over the last 15 years would certainly disagree.

As you can tell above I tend it think that the 43rd Presidency was really the Cheney/Addington administration, with Bush serving the one purpose that those two could never achieve: being elected in a free vote. However it was clear that Bush himself did want to privatize Social Security and thus destroy it by draining all the money to his social peers, and in this he was thwarted. Still, plenty of draining and transfer of government functions and cash to private interests did occur.

Cranky @219 — I actually had Vietnam more in mind, but sure, it works in both cases.

I think that Cranky Observer @219 substantially has it right. It’s not helpful, when evaluating politicians as politicians, to say “How effective were they at achieving my goals [as a leftist]?” Because the politician had their own goals, and that’s what they were working towards. Nixon got away with treason, continued a war when it suited him and ended America’s engagement in it when it suited him and got a Nobel Peace prize for his minion and escaped military defeat without it destroying him politically, and if that isn’t a political achievement, I don’t know what is. It certainly meets the criteria of having a major effect on people, being something that the President had a major hand in, and being something that he intended to do.

To review: Lee claimed that Presidents only got to do one or two big things, I claimed that many Presidents did 3 or 4 big things, and that Obama hadn’t been a very effective President since he did one big thing at the most (the ACA). People who don’t get this had better get used to the recurring puzzlement they’re going to feel as this becomes the accepted historical judgement of his Presidency.

Yes, because understanding the present is never a good idea. It might interfere with any number of leisure time activities. While understanding the past is best attempted after a long period of forgetfulness or by people, who were never there.

One accomplishment that Obama may end up getting “credit for” (if that’s the right word) is significantly expanding the role of the Presidency via executive action. It will likely crucially depend on whether the next President follows in that example or not, but the track record is now established and even if the courts block some of it, its a tool available for future holders of that seat.

This is perhaps the ultimate example of a tool that you love in the hands of a leader you support but hate in the hands of one you don’t. Either way, its a genie which for the time being Obama has let out of the bottle.

Jake @ 228

This is getting really annoying.

No one but Obama knows what Obama “really” wanted, because no one but Obama has direct, unmediated access to Obama’s mind.

We do have evidence in the form of actual policies and offers to negotiate policy enactments, and Rich has told you how he has constructed inferences from some of that evidence. His rules of inference have been made transparent and he cannot do more than that.

I think Rich P is correct– Obama wanted to cut SS and the evidence for this is that he proposed it. The burden of proof should be on the 11 dimensional chess aficionados to show that he was really just showing how unreasonable the Republicans were. Of course the problem with that,, even if it were true, is that he reinforced the Very Serious People claim that SS cutting is what serious people want.

= = = In most circles the concepts of “ask for more at the beginning than you’re = = =

Which is not the same thing as “offer to give up substantially more at the beginning of the negotiation than you will ultimately be willing to give away”. Not from the perspective of logic, rhetoric, or negotiation theory. Once you make that offer to give away in a 2-party negotiation you are guaranteed any final agreement you sign will be for that – or more likely less.

Once you make that offer to give away in a 2-party negotiation you are guaranteed any final agreement you sign will be for that – or more likely less.

How does this explain the lack of cuts to Social Security? We know Republicans wanted to cut it, Obama offered proposals that included cuts to Social Security, yet somehow it didn’t end up getting cut.

Ah, OK.

So my theory is that there was no Grand Bargain to be had because the two parties were too far apart, and the Republicans in congress were opposed to an agreement on principle. And that Obama knew this, so figured that the best he could get was to make the lack of a bargain appear to be solely the Republican’s fault. And that the best way to do that was to make an offer that seemed to give them a bunch of what they wanted but that he knew that they would never accept.

Pat, couple of things:

First – racism has been with us for quite a while, so if you want to explain a novel outcome with a factor that has been present for centuries, you need some thesis about how that factor is in flux or changes. Additionally, racism is not (and never has been) a static thing – the logic readily shifts to meet local political needs. That is to say, we need to be attentive to how racism is implicated by political and/or economic factors. I don’t think it is either analytically satisfactory nor politically productive to sit with the notion that the energy behind Trump’s campaign can be largely explained by this thing ‘racism’. Even if racism does most of the work, what informs that racism today? My thesis is that the decline of the white working class seen with the precipitous decline in manufacturing over the past 2 decades is a significant part of this story. I think that the sort of anti-foreign bias that can arise from opposition to globalization dovetails quite smoothly with the fundamental logic of racism, potentially to a compounding effect.

Second – the ‘working class’ includes patterns of employment that are exposed to foreign competition to differing degrees. Due to a variety of reasons – especially including white racial bias in the unions themselves – manufacturing was (and still is) heavily dominated by whites. The whole promise of a middle class lifestyle open to the HS educated in the manufacturing sector was largely reserved for whites, and white communities (built around the model). Minorities were often excluded from this path to upward mobility, and thus the loss here is much less salient in those communities. Instead, minorities have been much more concentrated in the services, which have geographic specificity and thus are less vulnerable to foreign competition compared to manufacturing. I tried to find statistics on this sort of service-manufacturing split yesterday, but I don’t think this is in any of the exit polls.

Third – I am taking as a given that Trump is a Republican candidate, and therefore will be associated with and himself espouse many ideas and policies that are actively off-putting to select demographics. Any trends that we talk about have to take the party lines into account – i.e. the relevant comparison group for Trump’s support is not his Democratic opponent, but instead former Republican candidates (those with different perspectives on globalization/trade). FWIW this was one of my major problems with Silver’s analysis above – it acts as if party ID was highly fluid, and I don’t think we have evidence for that supposition. The implication here is that if we take party ID to be fairly sticky, I don’t see the lack of significant support from minorities to be much of a problem with my thesis, because (in addition to pt 2) I take that lack of support to be a given so long as Trump identifies as an R. Especially so with the African-American community – Trump’s birthirism against Obama combined with the strong support among the AfAmerican community for the Democratic Party is sufficient explanation here.

Fourth – related to the above, we are actually seeing a surprising amount of support for Trump among Latinos. From what I gather, much of this is actually about immigration, with Latino-American citizens having a more conservative approach to immigration and thus finding Trump appealing. This trend is strongest among Mexican-Americans in the Southwest. All of this is in spite of his rhetoric! But this makes sense from the perspective of simple material class interest, and supports the thesis that support for Trump derives from concerns about globalization and foreign competition. Pay attention to this in the general: I think this is the true test of my thesis here, because theoretically this should be the camp where we see some of the greatest pro-Trump sentiment by way of material interest, yet his prior rhetoric & associations make this something of a hard case.

Fifth- I ask you to take a read of the end of this interview of Sanders by NPR: http://www.npr.org/2016/05/05/476767525/transcript-nprs-interview-with-bernie-sanders ; and go along to the click-through about PA. Basically they ask S about some areas of PA that have voted Dem fairly consistently, but now look as if they might turn to Trump. They don’t have good statistics on this, but my guess is that trade/globalization helps explain this sort of shift from Sanders->Trump (now that Sanders looks to be non-viable). Again, this is something to pay attention to as we get better info from PA.

Finally – I think that it is tempting for leftists and liberals to reduce Trump to racism as much as possible in order to minimize their responsibility for his rise. Clinton and NAFTA are a major part of the story here, as is the pro-finance agenda that liberal democrats have championed. As satisfying as it may be to explain Trump as the product of racism, this does not allow for a productive political analysis in a number of ways. 1) it satisfies our inherent biases by letting the blame fall almost entirely on Trump supporters for their moral wrong (racism, sexism); thus 2) distracting us from the critical enterprise of discerning how our own failures have played a part in the phenomenon ; while also 3) contributing to a poisoning of our political discourse – making Trump support seen as inherently toxic to a certain set of liberal voters, further impeding productive political discourse.

I worry most about (3) in the long term. Back in college, my friends and I would rest assured that the answer to ‘what do you do about all the racists’ was ‘well they will soon all be dead’. But when I got out into the real world, I realized how stupid that really was. The thing is, these people are not going anywhere. We can’t completely write off a large segment of the country – it is politically unsustainable. Consider the sort of contempt that is shown towards these people, from both the left and the right, and then consider Trump’s ability to command attention and his rebuke of ‘political correctness’. Part of the Trump phenomenon is related to this feeling that ‘normal Americans’ struggle to get their voices heard in the national discourse. You can come at this thinking that if people think Donald Trump is championing something close to their interests, then people must be fools (or worse). But also consider that that judgement about Trump is a relative one: if ‘normal Americans’ find themselves closer to someone like Trump than any of the relevant alternatives, what does it say about those alternatives on offer?

I worry about the future of this country. I think that the US is on a decline in the macro-historical sense, with financialization and the concentration of wealth among elites as some of the symptoms/signs. The combination of institutional failure and the ‘shrinking pie’ associated with oligarchy proper prepares the ground for some terribly reactionary politics. If the left cannot articulate a viable alternative to the current model of financial capitalism, then the right alternative will likely win out.

@ 239 This is generally very good. Van Jones (linked above) argues that a critical mass of rust-belt African-American voters in states devastated by NAFTA will find Trump the better candidate. Your own suggestion re: Mexican-American support for Trump is provocative. I’m very curious to see how that plays out.

“If the left cannot articulate a viable alternative…” Why this needs repeating speaks volumes about this cycle. And you’re completely right to do so. My point is that the political left, such as it is, has done precisely that. Moreover, the left has a winning candidate in Bernie Sanders. The only possible way forward, you argue, is for the left to present a ‘viable alternative to the current model of financial capitalism’ Yes. Yes. Yes.

When Ted Cruz attempted to engage a Trump supporter Cruz was asked “Where’s your Goldman Sachs jacket?” That’s this killer question and the election in a nut-shell. Cruz’s undeclared low-interest loans from Goldman Sachs, his wife’s career in banking, and his dishonesty in general killed Cruz’s credibility with voters. Sanders carries no such baggage. Unfortunately for the Democrats and despite every effort from the GOP elite, an avowed anti-NAFTA nationalist and socially-liberal democrat wants the WH. If Dems do not present “a viable alternative” (the key term being viable), the outcome in November is clear.

Many voters are not super-excited about the financialization of the economy or the Democratic Party’s role therein, TPP, etc. But to combi-quote PT Barnum and HL Mencken, if the American people are so easily fooled as to elect Trump they deserve to get it good and hard.

I don’t expect that to happen.

@242 I’m slightly curious about which blogs. I’ve been reading the right this morning and the big story is Ben Rhodes feeding ’27-year old reporters who literally know nothing’ the O party line’ (Rhodes word’s evidently). Noted earlier, Trump’s promise to blow-up the existing system is now finally being seen for what it is – an imminent existential threat to those who gather at the trough to purchase influence and disseminate the reasons why ‘nothing can be done’ to change the irrevocable course of more of the same only worse.

@243 This is better from you, but Clinton and the Dems didn’t ‘play a role’ in NAFTA, or the removal of Glass-Steagal, any more than O ‘played a role’ in HAMP, sidelining Volker, or preserving the Cheney-Bush financial and security apparatus.

Let the strong-arming begin. The lobbyists who funnelled millions into NEVERTRUMP are now making it perfectly clear to rank and file members that the money tap will be turned off permanently to anyone (Dem or Republican). The division between GOP elites, and their financial enablers is going to see the bright light of day, a development I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. Romney, McCain, and a host of others are planning to stay away from Cleveland. Jeb Bush promises to help elect HRC by refusing to support the GOP nominee. This is wonderful stuff and a wonderful moment.

Obama would have given his back teeth to be one to save Social Security. The challenge many Democrats will face is whether they can pull the lever for a GOP candidate who wants the same thing, and who can actually get it done. Sanders remains far and away the better choice. Like Trump, Bernie’s skills have been persistently undervalued and derided.

The elites of both parties, banking, and the media live in a world completely removed from that of ordinary Americans, especially households earning less than 100k a year. HRC must convince voters that she’s somebody new, not the figure tightly-linked to O’s disastrous foreign policy failures – the Iran deal, Libya, etc. Blood-thirsty liberals (yes, such beasts exist) brag about HRC’s Libya regime-change, the immense increase in drone strikes under the Dems, and other odious features of the Cheney-Clinton solution to world problems.

This year, I suspect, the voters get it.

Ze K @215

‘“A map of the tendency toward racism by region” sounds like bs.’

What Seth Stephens-Davidowitz reported was an analysis of the percentage of Google searches (from 2004 to 2007) which used the word ‘nigger(s)’. The regional variation he found, whatever you call it, can be mapped.

‘And even if does somehow reflect this alleged ‘tendency’, perhaps you need to dig deeper and find the underlying reasons for it.’

There must be some explanation for why people from some regions are more likely to use the term ‘nigger(s)’ in their Google searches than people from other regions. ‘There is a higher proportion of racists in those regions’ may not be the only explanation, but it is one possible explanation (and if it’s correct, it raises the question of why there is a higher proportion of racists in some regions than others).

kidneystones @216

‘On everything but politics, the NYT is a more or less reliable source. Political polling? Forget it.’

In 2012 there were people insisting that the published poll results were systematically distorted in favour of the Democratic candidate and that the Republican candidate’s chances were vastly greater than the published poll results suggested. Res ipsa loquitur.

@ Jake

So, when Republicans say that Obama didn’t try to deal with them fairly, you think they’re right? You agree that he didn’t bargain with them in good faith?

If I’m casting a vote, and if my choice lies between a candidate who will probably try to do mostly beneficial things if elected but will probably mostly fail to achieve them and a candidate who will probably try to do mostly harmful things if elected but will probably succeed in achieving them, then I’m going to vote for the former over the latter. It’s important to know what kind of things a candidate will attempt if elected. Unfortunately it can be hard to tell. History tells me that what candidates say they will do is of strictly limited value as a guide. In the specific case of a US Presidential election, the best guide I know of is found in the past activities of Democratic Presidents and of Republican Presidents. I note that both parties have changed over time, so I would give more weight to recent Presidencies than to past ones.

In 2016, I have the feeling that a Trump Presidency would deviate from past Republican precedent more than most Presidencies do. But there’s not much evidence to indicate which particular kinds of deviation to expect (having appropriately discounted what the candidate says, because of the past experience of how little value that kind of evidence has). So basing a comparative evaluation of the two possible outcomes on the past records of the two parties still seems the best option available, whatever its limitations.

Jake: “I think that he bargained with them in good faith for a long time, eventually realized that there was no deal to be had, and started trolling them instead.”

You’re aware we’re talking about events in 2011, right? How long is ‘a long time’?

“If Donald Trump is the George McGovern of the GOP, what does that make Hillary Clinton?”

Well, she can’t be Nixon. Daniel Ellsburg already said that Edward Snowden is Ellsburg, which makes Obama Nixon (which is far too eerie of a parallel for those of us who supported the president, even though Cambodia isn’t Syria and Kent State isn’t the Occupy sites).

So… Ford? Does anyone know if SNL is doing a good Hillary Clinton?

256: Obama tried to negotiate with the Republicans on many subjects besides the future of Social Security.

And if both the House and the Senate are controlled (or blocked) by a party that has effective discipline then there’s not much the President can directly do. His only option is to try to crack the other party’s united front, and “trolling” to put pressure on the most loosely attached members of the other party is a way of doing that. Turned out it didn’t work as well as hoped, but it’s not clear what alternative there was.

BW: “And, somewhere behind the curtain on the stage where the drama unfolds there’s the functional machinery of state and economy, the technical capacities of command-and-control regimes.”

And somewhere behind *that* there’s a completely inhuman machinery — a system that humans have huge inputs into, that we only vaguely understand — that the human state and economy depends on. Technical capacities at least are created by people who share an idea of storytelling: natural ones are really unconcerned with storytelling at all.

People don’t understand how much we lucked out — “lucked out” is of course a storytelling term, which is kind of unavoidable — with CFCs and the ozone layer. In one sense, it always had to work out so that when we stopped emitting lots of CFCs, the problem slowly went away, because that’s how physics turned out to work. In another sense, we had no idea that physics worked that way when we caused the problem in the first place. If the physics had always been different there would have been very little we could have done.

People have no general idea how to prioritize what’s important when threats are so far out of the area of the usual human ability to respond to threats. “Our next leader may turn out to be a bad tyrant” — that one has been around since the earliest tribal groupings, I’d imagine. It’s immediately understandable. “The rich are screwing over the poor.” If you go back to, say, the Book of Amos, written somewhere around 750 BC, you’ll find the source of many of the same social justice tropes used today. These things are important, though it’s almost certain that someone will misread this to claim that I’m saying that they aren’t important. But they are not the critical crisis of our time (the concept of a crisis is, again, storytelling, etc.)

Here’s a poem that’s pretty much about the whole storytelling thing.

Jake: “Turned out it didn’t work as well as hoped, but it’s not clear what alternative there was.”

Sometimes I amuse myself by imagining how FDR would have handled his crises if the only alternatives really were those alternatives imaginable by current Democrats. “The Supreme Court is ruling against me — there’s nothing we can do.” “People are saying I’m a socialist. I’d better back down: I can’t be divisive.” “”The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and then try nothing else.”

bob mcm: “If allegiance to the system makes necessary change impossible, such allegiance is immoral.”

Yep. Too bad non-alleegiance to the system doesn’t make necessary change possible either. It does let you stop defending the system, though.

If the current democrats had defeated an incumbent president by winning 57% of the popular vote (and 90% of the electoral vote!) they’d probably be willing to consider many more drastic alternatives.

” I mean, FDR had 4% more of the popular vote.”

…and a not-insane Republican Party.

Hmm… FDR had well over twice the margin of victory. And then his party gained seats in the midterm election, giving him two-thirds majorities in both houses.

But the reason Obama didn’t get more done is because he was too scared to rock the boat. Right.

bruce wilder 05.08.16 at 2:38 am @ 272:
‘There’s a really interesting profile of one of Obama’s speechwriters and foreign policy advisors….’

So, who are supposed to take that story seriously, and who are supposed to laugh up their sleeves?