So said Adam Smith a couple of centuries ago, and he will, I hope, be proved right, in the US, and elsewhere in the world. Trump and the Republican majority in Congress and (imminently) in the Supreme Court will, in all probability, repeal Obamacare, restore and expand the Bush tax cuts for the rich, stop action on climate change, overturn Roe v Wade, expand deportation and more.
On the other hand, there’s no sign that he will attempt to overturn marriage equality, and every likelihood of failure if he does try. Considering that, as of 2008, Obama and Clinton were still “evolving” on the issue, that’s an indication of progress that can’t be reversed.
On climate change, Trump can ignore the Paris agreement and appoint a climate denier to run the EPA, but he can’t stop the decline of coal-fired power or the disappearance of coal mining jobs. This is one of many areas where his promise to Make America Great Again is going to fall flat. As far as places like West Virginia are concerned, the big impact of Trump’s victory is to ensure that the Federal money that might have eased the transition away from coal won’t be coming. And, if the Chinese government is smart, they’ll be able to present themselves as the real leaders of the world on this issue (and not just this one).
Looking beyond Trump, what can be done, can, mostly, be undone. Tax cuts can be reversed, laws can be repealed, action on climate change can be accelerated. Of course, that requires big electoral victories and the Republicans will be doing their best to build up barriers to voting. But none of those barriers would be enough to offset a 5 per cent swing, and that could be achieved just by turning out more voters.
The political reality, however, is that the initiative is with the other side, not only in the US, but in the UK, Australia and much of Europe. The collapse of neoliberalism as a dominant ideology (though not yet as a policy reality), has so far favored the tribalist right rather than the still disorganised left. The tribalists now have the chance to prove that their policies can work, or be perceived to work. If Trump can create and sustain an illusion of restored national greatness, as Putin has done (so far) in Russia, it won’t matter much what the Democrats do. The same will be true in Britain if Brexit can be made to work, or at least be seen to work.
At least in the short term, there’s not much the left can do to influence this. But there’s lots to be done away from short-term politics, from organizing to protect the groups most vulnerable to Trumpism to working out long-term policy alternatives to neoliberalism.
* As Marcel Proust and (by titling his post correctly) Noel Maurer have pointed out, the correct quote is “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation”. At least I didn’t repeat my mistake of attributing it to Dr Johnson, who fills for the let 18th C the niche occupied by Lincoln in the 19th century and Einstein in the mid-20th “default source for half-remembered or apocryphal quotes”.
{ 152 comments }
bob mcmanus 11.10.16 at 6:41 pm
I’ll paste this from another thread. JQ dislikes pessimism, and that’s my nature. He can feel free to delete it.
There is a lot of discussion as to whether Trump is actually going to demand a massive infrastructure initiative as the price for signing the Congressional agenda. It may include clean energy and mass transit. Funded who knows how.
Creating millions of new well-paying jobs.
Think of Germany in the early 30s, Keynes before Keynes, Japan. Trump keeps Mein Kampf by his bedside.
What, it never crossed your mind that Republicans in dominance and undivided gov’t, could enact Paul Krugman’s economic wetdream?
That there is anything inherently “liberal” about allowing inflation, infrastructure spending, gov’t deficits? That the Reagan-Art Laffer-George Bush small gov’t conservatism was the only variety?
That Republicans are too dumb or greedy to know how to gain the loyalty of their pretty broad base for decades?
Peace and Prosperity are on their way. Trump is too old to want world domination, but I suspect it is available now (in alliance with Russia, China, Turkey)
(PS:Appears Trump is keeping his word, and letting Pence run things. Kris Kobach is bringing in some of the hardest of the Christian Hard Right. I don’t know if any are Dominionists or Christian Reconstructionists, but they could be. This is much worse than I imagined. Help people leave.)
Robespierre 11.10.16 at 6:51 pm
Maybe it’s for the best. Had Clinton won, it would have been extremely hard to win a fourth time in 2020, especially if she had tried for a second mandate. And 2020 is important, what with the census and dedistricting. The US will probably have a recession soon, and now the Republicans will definitely trash the economy. 2018-20 we will win.
There are probably three flaws in my thinking:
1) It’s wishful thinking (say, Kansas or Bush2004)
2) It’s easy for me to speak as a foreigner
3) Supreme court, climate change, and other shit that can’t be fixed when broken
Here’s hoping that heightening contradictions really does work.
Lit3Bolt 11.10.16 at 6:56 pm
The global Left has been sundered. Multiculturalism has turned into a boogeyman of out of control immigration, while populist nationalism is now the sole province of the Right. Liberals can defend minorities, or they can be loyal nationalists. Defending minorities will now be seen as unpatriotic disloyalty to the Herrenvolk.
Jeff R. 11.10.16 at 7:01 pm
Overturning Roe is a long shot too. The previous court didn’t, didn’t even have the votes to chip away upholding restrictions, so his first Justice won’t tip that over. If he gets a second, the court probably won’t go any further than that, upholding a few more restrictions than have been in the past. He’d need to replace a lot of justices (or successfully pack the court) to come near to overruling Roe. (In the last abortion case in the supreme court, Roberts did not get a single other judge to join his ‘Roe should be overturned’ dissent)
Omega Centauri 11.10.16 at 7:02 pm
Well bob, its conceivable, just not very likely.
Hereditary Monarchy is looking better and better. It was the norm for thousands of years. Democracy is too unstable, and can run off on emotional tantrums. I think the world is gonna burn, and not just from climate change.
Jeff R. 11.10.16 at 7:02 pm
(In comment above which may stay in moderation longer than this one, I of course meant Thomas, not Roberts)
marcel proust 11.10.16 at 7:13 pm
Mangled quote alert!!!!
“nation” not “country”.
Not merely of pedantic concern, since “ruination” is a word but “ruincountry: is not. So the correct quote has a sonority lacking in the wrong one.
The correct quote (along with context): “One day Sinclair brought Smith the news of the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga in October 1777, and exclaimed in the deepest concern that the nation was ruined. “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation,” was Smith’s calm reply.”
Hidari 11.10.16 at 7:17 pm
At the risk of blowing my own Trumpet (sic), I said a few years back:
‘**The threat to democracy in our era will come not from totalitarian states but from corrupt states that appear to be democracies, like Putin’s Russia, Berlusconi’s Italy, or (in a few years time) Cameron’s Britain.’ Obviously Trump’s American could be (and will be) the next one (Cameron having unleashed forces beyond his control that destroyed him before he could consolidate his power).
(https://crookedtimber.org/2011/02/01/fukuyama-f-yeah/)
It’s a sign of the anglocentric bias of the media that Berlusconi, the obvious ‘intellectual’ predecessor to Trump, has rarely been posited as such.
But there were other straws in the wind: such as Erdogan in Turkey and Morsi in India (the last generally ignored by the Western orientated intelligentsia).
So the wind is blowing, clearly, in the direction of nominally democratic ‘strongmen’: Berlusconi having paved the way by being ‘created’ by the media (the ‘values’ of reality TV being Trump’s values).
As for the Left you can forget it: as most of them are still completely in thrall to ‘free market’ gibberish. I can tell you now that most MPs in the Labour party will double down on their efforts to overthrow Corbyn and install a Clinton-lite as their leader. They never learn.
CJColucci 11.10.16 at 7:48 pm
Basically, it’s 2001 again, without (one can hope) a major terrorist attack and with (one can hope) enough same-sex marriages in states that didn’t already permit them to make unscrambling those eggs impossible.
LFC 11.10.16 at 7:58 pm
marcel proust @7
Thanks for that. The mention of Burgoyne and his defeat at Saratoga reminds me of the passage in Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple where Burgoyne is asked by an aghast subordinate “what will history say?” and replies briskly: “History, sir, will tell lies as usual.”
(I once saw an atrociously bad production of The Devil’s Disciple many years ago, and in London no less. Its awfulness has stayed with me as an example of how not to stage Shaw: ponderously slow line readings, and virtually all the comedy drained out of the play. But, as Bruce Wilder would say, I digress.)
Yankee 11.10.16 at 8:00 pm
If Trump goes liberal or at least centrist as Bob suggests, he might probably find himself opposed from the right as “just one more establishment sellout”, as Obama was from the left. Which would be sort of fun to watch but not really. None of this is fun really.
Placeholder 11.10.16 at 8:01 pm
“That there is anything inherently “liberal†about allowing inflation, infrastructure spending, gov’t deficits? That the Reagan-Art Laffer-George Bush small gov’t conservatism was the only variety?”
Maybe in Japan but in with Speaker Rand? The last thing Trump said he wanted top-rate tax cuts. The real concern for a Trump presidency is that his ‘outsider’ status will indeed lock him into the politics of the GOP-ultras by default. Look to Teresa May – how long and how far can the Austerians turn on this dime?
As a political one it’s been a shock success – but you can’t control what you don’t understand. People are denouncing Hilary for not stopping by WI but it was because of the Ryan-Trump heebie-jeebies that he didn’t actually stop there either. Or maybe it’s because he lost the primary there.
Noel Maurer 11.10.16 at 8:19 pm
Hey!
http://noelmaurer.typepad.com/aab/2016/11/there-is-a-great-deal-of-ruin-in-a-nation.html
Cian 11.10.16 at 8:49 pm
If Trump can create and sustain an illusion of restored national greatness, as Putin has done (so far) in Russia, it won’t matter much what the Democrats do.
Trump is no Putin. And I don’t see him managing to successfully manage the conflict between what his voters want, and what the politicians in Washington want.
But there’s lots to be done away from short-term politics, from organizing to protect the groups most vulnerable to Trumpism to working out long-term policy alternatives to neoliberalism.
The main thing is to take back the Democrat party from the Clinton wing. Not only did they lose this election, but they’ve lost almost every election since 2008. Their politics is bankrupt, their legacy toxic and their ideas are barren. They just need to go away.
That also means rethinking the focus on identity politics. It’s not good politics, it’s not effective on it’s own terms and it leads ultimately somewhere really ugly (the wealthy lecturing the poor and desperate). The right wins when we atomize groups of people. The way to win is to build the largest coalitions possible.
Another achievable goals would be to push for voting reform (e.g. gerrymandering, voter supression and long lines at poll booths). This is hard for the right to argue against, it is easy for the left to define the terms of engagement and any victory here can only help Democrats.
Anderson 11.10.16 at 8:50 pm
On the other hand, there’s no sign that he will attempt to overturn marriage equality, and every likelihood of failure if he does try.
This is implausible. It’s a matter for the Court, not for the White House, and there is no reason to imagine Trump will appoint any socially liberal justices. Obergefell was a 5-4 decision, with unusually vehement dissents making it clear that the dissenters were not going to observe stare decisis if the chance arose. It seems unlikely that Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer all last another 4-year term, and Kennedy may well take the opportunity of a Republican presidency to retire.
As for # 4 above & Roe, the unwillingness of justices to join a pointless protest vote doesn’t mean much. There is no doubt that after Scalia’s replaced, there will be 4 votes to overturn Roe, and if another justice is replaced, ditto (“no more Souters”).
Look where y’all will for light in the darkness, but it’s not at the Supreme Court. This election was an unmitigated disaster; the Court will remain reactionary for the next 20+ years.
Layman 11.10.16 at 10:09 pm
OP: “On the other hand, there’s no sign that he will attempt to overturn marriage equality, and every likelihood of failure if he does try.”
Not sure I agree with that. There’s every reason to think Trump will appoint RGB’s replacement. A red state will certainly concoct a case to send back to the court. Then there’s what’s left of the voting rights act, plus any number of looming redistricting / voter suppression laws for them to rubber stamp.
Beyond that, those two appointments, plus Roberts and Alito, will be on the court for another generation at least. Trump will leave behind at least a 5-4 and probably a 6-3 court. And Thomas will presumably retire during Trump’s reign.
js. 11.10.16 at 10:33 pm
More like 1877.
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© 11.10.16 at 10:38 pm
Slightly-lesser evilism has delivered, again!
The usual bowl of shit, that is.
As always, The Left will serve as the boogeyman while the usual suspects who are temporarily out of power traipse off to places where they will be well-rewarded (e.g. Covington and Burling, Citibank, and such as).
~
Anarcissie 11.10.16 at 11:01 pm
Assuming the people now stepping up to actually run the show in Washington are rational, they may not really wish to overturn Roe, because such a move has unusual potential to provoke broad public disobedience, which may turn into structures of disobedience importable into other fields of social conflict.
bob mcmanus 11.10.16 at 11:02 pm
If Trump goes liberal or at least centrist as Bob suggests
You misunderstand me, I am not expecting Trump to be in any way liberal or centrist. Re-read the comment. And I could be very wrong, but I see some very smart fascism coming.
I don’t know what’s coming, but the “million new jobs” could be very explicitly directed and exclusive to a particular segment of society, white males. Meet a truncheon if you complain. Wisconsin and Indiana get billions in infrastructure and California gets zero.
Fascism, like any other political economy, delivers (for a while) to its constituents. Economic prosperity for Trumpsters, with the added and probably necessary pleasure of revenge on their enemies. It may start small.
bob mcmanus 11.10.16 at 11:24 pm
It is apparently not understood that the revolution is happening. Neoliberals, central bankers, International NGO’s like the IMF, multiculturalists and cosmopolitans have been and are being deposed globally.
There are not at all, with due respect to JQ, two or three alternatives, left neoliberalism, right neoliberalism, and reaction. There are at least two more, socialism (haha) and right authoritarianism/fascism/neomercantalism (all different but all “right” in different ways.)
Takahashi Korekiyo, 20-30s Japanese Financial minister, often called “the Japanese Keynes,” favored inflation, deficit spending on infrastructure, cutting defense spending, going off the gold standard and was imperialist as hell, but thought a financial imperialism and economic hegemony would be more enduring than military. Soldiers killed him.
Herder, List, Carey and the American School…I’m getting snarky. I’ll put on my Marxist cap and go away. PS: John Smith Imperialism in the 21st Century, 2016 is some excellent Marxian analysis of the American Empire, it’s beneficiaries and victims.
Patrick 11.10.16 at 11:39 pm
I don’t understand the optimism on gay marriage. He’ll appoint someone who’s even more of a hack than Antonin “why don’t jews think the Christian Cross represents dead jewish soldiers?” Scalia, and he’ll probably replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The challenge to gay marriage will happen then whether Trump promotes it or not- he isn’t in charge of whether someone files that lawsuit, and it will be filed the moment it looks likely to prevail.
Overturning a constitutional right to gay marriage isn’t the same as abolishing actual gay marriage in real life, but it will mean it has to be re-litigated on the state level, or re-fought as a legislative issue. And we’ll probably lose a few states.
The only positive I’m seeing there is that it will make it very, very clear to young voters what the political right really is. Because even if your blue or purple state doesn’t abolish gay marriage, battle lines will be drawn.
Mark Field 11.10.16 at 11:43 pm
I agree with Anderson about the Court. The one new Justice won’t be enough to do fundamental damage. Probably; hard to know with Kennedy. But a second Justice, once any of the 3 older Justices dies, could be catastrophic.
And without trying to get into the details of bad laws that might pass Congress and be upheld by the Court — voter suppression, repeal of environmental protections, invalidating gun control of all kinds, etc. — or of administrative actions that will set back progress 20 years or more, I think we need to take a fundamental step: consider what the current governing coalition has been saying they’d do, and take them at their word. If you do so, I think you’ll come to the conclusion that things will be much worse than you now imagine.
alfredlordbleep 11.11.16 at 12:39 am
bob mcmanus 11.10.16 at 6:41 pm@1:
There is a lot of discussion as to whether Trump is actually going to demand a massive infrastructure initiative as the price for signing the Congressional agenda. It may include clean energy and mass transit. Funded who knows how.
This is treated as a wonderful double gift for the right wing. Jobs, jobs, jobs and funded by taxing the $2T (whatever) “off-shore” at a corporately pleasing low rate when they bring it home. You know all those wonderful, innovative people at Apple (and much of Tech Valley) never feel like giving back much for the $billions spent developing the microelectronics industry over generations at taxpayer expense.
But 10% only raises $200B and Trump (as well as anyone can surmise) wants at least double that or did at one time—and so it goes.
P. S. LFC @10
Everyone should see Ian Richardson as General Burgoyne in the BBC production(!) on dvd.
awy 11.11.16 at 12:55 am
there is no collapse of neoliberalism. it’s just that globalization as an inexorable fact will proceed down the path of kleptocracy and mercantilism.
js. 11.11.16 at 1:00 am
And when I say 1877, I’m not being flippant. I know it’s a bit déclassé to link to Twitter, but see this timeline.
ZM 11.11.16 at 1:23 am
John Quiggin,
“At least in the short term, there’s not much the left can do to influence this. But there’s lots to be done away from short-term politics, from organizing to protect the groups most vulnerable to Trumpism to working out long-term policy alternatives to neoliberalism.”
I think this is wrong. The Democratic Party can’t do that much to influence Republican Party politics, but individuals can write to or speak to their Members of Congress and Senators, or write to the President. I volunteer in a couple of groups for refugees and climate change, and the groups seek to influence both sides of politics too, and can write to people on both sides of politics Etc too.
If you’re seeking policy change on any particular issue and are not party affiliated yourself, you can seek to influence both sides of politics. There’s no reason to think you’ll just try to influence one side of politics only, you double your chances of success by choosing both major parties to write too etc. And it’s a bit tribalist to only try and influence one side of politics policies ;-)
ZM 11.11.16 at 1:31 am
I think especially on race issues that came up as a real point of concern during Trump’s campaign, people and groups that care about those issues and multiculturalism and religious plurality would really be advised to seek to influence Republicans in Congress and the Senate as well as the President. Engaging Republicans right away on racial equity and religious tolerance etc, is a good idea given some of the potential policies that came up during the campaign. And climate change groups as well would be better off doing this, given Trump said it was a Chinese government plot
Faustusnotes 11.11.16 at 1:34 am
Bob @1 and Robespierre @2 are classic examples of the failure of leftist analysis leading up to this election. Trump as Krugmans wet dream is just that – a dream. He is going to pass every bill Ryan hands him unless it’s a restriction on deportations, and he has made his intentions on clean energy very very clear already. If he bothers to press for infrastructure spending (he won’t) it will be coal and roads roads roads, most of which will never happen because the cash will be squandered by his mates. And then Robespierre at 2 saying maybe crashing the economy is for the best, after all Clinton couldn’t have won in 2020 and once the contradictions are heightened by four years of berlusconi lite everyone is gonna vote for whatever poor shmuck the dems put up.
There isn’t just a great deal of ruin in a nation; there’s a lot of sinister in the far left.
Dr. Hilarius 11.11.16 at 2:07 am
Watch for efforts to sell off federal land or shift it to state ownership. Either way, protected federal land will be sold at fire sale prices for private mining, oil/gas development and real estate development. Trump’s cronies and his cronies’ cronies will enrich themselves while Trump boasts of taking land back from federal bureaucrats. This can not be undone.
Alan White 11.11.16 at 2:17 am
Two weeks ago I posted on Sam Wang’s site a question about the quality of the data used to produce a Bayes confidence level of >99% for Hillary’s election. I simply asked a question using my own experience about polls generalized. I do not respond to polls either by landline (yes I still have that) or cell, for my own reasons. I speculated that others might non-respond likewise for reasons quite orthogonal to mine. And so I questioned the database for aggregate polls, and received no response.
With 40 hours of sleeplessness between Monday and Wednesday, I got my answer.
National polls are more reliable because they sample attitudes across the political spectrum and tend to wash out regionally isolated cultural outliers by ranging across a much larger sample. But state polls cannot do that, and so any culturally related reluctance of response is magnified as potential error by muddling the data. Perhaps some states for cultural reasons are more opaque than others in this way–concealed racism, sexism, or whatnot. That seems to be the case for my own state–WI–and MI and PA as well–especially when the outliers become statistical out-liars. And since states dictate electoral college results rather than national polls, I realized way too late why things played out as they did. Politics are indeed local–especially statistically.
Simon Finger 11.11.16 at 2:17 am
He may not be able to overturn marriage equality in the near term, but he can immediately begin dismantling numerous protections currently extended to gay, lesbian, and trans people.
mds 11.11.16 at 2:37 am
From the National Organization for Marriage:
[Emphasis added]
I mean, right now the incoming administration and the Republican Congress are almost literally salivating at the prospect of stripping health insurance from 22 million people. But these folks who can’t stop shrieking about sexual predators in bathrooms will hold their fire on LGBTQ? Someone might want to inform Vice President-elect Mike “Conversion Therapy” Pence about that.
Heliopause 11.11.16 at 2:42 am
“repeal Obamacare”
This will not be nearly as easy as his bluster suggests.
“Republican majority in Congress and (imminently) in the Supreme Court ”
There already is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court and replacing the next liberal retirement with a conservative will not be nearly as easy as his bluster suggests.
“restore and expand the Bush tax cuts for the rich”
OK, this one might be a genuine problem.
“overturn Roe v Wade”
See above. There has been a conservative Catholic majority on the court for decades and Roe still stands. Not saying it can’t happen but, again, these things aren’t that easy.
“expand deportation”
Maybe, if he can get the money for it out of the skinflint Congress.
“there’s no sign that he will attempt to overturn marriage equality”
Not only that, his stated positions on LGBTQ issues are to the left of where Clinton was just a few years ago.
“On climate change, Trump can ignore the Paris agreement and appoint a climate denier to run the EPA”
Since the Paris agreement is largely aspirational, and since Clinton is a fan of fracking and many of her major donors are heavily invested in pipelines and so forth, and since we might be already past the important tipping points regardless, the difference here doesn’t much matter. Just means the inevitable catastrophe will happen a couple of years sooner.
Left unmentioned is the possibility of increased military violence overseas. Oddly, Trump has made less belligerent noises on this front than did Clinton, but I don’t think it’s at all clear that Trump, who is weak-minded like W Bush was, won’t succumb to the advice of the militarists who infest every level of US government.
So I guess my general point is that the worst we should expect from the Trump years is not the extinction of the human race but rather something more like the W Bush years. Those were bad, really bad, but the species and the Republic will (probably) survive.
Z 11.11.16 at 2:49 am
@js. As I am currently in a country where Twitter is censored, can I ask you if you would summarize the timeline you linked to?
Layman 11.11.16 at 3:13 am
Anarcissie: “Assuming the people now stepping up to actually run the show in Washington are rational, they may not really wish to overturn Roe…”
Who are these rational people of whom you write?
ZM: “…but individuals can write to or speak to their Members of Congress and Senators, or write to the President.”
The idea that I could accomplish something good and meaningful by writing a letter or speaking to Jeff Flake or John McCain boggles the mind. Do you actually know anything about these people?
LFC 11.11.16 at 3:44 am
alfredlordbleep @22
thanks for the tip re I. Richardson
mcmanus @21
maybe just a typo on yr part, but the IMF is not an NGO — its members are govts (through their designated representatives).
You’ve taken up a fair amt of space to say pretty much nothing more than that some right-wingers in the past, say in 20s/30s Japan, have favored deficit spending, infrastructure, and quasi-Keynesian stuff. True. But contexts change. This isn’t the ’30s, so I’m not sure how relevant these analogies are or exactly what you’re getting at with them. Unless it’s purely an analytical historical exercise (Trump’s economic policies remind me of xyz in the past), of the sort Adam Tooze seemed to be doing (as far as I cd tell, only 3/4 listening) in an interview on the NewsHr tonight.
Omega Centauri 11.11.16 at 4:45 am
“… get billions in infrastructure and California gets zero.”
We already see this starting to set up. Trump promises to cut off all fed funds for sanctuary cities. SF mayor says its in our DNA, we won’t back down. Supposedly $1B per year at stake.
Hey Skipper 11.11.16 at 6:54 am
Courtesy of NPR, here are Trump’s goals for his first 100 days in office.
J-D 11.11.16 at 8:51 am
ZM
With what kinds of success?
reason 11.11.16 at 8:52 am
Omega Centauri https://crookedtimber.org/2016/11/10/theres-a-lot-of-ruin-in-a-country/#comment-697833
“Hereditary Monarchy is looking better and better. It was the norm for thousands of years. Democracy is too unstable, and can run off on emotional tantrums.”
You mean like in North Korea? I take it you are being facetious.
reason 11.11.16 at 9:12 am
mds https://crookedtimber.org/2016/11/10/theres-a-lot-of-ruin-in-a-country/#comment-697930
“But these folks who can’t stop shrieking about sexual predators in bathrooms will hold their fire on LGBTQ? ”
Don’t quite follow here. These people are the sexual predators. It is well documented.
Ben 11.11.16 at 9:32 am
I’m with mcmanus, we’re going to see a lot of creative funneling of government funds to white nationalist private interests
Evangelicals know how to play this game. Grift knows grift. They’ve been setting up institutions at the intersection of government and business with 9-figure revenue streams for decades.
And now they’re under one roof with white nationalists. That knowledge will disseminate.
Speaking of evangelicals, my god. It’s American Taliban time. Too much is being made of The Supreme Court. It has unique institutional constraints b/c they don’t have an enforcement mechanism (“The Court’s made its decision, now let it enforce it”). Not so for a Justice Dept, or a Dept. of Homeland Security, staffed with people hell-bent on destroying Planned Parenthood and harassing gay people.
alfredlordbleep 11.11.16 at 11:23 am
“… get billions in infrastructure and California gets zero.â€
Just an obvious followup: if Tech Valley “brings home” its hundreds of $billions (actually invested in the U. S. but credited to overseas entities) and home is really home, California—well there is your California funding. (But then California will tax it at about an additional 10%* so good luck with good deeds from technocracy).
*Just a guess based on a quick look. This is a research question for me now.
rea 11.11.16 at 11:49 am
If Trump gets to appoint a replacement for Breyer, Kennedy or Ginsburg, marriage equality (and beyond that–the legality of LGBT sex–see Lawrence) is dead, along with Roe. That’s because the LGBT rights cases depend on a constitutional right of privacy, which will not survive the end of Roe.
arendt 11.11.16 at 11:59 am
@3: Have you forgotten Bernie Sanders’ 13 million votes, his highly popular social-democratic platform, and the fact that he lost only because the DNC ruthlessly suppressed his campaign and because the primaries were closed or only semi-open in many states? (Neo-)liberalism is dead. The Clintonites, with their typical chutzpah, may attempt to continue clinging to the levers of power within the Democratic Party (a la Howard Dean, the consummate corporatist, incredibly enough attempting to take back the chairmanship), but I predict that they will be forced out by the grassroots. Also: only 26% of the American electorate voted Trump in, and Clinton did win the popular vote, even if only barely.
Please stop with the fatalism; it’s not politically helpful at all, and it doesn’t accurately describe our reality. This is going to be a really, really, really bad four years (of that I have zero illusions), and the worst elements of society have already been emboldened. But they don’t reflect everyone, and they probably don’t even reflect a majority of the American people. The Left isn’t dead. Now, while the Clintons and their ilk are demoralized, is the best chance we’ve had in a long time to turn the Democratic Party permanently away from neoliberalism and towards genuinely left-wing policies. And as long as elections remain intact, hope is alive.
Layman 11.11.16 at 12:08 pm
Ben: “It has unique institutional constraints b/c they don’t have an enforcement mechanism…”
That’s irrelevant to the questions at hand. The Court rules that there’s no constitutional right to marriage equality, at which point the majority of states under Republican control pass legislation banning gay marriage. Or the US Congress passes a national gay marriage ban, which is signed by Trump. Same for Roe. What enforcement mechanism does the Court need?
Layman 11.11.16 at 1:31 pm
arendt: “…the fact that he lost only because the DNC ruthlessly suppressed his campaign and because the primaries were closed or only semi-open in many states…”
Sigh. I suppose this ‘stabbed in the back’ narrative is here to stay. Only, the DNC didn’t suppress his campaign (how, exactly?), and we don’t know he only lost for that reason (how could we?), and primary elections are *party elections*, so limiting them to party members is hardly an unreasonable practice, and no one knows what the outcome would have been in any primary if it had been open to non-party members (how could they?).
But don’t let that hold up the circular firing squad. We need to apportion blame, there are some people available to be blamed, so we must blame them.
Alesis 11.11.16 at 3:35 pm
The notion that politics has or can ever exist desperate from “identity” is perhaps the most ahistorical notion that I personally have the misfortune to have heard.
The election of Donald J. Trump a man who’s entry into politics has been an unbroken streak of racial resentment (not referring to the voters but to the man himself) is perhaps the clearest reminder that “identity politics” is not and has never been primarily the province of minorities.
To be blunt. White people invented identity politics. The entire notion of whiteness is in fact the greatest achievement of identity politics.
To my knowledge there really hasn’t been a consequential brand of “non-identity” politics in American history.
rea 11.11.16 at 3:49 pm
Have you forgotten Bernie Sanders’ 13 million votes, his highly popular social-democratic platform, and the fact that he lost only because the DNC ruthlessly suppressed his campaign
As opposed to the 60 million votes HRC got? And his highly popular social democratic program essentially indistinguishable from the one on which HRC ran? And the ruthless suppression of his campaign by the voters in Democratic primaries?
I’m happy for you, at least, that you got what you wanted out of the election. But you are fooling yourself if you think Sanders would have done any better with the electorate.
ZM 11.11.16 at 3:53 pm
Layman,
“ZM: “…but individuals can write to or speak to their Members of Congress and Senators, or write to the President.â€
The idea that I could accomplish something good and meaningful by writing a letter or speaking to Jeff Flake or John McCain boggles the mind. Do you actually know anything about these people?”
You can choose some Republicans you like better than them then, you have a lot of Republican politicians in America at all levels of government, there must be some you can write to. Just write to your local ones or something and ask them to meet with you and discuss your concerns. Or some people say a phone call to their offices is the best, since then someone has to spend the time talking to you. Sometimes they just ignore the letters or send you a form letter that doesn’t address any of your specific paragraphs. If you phone them they have to talk to you at least. If a lot of people write letters and make phone calls and ask to meet them, then they would have to take them into account.
ZM 11.11.16 at 4:05 pm
js,
That twitter feed is really bad. I couldn’t believe some of that stuff. The 10 year old girl being grabbed at the vagina and the kid who did it saying if the President can do it so can he. Ugh. And he said he got dozens of people saying something similar. And the high school students chanting build a wall. Or the ones making a wall of their bodies to block Latino kids going to school. And all the horrible racist things complete strangers are attacking people with.
I hope some prominent respected figures start an inclusion and diversity campaign to go forwards during the Trump presidency.
We had a pretty successful group in the nearest regional city called Believe In Bendigo that was about religious diversity when a small minority were making very vocal protests about the first mosque in the city being built http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/3365173/campaign-for-inclusive-bendigo/
If some prominent people in America started something like that but national and got some respected Republicans to be in it as well that might help a lot.
Anarcissie 11.11.16 at 4:07 pm
Layman 11.11.16 at 3:13 am @ 36 —
Sometimes you see flashes of self-interested rationality among our great leaders and their minions, especially if they’re operating out of direct public view. Anti-abortionism sells well until it’s actually implemented to the point where it inconveniences the better-off. It’s like war — lots of people like war until they actually have to fight one. So the powers try to have the burdens fall on the poor and minorities. But that won’t be possible with some kind of blanket prohibition. So I think they’re going to slip around this one and not do much. But you could be right — they could utterly lack rationality and even low cunning, in which case abortion will move outside the state and become one more avenue of radical organizing.
dsquared 11.11.16 at 4:19 pm
“As Marcel Proust and (by titling his post correctly) Noel Maurer have pointed out, the correct quote is “there is a great deal of ruin in a nationâ€.”
There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation! I’m gonna show you such a great deal, it’s gonna be a great deal of ruin. You’re gonna be amazed at what a great deal of ruin it’s gonna be. Honestly, folks, you’ve never seen such a great deal of ruin.
musical mountaineer 11.11.16 at 5:44 pm
Hey guys, I voted for Trump and I hang out a lot with the Alt-Right. I was not aware that gay marriage was at issue in this election. Abortion gets very occasional mention, but nobody’s advocating anything drastic. On these issues, Americans have taken a cultural stance of acceptance, and that’s not going to change significantly. The Donald has cut out a lot of work for himself (refer to Hey Skipper @39), and none of it is cultural-offensive in nature. You may expect a cultural backlash, but it won’t be against gays and women and minorities. It’ll be against whiners, bullies and control freaks.
There was a lot of fear about this election. On our side, we tried to comfort each other because we were pretty freaked out. On your side, you tried very hard to frighten each other and kind of succeeded. But it’s plain your fear is mostly play-acting. People who truly fear the government don’t tweet and blog and emote publicly about it. They don’t go smashing up random people and property. People who truly fear the government stay out of sight and pay cash for rations and ammunition.
So much for fear. What about hate? It’s true, we have some gleeful, diabolical revenge in mind. Exactly whom do we intend to stake out on the anthills? National Review. Paul Ryan. David Brooks. George Will. Jennifer Rubin. Glenn Beck. Jeb Bush. Ted Cruz. Fucking Bill Fucking Spit Kristol. Our animosity towards Democrats is a pale weak flame compared to our hot red hatred of the so-called leaders of the so-called conservative so-called movement.
Keep your chins up, people. The next four years are going to totally rock.
arendt 11.11.16 at 5:48 pm
Sigh. I suppose this ‘stabbed in the back’ narrative is here to stay. Only, the DNC didn’t suppress his campaign (how, exactly?), and we don’t know he only lost for that reason (how could we?), and primary elections are *party elections*, so limiting them to party members is hardly an unreasonable practice, and no one knows what the outcome would have been in any primary if it had been open to non-party members (how could they?).
But don’t let that hold up the circular firing squad. We need to apportion blame, there are some people available to be blamed, so we must blame them.
@48: How exactly did the DNC suppress Sanders’ campaign? Read the WikiLeaks emails, particularly the ones regarding coordination between DNC members and the Clinton campaign for some clues on that one. Since America is a two-party duopoly, it actually makes no sense if we want some semblance of democracy for parties to restrict who can vote in their primaries to party members. Only 9% of the country voted for either Clinton or Trump in the primaries, according to a New York Times analysis. And obviously you can’t PROVE a counterfactual, but we can reason inductively that had the millions of independent voters who couldn’t vote in the Democratic primaries been able to vote, they would’ve broken just as decisively for Bernie as the independents who did get a chance to vote in open/semi-closed states did. Bernie regularly drew crowds in the tens of thousands. Clinton, shall we say, did not. Bernie would have galvanized the youth vote and lifted turnout sufficiently for the Democrats to win in huge numbers. The polls conducted during the primaries (polls that were largely borne out on Tuesday!) suggested this in no certain terms.
The DNC, Clintonites, and the ideology they stand for need to be denounced, loudly and repeatedly, until change happens within the party because otherwise the Democrats will remain immured in their neoliberal blinkers for God knows how long as the country comes apart at the seams because there’s no organized, vocally left-wing opposition to Trump.
Clinton was the epitome of the establishment in a clearly anti-establishment year. She and her people were incredibly disconnected from vast swathes of the country, and with her pathological dishonesty and evasiveness, ties to Wall Street and fossil fuel companies, love of corporatist ‘free’ trade, email woes, etc., etc., etc., she was probably the worst candidate the Democrats have ever fielded. Her people even *wanted* Trump to win the Republican nomination, if their emails are to be taken at face value. If she and her colossal hubris aren’t to blame, then who exactly is? (The corporate media and their false equivalency bias, Fox News, conservative Republicans and fifty years of neoliberalism and capitalist indoctrination should certainly come in for their fair share of the blame, but I’m focusing on the things we can actually *change* moving forward.)
Bernie Sanders represented the future of the Democratic Party. Just look at the breakdown of votes in the Democratic primary by age. He attracted independents and working-class voters en masse. The answer to authoritarian faux populism, as Rob Reich keeps reminding us, is left-wing genuine populism. I genuinely hope that you – and others who are left-of-center and share your apparent views – can see that. The Democratic Party needs to transform itself – and posthaste.
J-D 11.11.16 at 5:59 pm
ZM
That article says nothing about the group talking to Liberal politicians. Did you? with what results?
J-D 11.11.16 at 6:02 pm
arendt
That’s smaller than the number of people who voted for Ross Perot in 1992, and where are they now?
arendt 11.11.16 at 6:03 pm
As opposed to the 60 million votes HRC got? And his highly popular social democratic program essentially indistinguishable from the one on which HRC ran? And the ruthless suppression of his campaign by the voters in Democratic primaries?
I’m happy for you, at least, that you got what you wanted out of the election. But you are fooling yourself if you think Sanders would have done any better with the electorate.
No one trusted that HRC would do any of the things she claimed so hollowly that she would do. She was not credible. HRC was the candidate of ‘lower your expectations, plebs; eat your cake and quit complaining.’ And her platform most certainly was not indistinguishable from Sanders’. She wasn’t ever steadfastly against TPP and other horrendous corporatist trade deals. She wasn’t forthrightly in favor of a $15/hour minimum wage despite Fight for 15, she wasn’t in favor of Medicare for All despite the obvious shortcomings of Obamacare, she wasn’t in favor of student debt relief or free college education, she wasn’t in favor of banning fracking, she wasn’t in favor of reinstating Glass-Steagall from the get-go. She wasn’t in favor of legalizing marijuana. She wasn’t in favor of abolishing private prisons (at least initially). She triangulated incessantly, so it was hard to really know what she believed, let alone *why* she believed it. She didn’t even come out with a definitive statement in favor of the protesters at Standing Rock, all of her identity-politics pabulum notwithstanding. Remember her comments about how the Reagans started a national conversation on HIV/AIDS? I sure as hell do. She fundamentally did not understand how social change works – she took a top-down approach to politics, she doubled down on her husband’s failed policies, and she accepted corporate money hand over fist. None of that played well. Are you intentionally ignoring the plethora of polls showing that Sanders would have dominated a Trump-Sanders match-up by between 10 and 20% nationwide? Do you genuinely think that Bernie Sanders would have lost Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, especially given his surprise win in the Michigan primary despite the long odds?
The Democratic primaries were systematically rigged, beginning with the superdelegates’ overwhelming support for Clinton from the very beginning, continuing through the terrible timing and ridiculous low number of primary debates and the apparent leaking of debate questions to the Clinton campaign, and concluding with the confusing voter registration deadlines, long lines in states like Arizona, and closed primaries. That’s not even to mention the near complete mainstream media blackout of the Sanders campaign, which assumes an even more sinister aspect when you consider the very intimate ties between various media hacks and the Clinton campaign (see the WikiLeaks emails for more).
I did NOT get what I wanted out of this election. Please don’t condescend to me. I am devastated and fearful for my friends and family and for the many millions of Americans who will have to live in Trump’s America. The only way that we are going to get ourselves out of this mess with a minimum of damage is if the Left organizes itself into a powerful working-class coalition for a restoration and expansion of our democracy. If we stick with neoliberal, focus-group-tested, incrementalist robots like Clinton, that’s not going to happen, and the whole world will pay the price.
Yankee 11.11.16 at 6:50 pm
@ Layman 47:
I think this thing is more likely to work itself out bottom up rather than top down, and we are hearing the stirrings of such already. Led by the Junior High crowd, surprisingly enough.
anymouse88 11.11.16 at 6:50 pm
dsquared,
But honestly from a certain left wing view Trump’s policies should work. A lot of people have correctly noted the similarities between Sanders and Trump.
His infrastructure package might not pass and might not be as big as Sanders but it looks to be much bigger than the status quo.
He his trade policies are right of the Sanders play book.
‘ FIRST, I will announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205
SECOND, I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership’
His tax cut is bound to be deficit financed. It would be an unfair tax cut and a poorly designed Keynesian stimulus, but would still be a Keynesian stimulus, and my reading is that most the left still think we are still way below full employment.
Whatever the environmental aspects of his energy policy the narrow economic impact is bound to beneficial and it could be truly hugely beneficial.
Basically if you are a Sander’s Democrat and you are worried about Trump’s ability to ‘create and sustain an illusion of restored national greatness’ you kind of need to hope that all your economic assumptions are incorrect.
js. 11.11.16 at 6:57 pm
People seem to think this will be bad kind of in the way the GWB administration—maybe somewhat worse in its specifics, but the same _kind of bad_. This seems… unimaginative. I will also suggest that this is not unrelated to the fact that even well meaning white people have trouble getting their minds around what it means for explicit white nationalists to gain power.
Manta 11.11.16 at 8:35 pm
If someone expects that when the Democratic will be back in power, it will be move left, I think he’s going to be deeply disappointed.
My prediction is the following: on economic matters, then next Democratic president will be on the right of Romney.
Anderson 11.11.16 at 8:44 pm
34: “and replacing the next liberal retirement with a conservative will not be nearly as easy as his bluster suggests”
This is not actually an argument.
Lynne 11.11.16 at 9:42 pm
js @ 59 I think you are probably right, unfortunately. Speaking for myself, it’s your comments here that have led me to feel dread at what Trump might do, following his comments about Muslims and Mexicans.
Hidari 11.11.16 at 10:06 pm
“If someone expects that when the Democratic party will be back in power, it will move left, I think he’s going to be deeply disappointed.”
If. Not when. If.
Remember all those nice stories the Clever People told us about ‘when’ the Republicans lose, the GOP would tear itself apart? Well they didn’t lose. The Democrats lost. So what do we think the Democrats will do?
Do you seriously think the Clintonites are going to face up to the extent of their failure?
They will redouble their attempts to hold onto power.
CF the Blairites in the UK, who still, unbelievably, have a chokehold on the British Labour Party, and simply refuse to accept that their time has passed: and, like the Clintonites will be, they are supported by gigantic swathes of the media.
Lynne 11.11.16 at 10:14 pm
Just to elaborate a bit: as a Canadian, I didn’t follow the election campaign that closely, and Trump said so many hateful things that it was easy for me to let them run together. Your comments made me think of your particular family, and you came to mind when I learned that Trump had won the election. This may sound cyber-stalkerish (though I hope not!) but I guess you put a human face on the danger to Muslims posed by Trump. I really do dread what he might do. In solidarity, js.
Anarcissie 11.11.16 at 10:27 pm
Alesis 11.11.16 at 3:35 pm @ 49:
‘… To my knowledge there really hasn’t been a consequential brand of “non-identity†politics in American history.’
As far as I can tell, identity as in ‘identity politics’ is constructed; it doesn’t fall out of the sky. If that is so, identity could be assigned to any sort of categorization, for instance, as the part one plays in the politics, economics, and social interactions of a community. So that indentity-identification could easily be made to denote class (political, economic, social) as well as ‘race’, ethnicity, religion, ideology, sex, sexual orientation, age, diet, cultural preferences, mode of transportation, etc. etc. etc. By ‘class’ I mean how much power (wealth, status) one possesses. Yet in our discussions identity seems to be regularly contrasted with class. Why aren’t classes identities? In any case, how are these abstract entities each supposed to determine the entire consciousness and social situations of actual living individuals? Each one of whom is the intersection of innumerable identities, since we can make up as many as we want.
Ben 11.11.16 at 10:56 pm
Layman,
Yes, the S. Court rulings will suck. So would they have if McCain had won. But these people are not McCain, and we need to stop thinking of institutions as capable of “having bad politics” and instead as capable of “doing bad things”.
How long after DHS starts staffing airport security with people who like to rough up minorities and gays until it becomes too much of a hassle for those populations to fly?
How much legal action can Planned Parenthood fund against a Justice Department which indicts it every day on another bogus charge?
Every bureaucratic arm of the state has the potential to be turned into a weapon against a specific population. Evangelicals have had the motive and plans to do so. Now they have the means and opportunity.
My point is we have to brace for that, and part of doing so is realizing the lengths these people will go to and the weapons they have at their disposal.
kidneystones 11.12.16 at 12:03 am
The challenge liberals face: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/11/donald-trump-ready-to-accept-key-parts-of-obamacare/
The failure of the Democrats to provide a meaningful economic message of hope to most Americans, above all is, explains the election of the rodeo clown.
Having whupped the elites’ hind-parts good, P. T. Barnum is already trotting out his new story-line. TPM has already picked up on Trump’s ‘betrayal’ of his base.
Problem with this narrative lies in the fact that TPM and other outlets convinced themselves and their readership that Trump ran on ‘traditional’ Republican values.
He didn’t. Unlike every other Republican candidate Trump ran on protecting the social safety net, in particular social security, improved treatment for vets and the chemically dependent, etc.
All you folks heard was ‘muslims, mexicans, wall, and pussy.’
Better start listening carefully soon cause he stole and continues to steal your base.
mollymooly 11.12.16 at 12:18 am
“default source for half-remembered or apocryphal quotes” – aka “quote magnet”
Collin Street 11.12.16 at 12:21 am
Each one of whom is the intersection of innumerable identities, since we can make up as many as we want.
Sure, but to be politically important the identities have to be shared. Which means that of the many possible identities a person can have only a few of them can be politically important: exactly which identities come into play in a particular society is socially contingent, and in the US the way the contingencies broke means that the politically-important / shared identities are largely about race.
[insofar as “class” isn’t simply a proxy for income, it’s tied up with culture-you-got-from-your-upbringing: this means it’s actually a special case of ethnic identity.]
Main Street Muse 11.12.16 at 12:27 am
The last time a Republican won the electoral college and lost the popular vote, America got screwed.
Here’s to hoping that was a one-time deal….
engels 11.12.16 at 12:27 am
Bernie Sanders would have easily beaten Donald Trump according to new pre-election poll
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/bernie-sanders-beaten-donald-trump-pre-election-poll-a7412636.html
Suzanne 11.12.16 at 12:35 am
@2: I fear it is wishful thinking. It’s really hard to unseat an incumbent, even an unsatisfactory incumbent, a rule which has been somewhat obscured because it has happened a couple of times in recent history, which is part of the reason why Dems were overoptimistic about the chances of Kerry v. Bush and Republicans about Romney v. Obama. Democrats can hope that another general rule (the party in power loses in the midterms) will help them in 2018, although key portions of the Democratic bloc — younger people, some minorities — don’t come out for the midterms.
Also, Democrats lost even more statehouses in 2016. That’s really bad for 2018 and 2020. I really hope something changes, but right now I anticipate, or dread, eight years of GOP rule, whether with Trump or Pence. What will be left of the country afterward I daren’t think.
@55: The DNC was not the decisive factor you imagine. A more suitable target for your bile would be the Southern black Democrats who put Clinton over on Super Tuesday, effectively winning the primary for her.
Lee A. Arnold 11.12.16 at 1:17 am
Now, we can blame everything bad that happens on the Republicans! We were going to watch Hillary Clinton face more Congressional gridlock as she tried to salvage the vestiges of the welfare state in her “neoliberal†framework — and watch the voters become more and more frustrated with the leadership of the Democrats. Instead, we are going to watch Trump fail to get most of the things he promised to his voters, in the face of opposition from his own party in the Congress, up to its ears in lobbyists.
This was Reagan’s comeuppance too, but reality in those days was more hidden from view, due to the old media environment. Reagan’s business-as-usual was sold as an economic resurgence due to a return to “basic principlesâ€. That gobbledegook is unlikely to get far, this time. This is a completely different, unstable media environment with independent policy analysts learning to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb, and Republican propaganda may not be as effective.
Paul Ryan came out yesterday and said he wanted to phase out Medicare. Ooops!
Economic contradictions become a bit more explainable to partisan voters when they have gotten a win for their team, and they are a bit more sure of their status in the conversation, and they don’t block out other thoughts. It is a small window of opportunity, but still.
Republican voters are already losing their claim to the moral high ground in another way too, by demonstrating that you can say and do inappropriate things –nasty things– and still be elected President. So much for teaching the kids! Quite a stain on history. Social media reveals that many Republicans are spontaneously hurting to explain this to themselves.
To be sure, Trump and the Republican Congress are also going to AGREE to do many bad things. But these are not necessarily things his voters want, & Bernie is emerging as the opposition’s well-spoken conscience, & Warren and other new faces are looking to be good White House candidates. Trump is going to have a lot of trouble in 2020 unless he makes policy that the Congressional Republicans really don’t want, and their campaign contributors don’t want. Despite Hillary’s low turnout the Democrats are still in the majority, and it’s a growing one.
Layman 11.12.16 at 2:27 am
Anarcissie: “But you could be right — they could utterly lack rationality and even low cunning, in which case abortion will move outside the state and become one more avenue of radical organizing.”
I don’t think we have to guess. Paul Ryan has been jonesing to privatize (destroy) Medicare for years. It’s a feature of every one of his Responsible Serious budgets. Now he will have a President who appears to agree with him. Who are the rational actors who will constrain them?
magari 11.12.16 at 2:31 am
Doesn’t so much of this doom and gloom assume the Democrats will not be as obstructionist as possible? With 48 Senate seats the Republicans will have to peel away 8 senators every time they want to pass something crazy.
William Berry 11.12.16 at 3:32 am
To CT Collective: You have a new comments policy; or, at least, you are more strictly enforcing the existing policy. So, why do you allow posts by commenters who use “88” in their ‘nyms?
No-one is so ignorant that they are using it accidentally, or because it is their birth-year, or whatever. In these times, it is as explicit a racist-fascist symbol as a Pepe the Frog avatar would be.
efcdons 11.12.16 at 4:03 am
Anymouse88 @60
“Basically if you are a Sander’s Democrat and you are worried about Trump’s ability to ‘create and sustain an illusion of restored national greatness’ you kind of need to hope that all your economic assumptions are incorrect.”
A huge tax cut for the rich that is the centerpiece of his “plan” doesn’t have the same strong stimulative effects as spending because the marginal propensity to consume for the wealthy is low as compared to the poor/middle class.
kidneystones 11.12.16 at 4:48 am
@76 Hillary Clinton is fairly, or unfairly, going to be blamed for much of what happened in 2015-6, along with the DNC. An extremely large number of Americans have had enough of dynastic politics and the sooner Democrats start looking for some fresh faces, by which I mean people under the age of 50 and untainted by confirmation bias and tribal loyalties, and most important: donor class policies.
@78 magari is correct, Trump will not be able to get much done without the support of a significant number of Democrats.
Re: Ryan. He and his corrupt gang of corporate tools are toast. Trump is simply being polite. Priebus is responsible for the long-term success of the Republican party and he’s ready to toss NeverTrumpers out of the boat. Trump will drag their sorry asses into a meeting sometime in January, or before, and read the riot act. Fall in line or expect to be publicly hung out to dry as early as January 30th.
JQ deserves a great deal of credit for opening up this thread to an open airing of respectful, hopefully positive, discussion. @55 magical mountaineer offers you an ‘alt-right’ view of what’s ahead and that doesn’t involve implementing Ted Cruz’s views on god, homosexuality, or abortion.
I suggest as respectfully as possible that folks disengage from the ‘us’ vs ‘them’ mode that frankly blinded too many to what just occurred in America. Two populist figures captured the imagination of large swaths of the electorate, suggesting that a great many are ready for positive change. Partisans with the full support of the donor class and the elites of both parties, and the media, constructed a scare doll that really has scared the crap out of a number of people.
That scare doll is not the new president – a vulgarian, race-baiting 1 percent NY liberal is and whatever his defects, he’s regarded as entirely acceptable figure to significant subsections of the American electorate, including 35 percent of voting Florida Hispanics and 5o plus percent of American women.
I happen to believe Trump wants to make America for all Americans, as in Americans who love America, warts and all. I’ve listened to the ‘America was never great’ videos. I’ve also read the appalling racist remarks of Trump supporters. Both are the fringe. I’d much prefer to have seen Sanders win, but even he might have struggled to kill off the Bush/Clinton political class.
That’s the future: all out war on the donor-class DNC and the Bush/Cruz GOP. If you can’t get enthused about then I’ve no idea what you believe is more pressing and worthwhile. With one of America’s two populist candidates in power some good things may yet happen.
I’m intensely relieved and (for the moment) feel much less worried that I’ll wake up tomorrow to find America has decided to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, or otherwise deploy American power in the way that regime-changing Americans love so much.
Find the compromises on healthcare and other issues that benefit Americans, and push for change on the issues where compromise is more elusive.
During the Great war the troops of both sides found themselves fighting to defend the interests of the elites. We need to stop listening to our ‘leaders’ and start listening to each other.
November 11th seems an entirely fit day to start trying.
Tim Reynolds 11.12.16 at 5:48 am
William Berry:
You get that far more people who use ’88’ in their name these days were simply born in 1988, right? Making them 28 years old.
This isn’t the 90s. I doubt skinhead still go by ‘1488’ like in the old AOL chat rooms.
Anarcissie 11.12.16 at 6:02 am
Layman 11.12.16 at 2:27 am @ 77 —
A lot of people who voted for Trump are beneficiaries of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, etc. etc. Ryan does not want to wake these people up too abruptly. If he is at all rational, that is.
J-D 11.12.16 at 6:32 am
magari
How do you rate the likelihood of each of these scenarios?
A. Republicans abolish the filibuster.
B. Democrats don’t want Republicans to abolish the filibuster and so make strictly limited use of it in order to avoid scenario A.
C. Democrats do a lot of filibustering and as a result there’s a successful Republican campaign in 2018 using complaints of Democratic obstructionism to gain more Senate seats (coming up for re-election in 2018 are twenty-three Democratic Senators — plus Independents Angus King and Bernie Sanders who caucus with them — ten of them in States that Trump just carried and only eight Republican Senators, only one of them in a State that Clinton just carried).
Collin Street 11.12.16 at 7:41 am
Bernie Sanders would have easily beaten Donald Trump according to new pre-election poll
But of course. The precise reason Bernie Sanders was rejected as a candidate was because he didn’t have adequate plans for improving the relative position of people-of-colour. As it turns out, the electorate-that-was-able-and-willing-to-vote was more responsive to “problems afflicting white people” than most democratic primary voters suspected, so in that sense I guess you could say that picking the person with better plans to fight racism was a wrong choice.
[and I went into this election campaign thinking that Sanders would be better than clinton: I was convinced otherwise. Not that my opinion counts for anything in-and-of-itself, but the basis for my conclusions might be of interest to some people.]
Robespierre 11.12.16 at 8:05 am
@Suzanne #75:
True. Consider, however, that Trump is 70 today, will be 74 in 2020, and would be 78 at the end of a second mandate. Reagan did it, but he was helped by an economy coming out fast from recession and inflation. 2020’s economy will be an almost perfect mirror image of that.
Lee A. Arnold 11.12.16 at 8:06 am
China is going to write its own Pacific free trade area, now that the US momentum on TPP is likely to fail. Investment money may become wary of the US, for much the same reasons it is wary of Britain: because opportunities for new U.S. businesses that can expect growth in world sales will decline.
Trump may cause a few quarters domestic GDP growth with a fiscal deficit boost, but unless Trump massively rejiggers education (free & unlimited, no student debt) to get US student achievement competing with the Chinese (indeed, Chinese students dominate the tech achievement in many US grad schools!), the Republicans are going to consign the United States to many coming decades of long-term stagnation.
The Republican blockade of Obama has already begun to cause this stagnation. Trump either gets the Republican Congress to adopt Sanders (& Hillary’s) education & healthcare policies, or the US is going to inherit the wind.
Robespierre 11.12.16 at 8:07 am
In the sense that it will overshoot and then crash and burn, especially if they pass big tax cuts.
Lee A. Arnold 11.12.16 at 8:10 am
Forgot the link for the news on the Chinese moves on Pacific trade:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-diplomacy-trade-idUSKBN1350S4
JHW 11.12.16 at 10:07 am
kidneystones at 81:
“That’s the future: all out war on the donor-class DNC and the Bush/Cruz GOP. If you can’t get enthused about then I’ve no idea what you believe is more pressing and worthwhile.”
Oh, I don’t know. Let’s see:
– Making sure Americans have access to affordable health care, which is still a work in progress, but on which we’re near-certain to move backward in the next four years
– Fighting the immense threat posed by climate change, which Trump doesn’t think is real, and where he will undo all the work accomplished by Obama’s EPA
– Protecting the basic human rights of undocumented people, now high-priority targets
– Protecting democratic rights like the right of each citizen to vote, an issue on which Trump, who spent the last several months of the campaign spreading groundless conspiracy theories about voter fraud, is even scarier than the already-pretty-scary mainstream Republicans
– Keeping the Supreme Court from veering to the hard right, which endangers both a variety of fundamental rights *and* strengthens the hand of the people who want this country to be sold to big business (do Trump voters know that they’ve handed a huge, historic victory to the proponents of mandatory arbitration clauses in worker and consumer contracts?)
– Protecting financial reform, with its protections against systemic risk and against abusing consumers, which Trump wants to scrap (bank stocks are up! some populist hero, right?)
– Having foreign policy managed by someone who knows something about foreign policy (I am not a fan of Hillary’s foreign policy judgment but this is an area where having someone ignorant, amateurish, and erratic is extraordinarily dangerous)
– Not having myself and my friends subject to hate violence, or threats of hate violence, because of a permission structure created by a president-elect who ran and won on racist demagoguery
But, hey, what’s all that compared to giving the middle finger to the political class, right?
Lee A. Arnold 11.12.16 at 10:42 am
Many dozens of reports now coming in from around the U.S. of non-whites being insulted and threatened on streets, and in restaurants and libraries; schoolkids preventing nonwhites from coming into school or screaming at them in class; — and boys grabbing girls’ vaginas, saying, “If the President can do it, so can I!”.
That one is a remarkable new wrinkle in the public morals, & it’s going to last for a couple of generations — and the blame is all on the Trump voters, who are now wrestling with themselves in self-denial about it, throughout social media. You can read lots of little placards from them with platitudes such as, (to quote 2 in the last hour), “One of the truest signs of maturity is the ability to disagree with someone while still being respectful,” and, “Can’t we all get along?”
Well, no, apparently not!! They themselves destroyed that, big time. Go look at the primary and final debate comments of the guy they VOTED FOR. So now, they say, everybody should play nice!?
“There is a great deal of ruin in a nation”, and Adam Smith wrote another book explaining how much of that ruin is moral. All, to elect a guy who will, at best, to do the same things that Hillary would have done.
Our childish President-elect had better come out and address this right away, although WHY any kids would (or should) believe him, remains to be seen… Here is one of several newsfeeds; this one is from a fine NYDaily News writer: https://twitter.com/ShaunKing
Layman 11.12.16 at 11:00 am
Anarcissie: “A lot of people who voted for Trump are beneficiaries of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, etc. etc. Ryan does not want to wake these people up too abruptly. If he is at all rational, that is.”
For SS and Medicare, they’ll simply draw a line at the age indicated by exit poll analyses, e.g. “People older than 55 will not be impacted by these changes.” They get to destroy those programs – which is to say, turn them into programs which funnel money to investment bankers and insurance companies rather than citizens – without losing votes.
With respect to the ACA, Republicans in the House voted to repeal or defund it more than 60 times. Given that Trump voters want it repealed, I can’t really see why they’d hold back now.
Layman 11.12.16 at 11:03 am
engels @ 74, yes, absolutely, I mean, how could the poll be wrong…?
arendt 11.12.16 at 11:30 am
@85: Bernie Sanders actually listened to PoC protesters, allowing them to take the microphone at his rallies. He updated his platform as he learned more about their concerns and needs. He went to Flint but didn’t court media accolades for talking to the mothers of children who were affected. He was one of the first presidential candidates ever to regularly mention Native Americans in stump speeches, and he actually dared to suggest that there are two sides to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, was not a model for genuine and respectful engagement with PoC, either in the primary or in the general election: http://theslot.jezebel.com/clinton-tells-young-black-voter-asking-about-diversity-1762385043?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=The_Slot_facebook
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/28/indigenous_youth_occupy_hillary_clinton_campaign
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/339745-hillary-clinton-racism-law-campaign/
If you look at the Democratic primary polls, Bernie won among PoC below 30. The main cleavage in the primary was age (and class), not race. Are you suggesting that young PoC couldn’t recognize which candidate was better for them?
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/28/472160616/-berniemademewhite-no-bernie-sanders-isnt-just-winning-with-white-people
https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/06/07/age-and-race-democratic-primary/
http://blackyouthproject.com/new-poll-shows-divide-amongst-blacks-in-democratic-race/
https://medium.com/@Seth_Abramson/media-bernie-sanders-is-winning-the-democratic-primary-race-7afd6b49128d#.175u4hb5y
Please, once and for all, let’s dispense with this bizarre notion that Hillary Clinton somehow had ‘better plans to fight racism.’ Why do you think it is that Michelle Alexander, Cornel West, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and many other prominent PoC intellectuals were so uneasy about (if not opposed to) her campaign? You can’t neatly separate economic policy from social policy. Clinton’s neoliberalism was horrendous for people of color, especially the many working-class PoC. Systemic racism is an integral part of capitalism. Wall Street is systematically racist! (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-line-that-may-have-won-hillary-clinton-the-nomination-20160428; https://shadowproof.com/2016/02/15/hillary-clinton-claims-to-oppose-breaking-up-the-banks-because-racism/) Clinton’s line about how breaking up the big banks won’t end racism was one of the most disgustingly cynical and misleading ploys I’ve ever had the misfortune to listen to.
If you look at the Movement for Black Lives’ set of demands (https://policy.m4bl.org/), although they are more radical than Sanders (which in my book is a good thing), they are much closer to Bernie Sanders’ policies than to Clinton’s: https://theweek.com/articles/641044/black-lives-matter-turning-socialist
Clinton and her sycophants cynically manipulated the rhetoric of identity politics and intersectionality to create a false dichotomy between economic justice and racial justice, thereby sidestepping questions of how to confront concentrated economic power. The corporate media, in the lap of the Clinton campaign from the outset, was happily complicit in tarring Bernie Sanders with the ‘racial insensitivity’ and ‘out of touch with PoC’ brush, regardless of whether or not this had any basis in reality.
Bernie Sanders may not initially have been the most adept at *talking* about race, but substantively, he had a solid racial justice platform and – most importantly – by focusing on bread-and-butter economic issues in trenchant, clearly understandable ways was able to attract broad-based support across racial lines. As we’ve seen, that ability is a necessity in a country that is still majority white.
Let’s not draw the wrong conclusions from this election. Left-wing economic populism, coupled with specific policies to address racial injustice, is popular across all races and is the way we’re going to get out of this mess. Notably, you didn’t see white voters fleeing Bernie because he talked about ending mass incarceration, abolishing private prisons, ending the War on Drugs, and legalizing marijuana. You didn’t see white voters fleeing Bernie because he called for justice for Native Americans. We can have racial and economic justice in the same platform. Indeed, we *must* have racial and economic justice in the same platform. Clinton’s defeat shows resoundingly that identitarian appeals devoid of any substantive calls for economic democratization will founder.
engels 11.12.16 at 1:15 pm
Layman, let me put it another way: is there any evidence I could possibly provide that Sanders would have performed better than Clinton that you wouldn’t immediately discount?
magari 11.12.16 at 2:10 pm
J-D, I think the filibuster issue will greatly depend on whether Trump really does try to enact tariffs and deficit spending. The filibuster let’s reticent Republicans vote yes on such bills, keeping face, while permitting the Democrats to kill them in the end.
Layman 11.12.16 at 2:18 pm
@ engels, you’re arguing for something which is more or less unknowable. I don’t say your poll isn’t evidence. I just say it doesn’t settle the question. Personally, I think Sanders would have done about as well as Clinton – most of the voting was party line, after all – and either narrowly lost or narrowly won.
marcel proust 11.12.16 at 3:39 pm
kidneystones:
Are you sure of this? I’ve read 53% of white women (voters), not all women (voters). This is an important difference (I don’t believe that you are implying that non-white women are not American).
JHW 11.12.16 at 4:02 pm
Exit polls aren’t great and I wouldn’t trust them for precise demographic estimates. But given that Clinton received less than a majority of votes, Trump received fewer votes than Clinton, and there was pretty clearly a gender gap of some size, the actual number of women voting for Trump was without a doubt well under 50%.
engels 11.12.16 at 5:15 pm
engels, you’re arguing for something which is more or less unknowable
No, you’re moving my goalposts (I agree we’ll never establish the counterfactual with certainty). On the evidence available now and at the time, the decision to run Clinton was unjustifiable.
Barry 11.12.16 at 7:12 pm
Forgive me if this has been covered above, but:
1) There was a lot of ruin in Europe this past century. From the viewpoint of the year 3000 AD the 20th century merely had a few local squabbles related to the start of the industrial revolution.
2) As far a we can tell from the rest of the GOP and Trump’s behavior, the main economic thrust will be enriching the rich while impoverishing everybody else at a rate which will make Bush II look gentle. However, this implies a strong need of political cover. I predict that the political/racial/ethnic/sexual/religious persecutions will be really bad, to give white Trumpists something to feel good about.
bob mcmanus 11.12.16 at 7:12 pm
99: 63% of no college white women, I think
But I will say again, if you’re using national aggregates at all, you have not learned the lesson of this election. What about college-educated white women in the southwestern corner of Michigan is the kinda question you should ask.
We are not getting rid of the electoral college, and the fact that Clinton won the popular vote by running up the score in California and New York is exactly the problem for Democrats, and believe me flyover country understands that Dems have some numerical advantages. That is why they turnout better.
And national aggregates totally suck for exactly this reason, that coastal density will tilt any poll and miss what is going on.
PS: Besides the Sanctuary cities, it is possible that on Obamacare Trump will keep the Medicaid expansion but massively cut the subsidies, pretty much dooming the coastal cities to medical/fiscal bankruptcy and massive emigration. At least it might be a plan.
Obama and Democrats did not give a damn for people in the states that the Roberts Court allowed off the plan. Coastals just said: Sorry, but it is Republicans condemning you to death. I got my healthcare. But what could we do? Rules is rules.
Obama a failed President and total disaster for his Party. Worst. President. Ever.
Placeholder 11.12.16 at 7:31 pm
“He was one of the first presidential candidates ever to regularly mention Native Americans in stump speeches, and he actually dared to suggest that there are two sides to the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
Yes and he won the Native and Arab American votes but not the Black vote. The first time Jesse Jackson ran in 1984 he didn’t win the black vote either. http://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/10/us/black-democrats-in-a-poll-prefer-mondale-to-jackson-as-nominee.html
We must investigate why this happens.
William Berry 11.12.16 at 9:34 pm
Tim Reynolds: “You get that far more people who use ’88’ in their name these days were simply born in 1988, right?”
And you get that I mentioned that very fact, right, and that no-one not ignorant would go ahead and use it? So, OK, just ignorant, then.
engels 11.12.16 at 10:33 pm
Also: anyone who hasn’t looked at the timeline Js. linked should do so.
J-D 11.12.16 at 11:26 pm
magari
You make a fair point; but I’m not sure how far it goes as a response to my earlier comment. I deliberately didn’t make a categorical assertion that the filibuster will fail to act as a significant restraint on any Republican agenda for the next four years.
Indeed, I didn’t make an assertion at all, but only framed a question I thought suggestive. If I restate in affirmative form, it would probably be something like this:
The filibuster may act as a significant restraint on the Republican agenda for the next four years, but there are a number of interacting factors affecting that possibility, a range of possible resulting scenarios, and substantial resulting uncertainty, so it’s only a possibility and not one to have a high degree of confidence in.
kidneystones 11.12.16 at 11:37 pm
@98, 99, and Layman elsewhere.
You’re quite right, I’m sure, re: the stats. My general point stands, however. Women and Hispanics provided Trump with the support he needed to defeat Clinton. That despite the best efforts of the media and the Clinton campaign to stigmatize the candidate and his supporters, especially if these supporters happen to belong to the cohorts Dems consider under obligation/debt to donor-class Dems.
The Dem message to workers, women, and minorities is/has been: we have and will protect.
That Americans chose the candidate painted as Hitler/Charles Manson/George Wallace/and the second coming of the KKK by the media, the establishment, the donor class and some here says, I think, a great deal about the faith most Americans have in the messengers and the Dem candidate.
True to form, the Democratic candidate is accepting very little of the responsibility for her own failures (far too numerous to elaborate here) and is instead blaming Comey. (NYT).
Thanks for the corrections and apologies for the errors.
kidneystones 11.12.16 at 11:44 pm
Hi John and ?, congrats on the new comments policy, etc. I’ll be very grateful if you’ll allow the my 104 to clear moderation, both to acknowledge those who corrected my errors and to clarify my own stance in light of these corrections. Should any other howlers turn up (very possible, even predictable?) I may drop by to acknowledge the errors.
Other than that, I’m a reader.
Thanks.
Suzanne 11.13.16 at 12:24 am
@78: I am doubtful that the opposition will try to fight fire with fire. Some of them are too responsible to bring the government to the brink while others are too conservative (like Joe Manchin, who may now switch parties). Sanders and Warren have been sounding almost amiable. McConnell and Trump will eat them if that keeps up.
Could be that there’s Obama II among the ranks yet to emerge, but the Democratic ranks are thin. Very few governors, very few rising star senators, and not many in the pipeline for reasons already discussed on CT.
@ Robespierre 86: It’s possible. I would also expect less internecine warfare during the Democratic primary season and improved Democratic turnout; we can hope that people will feel a little more energized and a little more inclined to unity after four years of Trumpism. Maybe there’ll be conflict between the GOP and its leader, although I have a feeling that the Republicans are going to get on board. I worry about the damage that may be done over those four years. The game has changed. An unstable and ignorant sleazeball has just been made the leader of the free world with open appeals to racial and ethnic hatred, among other utterly irresponsible doings and sayings. Nothing caused him permanent damage. Recall that Reagan’s cruise toward re-election was endangered when he showed signs of mental confusion during one debate. Will anyone already inclined to vote for Trump be bothered by that? (And how could they tell?)
JHW 11.13.16 at 12:31 am
Latinos voted for Trump at a historically low rate: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/11/in-record-numbers-latinos-voted-overwhelmingly-against-trump-we-did-the-research/ Exit polls in general are to be taken with a grain of salt. Exit polls about specific subgroups, all the more so. They are ballpark estimates and nothing more.
anymouse88 11.13.16 at 2:54 am
efcdons,
Right that is why I said,
‘It would be an unfair tax cut and a poorly designed Keynesian stimulus, but would still be a Keynesian stimulus’
A Keynesian stimulus is a still a Keynesian stimulus even if is not as good as another Keynesian stimulus.
js. 11.13.16 at 3:10 am
[OK, let me try posting again what I tried to post earlier today. Please delete last comment.]
Thanks, Lynne. It means a lot, really. I don’t have any special insight, obviously. I
do think it’s noteworthy that a month or two ago I noted on here the rise of hate crimes against Muslims, and the response was, “we must defeat neoliberalism!” Now, there’s been a massive spike in abuse and hate crimes against minorities and women; a student from Saudi Arabia was beaten to death on Monday. …And people want to talk about policy outcomes that may or may not occur six months or a year from now. I don’t deny those policy outcomes are very important. But it’s the refusal to notice what’s happening right now and how it’s different that’s suggestive.
On a more general note. People here love to talk about defeating neoliberalism/reviving the left. As far as I can tell, they also have little to conception of how this election looks and is playing out in communities of color. (Of course, it’s possible I’m wrong, but I’m going by the available evidence.) Last night I was hanging out with some family and friends—ended up being mostly leftie POC, people involved in community organizations, social justice work, etc. And, well, it’s a different kind of conversation. And if CT types think they can “revive the left” without people already doing this in communities of color, or if you think you can dictate to them the terms of the left, well—good luck with that.
anymouse88 11.13.16 at 3:11 am
CT moderator for this post,
That is true crap up stream. But I will gladly change it to 888 or 8 0r 8888 or whatever, I like the 88, I have used it forever, but whatever, you tell me, I am not looking to offend and I despise the alt right and what they believe in. God, I hope wearing slippers outside does not become an alt right thing. I love my slippers.
engels 11.13.16 at 4:14 am
I am not going to get sucked into the ‘left-liberal anti-racism/feminism v. populist anti-neoliberalism’ slanging match / clique-fight that has made this comments section a disaster area for the last year but I posted this on the other thread, which I thought was a pretty good starting point for these issues:
Suzanne 11.13.16 at 6:05 am
I believe he said, “Tomorrow, the American working class will strike back,†a more aggressive note, in keeping with the tone of his campaign.
He also, once again, called Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas and elicited howls of “Lock her up!” from the crowd when he attacked Clinton, cries he has never discouraged. That’s the red meat he tosses the crowd along with whatever populist slogans are floating through his head at the moment. A hard act for any left-wing movement to follow.
John Quiggin 11.13.16 at 11:19 am
js @112 Obviously, there are lots of different views expressed in comments threads, but I think it’s pretty clear that I see the (re)emergence of racism as the central problem we are facing right now. So, I’d encourage you to talk about positive responses, as I did here
https://crookedtimber.org/2016/10/30/arguing-against-racism/
Layman 11.13.16 at 12:17 pm
engels: “On the evidence available now and at the time, the decision to run Clinton was unjustifiable.”
There was no such ‘decision’ in the ordinary sense of the word. She decided to run. Millions more decided to vote for her than for Sanders, with the result that she won more delegates than did Sanders, which made her the nominee. But there was no one decision you can point to which made her the candidate and which you can say was ‘unjustifiable’.
Also, too: Getting more votes was ‘pretty strong evidence’ she was the better candidate, no?[*] You’re sidestepping that to find something else with which to challenge it.
[*] I’ve said from the beginning I thought that Clinton was a less-than-optimum candidate, but that judgment had little to do with Bernie and lots to do with Clinton. And, I voted for Bernie in the primary.
Layman 11.13.16 at 12:19 pm
js @ 112, I’m in complete agreement with your post. If that matters.
bob mcmanus 11.13.16 at 1:37 pm
Okay racism. Anti-racism. Maybe I can do that. This will be long, but I write partially to clarify my thoughts and exercise ideas, so Quiggin can feel free to delete it.
1) First and foremost, there is a wave of racialized terrorism and violence rising in America, going on right now, and everybody should be doing what they can to help and protect minorities, and should be joining the street and urban protests against the election of Trump. I hope the protests accelerate.Trump is not normal, should not be normalized, and should not be accepted as a legitimate President. In this I condemn Obama, Clinton, Sanders and Warren for saying they can work with Trump and wish him well.
2) For the most part, I am uncomfortable talking about racism in any rigorous way, and prefer to humbly read African-American and other ethnic writers with an open mind, and then read responses to them. And then form opinions, many of which I don’t share.
Amanda Taub …”Behind 2016’s Turmoil, a Crisis of White Identity” Oct 1st NY Times, sorry, my ninth article of the month, if you want to talk about politics, I guess you have to pay the subscription fees. Kinda random choice, but looks exemplary.
World Socialist Web directly responds to Taub. This one’s free.
3) I cannot find it in the comment section for LGM, but with apologies if I get it wrong, I was challenged by a comment by “drexiclya” sorry if I get that wrong, black, woman, read in contemporary philosophy saying that…
…”worker”, “working class”, and “labour” are coded default white, and in themselves racialized and racist terms. Similarly, if I can be bold, economists should abandon or modify terms like capital, interest, supply, demand, all the variables in DGSE equations as default white and racist.
No this is not snark or sarcasm. I am absolutely serious.
4) See the problem between brocialists and their adversaries in the Left, as I see it, is that a political analysis requires a pre-rational committment, sometimes chosen more often materially determined, for which your most basic frame of analysis, your subject position, defines and creates your vocabulary, your terms of discourse.
So my meanings of “labor” “capital” “the economy” as a Marxian are different from Quiggins, incommensurate, and fairly incommunicable. This is a feature not a bug, and necessary for theory and praxis, including a deliberate self-alienation from mainstream discourse. Feminists and minorities will have different definitions.
This of course does not need to descend to abstract intellectual depths. “Trump is about economic anxiety” is, from a certain perspective, in itself a racist statement. It is. As to whether “Trump is about racism” is a sexist or misogynist statement, see 2) above. I will read the feminists, but there is a politics of coalition going on there and I am not involved.
This is too long already, so I will hold off discussing the Democratic Party, neoliberalism, the ongoing immediate battle for leadership (Sanders supporters are taking over in many states), Keith Ellison and the opposing strategies of insiders and insurgents within the party.
engels 11.13.16 at 2:28 pm
there was no one decision you can point to which made her the candidate and which you can say was ‘unjustifiable
You’re right, I was sloppy—the Democratic establishment skewed the selection process to favour Clinton.
Anyway, if you want to continue this argument please do so with any of the multitude of very mainstream voices who are saying the same thing I am (I was listening to a recorded discussion yesterday with members of Cambridge politics dept—not generally known for its instinctive sympathy for populism—who agreed). Or just put your fingers in your ears while the Democratic party blows itself up.
Ronan(rf) 11.13.16 at 2:30 pm
I know people don’t love Jonathan haidt, but I think he’s close to something
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/07/10/when-and-why-nationalism-beats-globalism/
Longer version
http://www.humansandnature.org/the-ethics-of-globalism-nationalism-and-patriotism
Think of the clash between Labour and capital with liberalism in the middle, but here it’s ethno nationalism vs cosmopiltanism/multiculturalism with civic nationalism in the middle.
As a rough model, ethno nationalism and Cosmo/multiculturalism appeal to people on values and culture. These are strongly enough linked to education, geography and class. These two groups are basically diametrically opposed. In the middle are the civic nationalists, or domestic bourgeoisie. They (like liberals vis a vis Labour and capital) favour a negotiated resolution to the clash of identity politics. In their opinion nationalism beats cosmpolitanism in accepting that your first obligation is to your national group. They object to multiculturalism(though not immigration or multiethnicity) in saying people should be socialised into a national identity. But they object to ethno nationalisms extremely limited view of who belongs to the nation. The problem is identity politics, the solution is a civic nationalism.
See Eric Kaufmann for similar arguments to this. Or Matthew Goodwin/Rob Ford for a breakdown of the reasons it’s been exacerbated the last three decades.
bob mcmanus 11.13.16 at 2:32 pm
Just in passing, I would like to note that feminists/women, African-Americans, Muslim-Americans, other minorities, the LGBQTIP community are possibly in a state of shock horror despair and justifiable immediate fear for their physical safety (I hesitate to speak for them even in this)…and may not represent themselves adequately or at their best in the post-mortem discourses. Not that they are ever adequately represented at CT. Y’all do your best, but the threads here are unbalanced, and likely always will be.
There are places where their voices are better heard, and an active outreach and search is strongly recommended.
engels 11.13.16 at 2:42 pm
(To be clear, the opinion Clinton was a terrible candidate seems to me highly uncontroversial outside of CT. The view that Sanders would have stood a better chance seems less widely agreed on but also far from being a contrarian position at this point in time…)
Manta 11.13.16 at 3:39 pm
The fact that Clinton was a terrible candidate is easily proved: she managed to lose to Trump (this while having more money, a better organization, and all the media declaring that Trump is unfit to be president).
engels 11.13.16 at 3:54 pm
And btw please let’s not forget this:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/08/bill-clinton-called-donald-trump-before-presidential-run-2016
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/796222841612042240
bob mcmanus 11.13.16 at 4:37 pm
The Haidt is useful to me.
Nietzsche admits that perspectivism or relativism (or globalism) is immoral, for some meanings of community values. But imagining the other’s subject position can be irresistible.
I am wildly guessing that women foreign residents AA etc are not in the mood right now to be lectured by white male marxists, but that is what is left in many comments threads after the rending of garments stuff is absorbed. That would include the lurkers and I am trying to keep them in mind. So it is white male marxians or left-economics liberals that I am addressing, as usual.
Not that heated arguments are not going on right now, as Sanders supporters attempt to seize control of the Party in every state. It is not illogical in the aftermath of this racist wave election for white males/females to regain local Democratic Party power. This should be resisted.
So a little work.
1) African-Americans are systematically and systemically oppressed in the US, at wealth and income differentials that signal White Supremacy.
2) Any universal social program, say Basic Income or jobs for Wisconsin, will by benefiting everybody equally, will only reinforce and perpetuate White Supremacy. Any economic discourse that attempts to universalize and abstract categories, national poverty or GINI or working class, reinforces and actually is language of White Supremacy.
3) Only a discourse that puts racism and foremost to the exclusion, perhaps temporary and provisional perhaps not, of other discourses on politics, strategy, and policy is in itself not an expression of White Supremacy and racism. Attempts to universalize elements of an anti-racist discourse are themselves racist.
Only policies that directly address racism first and foremost, by targeting benefits and distribution of resources exclusively to the AA community to the expressed and accepted diminishing of White Supremacy attack and diminish White Supremacy. All others are racist. Example: reparations.
Only a politics or party politics that puts AAs in power can adequately attack White Supremacy and is anti-racist.
I, as a white male marxist, can attempt to make intersectional arguments, but I always try to remember who I am and whom I think I am addressing. The above arguments challenge me, and I confess that I that I can’t say how socialism will end White Supremacy, either before or after the Revolution or radical reform. On the other hand, permanently ceding the gavel to AAs is very difficult. Duh.
The above bullet points with modifications apply to feminism, colonialism and imperialism, queer politics etc.
Lynne 11.13.16 at 4:44 pm
And I hear from my friend in Starkville that the KKK are recruiting at MSU.
engels 11.13.16 at 5:42 pm
Donald Trump says he’s going to deport up to three million immigrants immediately
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-deport-immigrants-immediately-when-mexico-wall-a7415116.html
engels 11.13.16 at 7:24 pm
Trump campaign CEO Bannon complained of Jews at daughters’ school
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election/trump-campaign-ceo-bannon-complained-jews-daughters-school
engels 11.13.16 at 7:27 pm
Nigel Farage, Trump’s biggest British supporter, jokingly warns him not to grope the U.K.’s female Prime Minister
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/brexit-leader-nigel-farage-warns-trump-groping
derek 11.13.16 at 8:26 pm
To misquote ‘dsquared’ [whose “D-Squared Digest One Minute MBA – Avoiding Projects Pursued By Morons 101” is a masterpiece and should be required reading now] – here is the URL for it: http://blog.danieldavies.com/2004_05_23_d-squareddigest_archive.html:
“There’s a yuuge deal of ruin in a nation! I’m gonna show you such a yuuge deal, it’s gonna be a yuuge deal of ruin. You’re gonna be amazed at what a yuuge deal of ruin it’s gonna be. Honestly, folks, you’ve never seen such a yuuge deal of ruin.”
bob mcmanus 11.13.16 at 8:59 pm
Just a note from Matt Stoller’s twitter feed, and the refutation of arguments about a close Presidential election.
The Republicans are within striking distance of having enough state legislatures to start passing Constitutional Amendments.
When do you believe demographics will turn enough to get 37 Democratic State legislatures and how much damage can be done in the interim.
Let this feed your nightmares.
Mark Field 11.13.16 at 11:37 pm
The Republicans are within striking distance of having enough state legislatures to start passing Constitutional Amendments.
They have 33. They need 38, and even then they first need a 2/3 vote in Congress — which they aren’t close to having — or they have to call a Convention (in which case all bets are off).
js. 11.14.16 at 1:05 am
[Having lots of trouble posting; trying once again.]
engels @114 — “The left” is the people who make up the left. Who is that in the US right now? It’s not Michael Moore. And it’s not bruce wilder.
——
JQ @116 — I think that noticing what is happening and bearing witness in whatever way possible is the necessary first step for a positive response. Speculating about the future of neoliberalism is not. (Neither is “economic populism”, regardless of its merits, as I noted in the first two comments of the linked thread.)
——
We’re a lot more clear-headed than your lot. And frankly, you could’ve hesitated all the way to not saying it.
——
(Meta: is anyone else getting the thing where your comments just get eaten by the system and don’t show up in the moderation queue? What’s up with that?)
J-D 11.14.16 at 10:55 am
This is just to quote from somebody else’s comment on another blog I frequent:
bob mcmanus 11.14.16 at 12:46 pm
They have 33. They need 38, and even then they first need a 2/3 vote in Congress — which they aren’t close to having — or they have to call a Convention (in which case all bets are off).
Right to Work amendment? I have always assumed they would get Democratic votes from opportunists and accommodationists.
I really don’t want to deal with Clinton supporters. Sanders has enough support to provide new leadership for the Democratic Party, as in tens of millions. I think Wilder Moore and I can find hope in that new party, although it should be led by the young.
engels 11.14.16 at 2:06 pm
Js. to be clear I don’t think Bruce’s positions are ‘Left’ as opposed to ‘Liberal’ (I don’t think he claims that either.). I don’t really have time for the can of worms this opens up but as I’ve tried to say before I feel the discussions here over the last year have been dominated (crudely) by two groupings:
A (left-)liberal one which defended Clinton and was pre-occupied with feminism and anti-racism—you, RNB, Layman, Val, (perhaps Lynne, ZM, …)
A (left-)populist one which came close at times to preferring Trump and was centred on economic issues and attacking neoliberalism—Bruce, Rich, Lupita, (abb1, …)
(Apologies if I misplaced or mischaracterised anyone.)
I’m not claiming they’re equivalent but I don’t feel at all comfortable with either of those positions and I don’t think either are very close to ‘socialism’ or ‘the left’ as I see it IRL on in other parts of the ‘net.
The task of the left, I think, is to build a genuine opposition to the power of capital based on class. Anti-racism and feminism are essential parts of that project but left anti-racism and feminism are fundamentally different from their liberal analogues (although they do have points of contact).
engels 11.14.16 at 2:20 pm
I’m not claiming they’re equivalent
Actually I’ll be more forthright: given the choice between a populism that doesn’t talk about race and gender and a liberalism that does, I’d support the latter. But I don’t have to make that choice.
is anyone else getting the thing where your comments just get eaten by the system and don’t show up in the moderation queue?
Yes, but not for a while.
Mark Field 11.14.16 at 2:49 pm
Right to Work amendment? I have always assumed they would get Democratic votes from opportunists and accommodationists.
I’m pretty sure they could do this by statute. Alternatively, a Court decision could accomplish it.
efcdons 11.14.16 at 3:31 pm
Layman @117
“Also, too: Getting more votes was ‘pretty strong evidence’ she was the better candidate, no?[*] You’re sidestepping that to find something else with which to challenge it. ”
No. That isn’t the case at all. The Democratic Primary electorate is not at all representative of the general electorate.
That was a main argument against Sanders’ viability in a general election when he was strong in the beginning of the campaign. It is a common argument against voting for Corbyn in the UK where Labour has increased the power of members to vote for leader over the MPs.
Winning a bunch of southern states on high African-American vote totals wasn’t an indication of Clinton’s strength in the general election. Winning lots of high income white people in other states (which is a demo that as a whole usually goes for GOP candidates in purple states) wasn’t an indication of strength in the general election.
bruce wilder 11.14.16 at 8:05 pm
engels @ 137
Seems fair enough a categorization in that there are some commonalities along some dimensions, but . . .
There’s been an evolution of anti-racism and feminism, especially in the academy, from the nearly opaque deconstruction of meaning to the latching onto kernels of moral certitude and deploying those in rhetorical dominance games. It seems to me that’s what faustusnotes and js. are doing most of the time — Layman, too, sometimes: playing blog comments as a dominance game. It goes on, I am told, on Facebook and Twitter, but I stay away from those social media environments.
I can own your categorization, but I would not want it to be confused with my being on anyone’s “team”. Rich or Lupita or bob mcmanus and I disagree about a lot of stuff. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with being on a team or feeling some affinity of views or experience or identity. But, I think confronting the dominance games played by some should not be construed as making a team; that’s conceding that the playing of dominance games is legitimate. This forcing of sides is not a good thing.
engels: The task of the left, I think, is to build a genuine opposition to the power of capital based on class.
If you are not for the commons against the lords, for the slaves against the masters, for the workers against the bosses, you are not left in any meaningful sense. For a liberal like myself it is a question of balance among conflicting interests. How left a liberal like myself is, depends on the political context of the times, as all a liberal wants is balance and perpetuity of the conflict. In our present moment, as a global plutocratic leviathan threatens to swallow the whole world and dissolve humanity and nearly the whole of life upon this pitiful planet in its gastric acids, that can put a liberal practically pretty far left, I think.
As far as the (racist or sexist) patriarchy is concerned, a liberal ought to be against it, without such equivocation. A liberal is a political egalitarian, opposed to social rank and legal privilege, prejudice and particularism, on principle, as an imposition of arbitrary power.
Liberals also tend to be practical incrementalists, which can admit hypocrisy alongside a reluctance to press reactionaries too far toward violence. Incrementalism can easily slip-slide into potentially fatal accommodation.
Liberalism has an evil twin in libertarianism (aka neoliberalism). A true liberal believes in enlightened self-interest, a general welfare and power as a positive-sum game in decentralized social cooperation and probity in process. The neoliberal seeks to profit from subverting that vision from within as it were. Racism and anti-feminism attempts similar judo moves, transforming civil rights into black rights, et cetera.
As a liberal, my view of populism is ambivalent and instrumental. Populism is a political form, without necessary programmatic or philosophic content. Its form is dictated by the political psychology of people who have the misfortune of being cast into positions of precarity and economic and social dependence. To achieve a balance of interests along the vertical axis in a hierarchical political economy, liberals and socialists have to compete against demagogues to mobilize politically the dependent classes by making populist appeals.
There can certainly be elements of distastefulness in the making of populist appeals, with and without references to race or gender as categories of identity, rooted in class condescension and contempt. I leave that analysis aside, but I submit the moral ambivalence is built-in. It is compounded by the extent to which the psychology of dependent and precarious classes makes members of such classes prone to authoritarianism: racist and sexist and revanchist and chauvinistic and generally illiberal. But, that’s why the subaltern should not be abandoned to the demagogues and the task of raising or transforming consciousness and culture must go on, even if it appears sisyphean. (Haidt pisses me off, but I try to hear him.)
engels 11.14.16 at 10:48 pm
Bruce, thanks that’s interesting. I’d like to reply properly if I have time (unfortunately not looking likely over the next day or two…)
William Timberman 11.14.16 at 11:21 pm
Bruce Wilder @ 141
As a sort of Nicene Creed for liberals and liberalism, this would be hard to beat. Not as rousing as the Marsellaise, or as optimistic as the Internationale, maybe, but nevertheless refreshing to read at the end of a long, hard day.
Sebastian H 11.15.16 at 3:34 am
“Liberals also tend to be practical incrementalists, which can admit hypocrisy alongside a reluctance to press reactionaries too far toward violence. Incrementalism can easily slip-slide into potentially fatal accommodation.”
Liberalism is capable of making distinctions that allow enemies to live together without always rubbing each other’s faces in it. There is a difference between necessary disagreements and unnecessary fights. Having the government recognize gay marriages was a necessary disagreement. Trying to make sure that every cake maker could be forced to cater the weddings was an unnecessary fight.
The problem with the “I won’t consort with bigots” leftists who don’t want to worry about Rust Belt economics is that they believe EVERY disagreement is a necessary fight.
engels 11.15.16 at 5:04 am
I agree the anti-Hillary bloc was more heterogenous than the pro-Hillary side (it still seems to me to have various views in common) and maybe populist was the wrong word for it. My point, which I take it you and Js. both agree with, was that I wouldn’t label it ‘Left’. Maybe I should have said orthodox liberals v. heterodox liberals?
Val 11.15.16 at 5:33 am
engels @ 137
A (left-)liberal one which defended Clinton and was pre-occupied with feminism and anti-racism—you, RNB, Layman, Val, (perhaps Lynne, ZM, …)
A (left-)populist one which came close at times to preferring Trump and was centred on economic issues and attacking neoliberalism—Bruce, Rich, Lupita, (abb1, …)
(Apologies if I misplaced or mischaracterised anyone.)
The trouble is I think there are so many different definitions of “liberal” around that people here (including yourself) can classify anyone as liberal, even when we have vigorously protested many times that that is not the political position we hold. As I have said, my position is more like “communitarianism” – it’s somewhat like socialism or communism but without the over-arching power of the state apparatus that actually happened in socialist and communist countries, and without the continued patriarchal emphasis on ‘work’ as production of goods and services for exchange, and neglect of domestic, affective and subsistence work, that characterised (and characterises) both socialist/communist and capitalist countries.
In so far as a ‘liberal’ is someone who gives priority to individual rights and the ‘free market’, I am definitely not a liberal. I respect individual rights but I think that without communal and societal action on the key issues of equity and ecological sustainability, we won’t get anywhere. I’d be quite happy to see a lot more state regulation in both those areas – a lot more!
In general I’m opposed to private property and capitalism, I think we should substitute some form of communal property rights and cooperatives. I just don’t accept that there is any real need or justification for capitalism.
If your argument requires that you call me a ‘liberal’ I do think there is something wrong with your argument.
My argument about Clinton always was that she was imperfect but better than Trump. If you have to render that as defending her, then again I think there is something wrong with your argument.
I think you have mischaracterised me, and probably others. I’m not being angry or sarcastic, because I believe that you genuinely see things as you said, but I really wonder why these mischaracterisations happen. It does sometimes seem as if certain people (including yourself?) think of yourselves as the ‘true left’ and are unwilling to see that there are others who are genuinely left but don’t always agree with you on everything?
engels 11.15.16 at 9:11 am
If your argument requires that you call me a ‘liberal’
It doesn’t—I could have just left you off the list. For the record though, I do think you and fwiw Rich are both basically liberals although I know both disagree. It’s not about any one particular tenet but theory, practice and how you engage with people, especially other liberals and leftists. But I don’t have time to support that opinion, just register it.
It does sometimes seem as if certain people (including yourself?) think of yourselves as the ‘true left’ and are unwilling to see that there are others who are genuinely left but don’t always agree with you on everything?
Logically it could be, but I spend a lot of time arguing with left wingers online and off and I’m aware there are many who disagree with me. I just don’t think that applies to the most regular commenters on the Clinton / anti-Clinton threads here. Offhand I think nastywoman (recent threads), F Foundling, Igor Belanov, and others all have views that I’d consider mainstream left ones.
In so far as a ‘liberal’ is someone who gives priority to individual rights and the ‘free market’, I am definitely not a liberal.
That applies to everyone here I’m guessing.
engels 11.15.16 at 9:14 am
(Basil is another commenter I saw recently who seemed to be saying normal Left-ish stuff…)
basil 11.15.16 at 2:21 pm
I had a comment up that responded to engels, and fear I’m offending the new rules in a way I don’t quite understand given the eye-popping comments from others that have made it through. Let’s try again, reducing the probability of its being understood as an attack.
—–
dear engels,
Thank you for your clarification. I think of the left as people who are pushing for an emancipatory politics, going to the roots to find a more radical, egalitarian and capacious feminism, and a more radical anti-racism. I think of the left here, as a force that tries to go beyond celebrations of representation as inclusion and tolerance, beyond the comforting exculpating tropes, and further than the narrow Western or national publics we ordinarily pay attention to. I think the left understands the recuperation of feminism and anti-racism, and seeing these forces as crucial for a just world wants to take them back from the state and capital. As you rightly point out, it does focus on feminism and anti-racism, just in an entirely different way than liberalism addresses those subjects. On a space like this, that means refusing to support extreme violence like HRC’s, or to collude in the self-congratulation of the status quo. It means showing solidarity with those who are excluded.
I don’t think I’d agree with your taxonomy, and just to give the example of Lupita, I think they’ve been vital for opening up CT to voices from a world unseen (useful film is you can watch it). It is a poorer place without them in particular because their contributions illuminated these intersections between gendered, racialised, nationalised and economic forms of subjugation. If the majority of self-described feminists here prosecute a Lean In! feminism, one entrained to the electoral cycle and focused on the old shibboleths around abortion and representation, Lupita’s work here (and it is work) reveals a world in which the horrible consequences of LeanIn! Corporate feminism are lived.
Much political education is to be had from listening to, and centreing those voices, and experiences.
—
PS. There’s something weird about the way we think about ‘race’ here. It reproduces the hierarchy, naturalises the division and centres Whiteness with all its violence.
Lynne 11.15.16 at 3:26 pm
“If the majority of self-described feminists here prosecute a Lean In! feminism, one entrained to the electoral cycle and focused on the old shibboleths around abortion and representation”
I take “Lean In!” feminism to mean acceptance of the patriarchy and a determination to work hard within it, and I would be very surprised if the few self-described feminists here subscribe to any such thing.
Val 11.15.16 at 8:51 pm
Perhaps I need to clarify that I am also not an advocate of “lean in” feminism? (A point that I think would have been obvious to anyone who read my comments, but some commenters here seem to overlay their own impressions rather than read the comments, at least in my case). I don’t know if basil was referring to me, but as I am one of the few feminists who comments here, I imagine he might be.
Just to clarify again – I am a left wing feminist. I have been writing about intersectionality for over 20 years (particularly about the intersection of patriarchy, racism and colonialism in Australia). I vote either Green or socialist. I would greatly prefer it if people here stopped interpolating their own interpretations of what I am saying and read what I actually say.
There is a well known phenomenon by which men take over women’s ideas – ignore or ridicule them when they are first made by women, then later advance them as their (ie the men’s) own ideas. I am very fed up with the ignoring, ridiculing and misrepresenting that I have experienced as a feminist commenting on CT.
John Quiggin 11.15.16 at 9:23 pm
I’m closing comments on this thread, and should have done so quite a while ago. In future, I’ll come down hard on threadjacking “left vs liberal” debates, unless that is the topic of the OP. Particularly annoying since we have a current post on exactly that.
More generally, no more threadjacking please. If your comment is unrelated to the OP, it will probably be deleted. Interesting side discussions might be tolerated, where “interesting” = “interesting to me”
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