Joe Biden: I’m the most qualified candidate imaginable.
Bernie Sanders: To bring about the “revolution.”
Cory Booker: To bring the country together.
Elizabeth Warren: To help the little people who have been screwed over by a rigged system.
Kamala Harris: To bring justice to people of color.
Beto O’Rourke: It’s the next logical step on my long, strange trip.
Pete Buttigieg: To show that gay people are normal, too.
Kirsten Gillibrand: Because men suck.
Theresa May apparently plans to have MV4 in the near future. Will the fourth time be the charm?
May’s tactic has always been to play the two sides against each other. She will try to use the late October exit date and the possibility that her negotiations with Corbyn might succeed as leverage against the Brexiteers, and the likelihood of a resignation and a new no-deal PM as leverage against Labour. My guess, however, is that neither side will view these threats as being credible enough to change positions, and MV4 will fail by about the same margin as MV3.
Then what? The no-dealers are going to make a new push for May’s resignation. If they get it, she will probably be succeeded by a no-dealer, who will end negotiations with Labour, apply as much pressure as possible on the Conservative Remainer MPs to toe the line, and run the clock out. Whether this plan will work or not depends on the Remainers. Will they put party loyalty before their concerns about the impacts of no-deal, or not? That’s a question that I can’t answer.
That would be Lenin Moreno, who booted Julian Assange out of Ecuador’s embassy in London.
Assange is effectively Putin’s stooge. He will argue that he is nothing more or less than a persecuted journalist, but he isn’t charged with anything that implicates the First Amendment, and he’s really a Russian agent, anyway.
So I say, lock him up!
The Harris plan to use federal funds to raise teacher pay on a national basis is shrewd politics, because:
But is it good policy? There, the story is mixed. You can make a strong case, particularly in red states, that teachers have lost ground economically over the last 30 years, and so deserve a raise that will only realistically come from Washington. Increasing teacher pay significantly would, in the long run, make the job more attractive and thus improve the pool of applicants. It is consequently a measure that has the support of both unions and reformers. You can also make the argument, however, that a large percentage of the money would just subsidize mediocrity if it isn’t tied to rigorous national standards. There would also be complaints about excessive federal interference in a field traditionally dominated by state and local officials, although I’m personally agnostic on that one. Finally, is investing in teachers more important than, say, infrastructure? There is only so much money to go around; whether teacher pay should be given this high a priority is a debatable point.
To me, as policy, it is a close call. It will have to be viewed in the context of the overall budget if and when (more likely, the former) it is given serious consideration in Congress.
Kamala Harris stands out from her competitors in a variety of ways, one of which is her background as a prosecutor. It clearly influences the way she thinks and talks; she tends to be firm and direct, and she enjoys cross-examining witnesses.
That kind of approach could well appeal to angry Democrats. Can’t you imagine a nominee who effectively puts Trump on the stand and destroys him? Wouldn’t that be fun?
Yes, it would. For the same reasons, my best guess is that she will make a strong impression during the debates. If she is to win, however, she needs to address two related points: she has to find a way to transcend pure identity politics; and she has to find a formula that will win votes from white working men.
I think she can do both, but I haven’t seen the evidence of it yet.
In a posting on Vox last week, Matthew Yglesias finds that white liberals have moved decidedly to the left on social issues in the last several years. He cleverly refers to this as “The Great Awokening.” The questions for today are:
As to the first question, it was undoubtedly a response to the GOP’s appalling reaction to the election of the incredibly benign Barack Obama, who was portrayed by Fox News as a raging black racist in spite of his ongoing and tireless efforts to overcome the divisions in our society. Trump, of course, made this a thousand times worse. As to the second, a poll in yesterday’s NYT confirmed what I have said many times, and what should be inherently obvious: young PC Democratic activists do not represent the majority of the party’s voters.
For those of us who have resisted The Great Awokening, the message is encouraging and clear–yes, it is possible that the Democrats may decide to rerun the 1972 election in the hallowed names of socialism and PC, but it is by no means inevitable.
“Pocahontas” is undoubtedly the albatross around Elizabeth Warren’s neck. The questions for today are:
The answer to the second question is simple–no. Warren clearly had an honest belief at an earlier age that she was partly Native American. Based on the stories told in her household, the belief was reasonable. She never gained anything by it. Why is such a small mistake a stain on her reputation?
The first question presents more difficulties. During the primaries, she will undoubtedly have a few problems with PC zealots who will complain that she disrespected Native Americans, but that won’t amount to much in the big picture. The general election would be quite another story, however. “Pocahontas” resonates with Trump’s base because it seems to encapsulate everything that is wrong (from their perspective) with left-wing identity politics. Their story is that an allegedly privileged white woman tried to beat the system by making a bogus claim to be a Native American; that is where you end up when you make your arguments for justice and victimhood based on group membership rather than your own individual life story.
Of course, Trump and his base claim to be victims, too, but that’s a story for another day.
On the Fed nominee Herman Cain.
His interest rate views are insane.
He’ll act as Trump’s tool
‘Cause he’s really a fool.
Will Republicans get off the train?
Julian Assange and Glen Greenwald are hardly members of the far right, and yet they have consistently defended Donald Trump. Why?
Because they are the exact opposite of neo-conservatives: they believe that America is exceptional in that it is a force for evil throughout the world. Conceived in slavery, imperialism, and sin, America brings death and disorder everywhere it goes in the name of supposed universal values that it uses purely as a cover for material interests. Sure, Putin might be a thug, and his regime might be a kleptocracy, but his imperialism is more restrained than America’s, and he doesn’t try to convince the world that he’s high-minded. He may be evil, but he’s the lesser evil.
Jeremy Corbyn would agree with all of this, and Bernie Sanders probably does, too, although he is unlikely to say so directly in public.
To these folks, there are two things to commend Trump. First, he’s given no indication that he’s a warmonger; he prefers negotiations and economic sanctions to military interventions–at least so far. Second, Trump doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism; to the far left, his absurdly anachronistic version of colonialism and mercantilism isn’t an aberration–it actually is what America does in practice. Trump, in their eyes, speaks for the real America, not the self-deluded one; he’s a truth-teller who exposes the hypocrisy of the establishment by his open preference for economic interests and dictators over liberal democratic values. As such, he is a breath of fresh air, not a menace to be opposed wherever possible.
As I noted in my last post, the division between uplifting and angry Democrats doesn’t coincide with the realo/fundi split. Why?
Because different Democrats are angry about different things. Warren and Sanders are upset about the allegedly “rigged” American political and economic systems in general; to them, Trump’s corruption is more of a symptom than the actual illness, and his greatest sin was to portray himself as a reformer in 2016, and then to unashamedly pour more water into the swamp. The realos, on the other hand, are less concerned about structural issues with the system, and more about the evils of the individual himself.
I suspect the voters are more focused on Trump than the “rigged” system. We’ll see next year.
There are basically two ways to run against Trump: you can ignore him and try to sell the public on a vision for a better America; or you can focus your energy on prosecuting him for his innumerable sins. The two approaches are mutually exclusive.
You might think initially that the angry approach would be associated exclusively with realos, and the uplift with fundis, but you would be wrong. Beto, for example, is an uplifting realo, while Sanders and Warren are angry fundis.
Which approach will the Democrats choose in 2020? Historically, they have preferred youthful candidates with an uplifting message, but they’ve never run against anyone like Trump before. My best guess is that anger will play well with the blue base this time. We’ll see, probably as early as the first debate.
Bret Stephens predictably thinks that Trump’s decision to break out of the Iran nuclear deal has been successful. Is he right?
Not really. It is true, as he says, that the new American sanctions have made it more difficult for the Iranians to find the money to support their confederates elsewhere in the Middle East, and that the Iranians have chosen to date not to tear up the agreement. It is consequently fair to say that things could definitely be worse. He neglects to point out, however, that Trump’s decision has severely damaged our relationship with our European allies, who are actively taking the Iranian side in the dispute, that the Iranians could change their position on observing the agreement at any time, and that the new sanctions have not, and will not, result in regime change. All the sanctions are doing is making everyone’s lives more difficult, which was hardly the point.
Slavery made it impossible for small white farmers to compete with cotton plantation owners on cost. They were, for the most part, left to engage in subsistence farming. Since the Civil War (notwithstanding what you hear from some diehard Southerners) was about maintaining slavery, it would appear that there was no economic reason for these people to support the war. And yet, they did, and they died by the hundreds of thousands. Why?
There were a variety of reasons, but one of them undoubtedly was status anxiety; slavery might have cost them money, but it boosted their self-esteem, because it meant they would never be the lowest man on the totem pole, no matter how unsuccessful they might be. They were willing to go to extremes to protect that interest.
You should keep that in mind the next time you hear someone ask why white workers vote for Republicans who cut their benefits.
Here are the central tenets of Trump’s foreign policy:
Like Trump (and unlike Obama), Bernie Sanders doesn’t believe in the Pax Americana. However, the only item on this list with which he would agree is #7. Sanders believes that America should cut its defense budget dramatically and rely exclusively on diplomacy, moral example, and, where absolutely necessary, economic sanctions to solve international problems. He identifies the right-wing illiberal democrats and strongmen so adored by Trump as part of an axis of autocrats that should be opposed by an international movement of social democrats. He would, therefore, increase the number of America’s enemies, without providing any additional means to fight them.
Trump’s anachronistic pseudo-realism has been a disaster for America. Sanders’ extreme idealism would just be a different kind of disaster.
The 45th President Trump
Wants the Fed to keep priming the pump.
He just loves sugar highs.
You don’t have to ask why.
He’s afraid that next year he’ll get dumped.