Cromwell

One of the best insights about politics that I ever received came to me in a dream.  A character in the dream, identity unknown, told me that the American people don’t really expect their leaders to solve their problems, but they have to know that their hearts are in the right place.  If you think fairly hard about it, that explains a lot of what happens in politics, which would include Hillary Clinton’s wish list of an agenda.

The bottom line is that the Republicans are going to maintain control of the House after the 2016 election, and quite possibly the Senate, as well.  As a result, few, if any, of the Democratic agenda items are going to become law.  Hillary is undoubtedly well aware of this. With that in mind, what can her supporters actually expect her to do, in the real world, if she is elected?

First, she would stop a Republican counterrevolution in domestic policy, which would include: cuts and counterproductive structural changes to entitlement programs; massive cuts to anti-poverty programs; large tax cuts on capital; the dismantling of regulations on financial institutions and pollution sources; new legislation restricting abortion; and, in all likelihood, a national right-to-work law.

Second, she can stop us from going to war in the Middle East for little or no good reason.  Her support of the Iran deal provides some needed reassurance on that point.

Third, she can try to make deals with Republicans based on mutual self-interest.  Obama has had little success with this, but it could be tried again with a slightly different case of characters.  These could include the following:  income tax cuts in exchange for a carbon tax; entitlement cuts in exchange for infrastructure spending; trading tax cuts for working people for tax cuts for the wealthy (deficit be damned); pro-business changes to immigration law; or getting rid of the Obamacare employer mandate in exchange for additional discretionary spending.

Fourth, she can use her regulatory authority to the maximum extent of the law.

That’s about it.  In terms of making actual social progress, as opposed to warding off disaster, it may not be very inspiring, but when you consider the alternative, it doesn’t look bad at all.

 

 

 

By all accounts, Taylor Swift was born and raised as a blue person.  She found her opportunity, however, in Nashville.  Her records became progressively more pop (i.e., “blue”) as time went on, and she finally decided to move to New York and embrace a more urban audience and lifestyle.  As far as I can tell, however, she did this without offending her country fans, who viewed her departure with regret instead of anger, so she can still cross over if the occasion presents itself, as I suspect it will at some point in the future.

Her music does not really speak to me, but I have great respect for her intelligence and business sense, and I think there is a lesson in this story that the Democratic Party needs to hear:  a little effort to understand and visibly respect red culture can do a world of good.

T.S. 1989 2016!

Just as the Republicans have done their best to nominate Ronald Reagan, or his latest incarnation, since the 1980 election, the Democrats have been looking for the new JFK since 1963.  Several contenders were nominated, but found wanting for one reason or another.  At long last, they struck it rich with Obama–young, fresh, charismatic, and a great speaker– in 2008.  A more appropriate JFK successor could scarcely be imagined.  But now his tenure is winding down, so where do the Democrats go from here?

The likely Democratic nominee is an extremely experienced politician whose campaign theme will be her ability, in spite of (or maybe because of) her many scars, to get things done, because she has succeeded in maintaining relationships with Congressional leaders in both parties regardless of personal and ideological differences, and she knows how to cut deals.  In short, great speeches and charisma are all well and good, but it takes an insider with thick skin to make the system move.

It’s perfect.  Hillary is the new LBJ.

The Democratic Party essentially represents the negation of the agenda of the Reactionary faction of the Republican Party.  It consists of groups that have  been denied power within the traditional authority structure, and which have demanded assistance from the state for the purpose of attaining equality of treatment.  These groups, and their respective oppositions, include:

1.  People of color, vs. whites;

2.  Feminist women, vs. men;

3.  Gays, vs. straight people;

4.  Labor, vs. capital;

5.  Poor, vs. rich; and

6.  Secularists, vs. organized religion.

Most of the time, the agendas of these groups do not conflict, so the party (at least in recent years) has been more united and cohesive than the Republicans, whose divisions in Congress are all too visible on a daily basis.  There is no doubt, however, that white working men are on the wrong side of several of these conflicts, which, along with the party’s failure to provide a convincing response to economic shifts caused by technological change and globalization, has resulted in large scale defections to the Republicans among white men.

There is a whiff of triumphalism about the Democratic Party’s view of the demographic changes that appear to provide it with a working majority during presidential election years.  Leaving aside the fact that the off-presidential electorate routinely chooses a Congress dominated by Republicans, which makes pursuing an ambitious legislative agenda impossible, one has to wonder what will happen if and when the groups listed above start to lose their sense of grievance.  I don’t know if or when that will ever occur, but it could.

One interesting paradox regarding the Democrats is that they routinely provide vigorous support for entitlements for the elderly, but the elderly are among the most reliable cohorts of Republican voters.  How long can that contradiction persist, and in what way will it ultimately be resolved?  That is a subject for another day.

Blue people think red people are an inferior class of American, but red people deny that blue people are even real Americans.

With that transition, the next few posts will be about the Democratic Party.

But, you say, it is the “Texas Miracle” that created all of those jobs, even during the Great Recession.  Rick Perry insists that it was the product of low taxes and minimal regulations, and proposes it as a template for the entire country.  My point is that they have low taxes, similar weather, and minimal regulations in Mississippi, but no “miracle.”  Why not?  What makes Texas different than Mississippi?

There are a number of potential answers to that.  Oil unquestionably is a big part of it, but there are other elements, as well:

1.  Proximity to the Mexican border;

2.  Greater public and private investment in higher education and the arts (yes, there are some islands of blue in the red Texas sea);

3.  Jobs associated with the space program;

4.  Greater state investment in infrastructure; and

5.  (Possibly) lower housing costs due to minimal local land use regulation. (I doubt the regulations in Mississippi are very strict, but it is a fact that housing costs and regulations in Texas are very light).

It would be logical to conjure an argument for a different kind of GOP that juxtaposes additional infrastructure and education investments supported in part by tax dollars with a very minimal safety net in the interests of maximizing growth.  Leaving aside the question as to whether one would like to live in a Dickensian state in the 21st century, I haven’t seen Perry (or anyone else) make the argument like that.  In any event, there are elements of the “miracle” that cannot be reproduced in most of the country.

 

 

The Romney Coalition subprimary candidates are Bush, Rubio, Christie, and Kasich.  The last two are not serious contenders:  Christie just carries way too much baggage; and Kasich appears to be well on the way to winning the Jon Huntsman Memorial Worthy Candidate With No Public Support Award.  The winner will be either Bush or Rubio.

This is going to be fascinating.  Bush has a substantial advantage in fundraising and establishment backing, but how is that going to translate into popular support?  How can he tailor his message to distinguish himself from Rubio, who comes from the same state, was part of the same state government, has similar policy positions, and has an even stronger connection to the Hispanic community?

Rubio’s greatest points of vulnerability are his executive inexperience and lack of swagger.  My guess is that Bush will run plenty of commercials that look similar to Hillary’s 2008 3 AM phone call ad in order to emphasize this point.  Whether that will work or not remains to be seen.

Rubio, on the other hand, profits from the fact that Jeb! can spend a billion, or ten billion, dollars on ads, but it won’t change his last name or his connection to his unpopular brother, with whom he has no apparent policy disagreements.   The Rubio campaign doesn’t really need to do anything to exploit this advantage, but expect to see plenty of commercials talking about fresh ideas, even though he doesn’t really seem to have any other than to encourage college students to fund their education by becoming indentured servants.  He also appears to have enough money to be in the fight for the long run, which could, at a minimum, be of great benefit to the winner of the Reagan Coalition subprimary.

Much will be riding on the Bush tax cut plan, whenever it is unveiled, which presumably will be before the debate.  Will Jeb! attempt to outbid Rubio by providing even greater tax cuts to the wealthy, as his business establishment backers will probably be demanding, or will he make more of an effort to help working class voters to create some ideological distance between himself and the other candidates?  I am betting on the former.  Stay tuned.

The 2011-12 Republican debates were more of a series of excommunications than a genuine exchange of opposing ideas.  Since everyone was aware of the orthodox position on each issue, the objective was to find your opponent’s heresies and beat him into submission with it.   Will that be true again in this campaign?  I would like to think not, particularly since there appears to be a greater diversity of opinion among the candidates on several issues than last time, but the intellectual enforcers within the party (Fox News, WSJ, etc.) are very strong, and I suspect they will prevail.

Given the large number of candidates, it is inevitable that all of them will try desperately to get attention by employing the sharpest and most memorable zingers they can muster against President Obama and Hillary Clinton.  It is also very likely that the group as a whole will feel comfortable taking shots at Rand Paul’s views on foreign policy.  Will any of them go further than that?  And, if so, will they have the nerve to pursue their attacks to their logical conclusion?  Tim Pawlenty’s failure to press his attack on Romney over Obamacare in 2011 is proof that half-hearted (i.e., wimpish) challenges to the leading contenders can be disastrous.

Fans of the Tour de France will note the similarities between the cluster of debaters on the stage and the peleton, which has its own enforcement mechanisms to maintain discipline within the group.  Nevertheless, someone with low poll ratings is bound to launch a significant attack on one or more of the principal contenders early in the race, because he has little to lose and much to gain.  My prediction is that it will be Ted Cruz, who has burned so many bridges with the Republican establishment, he views it as a badge of honor, and will use it to market himself to the electorate.

 

To the Republican voter, every election is 1980.  The Democratic candidate is Jimmy Carter–overly intellectual, weak, and overwhelmed by events; the Republican, of course, is Ronald Reagan.  The purpose of the primaries, therefore, is to anoint the latest incarnation of Reagan.

The new Reagan should obviously look as much as possible like the old one;  he should have a commanding presence and as much charisma as possible and be visibly free from any sort of doubt about the correctness of his ideology.  To put it in a single word, the Republican nominee has to have swagger.

Who among the candidates best meets this description?  Jeb Bush has the physical presence, but lacks Reagan’s ability to project strength and certainty.   Chris Christie and Donald Trump have plenty of swagger (it is probably their biggest asset in this forum), but a host of other liabilities.  Marco Rubio’s most memorable public moment came when he ducked off camera for a water bottle.  Scott Walker is a certified butt-kicker, but my dining room set has more charisma than he does.  Ted Cruz swaggers, but comes across as being very negative.   The others?  Forget it.

So who wins?  I don’t know, but this is a huge problem for Rubio.  I think his lack of swagger disqualifies him regardless of his other assets.

 

Ross Perot with a TV show.

None of the individual Republican factions represents a majority of the party.  In order to get the nomination, therefore, one must find a way to obtain support from at least one other factions.

The most plausible groupings are the Romney (Christian Democrat and PBP) and Reagan (PBP and Reactionary) coalitions.  A CD and Reactionary coalition, based on an agreement on social issues, opposition to illegal immigration, and economic policies targeted to assist the white working class, is a logical possibility, but has little or no precedent, and is unlikely.

The Romney coalition (generally viewed as the Republican establishment) would presumably take the following positions:

a.  Tepid opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage;

b.  Support for a generous immigration policy;

c.  Tax cuts targeted to assist both the rich and the working poor;

d.  A more aggressive foreign policy;

e.  Some measure of business deregulation;  and

f.  Some watering down of the ACA, but not a full-blown repeal.

The Rubio tax cut plan is an excellent example of an attempt to build a bridge between the CDs and the PBPs.  The initial version of the plan apparently emphasized tax cuts for the working poor, a CD idea, but that approach was insufficient to obtain support from the PBPs, so the final version included sweeping changes to benefit the extremely wealthy.

The Reagan coalition (named after a man who, we sometimes forget, was viewed as a dangerous insurgent by elements of the GOP prior to the 1980 general election) would take the following positions:

a.  Vocal opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage;

b.  Strong opposition to any attempt to liberalize immigration policies;

c.  A larger defense budget, but a reluctance to intervene militarily except under extreme circumstances;

d. Benefit cuts for the (undeserving) poor;

e.  Financial and environmental deregulation;

f.  Across-the-board tax cuts primarily benefiting the wealthy; and

g.  Total repeal of the ACA, and its replacement by. . .nothing.

Bush, Christie, and Rubio will be attempting to win the nomination by initially becoming the standard bearer for the Romney coalition.  Similarly, Trump, Cruz, Walker, and the rest will have to prevail in the Reagan coalition primary before taking on the Romneys.  The nominee will probably be the person who wins his subprimary first, and who is then able to run again a divided opposition coalition, as Romney did in 2012.  Wise candidates will consequently focus their firepower on opponents within their coalition in the early stages of the campaign.

 

The Republican Party contains four ideological factions, each with its own values and interests.  They are:

1.  Christian Democrats:  This group has withered to about 10-15 percent of the party as the GOP has moved steadily rightward over the last 20 years.  Its core beliefs are as follows:

a. Society is an organic whole, not just a web of self-interest;

b. Traditional elites and authorities are grounded in experience and should be supported, but must govern in the interests of everyone, not just themselves, in order to create a just society;  and

c. The capitalist system has the great merit of creating more wealth than any other, but it must be regulated to protect the poor and the powerless.  The creation of wealth in and of itself does not improve society.

As a result, CDs are supporters of a robust welfare state on moral grounds.  CDs also tend to support humanitarian military interventions abroad, strongly oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, and believe illegal immigrants should be treated with compassion.

Due to the limited size of this faction, it must ally itself with other factions in order to maintain any meaningful influence within the party.  As a result, CDs often support large tax cuts, and may occasionally take a hard line on immigration.  Virtually all “reformicons” come from this faction.

Candidates vying for CD votes:  John Kasich; Marco Rubio; Jeb Bush; Chris Christie

2. Pro-Business Pragmatists:  This faction has clear and limited objectives:  power; tax cuts for the wealthy; limited regulations on business; government support for business, when necessary; and a large, well-trained, poorly paid, and subservient work force.  It represents about 30 percent of the party.

PBPs are willing to ally themselves with any of the other factions in order to obtain their objectives.  They typically defer to the other factions on social issues, about which they do not have strong views.  They would prefer a smaller state to the extent possible, but will support government expenditures which increase wealth (e.g., money for infrastructure and education) or which help maintain themselves in power (e.g., the Bush expansion of Medicare).  In foreign affairs, PBPs support trade agreements and a robust use of the military.  PBPs support a liberal immigration policy in the interests of increasing the size, and reducing the cost, of their workforce.

Candidates vying for PBP votes:  All of them.  It is impossible to get the nomination without the backing of this group.

3. Reactionaries:  The largest of the factions (approximately 40 percent), this group looks back to a golden age in which the right of white straight Protestant men to run the country was unquestioned.  Some identify the golden age as the 19th century; others move it forward to the 1920’s;  all agree that it took place prior to the 1960’s.  The core beliefs of this group are as follows;

a.  America is a “shining city on a hill,” created by God to do His will;

b.  The exceptional success of the country is evidence that it is God’s instrument;

c.  Real Americans (typically from rural areas) cherish traditional values, while urban residents and culture are antithetical to the real America;

d.  America has been moving in the wrong direction since the 1960’s, as it no longer respects traditional authority structures; and

e. Government and cultural elites have been responsible for the destruction of traditional values over the last, roughly, 50 years.

Reactionaries are not necessarily opposed to a larger and stronger state so long as it operates in the interest of traditional Christian values.   Given the events of the last 50 years, however, the federal government cannot be trusted.  In practice, therefore, reactionaries typically support large tax and spending cuts in order to reduce the ability of the system to promote values that they abhor.

Reactionaries believe that people get what they deserve in this world.  As a result, any attempts to redistribute wealth to unsuccessful people are not just futile, but morally wrong.

Reactionaries are overtly patriotic and support a large military, but are suspicious of foreign entanglements and prefer to avoid military action unless the nation’s survival is clearly at stake, in which case our objective is complete victory, followed by withdrawal.  They despise illegal immigrants and take the position that any American government that is elected largely with minority votes is illegitimate.  Their objective is to “take our country back” from the people who have hijacked it for their own purposes–people of color, gays, feminist women, secularists, and the like.

Candidates vying for the Reactionary vote:  Ted Cruz; Ben Carson; Donald Trump; Mike Huckabee; Scott Walker.

4.  Conservative Libertarians:  Another small faction, representing about 10-15 percent of the party, this group opposes a large state on the basis that it destroys freedom, regardless of whatever advantages it might bring in the short run.  Libertarianism occasionally shades into federalism, but the two are not identical concepts, as a federalist may believe in the extensive use of government, just at a lower level.

CLs have little in common with the other factions and find it difficult to build coalitions within the party.  The likelihood of a nominee coming from this faction is very small.

Candidate vying for the CL vote:  Rand Paul

Since none of the factions is large enough to choose a nominee on its own, the candidates must create coalitions, the most plausible of which I have identified as the “Reagan” and “Romney” coalitions.  These will be discussed in a subsequent post.

 

I will be sharing ideas on politics, history, economics, religion, and culture on this blog more or less on a daily basis.   In honor of the upcoming Republican debate, the first several will address the various ideological factions of that party and what they mean for the 2016 election.  Stay tuned!

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