Morning Ed: Politics {2016.03.22.T}
Are labor unions really freaking out over Trump? Or is it that they’re playing up a potential problem so that Democrats will pay more attention to them? Back in January, Robert Reich explained how Democrats gave working class whites the shaft.
Did something the WWE spawned create a Top 10 Global Risk?
This Theory of Trump resonates with me, as does this theory of the fall of the conservative movement.
Will the US elect a mentally ill president? Probably, we already have. You already have to be a little bit crazy to do what it takes to be president, is my view.
How being right on Iraq may have led Barack Obama astray.
Germany’s right-wing party (AfD), which in addition to being anti-refugee wants to ban circumcision, made some impressive gains in German elections. That may not be the whole story, however.
In counsel to anti-Trumpers considering their options, Jesse Walker has a good rundown of the world outside the major parties.
David Waywell explains that indifference towards the Brexit is okay, and Eurosceptic Clive Bates argues that fellow sceptics should vote to stay.
Robert Reich’s theory is unconvincing. The Democratic Party remained a New Deal/Great Society Party until Clinton got elected in 1992 but the white working class abandoned it long before that time.Report
Except for you know, Kentucky and West Virginia, which voted for Clinton both times. (One of which was later than 1992)Report
I actually saw Clinton speak the day before the ’96 election, because even though he had the election wrapped up, he didn’t have Kentucky wrapped up, and it was important to him.
If I remember correctly, he also won Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana.Report
True, but KY and WV are a quick hack for ‘places with lots of white people but not a lot of white hippies, white urban professionals, nor not a lot of non white, non hispanic people of all economic classes, professions & worldviews’Report
Kentucky was close and maybe thrown by Perot, but West Virginia wasn’t.
ETA I remember West Virginia’s ’96 results because it lead that state to be my worst prediction in 2000.Report
Oh yeah, I was just marveling that a Democrat won those three other states.Report
They had an inside track on Arkansas and Tennessee. But map was definitely different then. I was looking at the ’92 congressional delegations the other day (because that’s who I am) and it was stunning.Report
They had the inside track on Tennessee in ’00, too, and look how that worked out for ’em.
(I remember that being a huge embarrassment.)Report
It was an omen.Report
There are always exceptions but Reagan Democrats were a thing.Report
Who voted for Dem candidates in every election except the contest for Prez in 1984.Report
Labor Unions: The only real powerful unions left are the gov’t ones. Who cares what the rank and file vote for, the union leaders will spend all their money for the Dems. If Trump wins, they’ll just work with Congress more anyway. Smoke and mirrors.
Economist: “Until Trump, the firm had never rated a pending election of a candidate to be a geopolitical risk to the U.S. and the world.”….”Trump has vowed to seize Syria’s oil fields and refineries, which help keep ISIS afloat, and then sell the oil to pay for a U.S. military campaign.” Funny, Bush said the same thing re Iraq and the economist didn’t see fit to comment on that. So we go from a “nobel prize winning president” to a “destroyer of worlds”. Won’t somebody PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!
Theory of Trump: “He says he wants to “make America great again,” but I don’t think that’s what his acolytes hear. I think they hear that he is going to turn his vicious temper and unbalanced rage on the large-scale forces they feel are hindering them. They want someone punished. Could be China. Could be Muslims. Could be Mexicans. Could be bankers. Could be the GOP “establishment.” Whatever. He’s their Punisher.” That sounds on target is a lot of ways, although it’s not all of it. And a quibble, “since immigration has been a dominating feature of the political conversation over the past decade.” That’s BS. Oh, it’s been talked about by everyone but the presidential candidates, who when they talk about, don’t seem to actually say anything. Until this year, I don’t recall any debate actually having a substantive discussion on immigration, platitudes notwithstanding.
EU: nah, screw em…it’s dead jim.Report
It’s pretty funny that you began that sentence with “until this year.”Report
An increase of .01% is still an increase. Trump actually came out and said he wanted to build a wall and restrict Muslim immigration. No one else ever said anything like that directly. Just vague “path to citizenship”, “compromise”, yadda yadda.. The ensuing drama post Trump comments generated more debate on the subject than the sum total of every dem / repub debate in the last 20 years.Report
The brexit aye vote just got a bounce this morning.Report
Bill Clinton making a very interesting speech; this election is getting weirder and weirder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Ja6miJZGEReport
If you actually watch more than the 50 second cut out segment, it was obvious he was talking about the GOP obstructionism.Report
That’s what makes this such a great dog whistle. Perfectly deniable.Report
ESPN got a close up on Cuba’s treatment of dissentReport
This is the point at which I had to stop taking that Atlantic article seriously. You’d think that someone who works for Brookings would have a better understanding of how the NSS and U.S. foreign policy more broadly actually works. Everything that we do, even when it’s not directly accomplished through military means, is informed by military intervention, whether threatened or realized. The one notable exception is the use of financial sanction which is supported by the primacy of the U.S. financial system in the global economy and you don’t have to connect the dots very far to trace that back to military intervention.Report