Morning Ed: Politics {2016.05.03.T}
The North Carolina GOP may not be able to count on gerrymandering to help them as much after the next round of redistricting.
TA Frank explains how the Democrats are becoming the party of the 1% and Rod Dreher has more on Democrats as has more.
My wife has some very, very strong opinions on Meaningful Use. I… can’t remember the last time she went on about something uninterrupted for half-an-hour.
Zack Stanton leaked the memos that took town Congressman Mark Foley and discusses his decision to do so in light of Dennis Hastert. (The Foley scandal was a big deal, but I don’t think it can actually be said to have cost the GOP their congressional majorities.)
Seth Masket makes a point that should sound familiar about how Trump represents the problem when parties defer too much to the people. There are dangers of going too far in either direction.
Michael Brendan Dougherty explains why Cruz was such a bum #NeverTrump candidate.
Jay Cost tweet-rants about how little #NeverTrump has to do with ideology.
When gerrymandering fails, restrictions on voting will succeed.
There are plenty of non-wealthy people that vote for the Democratic Party and there are plenty of wealthy people that vote for both parties. These types of articles about the Democratic Party being the party of the one percent have an implication that white working class people are more authentically working class than non-white working class people. They also seem shocked that certain types of wealthy people do not see the world through the Republican lens. Despite all this, it is still the Republican Party that goes after entitlement spending. Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Indiana) is trying to get rid of the Community Eligibility Provision of the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act for some dumb reasons.Report
Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Indiana) is trying to get rid of the Community Eligibility Provision of the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act for some dumb reasons.
Whatever his reasons are, the rest of us might ask just what are the economies of scale which would advise ‘child nutrition’ programs be handled by the central government. One might, in fact, ask why there are such programs at all. Food consumed at home now accounts for 7.5% of personal consumption expenditures on average and a great many impecunious people are also fat.Report
US service member killed by ISIS militants in northern Iraq. Boots on the ground?
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/05/03/us-service-member-killed-by-isis-militants-in-northern-iraq.html?intcmp=hpbt2Report
Clinton Flip-Flops on Coal, Now Wants Coal to Prosper. How convenient is that?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/clinton-flip-flops-on-coal-now-wants-coal-to-prosper/article/2002208Report
What Lee said about the articles. They all contain a strong element arguing that the white working-class is more authentic and real than any other group in the United States. This is racist privilege. There are plenty of people who are not white and not wealthy that are the backbone of the Democratic Party. Why doesn’t the conservative media talk about them.
I get a sense from Dreher’s article that there is a strong sense of butthurt about it. “Wahhhh. Philips Exeter is no longer Republican. Waaahh. The upper-middle class have embraced social liberalism. Wahhhh. People who are not old white dudes are being honored by Yale University!!!!!”
The most concerning part was the self-segregation of the upper-middle class. There are some real worries there but the rest of the stuff was nothing except the pompous puffings on tradition that so many social conservatives are good at. Yes I realize that there is a lot of contempt in this post but so many conservatives make it so easy to view them with contempt. Why does the TAC writer think that traditional religion (especially Christianity) should rule forever? Is he not aware of the cruelty and oppression that traditional Christianity inflicted on many from the Inquisition to justifications for slavery and racism? There is also no proof that the Yale naming is a sign of the one percent, just an assumption.
#nevertrump is not a thing except maybe a handful of conservatives without much power. I suspect most #nevertrump people will start warming to Trump as partisanship takes over.Report
Fair point. Nobody ever talks about the non-white and non-wealthy people that vote Democratic.Report
First off, people talk about non-white voters in the Democratic party constantly. Maybe not in an article about white elites, but there’s plenty of other commentary. Mainly, in the form of whinging that Bernie Sanders wins are somehow less legitimate because they were in states that are “too white.”
But Saul’s point was that conservatives in particular aren’t talking about it. And why should they? The black vote has been out of play for a generation now and only really matters in terms of turnout, not choice (in the general, at least). The hispanic GOP vote evaporated more recently, but Trump shows that you can have downmarket whites or hispanics, but not both.
So what we’re left with is a demographic supposedly open to persuasion that has largely switched sides. If I was interested in the future of the Republican party, that’s what I would be paying attention to. You can call it butthurt, but it is relevant butthurt.Report
I get a sense from Dreher’s article that there is a strong sense of butthurt about it. “Wahhhh. Philips Exeter is no longer Republican. Waaahh. The upper-middle class have embraced social liberalism. Wahhhh. People who are not old white dudes are being honored by Yale University!!!!!”
Your sense isn’t very good. Dreher is ace at emotional whinges, but he wasn’t having one over that. That piece was reporting, and not much more. Dreher has no abiding loyalty to any institution nor to any class of people other than journalists.
You’ll notice it concluded with a Dreher signature, the ‘friend’ who has inside knowledge and just happens to confirm everything Dreher’s been saying. He usually starts with that. The smart money says all these friends are imaginary.Report
Rod Dreher relies on unnamed “friends” with horrific tales of oppression of conservative religious types like Thomas Friedman relies on cab drivers in Dubai who have strong opinions on the Chinese education system.Report
Come again? Social conservatives are subject to abuse by educational institutions and the courts. Deal with it. You don’t need imaginary friends to tell you that. You can read the starboard press where these issues and incidents are discussed.Report
That’s hardly the point. The point is that Rod Dreher’s “friends” lack actual names and seem more like sock puppets than real humans.Report
They likely are. That’s what I said. You don’t need to read Dreher to find out about the default settings of school administrators and judges, though. It’s out there.Report
Is he not aware of the cruelty and oppression that traditional Christianity inflicted on many from the Inquisition to justifications for slavery and racism?
He’s not that shallow Saul. He has his own problems. His aren’t yours.Report
While we have some checks against unbridled democracy for the presidential party nomination process, there is less of a check on nominees down the ticket. For the last few cycles now, Republicans have been using the primary process to drive legislatures further rightward. This is true even when the sober-minded party leadership sees a general election trainwreck a mile away.
I say let them pick one or the other. We can make party power a brake on direct democracy at all levels to keep the nutters from winning and earn the simmering resentment of said nutters, who have nowhere else to go politically. Alternately, we let the inmates run the asylum at all levels and force the far right to justify itself to the middle instead of relying on the more moderate presidential nominee as cover for all the crazy things coming out of the mouths of downticket candidates.
But that’s just the preference of this non-Republican. Having the GOP nominate “acceptable” presidential candidates while filling every other position from school board through Senate with those picked by the most hardcore primary-voting partisans seems to work pretty well for them.Report
Exclusive Chart: Deportation Budget Grows 25 Percent While Deportations Plummet
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/05/02/exclusive-chart-deportation-budget-grows-25-percent-deportations-plummet/Report
I can’t figure out the point of MB Dougherty’s ramble other than he had to turn in some copy and The Week‘s inane stylebook requires it be disrespectful of Republicans.
A number of years ago, I offered MBD the unsolicited suggestion on his personal blog that he get out of opinion journalism and write on the side. He reacted about the way people do to unsolicited advice from utter strangers Too bad.Report
Wait, so when you, a total stranger, told him he should quit his job because you think he’s bad at it, he wasn’t receptive to your wisdom? That’s a shock.Report
I cannot recall what he was earning a living at at the time. He was working retail at one point. He had a great dollop of liberal education at Bard College, but no vocational training. I think our exchange antedated his stint at The American Conservative. The economy of American journalism has imploded in the interim, so it wasn’t bad advice. He was not and is not bad at what he does, though he has occasional lapses. They’re predictable lapses for someone in the palaeo milieu, but less jagged than the usual denizens of that set make.Report
Just a reminder that Trump’s “working class base” isn’t all that working class – http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/ – Trump’s support is basically the same people who made Rush Limbaugh rich, better off than average white dudes who might be salespeople, self employed, or owners of small businesses. In other words, the same type of people who have always supported ultra nationalist anti-politicians, from Napoleon III on.Report
@jesse-ewiak
This has been noted by other people before:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/donald-trump-reawakens-middle-american-radicalReport
The traditional term for these people would be the Petite Bourgeois in French or the Shopocracy in English. A big problem with talking about who is middle class in the United States is that the Democratic and Republican parties mean different things. The Democratic Party is largely referring to the professional-managerial class, people whose jobs require some sort of advanced degree or specialized training like doctors, lawyers, architects, teachers, advertisers and company. The French term would be Grand Bourgeois. The Republicans are referring to more commercial people when the talk about the middle classes.
This split also explains why some of the wealthiest people vote for the Democratic Party and other for the Republican Party. Business people whose industries are based on a lot of technical know how requiring education or Bohemian flair or both in some way are going to lean towards a professional-managerial worldview. The ones from a more financial-commercial background will lean towards the Republicans.Report
The ones from a more financial-commercial background will lean towards the Republicans.
Community bankers are generally Republicans. Casino bankers like Jamie Dimon and Vikram Pandit are Democrats.Report
who have always supported ultra nationalist anti-politicians, from Napoleon III on.
Yeah, enforcing the immigration laws is just like shutting down the entire constitutional order and declaring yourself emperor. And, of course, salesman are to blame for political dysfunction.Report
“And, of course, salesman are to blame for political dysfunction.”
Nah, white dudes in general are. As usual.Report
Idly thinking about how I used to think that Romney should have waited until 2016 and it would have been a cakewalk to the nomination and then the Presidency.Report
I think predicting the GOP is pretty much a crap shoot these days. I used to think herding Democrats was impossible, but this….
But I’d have taken the other side of the bet on Romney. After 8 years of “We lose running “electable” RINOs in Presidential years, but clean-up with hard-core conservatives in off-years” I don’t think Romney could possibly sell himself as a candidate this year.
Then again, the 2012 field should have been a serious wake-up call since it ended with “Fine, I guess Romney since everyone else is crazy”. Having your party openly flirt with every crazy person on stage before grudgingly picking Romney due mostly to lack of choice….
I honestly figured Jeb or Rubio would play the part of Mitt this year, though. I didn’t think the party would let it go fully off the rails. I thought they’d prepare more…successfully. It coming down to Trump versus Cruz was…
Not in a million years would I have expected that.Report
Then again, the 2012 field should have been a serious wake-up call since it ended with “Fine, I guess Romney since everyone else is crazy”.
Ron Paul is quite peculiar. Newt Gingrich is inventive and sometimes odd. There’s nothing crazy about Rick Santorum, unless having a large family is now defined as insane. You need to spend time with people who do not share your biases.Report
I think predicting the GOP is pretty much a crap shoot
“Crap” is the mot juste.Report
Trump wins Indiana.Report
Do we have any pro-Trump people on the board? I don’t mean “people who could see themselves voting for him if it comes to that” and not anti-anti-Trump people. I assume we have some of those.
I’m wondering how out of touch we are.Report
Well, consider his recent scripted foreign policy speech. Most pundits I read criticized it as belligerently incoherent – how can Trump prioritize US interests while also claiming to support our allies? WTF??? – which was just another nail in the coffin lid, from their pov.
From my pov, what he advocated certainly wasn’t incoherent nor was it belligerent. His view is that our allies need to pay their fair share in maintaining World Order, perhaps along a calculus which includes the benefits they currently receive for free. Which seems pretty damn rational and clear. But then it dawned on me that the Smart Guy worry isn’t about civility wrt how we treat our allies but rather that his policies jeopardize the US’ unilateral militarily-inspired control of world order and that he’s leveraging really important balance of power pragmatics by leaning into the politically motivated logic of America “winning” agan. And that’s a sin. And as I thought about it some more, it may be a irredeemable one. As far as “world order” goes, anyway.Report
Yeah, I noticed that too. When NPR was talking about it, they couldn’t believe that he said that he’d be an awesome ally but wanted NATO to pull more of its own weight. “Which is it?”, they seemed to be asking.Report
It can be both. You can be a good ally and tell our NATO patners the truth that they need to spend more on their own defense. The Libya debacle should just how hollow some of our our allies have become. The two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.Report
It can be both. You can be a good ally and tell our NATO patners the truth that they need to spend more on their own defense.
The logical problem – and it ain’t trivial – is based on an inconsistent triad, seems to me. You can’t be 1) a good ally, 2) tell them to pay their fair share, and 3) be the unilateral Global Force For Good.
The criticism against Trump’s foreign policy is that doing 2) without enough state-sponsored robustity in 1) entails the end of 3).Report
It would seem that TA Frank is wrong.
Almost across the board, Dem supporters are poorer than GOP supporters.Report
Perhaps that is oversimplifying. The Dems could have the support of the 1% AND still have a lower median income among supporters. But the latter shows that they aren’t ONLY getting support from economic elites.Report
Frank’s point was a bit more subtle than that. Rather, it’s that as the Democrats get more wealthy voters, their platform is increasingly guided towards things of interest to the wealthy (trade, immigration, globalism) and things non-threatening to them (identity politics), essentially giving the wealthy the ability to dictate – or at least veto – policy like never before.
It’s less a pro-Trump argument than a pro-Sanders one, in a nutshell.
On the one hand, I he does go into The Importance of the White Working Class, which is well-tread ground and not without its problems. On the other hand, conservative consolidation of the white vote is a possibility that terrifies me.Report
Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems (American Politics and Political Economy Series)Report
Or this.Report
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