The Party of the Middle
Photo by The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
It is no secret both political parties dance to the tune of their fringes. That fact is an unfortunate consequence of our primary system in which partisan voters get to pick their party’s nominee. The system rewards partisanship and limits the strength of moderates because about 80 percent of eligible voters don’t vote in primaries, only the most politically tuned-in people do.
Neither party has anywhere near a majority of the electorate. Gallup found that only about a third of voters identify with each party. (To be exact, in July Republicans had 30 percent and Democrats had 28 percent.) Independents make up a larger share (40 percent) of the electorate than either party. The exact figures fluctuate but except for the growth of independents there hasn’t been a material change to this mix in more than 20 years.
It has long been said that if either party made the decision to marginalize its fringe and make a play for the middle, that party would probably have a majority for a generation. Most partisans are going to stick with the party even if it becomes more moderate because they hate the other party more. There would be a net gain as the party picked up more unaligned voters from the middle than it lost from its fringe.
I wonder if Democrats under Kamala Harris have finally figured that out.
If you listen to the Republicans, you’ll hear that Kamala is a communist and the most radical candidate since ever. But this is what Republicans say about every Democrat from AOC to Kyrsten Sinema.
The truth is that Harris has embraced some radical positions. Back in 2020, Harris supported Medicare For All and was one of only three Democrats to oppose a Trump-era bipartisan compromise that would have funded a border wall in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. She also favored a ban on fracking and decriminalization of illegal border crossing among other policy stances.
Further truth is that Harris has reversed many of these positions. A few days ago Chris Cillizza posted a list of “nine areas in which Harris has shifted views or her current position is unknown.”
https://x.com/ChrisCillizza/status/1832021446224142677
Last week, Kamala even reduced her proposed capital gains tax from Biden’s proposed 40-percent rate to 28 percent. The plan still only affects households with an annual income of $1 million or more.
Harris is predictably catching flak from both her own party and the Republicans for the changes. Progressives don’t like to see her moving to the center and Republicans don’t like to see her moving away from unpopular positions that are easy to attack. I think that both of these points of view miss the mark.
While there is some value in being consistent in your principles, rejecting bad or mistaken ideas that we used to hold is underrated. It’s dumb to hold onto a bad idea just because we have thought that way in the past. That doesn’t allow for learning and growth. A sign of maturity is being able to say, “I was wrong and I changed my mind.”
Kamala’s shift is a victory for conservatives and should be seen as such. The change in the Democratic platform represents moving the Overton window from the fringe progressive left back towards the center. This is a good thing.
Critics claim that Kamala’s rebranding as a centrist is a hoax. Maybe they are right. I’m skeptical of anything a politician tells me that I can’t personally verify.
But the important thing is that it doesn’t matter if it’s a hoax or not. Harris’s shift is a de facto admission that the American electorate is not progressive. If she is elected president, it will not have been on a platform of far-left radicalism that she then must try to implement but on far more modest and moderate goals. That’s also a good thing because it makes a post-election shift to the left more difficult.
Does Kamala believe in her new, centrist policies? I don’t know and I really don’t care. I doubt that most politicians really believe what they tell you they believe. I don’t believe that Donald Trump is pro-life, for example. Politicians tell you a story to get elected. Maybe that will be consistent with their actions after taking office and maybe it won’t.
What I do care about is how Kamala will govern. I don’t want her to enact hard-left policies, subvert the Constitution, and attack our national institutions. If she does implement some much-needed bipartisan legislation and helps to build a consensus to bridge the partisan divide, so much the better.
What’s to keep Harris from becoming “Kamala the Kammunist” after January 20, 2025? Self-preservation.
One thing that almost all politicians seem to care about more than anything else is getting re-elected. I think that Kamala may realize that President Biden erred in running as a moderate Not Trump and then pursuing (and mostly failing to implement) radical progressive policies.
If she has been watching, Harris may understand that in this closely divided nation, progressive Hail Mary wish lists are almost certain to fail. Any gains are going to be through running plays that pick up inches rather than deep passes straight into the end zone. And small gains that are popular with independents are more likely to result in Kamala’s re-election in 2028 than failed legislation that is popular with the left but scary to the center.
Consider that a president and a senator represent different constituents. As a California senator, Harris could be expected to embrace more left-wing policies than she might as president. California is simply more liberal than the country as a whole, but a president represents the entire country. If they don’t realize the difference, they won’t be successful.
Granted, Trump has also made attempts to move toward the center. However, Trump’s shift has been largely limited to abortion and Project 2025, and he has been inconsistent even on those points. A revolt from the pro-life faction of the GOP forced Trump back to the right and there is considerable overlap between the authors of Project 2025 and the Trump campaign.
A core difference between the parties is that MAGA seems to have a much stronger hold on the Republican Party than progressives have on the Democratic Party. This, and the fact that Democrats are united in the face of a potential second Trump presidency, makes it easier for Democratic candidates to move to the center.
We have seen this recently in other areas aside from the Democratic Party’s new Kamala-driven platform. Democratic primary voters fired two members of the progressive “Squad” and Bloomberg recently described how AOC, who survived her primary, “is getting too mainstream for her progressive base.” Hamas sympathizers were sidelined at the Democratic National Convention while the parents of an American hostage took center stage. (Sadly, the body of Hersh Goldberg-Polin was recovered last week.)
On the other side of the aisle, JD Vance is refusing to repudiate Tucker Carlson’s elevation of Nazi apologist on his internet show. Marjorie Taylor Greene and others have become more mainstream within the GOP without moderating their views.
The point here is that Democrats are taking steps to marginalize their radical wing. Republicans are elevating theirs.
I can hope that the Democratic movement is a long-term shift that is being brought about by the influx of former Republicans into the party. I predicted a long time ago that if the Republican Party exiled its moderates the result could very well be to move the Democrats back toward the center. Maybe that’s what we are seeing here. If that’s true then it helps that people like Harris aren’t hard-core ideologues but are pragmatic enough to accept the changing attitudes within the party.
Moderation is a good thing. And if both parties meet in the middle then we might actually get some good stuff done for the country. For instance, we might pass an immigration reform bill to secure the border if the election helps to marginalize the radicals who oppose any compromise.
Republicans have a tendency to label every Democrat as a radical socialist. Sometimes they are right, but often they are wrong. In two recent examples, John Fetterman and Kyrsten Sinema were both tagged with the socialist label and subsequently became Republican favorites when they bucked their party and stymied the progressive agenda.
I think they may be wrong about Kamala Harris as well. If I’m right and the Republican finger-pointers are wrong, it would be a very good thing for the country.
The “radical” wing of the Democratic Party is a myth. At least since Clinton (and probably starting under Carter) what passed for progressivism in the party – which is decidedly not close to actual leftism – was swept out and ignored. Still is. The GOP doesn’t understand this, and the media don’t want to discuss it. Still a myth.Report
The original Green New Deal resolution, passed by US House Democrats. It would have radically changed, in a short period, major portions of the US economy. The power grid. Transportation. Heating of everything from homes to massive industrial processes. The Federal Reserve. Seriously, the proposed changes fit any reasonable definition of “radical”.Report
And as a House resolution, what did it implement? What actual changes were made?
That aside – do you disagree these things need to be done to mitigate the climate crisis?Report
Same amount of implementation as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 publication implemented, which was my point. Both sides have radicals. As it happens I agree with these particular (D) radicals, that we’re not doing enough and not doing it fast enough. And disagree with the (R) radicals.Report
Climate change continues to make radical changes in major portions of the US economy such as the power grid, transportation, heating of everything. and the Federal Reserve.
Attempts to reason and bargain with the climate have so far proved unsuccessful, and despite its massive unpopularity the climate continues to change regardless.
Senator Inhoff threw a snowball onto the floor of the Senate, but apparently the climate was not impressed.
Internet commenters made millions of mocking comments about Al Gore and Greta Thunberg, and hillbilly yahoos modified their trucks to “roll coal” and still the climate stubbornly refused to yield.Report
DID SOMEBODY MENTION GRETA THUNBERG?!?
She’s shifted focus away from Global Climate Change and has moved to talking about Genocide.
Maybe the climate will turn around if we end Genocide in Palestine?Report
Maybe one more internet comment mocking Greta Thunberg will stop climate change.Report
Maybe fewer private jets could address it! Maybe nuclear power!
Maybe fewer flights to Europe! For you, I mean. Not me.Report
First conservatives dismissed it.
Then they mocked those who warned us about it
Then they…well, they haven’t moved from that part yet.
I’m waiting for the pivot to “Climate Change Was Caused By DEI”Report
“How’s this solution that has minimal CO2 creation and can scale up to meet future energy needs?”
“Nope.”
“How about you living the way you say that I should live?”
“Nope.”
“How about talking about engineering solutions that might actually work?”
“You need to stop mocking people who disagree with you!”Report
Thanks for sharing the internal to the GOP discussion – now how about including the rest of us?Report
Can we explore engineering solutions? Stuff like nuclear power plants that can scale up and meet future energy needs?
Is the emphasis on “lifestyle changes”?
Will you be expected to incorporate these lifestyle changes as well or will this be like a “masking” during covid?Report
Conservatives have absolutely nothing to say about climate change.
Your comment is a perfect illustration.
Rather than offer a useful thought, every comment you make is about how venal liberals are.Report
There’s also the stuff about engineering solutions.
It’s after the liberals point out that they’re neither into engineering solutions nor changing their own lives that I lean into the whole “venial” thing.Report
No, there are no conservative engineering solutions because they require first admitting it is happening, and even engineering solutions demand lifestyle changes and massive government intervention.
Their first reaction whenever the topic is raised, is derision, as your first comment exemplify.
Nuclear power is the hasty excuse they deploy when cornered in hopes of escape.Report
When cornered? I’ve brought it up multiple times and you’ve denied that I’ve offered any engineering solutions.
Neither is this the first time we’ve discussed this.
The solution always seems to revolve on “lifestyle changes” rather than “engineering solutions” except when the question “will these lifestyle changes apply to you too?”, the question is avoided and the topic goes back to something like “how come you haven’t offered any engineering solutions?” like the whole nuclear solution hasn’t been opposed by the so-called “greens” for decades.Report
Wanna see us discussing Global Climate Change back in 2019?
The thread has a great comment from Oscar Gordon:
How important is Global Climate Change to you, Chip?
Is it important enough to drop baggage policies?Report
1) what baggage polices?
2) Were Liberals more or less likely to mask during covid?
3) Who on the left specifically is rejecting nuclear as one part of a multi faceted solution?
4) Aside from nuclear, what do you, Jaybird, believe needs to be done about the climate crisis?Report
1) I linked to the thread. Would you like me to read it for you and provide you with excerpts and then you could ask me questions about the excerpts and than I could find more comments to quote for you?
2) “Liberals” or “Liberal Politicians Who Set Masking Policies”? Because I can find you threads where people were defending Liberal Politicians Who Set Masking Policies from accusations of not masking. Not “Yes! She was masking!” defenses either! Stuff like “why do you care?” defenses.
3) The Greens as well as people who deny that nuclear is a solution in the first place.
4) I think that there needs to be a revolution in battery technologies, for one. I think that there needs to be rather heavy expectations management on the part of people who are asking for sacrifices to be made… specifically, they have to practice what they preach. If they rely on moral argumentation, they have to be moral examples. It sucks but those are the breaks.
Otherwise it looks like a bunch of people asking for good people to be better so that free riding is easier.Report
1) nice dodge. You brought the concept to the table – so yes you do actually have a responsibility here.
2) Liberal politicians are a very small subset of liberals. If you want to go after the politicians be my guest. As you may recall I wasn’t a fan of people flaunting the masking mandates they put in place. Sadly for you, you said liberals, which includes a significantly larger dataset then a dozen or politicians.
3) How many seats in the US House, Senate or state legislatures do Greens currently have?
4) Many of us do walk the talk. It was easier for me to do so when I lived in a blue state, where we had functional transit for instance. Most of us do live as morally as current circumstances allow.Report
1) Okay. I’ll read it for you. Here’s an excerpt from North:
So when environmentalists try and hand peripheral goals like “economic justice” or “combating competitive culture” or “replacing capitalism” on the cause of climate change they are flat out sabotaging their efforts.
So by baggage policies, I mean stuff like “economic justice” or “combating competitive culture” or “replacing capitalism”.
Would you like me to read more and choose more excerpts for you?
2) “As you may recall I wasn’t a fan of people flaunting the masking mandates they put in place.”
I don’t recall that, actually. Here is the closest I’ve found.
I asked “So what’s required? Who gets the exception?” and you answered:
Later on in the thread, I was also complaining about London Breed not masking at a Tony! Toni! Toné! concert and a maskless Pramila Jayapal blowing out the candles of her birthday cake inside of a restaurant on a video taken by Rep. Tlaib.
Your comment was, and it’s the only thing that you said in that thread, “I thought conservatives were all about local control . . .”
So let me just say “I don’t recall that. I don’t recall that at all.”
Maybe you could dig up the comments you remember making.
3) I was using “Greens” as a description of “Environmentalist Types” rather than “people affiliated with Jill Stein”.
Are you unfamiliar with Environmentalist Types opposing nuclear? I’d be happy to waste some time digging out sources for you to ignore.
4) “Many of us do walk the talk.”
Hey, we have the little box on our electrical bill that allows us to pay extra every month for “Green Energy” and get our power from the renewables and not from the bad power. I drive a Yaris! We’re a one-car household!
I understand that more is being asked of me than that.
Do you understand that?Report
What do you think is being asked of you?Report
“Economic Justice”.
And, if Greta is any indication, a handful of foreign policy positions that I don’t currently hold.Report
Economic justice simply means making sure all citizens benefit from the economy and have the same low barriers to success. Seems to me that’s a great completely fair ask as we shift the economy to non-fossil fuel burning economic modes. To take ia step further – oil, gas and coal power plants are often to be found in low income and often minority communities. These areas also have significantly higher incidents of all sorts of cancers and other pollution driven diseases. Those communities deserve to be compensated for that intentional damage, and new power sources need to sited so as not to impact them or anyone else.
As to the foreign policy stuff – I have no idea what you are talking about, nor do I much care. We have plenty to do to get our house in order.Report
Well, I can only go back and say that if you want to poison the bitter pill, you should be prepared for even minority communities to say “nah”.
Lots of luck, though!
As to the foreign policy stuff – I have no idea what you are talking about, nor do I much care. We have plenty to do to get our house in order.
It has as much to do with combatting Global Climate Change as “Economic Justice”.
It’s poisoning the already bitter pill.Report
To take ia step further – oil, gas and coal power plants are often to be found in low income and often minority communities.
Just a historical note… The biggest of the coal burners in the Western Interconnect were sited near Native American areas, with the blessing of the tribes, because of the revenue and jobs the power plants and nearby coal mines provided.
As I point out too often, three US grids (interconnects), with three different histories and three different sets of problems/resources, probably requiring three different solutions.Report
1) You may consider those baggage policies, but they are in fact integral to societal shifts.
2) My pointing out that a small certain select group of people in reality doesn’t follow the rules the rest of us do is in no way an expression of support. Again, you asked about “liberals;’ NIH has published data that say 94% of Democrats and 54% of independents supported mask mandates. That takes in all the liberals, save a few dozen politicians.
3) The only Environmental types I am aware of who oppose nuclear energy as part of the solution also oppose the Democratic party, making them either Greens or DSA members.Report
1) I’m more interested in combatting climate change than in shifting society.
2) We were discussing your statement “As you may recall I wasn’t a fan of people flaunting the masking mandates they put in place.”
I can’t find any comments discussing your fandom.
Is it one of those things where I should have obviously read the fact that you weren’t disagreeing with me as you tacitly agreeing with the points that I was making?
3) There are the more subtle opponents. The ones who demand yet another environmental impact review. The ones who demand another white paper. If you’re familiar with the whole “High Speed Rail” debacle in California, you’re familiar with how even a really important environmental project can be obstructed by people who are fully-fledged members of the Democratic Party.
(Note: This isn’t saying that *ALL* Democrats oppose nuclear. They don’t! So I’d ask that your counter-arguments not rely heavily on pointing at the handful of politicians who are into it.)Report
You can not successfully combat the climate crisis without making societal changes. Sorry. Yet not.Report
Yeah, they will.
And if the so-called “liberals” treat these changes the way the so-called “liberal politicians” treated masking, then we will find ourselves pointing out stuff like “well, I wasn’t a big fan of people not doing what they told other people to do”.Report
I think that there needs to be a revolution in battery technologies, for one.
In ten years, the available battery tech will be quite different. Lithium-ion batteries keep getting cheaper, more efficient, smaller. They’re very different from L-ion of ten years ago. Zinc-ion is in production now, with the dendrite problem solved. Heavier than L-ion, but a lot cheaper for grid storage. Any number of new chemistries being investigated.Report
We’re never going to make solar feasible in Michigan over winter.
But making it to Thanksgiving is better than nothing.Report
Even a full scale shift to nuclear will still require lifestyle and regulatory changes opposed by conservatives.
Conservatives don’t see any need for a solution to climate change, via nuclear or otherwise. Just ask them, they’ll tell you.Report
“Even a full scale shift to nuclear will still require lifestyle and regulatory changes opposed by conservatives.”
What sort of “regulatory changes” to support nuclear power do you think conservatives opposed?
No, you don’t get to just wave your hands around and act like I’m lying when I say I don’t already know. You’re always complaining about how you think Jaybird’s doing that. Here’s your chance to be better than him, to show him how a Real Grown-Up Should Behave.
Tell me what regulatory changes are necessary to support nuclear power that “conservatives” oppose.Report
Nuclear power only addresses climate change to the extent it reduces use of fossil fuels.
Just tossing out the term is bullsh!t unless it is followed by an acknowledgement that fossil fuel use will be curbed by regulation such as energy efficiency standards.
Conservatives only comment on fossil fuel use is “drill, baby, drill”.Report
Don’t forget the enforcement arm of the energy efficiency standard regulators! You’ll need cops! And prisons for people who break the law!Report
And now you’ve pivoted back to the starting point.Report
Nixon, nobody’s idea of a squishy soft liberal, created the EPA.
Conservatives are entirely on board with reducing environmental damage if you don’t try to tell them that Suffering, Being Good For The Soul, Is Actually A Benefit They Should Welcome. If nuclear power made electricity cheap enough that every parking space came with a free extension cord, they’d go for that.Report
Can you provide an example of conservative proposals for reducing environmental damage that is less than half a century old?
And like I pointed out, unless nuclear replaces fossil fuels, it won’t do any good in terms of climate change.
As you can see from this very thread, “nuclear power” is just the shiny chaff deployed by conservatives in a frantic attempt to escape from the absurdity of their own position.Report
How about opposing replacing nuclear with fossil fuels?Report
“Can you provide an example of conservative proposals for reducing environmental damage that is less than half a century old?”
Yes?
“As you can see from this very thread, “nuclear power” is just the shiny chaff deployed by conservatives in a frantic attempt to escape from the absurdity of their own position.”
are you really so addicted to the joy of angry hate that when someone says straight out “we support nuclear generation as a means to combat climate change” you have no thought in your head other than “you’re a lying liar telling lies because you like oil money too much and you’re LYING”Report
Even a full scale shift to nuclear will still require lifestyle and regulatory changes opposed by conservatives.
Indeed.
The lifestyle changes also appear to be opposed by liberals (in practice).
Kinda makes them a non-starter.
Conservatives don’t see any need for a solution to climate change, via nuclear or otherwise. Just ask them, they’ll tell you.
Maybe a lifestyle change demonstrating how morally important changing lifestyles is would be a good way to demonstrate how important it is.
Because, as it is, it comes across as “you guys need to change your lives or else we’re all going to die! But I don’t need to change mine.”
Which is less persuasive than you’d think.Report
I read a good book recently that argues that, in effect, we’re already seeing a conservative response to climate change, one that in some ways embraces it.Report
The Democratic Party has moved in a much more liberal direction since the Clinton administration but nobody on the Further Left will ever admit this even if you have a decapitating sword to the back of their neck.Report
Triangulation (Clinton’s hallmark) was not further left. The ACA was not further left. Gay marriage is just the logical extension of secular marriage trends.
If you are going to claim a thing to be true you have to show your work, and at best you MAY be able to argue that the Democrats are now – finally – moving center left again. Which, sure, looks radically leftist given how far right the GOP has moved.Report
You’re both right and you’re both wrong.
The vector space is not a two dimensional space.Report
There is an asymmetry that people refuse to recognize. The most reactionary radical wings of the GOP do have direct connections to powerful actors in the GOP and/or are the avenues of power themselves. People don’t realize that the most strident leftist on twitter is not and does not want to be associated with the Democratic Party and probably considers AOC and Bernie to be sell-outs.Report
Fixed it for ya.Report
I think this misses the real place that Trump moderated the GOP message, which was critical to his success in 2016 and that will be critical to him winning again, that being walking away from Paul Ryan type reforms to SS and Medicare (read: massive cuts). Conventional wisdom was that the Republicans needed to moderate on immigration for demographic reasons, and that doing so would allow them to go full steam ahead on major reduction in elderly entitlements as a fig leaf for what is always their primary objective, massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Reality however is that those elusive Obama-Trump voters (aging, white people without college degrees of which there are many in the upper midwest) are a lot more motivated by preserving their benefits than they are in protecting big business’ interest in letting huge numbers of foreign nationals come into the country to work illegally. As we’re learning, even 1st and 2nd generation hispanic immigrants have, at absolute best, very muddled feelings about and low solidarity with illegal aliens. Anyone who has actually talked to a central American immigrant that is not involved in activism for 5 minutes could have told you this, but we’re talking about politicians here, and that’s just not done, left or right. Anyway Trump’s winning formula was moderate on entitlements for the elderly, go harder right on immigration.
Now, Trump has obviously declined significantly cognitively and in his ability to perform since 2016, but that dynamic is still basically what Harris is up against. Trump negates one of the biggest Democratic advantages by at least saying he will protect those entitlements. Whether he would or not if it came down to it is anyone’s guess, but it creates an opening to turn the election into a conversation about cultural grievance where the elite of the Democratic party is weaker, and seen as aligned with all kinds of cultural forces that are out of step with reality. Is that enough to win again, after everyone has already seen Trump season 1 and realized it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be? And after there is lots of fatigue with the battles of the teens, that Trump himself is inseparable from? Not sure, but that’s how I see the situation with respect to moderation.Report
Are they really though? 67%-ish of voters want safe legal abortion up to about 22 weeks. Democrats support this; the GOP is busy using every trick it can to prevent it becoming state law, much less national law. Democrats have conceded to almost every GOP proposal on immigration reform, only to watch the GOP shoot down its own proposals. Democrats put billions into infrastructure – creating good paying, often union jobs – while the GOP both voted against it and then crows at groundbreakings about how great it is.Report
I think there is a significant gap between what is perceived and what is actually practiced. And abortion is of course a big exception where the Democrats have a very decisive advantage, especially when they exercise messaging discipline. But fair or not it’s still seen as the party of Hollywood and fads from academia and/or elite legacy media and/or Brooklyn. I also think unions are a mixed bag. They’re seen as ok when they protect the standard of living of private sector low skilled labor, not good when they protect incompetent public sector workers. We have to be realistic that organized labor is now a lot more likely to be associated with teachers unions or bad service at the DMV than it is with ensuring a fair deal for people on a manufacturing line.
But look, none of this is insurmountable. It’s just the situation that needs to be navigated. It’s obvious to me that 2008 Obama would be able to, for example.Report
Trump might have been moderate rhetorically on some issues but his actual practice was hardline Republican.Report
In many ways yes, though I think Trump was actually most effectively contained by the combination of Mitch McConnell and the irreconcilable conflicts his ascension created within the GOP. The Republican trifecta he started with was unable to pass any signature legislation, including things that one would think they had a mandate from their base to do. The exception is what Republicans always do, which is pass a tax cut heavily weighed towards the wealthiest.
But the game for the presidency is the electoral college, and whether by design or accident he moderated in the most effective way a Republican could.Report
Trump did not moderate the GOP messageReport
Like Hillary Clinton, Trump has rejected any kind of benefits cut. Unlike Clinton, he’s not looking to raise taxes.
“We’re going to save Social Security,” Trump told supporters at an Iowa campaign rally late last year. “We’re not going to raise the age and we’re not going to do all the things that everybody else is talking about doing. They’re all talking about doing it and you don’t have to. We’re going to bring our jobs back. We’re going to make our economy incredible again.”
…
Clinton and Trump agree on some measures, such as trying to rein in the costs of prescription drugs. And both Clinton and Trump reject the idea of gradually converting Medicare to a voucher system in which the government subsidizes private insurance for future retirees. That plan is still an option in the GOP platform, however.
https://www.npr.org/2016/10/06/496067982/the-issues-hillary-clinton-and-donald-trump-on-social-security-and-medicareReport
BS and liesReport
Defund NPR!Report
I mean, probably. But it was still a swing at moderating the message.Report
He assuredly did. He may have been entirely lying about it but that was still a big change from the GOP’s previous messaging. Heck, he still is now as he obfuscates and triangulates blatantly on abortion.Report
I don’t understand why so many Democrats sometimes refuse to take their own side in a fight and look for way to give credit where none is due.
Trump is a corrupt, malignant psychopath who spent the weekend ranting about locking up his political enemies and discussing bloody mass deportations. His veep pick is going around spreading blood libel about Haitians eating cats and JB is doing is BSDI, middle school miscreant routine below.
Trump is going to enact economic policies friendly to plutocrats and petit bourgeois manufacturers and horrible for everyone else with his idiotic tariffs. He is going to enact reactionary social policies right out of Project 2025 and have it be done by executive action if he can’t get Congress to go along and the Courts won’t stop him.
Arch-reactionaries Dick and Liz Cheney can write simply that Trump is an existentialist threat to democracy and they are voting for Harris. Why can’t you do that? Why are you trying to give the dementia addled psychopath cover and credit? He is a conman and BS artist. Nothing more. He as not moderated the GOP stances on anything.Report
Indeed so. The actual policies his prior administration` implemented, and the few laws he passed – were decidedly inline with supporting the oligarchy and oppressing everyone else. Which has been the GOP’s approach for along time.Report
The sort of thinking you are protesting makes people feel sophisticated and fancy.Report
Hence why so many pundits do it.Report
Probably exactly this.Report
I imagine the other part is it allows people to soothe themselves and believe that a Second Trump administration won’t be that bad.
Narrator: It will be that bad.Report
What happened happened Saul. If anything, it speaks worse of Trump that it happened because he immediately went back on that moderated message but it DID happen. Trump campaigned in 2016 on refusing to cut Social Security and Medicaid. He campaigned for the nomination in 2016 denouncing Bush W’s war in Iraq. Those positions were all full on apostacy to the pre-Trump GOP. In taking those positions Trump did moderate from the normal GOP positions and it assuredly helped him greatly against HRC. Personally, I think that she would have probably beaten a standard GOP politician like a sack if they were campaigning on the old Ryanomics line.
Yes, the fisher lied about it but he did moderate the GOP’s messaging. I’m baffled by your outrage here. It’s like saying Trump wore pants in 2016. He absolutely did. That did happen.Report
Trump did campaign on this and then proceeded to do the exact opposite by trying to repeal the ACA. They luckily failed at that because the Republicans realized they would need a replacement and had none. I don’t think we need to give the charade of Trump any credit now. His current campaign is running on promises of cruelty to his enemies and the people his voters perceive as enemies. There is none of that pseudo-fiscal liberalism anymore.Report
Trump did campaign on this and then proceeded to do the exact opposite by trying to repeal the ACA.
I thought that the Republican congress sent up a “Repeal the ACA!” bill to Obama every week until the minute that Trump got inaugurated and then, suddenly, forgot to send up another one.Report
No, Republicans didn’t give up on attacking obamacare, they just switched ‘replacing Obamacare’ by which they meant ‘alter it somewhat so you’re allowed to get crappier insurance if you don’t need insurance’.
A thing which insurance companies were not fond of (because if pre-existing conditions are still banned, that means that people buy cheap insurance until the moment they need it… Hell, you’d have people moving just because they got a serious diagnosis because that lets them switch out insurance between enrollment period) and never really worked or made sense, and wasn’t really replacing anything to start with, just moving some stuff around.
As such, none of those bills made it through reconciliation… I’m not sure how many actually passed.Report
How many got up to get signed or vetoed?
I ask because I said, and let me copy and paste this:
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All correct but irrelevant Lee. InMD pointed out that Trump moderated the GOP message and he did. He did it by lying and then running his administration as a particularly corrupt and inept version of a standard GOP deficit exploding, tax cutting outfit when he’d claimed he wouldn’t.
That doesn’t change the fact that he moderated the GOP’s message.Report
We have to acknowledge that there is more than one issue on which to be more left or right. I never got the feeling that the ACA was a high priority for him. Congress was more interested in the tax cuts than he was. He wanted the wall, and enjoyed foreign policy, and renegotiated trade deals while probably trying to get rid of them. He didn’t oppose debt or entitlements. (Like, at all, even slightly.) He cut regulations. What does that net out to? I think on the left/right axis he moved the party more toward the middle, mainly on entitlements. His other big impact was establishing a Republican position on the national/international axis.Report
Sure, it’s a big state with a lot of moving parts. Trump moved a lot of parts in different ways, some in ways that they haven’t or shouldn’t been moved before. I certainly wouldn’t describe his admin as particularly rightward if you can define the right by libertarian terms. But by the end of his term he’d moved the right trump-ward and that’s probably his bigger impact. The republitarian GOP and right of my youth, already mortally wounded by W, seems more far from life than ever in my experience.Report
Yeah, the libertarians are dead.
Victory has defeated them.Report
There’s absolutely an interesting anthropological analysis to be made of what Trump has brought into conservatism, culturally. It’s hard for me to imagine the old GOP getting behind something like the 1st Step Act (one of the few good things Trump supported) or his garden of heros thing (goofy but harmless and surprisingly open to diversity in terms of who is celebrated).
Obviously all of that means Jack and sh*t (and Jack left town) when compared to everything else about him, his past presidency, and plans for the future should he be re-elected.Report
“I just wish that the evangelicals would quit trying to make everybody act so Christian all the time!”
*monkey’s paw curls*Report
Heh… they’re still out there, in meaningful numbers, and probably no less interested in trying to get people to act (their version) of Christian. They just aren’t the center of gravity anymore.Report
For sure, I can’t speak to it myself though- I may have a general understanding of conservatism but I don’t think I’m qualified to be able to say what would count as in or out.Report
If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. The entire Haitians are coming to eat you pets isn’t what I exactly call a moderation of the GOP message. It is the exact opposite of it. Trump is out there this time calling for blood to be spilled.Report
Trump took the GOP platform, removed all the vegetables, and added an extra dessert.Report
I don’t understand why so many Democrats sometimes refuse to take their own side in a fight and look for way to give credit where none is due.
Here’s an insight that may help.
It has to do with some weird thing like “higher principles”.
One does not act in service to “Democrats”, one acts in service to, like, “Truth” or “Justice” or “The American Way”.
And, if X happens, saying “X happened” is not an example of someone refusing “to take their own side in a fight”, it’s someone continuing to be on the side that holds stuff like “Truth” or “Justice” or “The American Way” as primary.
So, like, when X happens and then when North says “X happened”, you see him as betraying something.
I see him as remaining loyal to something.Report
I didn’t really have any higher principle in mind with my original comment. Depending on the source 2016 seems to have turned on around 40-60k voters across western PA, MI, and WI. Many of them are best understood as low info, low partisan loyalty voters, with views that don’t map well onto partisan alignment. I don’t think Trump convinced partisan Democrats, or better informed voters of any stripe, but he did convince those people, many of whom had voted for Obama. And when the game is the electoral college, well…
I thought this was a fairly anodyne, well documented observation. I guess I was wrong.Report
I thought this was a fairly anodyne, well documented observation.
I agree.
But I am one of those people who is a big fan of being able to accurately describe what happened.Report
Are you predicting that the Upper Midwest (MN. WI, MI) will be carried by Trump this November? It wasn’t in 2020. (And in the case of Minnesota, hasn’t been won by an R presidential candidate since 1980).Report
Harris is firmly ahead in MN and WI and MI are for her in more polls than not. Baldwin and Slotkin are ahead and that should help Harris.Report
To say Trump “moderated” anything is astonishingly stupid.
To go from “I will respect the rule of law and want to cut Social Security” to “I am a dictator and I will preserve Social Security” is the exact opposite of “moderate”.Report
I’d say the stupid person is the one that (a) doesn’t acknowledge the article posted where Trump is expressly quoted in 2016 as moderating his message on a 3rd rail issue that has historically been bad for Republicans and (b) seemingly still can’t wrap his mind around the fact that our system of electing a president, in the current environment, turns on a small number of people in a handful of localities, who don’t see the threat Donald Trump poses as being as clear and obvious as you or I do. No, it isn’t a great situation, but it is reality.Report
It’s maddening, isn’t it?
You may want to play with stuff like “I wonder if the ermine stole is made with many little ermines or one great big ermine” from time to time.
“Golly, it sure is brisk, today! Glad I’m wearing pants, lest I turtle up to my bellybutton! (Though my pants are not as fine as the emperor’s.)”Report
I just think it goes back to that theory of mind question you’ve asked before. Now, I think some of the analysis of the anatomy of the Trump voter have gone totally overboard, at least in terms of applying them writ large. Most of the people who vote for him were and are just Republicans. They were Republicans 10-15 or even more years ago. They have voted for more traditional flavors of Republicans but they will vote for Trump too, not because they’re all in some state of post industrial left behind-ness, but because they established their loyalties long ago.
However there is a certain type of voter that sees himself (and it’s mostly hims) as having paid his dues into the system, harbors a fair amount of distrust across partisan lines, doesn’t have a lot of love for the Jesus freaks on the right or the implications that he is somehow more privileged than, say, a wealthy black celebrity by a vocal faction of the left, and just so happens to live in a corner of a pivotal battleground state. Often he doesn’t vote, but sometimes, and with the right pitch, he might. No one is required to love this voter. No one is required to overstate the mass appeal of this voter’s idiosyncratic politics and perspective, which is quite probably not particularly sophisticated. But what you must, must, must do, is accept that this voter exists, and that for the Democrats to win the presidency they need the votes of around 40% of them, depending on who you ask.Report
TL:DR – white male privilege is still a thing, and you can’t get elected to national office trying to dismantle it no matter how pure your motivations.Report
Whatever my dude. I just hope someone in the Harris campaign has the ability to self interrogate better than many of our left of center commenters at OT. Because if they don’t it’s going to be a long 4 years. Maybe even more.Report
I am so tired of this. We do self interrogate. And we arrive at the notion that the voter you outline above – who yes does indeed exist – does more to hold back our nation then anyone. They don’t want to build a bigger table. They don’t want to benefit from a more diverse multi-cultural democracy. They don’t want to to even acknowledge they have privilege, much less that the system is designed to insulate their privilege. Hell – just this week a Miami Dolphins player – a recognizable A list NFL pro – got pulled over, body slammed and detained in hand cuffs for driving while black.
And you think the voters who believe they don’t have privilege to avoid such things are the PROBLEM?
And that we should keep catering to THEM?
Wow.Report
Listen, I’m not going to get into the whole p-word debate with you. It’s been done to death here and everywhere else. Suffice to say you have your priors, I have mine, and some random episode with a football player isn’t going to convince anyone not already a convert.
Anyway Biden’s margin of victory in 2020 is attributable to taking back a sufficient enough chunk of these types of voters in question to rebuild the blue wall, albeit narrowly. Make of it what you will. Or ignore it. I don’t care. As long as the campaign understands the situation I am good.Report
Matty had a tweet:
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This is an absurdly charitable take on Trump’s 2016 immigration rhetoric.
Which is, I suspect, why there’s so much resistance to the (true, objectively) argument that he moderated the GOP’s fiscal messaging in 2016: it usually comes alongside a description of Trump’s messaging on other matters that makes them look much more moderate than they are.Report
Serious questions, why did you omit the sentence of that paragraph where I said the below in italics? And do you think that changes how charitable I was being?
Anyway Trump’s winning formula was moderate on entitlements for the elderly, go harder right on immigration.
Another observation to consider: the Democrats poll only slightly better on immigration than the GOP does on abortion, which is probably the GOP’s worst major policy issue. It’s worth asking who is and isn’t in the mainstream on the subject, and how far over the line Trump’s stances really are, at least if we care about how voters feel about the subject. My totally unsupported guess is that the ugliness of his rhetoric may well dampen the potential support for a major crack down and show of force at the border, not because people would be against it but because of how profoundly alienating the messenger is.
I do not want to be overly snippy here. But I’m navigating a comments thread where people are literally telling me that Trump did not actually say things in 2016 that Trump, per provided link, is documented as having said. I’m all for picking nits. What else would we do here? But I am really not sure what people are trying to prove with these responses.Report
Serious questions, why did you omit the sentence of that paragraph where I said the below in italics?
Because I really didn’t think it changed how charitable you were being. Not objectionable on its own (I wouldn’t have commented), but I think the framing around “working illegally” and “big business interests” really puts a very benign gloss on Trump’s appeals which were, and are, often openly bigoted and far from scrupulous in restricting conversation to people in the country illegally (working or otherwise).
It’s worth asking who is and isn’t in the mainstream on the subject, and how far over the line Trump’s stances really are, at least if we care about how voters feel about the subject. My totally unsupported guess is that the ugliness of his rhetoric may well dampen the potential support for a major crack down and show of force at the border, not because people would be against it but because of how profoundly alienating the messenger is.
That’s a plausible theory, but it is also all the more reason to emphasize the ugliness of the rhetoric. Because there’s a lot of other reasons to question whether Trump actually does represent the mainstream–including his and the GOP’s polling on the issue when he actually held power, which was dismal.
But I am really not sure what people are trying to prove with these responses.
That Trump is a viciously bigoted authoritarian extremist–which is both true and entirely consistent with him also being indifferent to pre-MAGA Rightward orthodoxy on Medicare and Social Security.Report
Do you think during the 2016 election, he moderated his stance on Medicare and Social Security, from Republican orthodoxy? Not whether he meant it. Not how he polled during his time in office. Just whether he moderated on it during the 2016 campaign.
I will 100% unpack how I framed the immigration issue. Free preview: it starts with what the conventional wisdom was about how the GOP should pivot after Romney lost in 2012. But if you’re going to deny the reality of the NPR article, the reality of Trump’s strategy on a major issue, I don’t know that we can have a good exchange.Report
Do you think during the 2016 election, he moderated his stance on Medicare and Social Security, from Republican orthodoxy?
Yes, no question, and no need to check any links.
I remember it pretty clearly, and even remember that a few Leftward pundit types were fooled by it.Report
Ok cool. I’m going to try to be as succinct as I can on a topic that I feel like could be it’s own post.
-Go back to 2012. Slow recovery from 2008 financial crisis. Obama wins re-election handily. However austerity remains the bipartisan consensus. Obama admin under the influence of Larry Summers. GOP because D in White House. Some popular rebellion has occurred on both sides (Occupy Wallstreet, early versions of Tea Party).
-D takeaway: Emerging Democratic majority, demographics is destiny, forgets that numbers assume continued strength with white working class.
-R takeaway: Demographic trends against us. Need to diversify coalition, pitch to hispanics on culture, freedom, religion.
-Both sides retain core neoliberal assumptions about the political consensus. Republicans in particular still focused on on goal of entitlment reform (gutting and/or privatization) and tax cuts for the wealthy.
-2016 GOP Primary: Traditional Republicans follow this playbook. All the same plutocrats, but hey Marco Rubio! Ted Cruz! Those aren’t normal Republican names! And did you know Jeb Bush’s wife is Mexican? Plus some guy from Ohio pretending to be John McCain. A real maverick.
-Trump enters the chat. Message: you are being screwed by wealthy elites across party lines. They screw you with bad trade deals that send your jobs overseas. They let in illegals to take your jobs, at your expense, and who do terrible things when they get here. They start wars for no reason your kids die in and theirs don’t. Don’t listen to them about economics, and the trade offs on benefits you earned, it’s all just another scam at your expense.
-Trump gets traction. Trump is also a fundamentally mean person, and a mean person who loves adoration. Being a mean person, and playing to the crowd, doubles down on past xenophobic ignorance (see Obama’s birth certificate).
-Bashing immigrants more generally, and in cruel ways becomes a mainstay of the schtick, and an unfortunate number of Americans are ready to hear and cheer it. However facts like the refugee crisis playing out mostly in Europe, the long festering failure of immigration reform, inability to secure the border, fentanyl flooding in, all give some grains of truth to what he is saying. Further traction picks up on the nastier corners of the hard right internet, and these too become incorporated into the coalescing MAGA subculture.
-However all that nastiness is really just the gravy on top of the core Trump pitch: you are being screwed by the elites. And IMO to understand why Trump had and still has some currency, you have to understand the foundation. Which is why I framed it the way I did.
-“Trump will defend my interests against those people who want to send my jobs and my security away, and who want to give them to someone else. And yea those people they want to give it all away too are disgusting aren’t they.’
– There are about a billion asterisks and nuances to this, but that is how I see what happened.Report
This is a very true summary. The thing that Chip and I and others also see is that this rhetoric isn’t matched by actual work done to rectify the situation. I mean, that’s what strongmen in authoritarian states do – give concrete blame channels away from themselves while screwing their own supporters.Report
Of course he isn’t doing anything to solve actual problems.
This is where I feel compelled to add the reminder that I’ve never voted for a Republican for president, mostly vote Democrat down ballot, and while I think a lot of left cultural enthusiasms are bad (primarily due to undermining stated left of center goals!) and personally own a bunch of guns, I otherwise agree with the balance of the Democratic policy agenda. I see little defensible about the current right or Republican party but I also think that standing up to it effectively involves engaging with why they get traction, and not only in a manner that is flattering to our side of the aisle.Report
The elites? You mean the HVAC guy who advertises at the ball park? He has a boat!Report
In which I agree with Jaybird.
However all that nastiness is really just the gravy on top of the core Trump pitch: you are being screwed by the elites.
In MAGA world, the “elites” aren’t the HVAC contractor or the local auto dealer;
The elites aren’t the Wall Street hedge fund manager or the Silicon Valley tech bro;
Can someone here name the “elites” that MAGAs think are screwing the rest of us over?
Go ahead, name them.Report
The politicians in charge of allowing millions of undocumented immigrants into the country, demanding that they all be accepted as citizens, the ones who caused the inflation eating into savings and earnings, and the ones who will be screwing over the current citizens on behalf of the folks that they hope will become a new bank of votes?Report
Of course I can remember how it all started. Back when this was coming together it meant Wall Street, high finance, and the revolving door of federal elected and appointed officials who enabled them to blow up the economy on a virtual craps table. And the officials involved in NAFTA and giving China most favored trade status and the wealthy business owners and/or shareholders that closed shop here and moved there or wherever else. It was the people in economics who thought mass illegal immigration was good (for business!) actually. On the left it was the 1% and on the right it was the federal trade and finance bureaucracies.
Now, in the ridiculous context of American culture war has that word transmogrified into something much more nebulous? Maybe. Probably. But I don’t know why people are so quick to treat failing to assess well documented facts and developments about our political trajectory as a virtue.Report
Bzzt.
Look at the applause lines at his rallies, look at the memes and tweets that they start and distribute, look at the apocryphal tales and dark lurid conspiracies that Jaybird peddles here.
They rage at the immigrants eating ducks from the park, not the people who hire them.
They rage at the gays and transsexuals who teach in schools, not politicians.
They rage at college students and college professors, eagerly gloating when they can manage to get one fired.
They rage the corporations that are nice to queer people and delight in telling us how they are going bankrupt.
In MAGA world, “Elite” means “The Hated Outgroup”.
It has eff-all to do with Wall Street or the local gentry.
Just look at their very own words, the things they themselves say, not the imaginary MAGAs from NYT Cletus safaris.Report
I think InMD is looking at the root cause (for lack of a better word) and you’re looking at the proximate.
Who among us wasn’t outraged by the ’08 bailouts? This gave rise to the Tea Party’s economic populism. Unfortunately for America, this populism came with a side of racist xenophobia. Somehow, rage at the bankers who shafted Americans became rage at people who are in no position to do anything to Americans. People who lacked power in their own countries and who have even less here.
As Tea Partiers morphed in MAGA, the rage remained. Banks are unassailable so the rage had to be directed elsewhere. Guess where people who think they’re at the top of the pyramid but are in reality nowhere near it are going to direct that rage.Report
Innit funny how the “rage at the bankers” never materialized into anything but tax breaks for those very same bankers?
Like, Trump is out there right now promising to shovel yet more trillions to the bankers, and the MAGA faithful nod right along, then start screaming about Haitians.
The racism/misogyny/homophobia isn’t the side dish- its the entree.Report
If I had as much lobbying money as bankers, I’d probably be getting tax breaks, too.
I remember when the Tea Partiers were first voted in, and I asked on Facebook how long it’d be before they were co-opted. My friend replied as soon as some lobbyist bought them a steak dinner. How right he was!
I think the racism/misogyny/homophobia just comes baked in. It’s hard coded.Report
Before they were elected and “co-opted”, were any of the Tea Party candidates promising to do anything meaningful to rein in the power of banks?
Has any Republican candidate, elected official, or rank and file Republican voter, anywhere promised to do anything about banks and corporations other than shovel money at them?Report
Innit funny how the “rage at the bankers” never materialized into anything but tax breaks for those very same bankers?
Yeah. I think that that’s one of the reasons that Obama was as popular as he was.
John McCain suspended his campaign to run back to Washington to vote… remember that? And he voted the exact same way that Obama did.
I shook my head at that. What reason was there to vote for McCain?Report
So you dislike bipartisanship? Good to know.Report
When both parties are voting the wrong way? Yeah, not a fan.
(Not the biggest fan of democracy either.)Report
Even from the debate last night I think it was pretty clear that he does not think the (alleged) cat and dog (and duck?) eating resettled refugees of Springfield, OH are elite. He thinks the people that put them there are. If they actually exist. Which…uh..we will generously call an open question.Report
I think it is the nastiness that is the foundation, and the paper-thin pretext about “elites” screwing you that is gravy on top, one that is mostly effective by deflecting (ironically) “elite” attention away from the nastiness and towards failures of neoliberalism and neoconservatism.
I’ll acknowledge that this is a take that is more flattering to our side of the aisle, which justifies some skepticism, but on the other hand, Trump’s support has remained more or less constant, while his inability or disinterest in actually solving any problems has been demonstrated as clearly as possible in a way that was simply not possible prior to 2016.
Like, yes, I think you would have had to have been an absolute rube to believe he would “grow into” the Presidency in 2016, but we have since had four years of him proving repeatedly that he didn’t.
What hasn’t changed is the dishonesty, the racism and xenophobia, and the promises of authoritarian retribution and political violence. All of those have held on much more consistently than the anti-“elite” messaging.Report
Fair enough. To me the counter argument to that, and one that’s easy to forget, is that Trump is a structurally unpopular and unappealing person. We now know that he can actually be winged with a bullet by a would be assassin and not even experience a sympathy bump. IMO his popularity is artificially inflated by the nature of the first past the post, two party system, plus the total intellectual disintegration of the political right. His singular victory (so far) was an ultra lucky inside straight on top of natural thermostatic trends in American politics, a uniquely ill suited opponent, and catching a bunch of incredible breaks down the stretch. I also harbor the unprovable belief that his election was a publicity stunt that got out of control and his current bid is mainly about trying to stay out of prison.
All is to say that he is a bad politician with no actual vision, just an a-hole who got lucky.
I see a lot of the crazed stuff as his crutch. Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe it or isn’t authoritarian, or that many of his followers don’t harbor some pretty ugly beliefs and sentiments. But to me none of it happens without the core conditions in place 2012-2016, and that it’s viability is already on the wane as those conditions have changed. Nevertheless I acknowledge that at this point we are firmly into reasonable people can disagree territroy.Report
“Like, yes, I think you would have had to have been an absolute rube to believe he would “grow into” the Presidency in 2016, but we have since had four years of him proving repeatedly that he didn’t.
What hasn’t changed is the dishonesty, the racism and xenophobia, and the promises of authoritarian retribution and political violence. All of those have held on much more consistently than the anti-“elite” messaging.”
Yeah, this.
Also nice to see you, PillsyReport
Most of the true believers know that she’s lying, though. Look at Joe Biden! His was the most progressive presidency since FDR!Report
What are your metrics for reaching this conclusion?Report
What Harris enthusiasts are willing to say in any given minute for some imagined temporary advantage.Report
Who are the other contenders? LBJ and Obama. The case for Biden isn’t a slam dunk, but it’s reasonable.Report
Biden has drug the party kicking and screaming back to being a center left party. His work is nowhere near close to FDR. Neither is Obama’s if you really dig in. LBJ was progressive in many ways, but he also had a unique set of post-FDR circumstances no Democrat since has enjoyed.Report
Harris didn’t go through the primaries, so she didn’t need to dance with the fringes.Report
No, but she said a bunch of dumb stuff in 2019 before having her candidacy ended by Tulsi Gabbard of all people, who was (arguably) running even further to Harris’ left. As I said above I don’t see any of it as insurmountable but she will be confronted with it at some point, probably as soon as tomorrow evening.Report
Harris’s change on fracking is, pure and simple, that Pennsylvania has become a very important swing state. And touching natural gas fracking, except perhaps for some cleaning up of the process, is a no-no in Pennsylvania.
For me, with my admittedly narrow view on policy, the biggest difference between Walz and Shapiro was that Walz got Minnesota to take some quite aggressive climate change positions, while Shapiro favored moving more slowly, and in particular, encouraged fracking and the use of natural gas for a long time.Report
It is no secret both political parties dance to the tune of their fringes.
A thing that isn’t true isn’t a secret.Report
I was thinking that too, heh.Report
Trunp’s most enthusiastic supporters come from the elites in the left behind areas, people who are doing well in areas that aren’t doing well:
https://www.vox.com/politics/369797/trump-support-class-local-rich-arlie-hochschildReport
(Is that the definition of “elite” we’re using now?)Report
Farley’s example over at LG&M this morning is a good one, although he uses “powerful” rather than “elite”: go to the small town where incomes are below the national averages and look at who is buying advertising on the local baseball park’s outfield fences. Doesn’t even have to be a small town. Fort Collins is 180,000 people now. I drive regularly past a ball field used for little league and other things. Car dealers. The larger but still local heating, air-conditioning, and plumbing firms. Housing developers. The bigger local restaurants.Report
I probably wouldn’t disagree with describing the local car dealers, plumbers, HVAC techs, and housing developers as “locally powerful”.
But the guy who runs the franchised Applebee’s (now with salad bar!) being described as “elite” makes me think that we’ve, somehow, changed the definition of “elite” in the last few years when I wasn’t lookin’.Report
Yes, what really matters about the elite is not their political or economic power, or even their ability to succeed in challenging and competitive environments, but a bunch of superficial cultural signifiers like the TV shows they watch.Report
So we can compare the political/economic power of the guy who advertises on the local AA ballpark with the political/economic power of the people you read about in the paper.
The guy who advertises HVAC services at the ballpark has a boat. Those things are expensive!Report
If the “elite” were routinely limited to the C-suite of Fortune 500 companies or members of Congress or something, sure, we could do that and local business owners, even successful ones, will rarely rate.
In practice, though, complaints about the elite are just as likely to be addressed at college professors or people who just have college degrees and white collar jobs.Report
It’s like “rich”, I guess.
You wanna be part of the global 1%?
Do you earn $60k/year?Report
Well, sure, but the HVAC guy is likely to be richer than the professor, in addition to having considerably more pull with not only the local government officials, but state officials and his Congresscritter as well.Report
I think people complain more about the elitists, or at least that’s what they mean when they say “elites”.Report
What is the difference between the 2?Report
What the difference between a white and a white nationalist?Report
“some college”Report
People like you should be locked up.Report
If I had a nickel…Report
Per Michael Cains comment, “elite” doesn’t quite fit because these people while economically powerful are often culturally marginalized.
Which explains the Republican twin horses of regressive economic policy yoked to cultural resentment.Report
Bingo.Report
It would lead to more productive discussions if we said what we meant instead of picking one of the many legitimate definitions of “elite,” claiming that that is what “elite” means, and that “elites,” so defined, are, ipso facto, bad. Elites can be, in addition to important government officials, mandarins, merchants, or warriors. Let’s take a few examples. Donald Trump is a vulgar buffoon, despite an elite education. He wouldn’t get anywhere near a C-suite job at a serious business in which he would have to answer to a board of directors, shareholders, or HR. He is, however, rich, though probably nowhere near as rich as he claims, and he has been, and may yet become again, President of the United States. Even as a private, pre-political citizen, he was able to attract and manipulate media attention. He is an “elite.” So is someone who, through educational success, acquired valuable skills and was slotted into a powerful institution like a large public corporation, a major law firm, a mainstream church, the military, or certain government jobs,and rose through the ranks. That person is also an “elite.” So is the successful property developer or car dealer in Dubuque. If billionaires want to make a case about the baleful influence of English professors, they can make that case. But they should say what they mean, not sneer at “elites.”Report
Its easier to “other” by sneering at elites rather then being truthful. If they were truthful, well you and I would still be “Othered”Report
Are they culturally marginalized? Some might be to the extent that they don’t recognize the mores of Brooklyn or Los Angeles but there was that Times article about spending lots of money to decorate a dorm room. The article mention the majority of students who did this are women from the South at places like Ole Miss. How culturally marginalized are you if you appear at 18 or 19 in the style section of the Times wearing Golden Goose Sneakers (retail 500-700). They certainly know how to keep up with global trends in fashion.Report
In so far as New York and Los Angeles dominate the national level media and the cultural mores in national media reflect those of the big blue cities, they are culturally marginalized. There is basically a light liberalism in most entertainment whether it is on traditional media or streaming services like color blind casting, same sex relationships in the Willow TV series, and liberal politics in Disney Marvel’s shows like how the new Captain America couldn’t get a loan because he is black.* I think this is a good thing but for people who don’t have these mores, and there are about 150 million of them at least, it can feel isolating. Even for people in agreement with them, they might want a less intense version that what they are getting.
*I always thought that this particular scene was a bit dumb because banks would love giving loans to superheroes no matter what. It would be one of the ultimate advertisements for them.Report
Which movie was that? Did Cap come to the bank in costume and ask for a loan to “Captain America,” or was he just another borrower in a suit?
People familiar with The Watchmen will remember that the relationship between costumed heroes (especially with capes) and banks can be fraught.Report
It was the show, and Sam wasn’t even Captain America at the time, and never had publicly been Captain America. Steve had chosen him, but he decided not to take the position and turned the shield in.
In fact, I’m not entirely certain why he wasn’t in jail at the moment… He’d been a fugitive for two years due to the events of Civil War before ceasing to exist for five. I assume there was some sort of off-screen pardon or somethingReport
People existing in media as they do in real life is not liberalism.Report
MAGAs are almost by their very definition, people who are uncomfortable with the modern world and their place in it.
No matter how much money they make or political power they accumulate, they are angry and resentful because they are forced to share power with people they consider inferior and they are not given the recognition and status they feel entitled to.
Trump and Vance are perfect examples. The petit bourgeoisie who make up the MAGA faithful are seething with rage and resentment, ranging from racism to misogyny to homophobia or sometimes just the resentment that people of their stature are not afforded the privilege given to previous generations of minor nobility.
This is what makes their rage implacable, because it is zero sum; It isn’t enough for them to be free to live as they wish, other people must be prevented from living as they wish; As Serwer pointed out, inflicting cruelty upon their hated outgroups is the point and so long as there exists a queer/black/female/immigrant person living free and proud, the MAGA will seethe with bitterness.Report
Elite might be a bad word in this case because of the loaded and disputed connotations behind the word. Powerful is a lot better.Report
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4869901-vance-haitians-eating-pets-ohio-trump/
Vance keeps repeating lie that Haitian immigrants in Ohio steal and eat cats. They know only absolute racism will help them this election.Report
There was a trick that Trump did fairly often. It was the “Statement That Gets Corrected And Amplified”.
Here’s how it works.
“X has gone up by a third!”, Trump says.
News media issues a correction saying “Trump Lies: X only went up 30%.”
In this case:
“Haitians are eating pets in Springfield Ohio!”
“No, there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by the 15,000-20,000 Haitians moved to Springfield Ohio in the last four years.”Report
Notice you like the cleverness more than are appalled by the actual lie and slander. Do you think this is a good look?Report
“I admire its purity.”
In any case, I’m not sure that it’s to the Democrats’ benefit to amplify the whole 15-20,000 Haitians moved to Springfield, Ohio over the last four years.Report
Sure it is, in as much as Democrats support multi-cultural democracy.Report
Well, avoid Springfield City Commission meeting footage and do your best to make other people avoid it too.Report
The edited public comment clips that are on Fox News, or the original meeting footage?Report
The Springfield City Commission meeting footage was circulating on Twitter long before it was circulating on Fox.Report
At best, your response is cowardly. At worst, it is a lot grosser. Hopefully, Leopards won’t eat your face but you can never tell.Report
Eh, there’s been a weird evolution of the whole “immigration” debate over the last decade or so.
It’s like one of the policies that is absolutely not up for a vote and any position more conservative than “we have the right amount of immigration” is painted as being a Nazi’s position.
“We should have borders, we should let in highly educated immigrants to do high-dollar work and we should let in hard working immigrants to do jobs that Americans just won’t do (and cheaply!) but, like, a reasonable amount” is coded conservative.
And “We should move 15-20,000 refugees into a town that has 60,000 people in it” is coded as Progressive.
And I don’t think that that’s to Democrats’ advantage.
The debate is tomorrow. I think that immigration is going to get a *LOT* of play.
And the Border Czar is (probably) going to be on defense on the topic.
Quick! Talk about abortion!Report
How many immigrants are currently permitted to legally enter under each category versus demand in the eocnomy?Report
The demand greatly outnumbers the supply.Report
The demand for cheaper labor is infinite. I’m sure that there’d be a return to slavery if management could find a way to get away with it.
You know the problems that we have with “Wage Theft”? The number one group hit by it hardest is the undocumented immigrants here living undocumentedly.
Same for the high-dollar workers. If you look at the numbers for the H1-B visas, you’ll see that they’re underpaid despite what the industry says the job is worth (they do this thing where they put a want ad in the paper saying that they want, like, Doctorate-level work but they’re only going to pay high school-level wages and, when nobody applies, they go the government and ask for an H1-B visa because they can’t find any qualified applicants).
Heck, there was a big lawsuit about a decade ago where the big internet companies were found to have engaged in conspiracy to keep wages low for engineers. Implicated everybody up to the level of Steve Jobs.
So I’m not entirely sure that the numbers are meaningful but there are 65,000 H1B visas approved each year and an extra 20,000 for the cap.
Assuming that this is per year and it goes back a decade, that’s less than a million high-dollar workers.
Low dollar? We need more. More. MORE!
Heck, I could use some domestic help myself.Report
What you coded as a conservative answer to the immigration challenge is THE set of solutions that the GOP OPPOSES. particularly for low dollar workers. The do not want businesses prosecuted for employing undocumented people. And they don’t want any business ever prosecuted for wage theft.
Once again you have swung and missed at both the problem and the solution.Report
Please don’t think, for a second, that I see the GOP as representing the American People (especially when it comes to immigration).
Heck, that’s why I think Trump got elected the first time.Report
Trump’s initial elevation in the GOP was in good measure about rank and file feeling ignored by the likes of Mitch McConnel. But MAGA IS now the GOP, and so current GOP actions on immigration (which are surprisingly consistent over time) are in fact representing the will of a significant number of Americans.Report
“The demand for cheaper labor is infinite. I’m sure that there’d be a return to slavery if management could find a way to get away with it.”
You’re in good company with this thinking:
“The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. ”
― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under SocialismReport
Springfield, Ohio has faced popular decline in every census since 1970. Immigrants can revitalize the area. And we are far from full.Report
Depending on how many federal funds they get, they could get revitalized a lot!Report
Do you enjoy being a miserable excuse of a human being?Report
I like to think that I have a joie de vivre that helps me through rough times. I enjoy food, I enjoy my friends, I enjoy my pastimes.
I went through a rough patch in my early 20s where I fought my way through and then I pretty much said “No more lying to yourself, Jay. If you find yourself lying to yourself, you need to recoil and recoil *HARD*.”
So, since then, I’ve tried to go out of my way to avoid lying to myself.
Seriously, you can’t believe how much of a burden lifted that is.
So… to answer your question, I enjoy being myself.
Do you enjoy being yourself, Saul?Report
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”Report
Saul, the only person of us two who has *EVER* even *HINTED* that “the time for argument is past” is *YOU*.
Report
Oh, I can’t believe you’re throwing that quote again. You just – apparently – made up an accusation about Trump calling Stein a “Jew lawyer”. Unless you show me a source that made that claim, you’ve flat-out played the anti-Semite card. It ceases to be a meaningful accusation once you’ve shown that it means less to you than a political win.Report
It’s kind of like accusing Trump of calling the NC gubernatorial candidate a “Jew lawyer”. That is, unless Trump actually did that. Did he?Report
Just out of curiosity is that the one specific piece of evidence you’re waiting on to come down on “Trump is definitely a racist and antisemite”?Report
There’s a difference between calling someone a “Jewish governor” in a context of foreign policy, and calling someone a “Jew lawyer” in, I don’t know, any context other than misspeaking. But Trump is a bully. He’s a bully. I don’t admire that. He seems to like bullying women. I haven’t seen him bully on the basis of race or religion, but if the nearest tool is a hammer, sure he’d probably use it.Report
Somebody’s probably already said this, but there have been 0 reported cases in Springfield, or of Haitians, doing this, ever as far as we can tell, and the whole rumor is based on a U.S. native, with no apparent Haitian ancestry, getting arrested in Canton.
So, the lie is that it’s happened more than once, that it was perpetrated by Haitians, and that it happened in Springfield, but at least they got that there was a single cat, and it was in Ohio, correct, right? What could go wrong with adding all that other erroneous detail onto the story? And why would anyone think those specific entirely made up details are grossly racist and xenophobic, right?Report
*stares at least in amazement*
Are you serious? You think this is a serious point, you think these are important progressive positions that she backed off on?
For one thing, you do realize that the wall thing is the wrong way, right? She possibly accepted the Republican position as a compromise, said she would sign that specific bill because it had a bunch of other stuff in it, despite it having something she didn’t like. That’s not a position change, and it wouldn’t be to the center if it was. That’s expressing support for a compromise bill.
Likewise, she has not expressed support for reparations for slavery, in fact there is no support for reparations for slavery in Congress or in the government at all. What there is is a bill that keeps getting reintroduced to create a _commission_ to look into long-term effects of slavery and to make recommendations that Congress could choose to enact into law if it wanted to. Harris’s views on this have not changed, the claims that they have changed are based on pretending that her support for that bill to create a commission were support for any particular reparations, which is obviously nonsense. She does not and never had supported any particular reparations, she has and still does support a commission to look into the idea.
Harris still supports electric vehicles as much as she did before. I have no idea what anyone is talking about with a policy change. Sometimes specific bills have failed and people move on to other bills and ways to do things. That does not mean a policy change.
It’s the same with these supposed federal jobs guarantee… Harris never supported a federal jobs guarantee as a concept, she just supported a bill that had it in it. The fact she isn’t pushing for something that was in a bill she supported once doesn’t mean it’s a flip flop. You can’t just pick random policy positions from bills that people vote on and then claim the fact that they aren’t trying to do it years later as a flip-flop, it’s just an abandonment of a specific way of doing something.
The mandatory gun buyback thing is actual nonsense, like it’s actually incoherent to claim that that is a policy of hers to start with, when that is merely a trivial point in an actual policy. The actual policy is to ban assault weapons, and then she added that they shouldn’t be taken away from people who currently have them without compensation. I’m not really certain the people even understand the very basics of this, they are approaching it from such a fundamentally stupid angle that it’s hard to discuss it. How is it a conservative position that, if their guns are taking away, people shouldn’t be compensated for it? Like, how is that moving to the center to say that? Honestly, I think people getting paid for the weapons they have is actually a conservative position and not paying them would be the liberal one, right? Or does this even matter? This being on the list is just drooling nonsense, in fact everyone who has ever asked her about this in the media is a complete imbecile, I cannot stress that enough.
As far as I can tell, she has not changed her position on ‘banning assault weapons’. Period, end of story.
Anyone claiming she has changed positions on these things is kind of an idiot or deliberately misinterpreting things.
Things Harris actually has changed her position on: fracking, border crossing, Medicare for all
The only one of those that got changed for electoral reasons is the border crossing one, mostly because the Republicans are very good at scaremongering about the border.
The fracking thing got changed because of all the money and because Democrats will sell out almost as easily as Republicans. Same with the Medicare for all things, although technically speaking Democrats already sold out like five years ago on that.
Not actual things: banning plastic strawsReport
I think the fracking thing changed because she spent some time with folks who understand how the world generates power.
One can think that generally speaking fossil fuels are really bad but it’s probably the case that natural gas – even with leakage – is less worse than oil and coal, and right now oil and coal generate close to twice as much of the world’s baseline power as natural gas does.
Yes, yes, I know that solar and batteries are upscaling really fast (much faster than expected, which is fabulous) but so is power demand… it’s a related rates problem.Report
Not actual things: banning plastic straws
What irritates me about this one is that I actually remember the straw discourse.
It was something that happened! Seriously!Report