After last night’s primary election results there are three candidates vying for the Republican nomination: Trump, Cruz, and Kasich. Present signs suggest that Trump and Cruz will continue to attack each other and Kasich although there have been a few signs recently that Trump is turning his sights on Hillary Clinton.
There’s more than one way to analyze this, of course.
I see John Kasich as an establishment Republican although not as firmly entrenched in that establishment as, say, Marco Rubio was. IMO of the three he’d be the most likely to make a decent enough president. I think he represents the pragmatic wing of the Republican Party and his small showings suggest that faction isn’t completely moribund but near to it.
I think that Ted Cruz represents social conservatives, particularly white evangelicals, along with a scattering of fiscally conservative, small government conservatives who are just tired of the present Republican establishment and feel betrayed by it.
My opinion of Donald Trump’s supporters is that they’re the refusenik, “throw the bums out” faction not only of the Republican Party but also attracting some people who routinely vote Democratic. I think that’s the most likely explanation for the turnout numbers being reported.
If that’s the case, realignment of the Republican Party is really the worst case scenario not just for the Republican establishment but for Democrats if not for the country. I have a pretty good idea of what that newly realigned Republican Party would be against but I have no sense whatever for what it would be for.
It may become a White Nationalist Party. In fact, a generation from now our politics may revolve around temporary coalitions of ethno-nationalist parties. At least two others seem likely, a Black Nationalist Part and a Hispano Nationalist Party, both of which already exist locally, but others are possible.
I’m generally in agreement with this piece:
Trump is Not the New Hitler—He is the New Andrew Jackson.
It is well sourced, and only occasionally over-generalized to make the analogy work. For instance, Jackson wasn’t a nativist in any sense being discussed today, but he did describe the establishment in terms of being European-Aristocrat types. It was more a class thing.
Jackson was the last of an original type. The Presidency was supposed to be held by only the best type of person, as judged by the the best type of people. Other than the ideological correction of Jefferson in 1800, the position had reverted to the original design by the time Jackson staked the claim abetted by white male suffrage that he too was the best type of person, judged by the best type of people — the working class.
The intriguing part of the comparison is that Jackson was denied the office in 1824 due to the so-called ‘corrupt bargain,’ and used the sense of betrayal to win in 1828. Will Trump be similarly circumvented?
The limitations of the comparison are that the party situation is reversed. Jackson was elected when there was no party system, whereas Trump will seek to broaden his appeal for the general, which is something I think he is capable of doing in theory, but he will likely find insufficient numbers to buck the standard party coalitions.
Also, Jackson’s long-lasting success was secured by creating the political party system, work done largely by Martin Van Buren through a broad network of newspaper writers and patronage jobs to secure party organization. I doubt Trump has, or will have a wizard like Van Buren.
PD
The Trump comparison to Jackson piece was a provocative contribution to all of the Trump discussions that have been going on lately. It continues to surprise how often history repeats itself in era after era.
PD:
I found the piece silly. The author does nothing to explain why the Hitler analogy is wrong. Indeed, you could substitute the name Hitler for Jackson is virtually the entire peroration. Like this:
What people don’t get about Hitler analogies is that first, the reason they are so often overused is that Americans know dick about history, so really only a very few analogies resonate. But second, people assume “Hitler” is Hitler 1943. The comparison should be to Hitler 1938. You know, before he was the greatest murderer in human history, back when he was just a straight-talkin’ guy who told it like it is, had very high entertainment value and just wanted to make Germany great again, and would, just as soon as some troublesome scapegoats were dealt with.
Now, there are many, many differences. Both Hitler and Trump are classic psychopaths, but Hitler had beliefs – Trump doesn’t believe anything. And as a rule it’s hard to get a really good Götterdämmerung going in the modern world without some idiot ideology to ease the road to hell for the better class of sucker.
Personally I think Trump is more Mussolini than Hitler. But Americans have absolutely no idea who Mussolini was.
We live in America, michael. Europeans are worried about Trump because of their experience.
If you want to say Hitler ran for office, you need to put about a dozen caveats and explanations in there, and the comparison would still fail when held up to Jackson. Hitler was not elected Reich Chancellor, but came to power through backstairs political intrigue.
There was no entrenched political aristocracy in Germany that had controlled the German political system for decades. The Wiemar Republic never enjoyed popular support, which was its fatal weakness.
Making Germany great again for Hitler was to end the Republic. Trump does not want to recreate the pre-Constitutional order, nor does he have very much in terms of ideological content. He believes, like Jackson, that he is the best man for the job.
“Trump does not want to recreate the pre-Constitutional order, nor does he have very much in terms of ideological content.”
I don’t think you have to in order to make the analogy work. What is important is that both are looking backwards and wanting to recreate idealized conditions from earlier in our history. Also, IIRC, Bismarck had the country united around 1870, so they had quite a few decades of aristocracy.
Steve
PD:
Yes there was an entrenched political aristocracy, which is one of the reasons Weimar never took hold. It was the Junker class and the Prussian military. Hindenburg was squeezed hard to name Hitler Chancellor and Hitler needed not just the legal political appointment but that bent knee from the aristocracy.
And neither you, nor I, nor Trump has any idea what he plans to do because he doesn’t plan. He’s a creature of instinct not intellect.
In the 1920s and 30s, the Communists would describe everyone as a fascist who worked within the capitalist system, which meant everyone from socialists to liberals to conservatives to military dicatorships was a fascist. That use of the term doesn’t tell us anything about the subject, it tells us about the speaker. Michael uses the term to describe things about Republicans he doesn’t like.
@steve, fascism is not political nostalgia. Fascism was a political and economic system, which emerged from a set of specific circumstances after World War I. The NAZIs did not restore the pre-Weimar order, but created new institutions that would give rise to a new people. This was a revolution, not a restoration.
Fascism in its various forms is anti-democratic. This will never resonate within the U.S. because the very premise is unacceptable.
Jacksonianism is a democratic movement. It does not challenge democracy, it challenges the political class removed from the will of the people.
@miahcel “neither you, nor I, nor Trump has any idea what he plans to do because he doesn’t plan. He’s a creature of instinct not intellect.”
That describes Jackson to a tee (or “T” if you prefer).
You are wrong. Wrong to be pedantic about fascism as system – in fact both the Nazis and the Italian fascists were making it up as they went along, and both systems were, contra the media depiction, highly inefficient and chaotic. In neither case was the system the point, the man was the point. Il Duce and Der Führer.
And that’s why you’re wrong in the above quote. Because it is precisely the non-democratic nature of Trump’s campaign that appeals to his voters. They want a strong man. Saying this will never resonate is clearly wrong given that it is actually resonating even as we speak.
michael, you’ve attributed nothing to Trump that couldn’t be attributed to Jackson, and if overly “masculine” language is the mark of a fascist then you have defined fascism down to meaninglessness.
PD- As I suspect you know there is no agreed upon definition of fascism. However, those who have tried to define have almost always included the fact that fascism looks back at an idealized history. That is not unique to fascism, but is common to mist brands if fascism. Certainly the German and Italian kinds.
Steve
How many times have people been angrily called a “fascist,” even by unruly children, when it comes to monetary or discipline disagreements? It’s a commonly played term used to arouse a distaste for the one whom it’s being directed. Racist is another overly used accusation, as is any number of other phobic labels thrown out to anyone you want to defame or discredit.
As for Trump, he is ruthlessly candid in his pubic appearances, something which is difficult for liberals to grasp. Instead they gasp, and try to compare his demeanor to historical horrors. However, his followers, being so fed up with the dismissal of their needs, wishes, votes etc., aren’t buying into it….yet.
Fascism in its various forms is anti-democratic. This will never resonate within the U.S. because the very premise is unacceptable.
It’s certainly been acceptable in America to exclude classes of people from the democratic process. Ask blacks in the South during Jim Crow about this.
Meanwhile, Trump’s a birther and his supporters think America has been changed for good. I mean, all that happened was that a black man was elected president twice by a majority and America collapsed under illegitimate rule. It’s not a stretch to believe that all of this political angst has come from the belief that the wrong people were given democracy.
“Ask blacks in the South during Jim Crow about this.”
Yes, the democrat party should be ashamed of this part of their history, rather than disown it and blame it on republicans — using it for decades as an effective tool to divide rather than heal.
“all that happened was that a black man was elected president twice by a majority and America collapsed under illegitimate rule.”
Many say Obama was primarily elected because of his ethnicity. White guilt is prevalent in this country, and people were ecstatic to support a racial candidate in order to show how much this country had evolved for the good. But, instead of enhancing such a majority embrace, dems have inflamed the racial divide even more by claiming most policy disagreements with Obama to be racially motivated because of his color. How can we ever put color differences behind us if we continue to politically exploit them?
Furthermore, the birther movement, would have produced less of a groundswell if there weren’t some murky tangents in Obama’s own bio — one being his first book jacket citing his birthplace to be Kenya. It was not corrected until he ran for office. Then there was the slow walk in producing the more legitimate long form of his birth certificate. Had these issues been immediately addressed and resolved, the birther idiocy would have had no legs.
So what you’re saying Jan is that democrats have been wrong to believe that Obama was good at anything. He was just a stupid black guy elected to assuage white guilt, and it’s inflamed the racial divide to think otherwise and challenge the white majority.
“fascism looks back at an idealized history.”
That’s not a distinguishing factor for fascism though. All conservatives arguably do that. Obama occasionally revisits the values of the Founding Fathers or documents.
What distinguishes a fascist from a conservative is that the fascist wants to take what it identifies as essential elements of the past, couple them with the latest science and technology, bring about a political revolution and create a new man, with a radically different relationship to the state.
If you want a functional definition, Orwell: “Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes… It is a planned system geared to a definite purpose, world-conquest, and not allowing any private interest, either of capitalist or worker, to stand in its way.”
Functionally, fascism necessarily requires a youth movement, because youth need to fight the wars, and youth is not inspired by relitigating the past, but want to be part of the creation of brave, new future, to be on top of history:
“The Fascist negation of socialism, democracy, liberalism, should not, however, be interpreted as implying a desire to drive the world backwards to positions occupied prior to 1789, a year commonly referred to as that which opened the demo-liberal century. History does not travel backwards.” (Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism” (1932))
“British political theorist Roger Griffin has coined the term palingenetic ultranationalism as a core tenet of fascism, stressing the notion of fascism as an ideology of rebirth of a state or empire in the image of that which came before it – its ancestral political underpinnings. ”
Perhaps my wording has been sloppy. I am not trying to say that they want to recreate an actual prior period. They look backwards at some idealized history that never actually existed. They want to recreate the good parts of that history. Yes, they are willing to use modern tech to do so. So Hitler wanted to recreate a German empire with pure blood Germans running it. He didn’t want people fighting with swords and shields.
Do all conservatives look backwards? Maybe, but not to the same extent. They are both to the right on the spectrum.
Steve
“Yes, the democrat party should be ashamed of this part of their history, rather than disown it and blame it on republicans”
Come on, you can’t be stupid enough to say stuff like this. The Southern Dems of the past are the Republicans of today. The Northern Republicans of the past are the Democrats of today. There was a big shift. Most people know about it.
“How many times have people been angrily called a “fascist,†even by unruly children, when it comes to monetary or discipline disagreements? It’s a commonly played term used to arouse a distaste for the one whom it’s being directed. Racist is another overly used accusation, as is any number of other phobic labels thrown out to anyone you want to defame or discredit.”
Could we add socialist, statist, communist and Marxist to the list?
Steve
@jan
You are wasting your time and energy. Derision and mockery are what you should offer.
The Left has two problems – you and the black voters. They need both of you to stay in your place, and each day that Trump is not put in his, one of you is likely to notice the game they have been playing.
They have drawn a circle around you, and they proclaim it to be a ten foot high solid brick wall that cannot be broken through. They tell the black voters that you are a rabid racist who only grows trees to lynch them, but they have built a ten foot high solid brick wall around you. It cannot be broken through, but if Republicans get into power, they will tear it down.
The racist is not working, and now they are going to try faciscism. Next it will be cannibalism or satanism.
The Left is correct about one thing. After the help they have given black people, it would take concentration camps and ovens to get much worse.
PD:
I’m sure this jesuitical discussion will comfort you greatly when President Trump calls on his followers to riot in front of a recalcitrant Congress. Or when he simply refuses to follow a Supreme Court decision. Or when he orders torture for prisoners of war. Or hands the IRS over to Omarosa with explicit orders to attack his political opponents. Or demands the NSA intercept the communications of political opponents. Or refuses to divest and manipulates government contracts to enrich himself. Or has his name and face emblazoned on the side of the White House. Or demands that Congress put him on the hundred dollar bill, and threatens mob violence when they resist. Or reacts to a Chinese move in the South China Sea by ordering the navy to start sinking Chinese ships. Or calls on the mob to attack reporters he doesn’t like.
I could go on all day.
Our presidential system rests heavily on practice and precedent, deference and self-imposed limits, tradition and mores. It rests less on hard law. There is really no way to enforce the will of Congress on a president by hard, cold, physical means. There is no way to stop a president from summoning the mob to enforce his decisions. You’ve just watched this guy blow through every barrier – what we thought were barriers – in this election. Do you not understand that he’ll do the same in office? What do you think is going to happen, that this guy building his cult of personality and threatening political violence will suddenly turn into Ronald Reagan?
Trump understands intuitively that he really only needs about 10% of the population to be committed to him once he’s elected. With the levers of presidential power and a mob there’s very little Congress or SCOTUS can do to stop him. Congress can deny him funds, and he can surround Capitol Hill with a mob that refuses to let Congress leave until they give Trump what he wants.
You need to understand something: Trump does not even see law, precedent, tradition or even the constitution. Those things do not exist for him. Those things are just so many cobwebs to Trump.
Wrong, sadly. (male) Youth doesn’t give a rat’s ass about building some bright future. They want excitement, purpose, sex and respect. The “brave future” is just pretext. Hitler Youth were heavily indoctrinated in resentments from the past, myths about the past, the traditions of the past. In fact the past – a past without Jews, communists, gays or defeat – was absolutely central to the indoctrination of young Nazis. You know, like, “We used to win! We don’t win anymore, people. We don’t win. But when I’m der führer we’re going to win so much! It’ll be yuuuuuge!”
This is the so-called Hitler Oath sworn to by the Wehrmacht:
That is the essence of fascism, not discussions around economic systems. Cult of personality, the füherprinzip, the overweening importance of one man – unconditional obedience, the abnegation of the individual and no mention at all of law or constitution – that is fascism. And that is what Trump and his hardcore followers are about.
This, for contrast is the American Army’s oath of enlistment:
Italics are mine. Now, you tell me which oath you imagine Trump prefers. The oath made to obey him, or the oath made to obey the law.
I said in another thread that comparing Trump to Nazi’s or Hitler is stupid, and it is.
To make my argument we need to go back way before 1938, to the early late teens and early 1920’s when Hitler first formed the ideas and ideology that would guide his leadership and policies later on. He wrote in Mein Kampf that he thought the German Workers Party was a perfect vehicle for him to build a movement and political party, which is exactly what he did. Hitler didn’t magically appear in 1938, he made his intentions known long before that. The foundation for the Nazi ideology was given in 1920 speech detailing the 25 points which formed the platform for the GWP which eventually became the Nazi Party.
If you want to seriously argue that Trump is like Hitler then you’re ignoring the differences that actually matter:
– Hitler built a movement and party, Trump didn’t
– Hitler’s party gave him dictatorial power over party affairs and later dictatorial power of Germany.
– Hitler’s movement was premised not just on racism, but racial purity. “Lesser races” were to be subjugated or eliminated (at first through expulsion, later through extermination).
– Hitler believed that aggressive war was justified to right the wrongs of Versaille and was necessary to provide “lebensraum” for the Aryan people, especially at the expense of the French and Slavs.
– Hitler advocated for nationalist social and economic policies .
Trump has done none of those things but apparently because he’s arrogant, has a big mouth, is the poster-boy for New York incivility, has made some racist/bigoted statements, he’s magically comparable to a Nazi or Hitler. Mussolini isn’t any better a comparison – his rule was slightly less racist, but featured most of the same elements as the Nazi’s.
FDR is a lot closer to fascism than trump. Google the Mexican repatriation, or consider the internment of the Japanese, his efforts to maximize executive power, etc. He’s not even close to being a fascist or a Nazi either, but he’s certainly a lot closer on the spectrum than Trump.
Michael,
“I’m sure this jesuitical discussion will comfort you greatly when President Trump calls on his followers to riot in front of a recalcitrant Congress. Or when he simply refuses to follow a Supreme Court decision….”
That is almost comical. How will Trump achieve all that even if one assumes your description of his intentions is accurate (big if). If he gets elected (another very big if), most things on that list would get him impeached. The military and civil service bureaucracy are not going to carry his water. Again, another difference from fascists – they built their organizations over time and destroyed or subsumed any opposition to allow the state to carry out their will. Trump simply can’t do that in today’s America even if that was his intention, which is highly doubtful.
Andy,
Yes, Trump’s rise does not correspond, point by point, to Hitler’s. So what? There are plenty of people in this country who are longing for a man like Trump to come to power so they can fight their enemies–blacks, gays, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims. And there are even more people in this country it’s just as bad for five protesters to shout down a political figure on the news 24/7 as it is for that figure to call for violence against people who look like those protestors. Guess what? After a few years of a Trump presidency, a terrified GOP-controlled Congress, and a media being threatened at all times by Trump’s goons, the government will be run by people who have plans for their enemies and the others, the ones who were content to be fooled, will either be following orders, on the sidelines, or dead.
And what was ‘lebensraum’? It was the idea that Aryans should live true Aryan lives in the Ukraine and Russia because they were entitled to it. There’s no rationale for the Jewish villagers in their shtetls to farm Aryan land so it’s time to shoot them. Trump’s offering a similar message: nobody has the right to survive but his followers. Jobs are the property of white Americans who have been cheated by the elites, immigrants, and PC culture.
Could somebody work a little cannibalism in, please?
I am surprised nobody has added incest. If there is one thing a racist, fascist, Nazi, Klansman likes to do more than put on his white sheets to lynch a few n*gg*rs, it is to f*ck his mother, sister, and daughter on them. The only downside is that being so inbred they are the same person, but there is always the hound dog.
I thought the Nicki Minaj in 2016 would annoy a few people, but you all are making me seriously consider becoming a traitor to her.
One more thing, what about uniforms? Will Trump have some snazzy uniforms for his followers? Will they issue swords? Will Trump’s goons have drones, and if so, will they be required to pay for them out-of-pocket? If so, will they be tax deductible?
On the swords, will they be sharpened, or will they be ceremonial only? If ceremonial only, what will the penalty be for a Trump goon who cuts off the ear of a gay, black, Jew who converted to Islam?
Under President Trump, will cannibalism be legal?
“Under President Trump, will cannibalism be legal?”
Yes, but only dark meat will be served.
Steve
TB,
I think it will be worse than that. Did you know that Trump secretly financed the “human centipede” movies? Not a coincidence. We all know what will come next.
TB, if you’re going to tell a joke, at least make it funny. Barring that, don’t beat it beyond death. Nicki Minaj is as relevant as Lil’ Kim. You’re like some pedophile rolling up next to some kids and asking what their favorite XBox 360 game is.
I quote Stuart Stevens, one of Mitt Romney’s top strategists, who also worked at times for Thad Cochran and W, referring to Trump, just now on the teevee:
“He’s a bigot.”
So maybe we can atl least put to bed the notion that this is purely liberals vs. Trump. It’s all decent people vs. Trump.
Michael,
Trump’s a bigot, but look at Cruz. He’s in the company of preachers who think gays should be exterminated. And his foreign policy advisors are on the trail of Grover Norquist, sleeper cell agent of the Muslim Brotherhood.
So sure the GOP is filled with crazed bigots. Meanwhile, there’s no way that a Trump presidency will be centered upon crazed bigotry. They’ll just worship the leader as he talks about trade deals and interest rates. No, no need to lash out at actual humans who the leader hates.
The only real argument against Trump as president channeling all of the hate is that he will have a breakdown and be sucked into a weird new age cult. He’ll be the same but Muslims will be the horrors of meat and America will go on a vegan diet.
@Modulo Myself
It was mockery and derision. I rarely joke, and even then, it tends to be more acerbic than humorous.
If you want Lil’ Kim as president, start your own campaign. I like Nicki, and I would rather look at her giving speeches and press conferences than the worthless bags of meat called politicians. (Plus, she put that skank Miley Cyrus in her place.)
I hate to break the news to you, but she is going to be thirty-five between election day and the inauguration. I realize that being an adult and taking responsibility is something beyond comprehension for the under 30 crowd, but she is well past childhood.
As for “rolling up” on somebody, we have slightly different understandings of the phrase, and mine does not involve XBoxes or questions.
I do not try to fit in with the Xbox or any other crowd. I do not give a rat’s ass whether I fit in or not. I do not need your or anybody else’s approval for anything I do. I am not impressed with your safe-space or, as I prefer to call it, your playpen.
If Donald Trump is making you a frowny face, you should have gotten onto the Nicki Minaj, 2016 bandwagon.
Saw on Facebook today:
http://imgur.com/gallery/SjQclIQ
@Andy
There is nothing President Obama has experienced that has come even close to what the d*ckhead Republicans gave to President Clinton. They were investigating him for some possible real estate crimes committed before he was president or even running for president, and as the result of that investigation, he was impeached for a f*cking blowjob.
There is nothing being said today that is new. Republicans and conservatives have been trying to “take back the country” for twenty years or more. Now that we are nearing the end of the second term of a Democratic president, I have begun to hear the familiar nonsense: President Clinton/Obama is going to declare martial law, and he will not leave office.
It is boring.
Here’s David Brooks, moderate Republican referring to Trump:
Mainstream Republicans have essentially the same take on Trump that I have. This is not the old liberal vs. conservative paradigm, this is people who understand how dangerous a demagogue can be vs. the clueless.
Except, Michael, Brooks isn’t calling him a Nazi or comparing him to Hitler.
If David Brooks is scared, I am shaking in my boots. He could replace the lost Democrat voters. Maybe he can move to the more civilized Europe. Wait. No, they are having none of his bullshit. Well, there is always Venezuela, Nigeria, or Ukraine.
At some point they are going to start using Minister Farrakhan to scare you. You have nothing to fear. He may dislike you, but he really, really cannot stand the white liberals. Do not fall for their lies. They are deceivers and will do anything to retain power.
Before you can do something, you must think it can be done. How many Trump supporters have ever thought about any of the things these saviors of society are warning us against. Apparently, they have put a lot of thought into these plans.
When your protector leaves you worse off while making him/herself better off, I think there is a problem, but I could be wrong.
Catastrophic failure is a bitch, ain’t it. The experts assured you it was not possible, and every day a new impossibility becomes possible. “What a revoltin’ development this is.”
The problem Trump voters (and Republicans more generally) have is that what they want ain’t happening. Nate Silver’s site: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/manufacturing-jobs-are-never-coming-back/
Manufacturing jobs, probably not coming back. Outlaw gay marriage? Nope, the Supremes settled that. Cancel existing trade pacts and “renegotiate?” Who’s going to renegotiate a trade pact with a country that cancels them at will? Our trade partners will stall until Trump’s gone and renegotiate with his successor. Expel 11 million undocumented people? Hah. The American public won’t stand for the police state that would be necessary. Build a wall? Sure, go ahead, Donald, but net migration from Mexico is zero at the moment, so aside from destroying the service industries and agriculture and damaging our standing in the world, what will have been accomplished? Kill Obamacare and replace it with. . . well, the preexisting conditions matter isn’t going to be rolled back, and that dictates broad participation, which brings us right back to the fact that Obamacare is a Heritage/Romney concept, and the right’s got nothin’.
Time’s arrow only moves in one direction, you cannot go back to the past.
Trump, if elected, would have to find something he could claim as a victory. And what will that be? PredictIt has GOP control of the Senate at 33 cents. A two thirds chance the Democrats take it back. If that happens, Trump would quickly discover he’s stymied in every direction. His voters will be outraged. And Trump is not a guy to sit for four years killing time. Which is part of the reason why sensible people worry. Once you’ve whipped up a mob you have to do something with it.
Michael,
The issue isn’t manufacturing jobs, it’s a class of people, about 35% of the population, that have basically been ignored by both parties. Do you really think they will just sit quietly forever in a political wasteland?
Andy:
I agree they’ve been ignored, and I’ve been bitching about it for a while now. But I assume they must want something tangible, not just to be stroked. And what they want – the job market of the 1960’s, the enshrinement of white privilege, no more Wendy’s cashiers speaking Spanish, an end to all sorts of unsettling change – isn’t going to happen. What these voters can do is elect a strong man.
And that’s the problem. People who angrily demand the impossible are a rather hard constituency to address. Italians wanted a return to international relevance, to great power status, plus jobs etc…, so they backed Mussolini (Hitler, Peron, Stalin, . What they got was a massive intensification of every condition they deplored. People wanting the impossible are not rational, and irrational people who are also furious, are dangerous.
Yes, the are angry, why shouldn’t they be? The GoP took them for granted and the party elite still wants them to sit quietly in a corner and shutup and color. The Democrats have been actively trying to destroy them ever since they became a party of progressive whites and various “of color” identity groups. It’s not like they have many alternatives in the current political environment besides latching on to someone like Trump. It’s pretty patronizing to complain about their choice when the only alternative given to them is to be less white, not like guns so much, and love all the immigrants competing with them for jobs.
“Yes, the are angry, why shouldn’t they be? ”
That is easy. Because they have kept voting in the people who hurt them. Some guy wrote a book about it long ago. Why do they keep voting against their economic interests? Why are guns and abortion so much more important? Well for whatever reason they were, and so here they are. Sure, Dems have been trying to hurt them by supporting gay marriage, but that has not been an economic harm. Otherwise, not sure what you mean by destroying them.
Have they had much choice? Maybe not, but they have had some. They could have at least had decent health care, better schools and not have lost their homes in the subprime crisis had they voted otherwise. Meh. Even now, they are voting for a guy who wants big tax cuts for the wealthy. You can be pretty sure that is the one promise he would try to keep.
Steve
The soon to be extinct white male is powerless against the arrow of time. They cannot even change a Supreme Court decision about gay marriage, but they will be able to impose a fascist regime upon the US.
Yes, Trump must be stopped at all costs, but white males have nothing to do with it. For progressives, the only thing worse than Trump supporters getting out of line is the black voters getting out of line. The next thing they will want to move into those safe gated communities.
Why any black man or woman would give a white progressive the time of day is beyond me. Minister Farrakhan actually does want the best for black people, and he is not scared of Trump. As a white Christian, I would trust Minister Farrakhan to look out for my best interest before any progressive. At least if I do not want to be unemployed and living in a crime-ridden sh*thole.
I know what to do. Progressives can close their eyes real tight, click their heels together three times, and say, “There’s no place like my safe-space. There’s no place like my safe-space. There’s no place like my safe-space.” And, you will wake-up in your playpen with a nice clean diaper.
Bingo.
They got played. They were the sub-prime mortgagees of American politics. The money Republicans have known all along that they were promising impossible bullshit. The “base” took 30 years to figure out that they were being used — and they still haven’t accepted their own culpability.
They were stupid and delusional, and they got played by people who only had to stroke their abortion and gun erogenous zones to get these people to hand tax breaks to their betters.
Steve:
“Why do they keep voting against their economic interests? Why are guns and abortion so much more important?”
Why are guns and abortion so important to progressives? Isn’t one of the most important progressive goals to prevent overturning Roe V Wade and expand abortion access? Gun rights and abortion are important to a lot of people on both sides of the aisle.
Who should they vote for that supports their economic interests? The Democrats, who they used to support, who want to import future voters from other countries who compete with them for jobs and drive down their wages? The establishment GoP who is obsessed with marginal tax rates and helping big business as much as possible? I’m mean seriously, that’s why they’re voting for Trump with such enthusiasm – because they finally have someone who at least claims to care about their economic interests.
“They could have at least had decent health care, better schools and not have lost their homes in the subprime crisis had they voted otherwise.”
I’d be interested in hearing how voting Democrat magically means you get decent health care, better schools and no subprime crisis. Plus a lot of these people voted for blue dog Democrats and Bill Clinton. Blue dogs are now an extinct species in the modern Democratic party. What does Hillary Clinton have to offer them? At the univision debate she promised: “Of the people, the undocumented people living in our country, I do not want to see them deported. I want to see them on a path to citizenship. That is exactly what I will do.” I think Pat Lang had it right when he stated that Democrats believe that white voters without college education are a “wasting asset.” The Democrats clearly don’t want them unless they become social progressives.
Andy:
Yes, there are good people with sincerely-held beliefs on both sides of the abortion issue. But when one side claims everyone on the other side is a “murderer” it gets pretty hard to find common ground.
But even that doesn’t get to the fundamental problem: one side wants stuff that cannot realistically happen in the modern world. It’s 2016. Women are emancipated. And abortion is legal to one degree or another in the entire developed world. Basically the same deal with gay marriage.
You can want a unicorn, you can want it real bad, but you can’t actually have it. And insisting that you can is just stupid. It’s as stupid as people talking about reparations for African-Americans. And if you put all your chips on a number that is never going to come up, you’re a fool, and you end up 30 years too late realizing the money boys have fleeced you.
These are people who supported the destruction of the unions – the one tool they had to fight back with on economic issues. They sat back and let their tongues be cut out and now they’re stunned to discover they have no voice. Suckered by their preachers, their talk radio and Fox News.
And yet, I do actually feel sorry for them. I have not lost my fear of poverty. And I’m old enough now to get the first inklings of a world drifting away from me. I get their complaints, I think they have some legitimate beefs. And yes the Democrats have ignored them, and we need to change that. But they’re going to have to join the 21st century. Reality is non-negotiable.
Andy,
If Trump voters are holding their noses and voting for Trump because of economics, why weren’t they voting for Bernie Sanders? Sanders was saying the same things about trade that Trump was. And he wasn’t Donald Trump.
But there weren’t any fights, there wasn’t the ability to call Mexicans rapists and Islam evil, and there weren’t white supremacists hanging out at his rallies being politically incorrect. Trump’s giving people the illusion of being the best on the block, just like in the 50s, when white people didn’t have to worry and didn’t have to share space with anybody. It’s so obvious that he’s doing that, and it’s just as obvious that barring incredible violence this will never happen.
This is a great historical retrospective diagramming how the Hitler label has been prolifically appliqued onto many republicans by the dems. In fact it seems that Every Republican Presidential Candidate Is Hitler Such name calling has been slung at Nixon, Goldwater, Reagan, and of course Bush by such influential dems as McGovern, Hurbert Humphrey, Mayor Daley, Gov. Pat Brown, Robt. Byrd and so on.
“Why are guns and abortion so important to progressives? Isn’t one of the most important progressive goals to prevent overturning Roe V Wade and expand abortion access?”
Guns aren’t that important to the left. After every really big mass murder, we just ignore the small ones now unless Muslims are involved, the left waves its arms around about guns, but nothing happens. They aren’t willing to spend political capital on it. As to abortion, when has the left been willing to vote against its economic interests for that issue? Same with guns. The point is not that the issues have some importance, they do, but that the left i snot willing to harm people economically for those policies, which is what the right has been doing.
“Who should they vote for that supports their economic interests? The Democrats, who they used to support, who want to import future voters from other countries who compete with them for jobs and drive down their wages? The establishment GoP who is obsessed with marginal tax rates and helping big business as much as possible?”
First, lets be clear that on illegal immigration, it is the GOP that supports that. Big business wants that cheap labor. What the left wants is to make immigration legal. If you do that, then you can’t pay them such low wages and a lot of the problem goes away. Not all of it, so maybe that doesn’t make people completely happy, but is that worse than pretending you will build a wall?
“because they finally have someone who at least claims to care about their economic interests.”
Last time I read what little he has put out on policy, he supports large tax cuts for the wealthy. Same old, same old.
“I’d be interested in hearing how voting Democrat magically means you get decent health care, better schools and no subprime crisis.”
No magic, just dealing with probabilities. On any of these issues the Dems could be worse at any given time, but the probabilities suggest the GOP will be worse.. On health care, you are guaranteed the GOP will do nothing. Well, maybe buy some votes by expanding Medicare, but not much beyond that. Obamacare, while not perfect, has expanded coverage of millions. It is also changing the way we practice. A lot of it for the better. We used to be, still are but less so, influenced in what we do by what insurers were willing to pay for. Now we are looking at what we need to do to make care better, while also cutting costs. Nearly all of the top universities are in blue states, probably not a coincidence, and so are the top high schools. As to the subprime crisis, many people tried to stop it. However, as long as you have people who believe that markets are magic and can solve everything, that would not be the Democrats BTW, banks and bankers can do whatever they want. They can even lend money out to people without asking if they can pay it back.
Steve
” I think Pat Lang had it right when he stated that Democrats believe that white voters without college education are a “wasting asset.†The Democrats clearly don’t want them unless they become social progressives.”
This appears to be the underlying feeling among most of the social progressive establishment. After all, becoming an intellectually superior person, who believes in the politically correct mantra of social progressive ideology, is what thrives in today’s democrat party. Nothing or no one else is worth listening to. Concurrently, those great universities in “blue states” just churn out these philosophies, spurning those in opposition as they promote juvenile “safe spaces” and curtailed speech.
The ironic reality, though, is there’s a bigger sub-group to social progressives — usually more subdued, existing unnoticed by politicians. These are the worker bees in private sector, manual labor jobs, and the struggling middle class, those who are above the poverty line but far below any cushion of comfortable wealth. They are the people whose former health care policies have been jockeyed around by the PPACA, giving them higher deductibles, either taking away their doctors altogether or streamlining access to the pool of available physicians or medical services. Some now go without any health insurance. But their loss is infrequently addressed or even discussed, in light of those who have become subsidized and gained health insurance.
Basically, what the new democrat regime exalts are the striking “winners and losers” preferences pushed and implemented in social progressivism. And, to the dismay of many, when criticism is voiced about the “unfairness” of various social changes, it’s met with derision, a chorus of middle fingers, belittling labels, and the accusations of “racism” because the policies are from a president of color. The simple fact that skin color is a non sequitur behind such grievances is lost in the left’s tone-deaf responses. Consequently it’s
become a “no win” country for many, and they are rebelling — plain and simple.
Unfortunately, the furor of their frustration and resentment is not producing any positive elixirs. Instead it has short-changed us with a handful of dismal candidates. On the right, by the process of elimination, there are only strident voices amplifying the voices of the forgotten, creating horror, fear, and protests from the elite dems, along with at least 22 radical/subversive organizations coming out of the woodwork, adding to the chaos. And, on the left you have two candidates dueling over whose plans give away the most “free stuff,” even to anyone casually walking across our borders.
The dems pie-in-the-sky promises, though, reminds me of a local thrift’s store’s dollar rack sale every Sunday, where you have the biggest mob grabbing at dollar items than is seen on any other day of the week. It’s well understood that free stuff (i.e. food stamps, healthcare, college) is like flypaper, attracting lots of people to a party’s fold. The idea of “taxing others,” not yourself, is another big seller on the campaign trail. However, those who receive none of the above, are left at the curb to pay not only their own way but that of so many others, who are not billionaires/millionaires, are fed up, acting out and God only knows where that will take us.
Michael,
Trump has inspired literally a potpourri of both hate and adoration from people who no longer seem strictly contained within the guidelines of political party decorum. Consequently, emotions are effecting choices that are AOL from the command post of both D & R party operatives.
Jan:
Trump voters, and Republicans in general, are weak-minded, self-pitying, and self-destructive ninnies. All it’s taken to get them hysterical is a lack of pay raises and a handful of college kids calling them names. Are they starving in the streets? No. Are they being drafted to far-off wars? No. Are they being rounded up and sent to camps? No. Shot by cops? No. Are their publications being censored? No. Are they the poorest strata of society? No.
In fact, they’ve endured about 10% of the bullshit regularly thrown at any black man in this country and they are losing their grip. After years of hearing about black pathologies being the fault of the black community, we suddenly have white people dying off too early behind drug addiction and suicide. And now suddenly that’s a crisis. When it’s black people: lock ’em up! When it’s white people: treatment, love, consideration, maybe a nice cup of tea.
What a bunch of hypocrites. I’ve spent my life listening to white people lecture black people on what black people should do to lift themselves up by the bootstraps, ignore the fact that a large proportion of employers reject them on sight, forget about all that stuff in the past, blah blah blah. But now that it’s white people feeling some pain: waaaaah, government, save us! Waaaah, people say mean things to us. Waaaah, we better just take a fistful of vikes which is so very, very, very different from a black man smoking crack. Totally different. Now it’s a disease.
Had white conservatives practiced even a tiny sliver of that Christianity they’re always going on about I think the whole country might feel sorrier for them. But they’ve always been assholes – dismissive, contemptuous, sneering, condescending, superior assholes. They don’t deserve pity. I do pity them, but it’s a strain. They brought this on themselves. Did they vote their economic interests? No. Did they make common cause with Latino and black working folks? No. Did they fight for unions? No. Did they push back against insane drug sentences so long as the victims were Latino or black? No. Did they reject voices of intolerance and calculated ignorance like Limbaugh and Hannity? No. Did they protest when cops were kicking in doors in black neighborhoods, terrorizing children, shooting pets and generally behaving like Stasi? No.
They’ve been selfish, cruel, racist, homophobic, sexist, ignorant twats completely indifferent to the suffering of anyone who did not look and act like them, or who did not believe exactly what they believe. They’ve been used and suckered by the Money GOP and to this day they’re still trying to blame it on the black guy in the White House because somehow being required to pay for health insurance rather than waiting for a health emergency they can make me pay for, is tyranny.
I really try to suppress the schadenfreude, but if any group of Americans ever deserved what’s come to them, it’s the GOP “base.” Liberals have been trying to get your attention on poverty, on inequality, on your disconnect from reality, on injustice, and you’ve laughed hah hah hah, those government-loving liberals, hah hah hah. And now it’s your turn to suffer a small setback and you can’t take it and go running to the meth pipe and the first strongman you can find. Pathetic. You’re weak, you’re hypocrites, your brains are full of transparent nonsense, and you are reaping only what you yourselves have sewn.
But don’t worry, because we soft-hearted liberals are making sure you can get to a doctor when you need one, and we’re making sure you won’t spend your old age in poverty, and we’re trying to make sure that if you work a 40 hour week you’ll earn enough to live – an effort you dimwits still resist.
Really, really, really trying hard here to feel some pity, and I do, but it would be a great help if members of the GOP base could lay off being a bunch of inflamed rectums for a while.
Oh, wait! There’s a gay couple who want some cupcakes! They must be stopped! In the name of Jesus, gays should die! (Actually what Ted Cruz’s favorite pastor said.) And did that black man just object to being shot by cops? An outrage, we must stand with police and rush to the nearest gun shop! Hold up a a minute, let me get my plastic fetus and we can stop off en route and scream at rape victims seeking abortions! And if we see any Mexicans along the road we can call them in to ICE. Because that, somehow, will result in good jobs with regular pay raises.
Idiots.
And now, for my fellow liberals:
We do not believe in collective guilt or collective punishment. You know who believes in those things? Nazis. Communists. Any given white male is not automatically suspect, is not automatically wrong, is not to blame for slavery or Jim Crow. Guilt is individual.
We also do not believe – or should not – in denying free speech by blocking roads to political rallies, or by attempting to shout down voices we don’t approve of. You know who believes in stifling free speech? Nazis. Communists. Every tyrant since the dawn of time.
We might also occasionally stop to consider that there is not some endless fountain of magic money that can be spent on this or that right-sounding program. Someone has to pay those bills, and if we’re talking the entire Sanders agenda, guess what? That’s too much money to be gotten from the 1%. You’re going to need to raise taxes well down the quintiles to cover it all, so stop lying, stop pretending it’s free money from billionaires, tell the truth.
Stop pretending we can have open borders, we can’t. Even the Europeans are slamming the door on immigration. The problem is not just free trade – and when you talk about changing trade regimes, do try to bear in mind that you are often talking about killing industries in 3rd world countries where losing a job can mean literal death.
Ditto our tedious, unscientific obsessions with things like GMO. GMO foods mean poor people eat. The whole world cannot shop at Whole Foods. You want the Right to re-discover the magic of reality? Then rejoin reality yourselves. There are no magic foods. No, vaccines don’t cause autism. No, animals are not entitled to equal rights with humans and if some lab rats die to make sure my kids don’t end up being given dangerous products or medicines, too damn bad for the rats. And no, recycling your bottles or making a compost heap will not save the world.
And yes, we still need oil and gas and coal, do the fucking math. California – the home office of environmentalism – gets a rip-roaring 5% of energy from renewables. When you denounce pipelines and fracking you leave us more vulnerable to foreign oil, and that vulnerability dictates military action. Less domestic energy = more foreign wars = more support for heinous regimes like Saudi Arabia. Really not hard to figure out if you’ll just pull your heads out of your asses.
Finally, for Christ’s sake, knock off the micro-aggression, cultural appropriation, trigger warnings, campus left bullshit because you are straining the last nerves of the entire country with that silly, umbrage-seeking crap. Grow a sense of humor. Jesus Christ, we’re supposed to be the fun party, the ones who enjoy a good toke and some unconventional sex, we’re not supposed to be tendentious, tiresome, self-pitying, earnest, didactic, bores. This is what comes of white college kids and their idiot professors setting the agenda. Let’s get back to Jews and black people setting the pace for liberalism – Jews and blacks still understand that for the truly oppressed, humor is vital.
Michael,
Those were well-written, diatribes.
However, the one directed at republicans was again seen through a gauze filter supporting the belief of unrequited racism in this country. In your mind its always the same — heartless republicans circling the bones of the disadvantaged, while soft-hearted democrats valiantly prostrate themselves as the human buffers to such ongoing, outrageous brutality.
In fact your dramatized scenario plays like a video game of super heroes (dems) and evil villains (republicans). However, in real life the inequities to the poor, the disenfranchised, the minorities in our American culture are proportioned far differently than your stale viewpoint of the past. The poor masses have more whites in them, the disenfranchised are of every ethnicity, and statistical minorities, in various circumstances, are not necessarily always comprised of only those with color.
Also, religious doctrines dictate different values to different people. And, as we are a county originating from welcoming all religions and most of their practices to our shores, it seems a little confounding that so much should be made of requesting a gay couple to go next door for their wedding cupcakes (as the same “couple” buys their breakfast croissants from the same bakery), because it conflicts with a shop owner’s personal religious mores regarding marriage — one in which supplying baked goods for a wedding might also mean (to the shopkeeper) sanctioning such a union. After all, gay marriage remains a relatively new and controversial “right” in the United States, constitutionally protected by a recent close 5-4 Supreme Court decision. For people not to recognize, understand, and perhaps “forgive,” those with beliefs having opposing religious rationales, is an intolerant behavior all unto itself. It takes time for wrinkles to be smoothed, and adjustments to be made. Just calling people bigots, taking their businesses away from them, IMO is only extending the chasm, not bridging it. Just remember, in the Middle East such unions are met by death — a far more disruptive response than a polite refusal. But, hey, whatever warms your heart Michael, in throwing out colorful vitriol to said religious people, cops, white conservatives etc.
Furthermore, I could go step-by-step through your entire piece. But, it would make no difference, as your mind seems hardened and set in place, especially given the revisionist history so many dems have regarding which party did what in filling legislative pot holes on the road to African American civil rights. The amnesia, though, in the democrats is still stunning to me. Or, maybe it’s the guilt piled so high in the conscience of democrats that they are unable to see, let alone own, their own long term bias and missteps, following the Emancipation Proclamation — projecting it instead most onto the opposition party. And, even by today’s standards the democrat party is continuing to keep AA’s down, chained to government programs, victimized mind sets, generational welfare, divisive interpretation of events that will do little to nothing to set a person of color free, increase a sense of equality among a diverse culture, essentially allowing people in the black community to become something greater than mere recipients of color-coded empathy and pity-parties sponsored by the liberal left.
BTW, Michael, I read both of your right/left judo chops to my husband and he thoroughly enjoyed them, becoming particularly delighted by:
” Let’s get back to Jews and black people setting the pace for liberalism – Jews and blacks still understand that for the truly oppressed, humor is vital.”
well done… even in lieu of our disagreement!
“given the revisionist history so many dems have regarding which party did what in filling legislative pot holes on the road to African American civil rights.”
Again with this. The same people who made it difficult to achieve those civil rights now make up the GOP base. They just changed parties.
Steve
Steve,
Here are a few “facts:”
Everett Dirksen, a republican senator from Illinois, wrote much of the civil right’s bill himself, and was considered extremely instrumental in it’s ultimate passage — so much so that he was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. In contrast, Robt. Byrd, a W. VA democrat and KKK leader, spend 14 hours filibustering the bill. Even the House and Senate numbers supporting this bill favored the republicans, as they had the largest percentage of their membership voting “yes” for passage compared to the democrats.
This reluctance, on the part of dems, to block the rights and freedoms of black citizens, is a well-documented fact denoted from the end of the Civil War all the way up to the 1960’s. And, those Dixiecrats, that the current democrat party so desperately wants to disassociate from, most (80%) stayed affiliated with their party and did not switch over to become good old republicans. The only notable exceptions were Stom Thumond, Jesse Helms, and Mills Godwin.
In case you’re willing to read another POV regarding Black history and racism I suggest the following piece:
A Short History Of Democrats, Republicand, And Racism
I want to refer to this article, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/business/economy/carrier-workers-see-costs-not-benefits-of-global-trade.html?recp=10
in the N Y Times
to help me explain the economic frustration of working class Americans.
If you read through it you will see that management is NOT evil but simply serving the needs and wants of global Capital, which is of course, more earnings at whatever human cost. Unions are too small and local to help us today, so we look to national leaders to reset the trade laws if possible so we can pay our bills and keep the lights on.
I am a “soon to be extinct white male”, but I suspect that working class black men’s problems are basically financial as well.
Basically, that article supports the claim I’ve made elsewhere that the costs of trade and the benefits of trade are being realized by different people, with the benefits of trade being much more narrowly concentrated.
Jan:
The Republican narrative, the whole “Robert Byrd was a Klansman” obsession you people have, is a racist narrative.
Here’s why: you assume that the people affected – black people – are too stupid to recognize which party supports them and which does not. You want to come along as a white woman with no direct knowledge of life as it is lived by African-Americans, and with only a very tenuous grasp of history, and “inform” the 13% of Americans who are black that they don’t know what their lives are like, and you do. You, simply by virtue of your whiteness, believe you have a greater depth of understanding than the entire black population.
And yes, that is a racist assumption, and yes, that is a racist narrative, and you’re too decent a person to continue spouting such transparently false and deeply offensive drivel. Leave that crap to Limbaugh.
@michael reynolds
Somehow, I do not believe that rich white liberals have the best interests of the black man as a priority, but being white, I am probably not the best judge, but Minister Farrakhan is. Do I need to round up his ringing endorsements. He is quite impressed with your treatment of the black man.
I will also note that he has a different take on Donald Trump. Interesting because he is Muslim, and Trump had some things to say about allowing Muslims into the US.
Oh wait, he is a racist also.
“Robert Byrd was a Klansman†obsession you people have, is a racist narrative.
Michael,
Robert Byrd was a high ranking member of the KKK. It’s not an obsession,but simply a truth about this man who was also a significant member of the democrat party. Also the party, of which you seem to identify with, was also a very racist party until the 1960’s. I’m not saying you are a racist, because people are very different from the generalities of the labels that partisan politics loves to glue onto people.
As for me, I have fiscal conservative values. But, I am a person who is very attune to how the black community was humiliated, discredited and dragged down after the Emancipation Proclamation, because there were so many people (most in the democrat party) who were unable to accept that Blacks were free people to be treated with equal respect to anyone else.
In the 7th grade I was introduced to the era of Jim Crow, via a social studies class. It made a deep impression on me regarding “Man’s inhumanity to man” type of era. I wrote tons of extra-credit papers, read everything I could get my hands on dealing with the Civil War, Reconstruction, and years leading up to the passage of the Civil Rights bill. For some reason even my husband and son were into the Civil war, and as a family listened to the Burns series over and over again.
Yes, even thought I am a white woman, I do have sincere empathy for that part of our American history. However, I also feel that treating everyone with respect is the way to proceed with life in a positive vein. It’s the behavior of people, not the color, that should be weighed. However, always, dropping back into past transgressions, ones which the current generations have no part in, is creating victimization, misplaced guilt , and most importantly excuses as to why people should be treated differently — either more lightly or harshly — to make up for events occurring beyond the reach of those living today. It’s similar to placing time on “hold.”
We can never undo the wrongs of slavery or the era of black codes Jim crow. But, we can move on and look at each other as members of society who deservie equal considerations unless one’s behavior indicates otherwise. That’s what MLK was calling for, preceding the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And, that is also what has gotten lost in the years ever since….