In recent years, I get the impression that Keynesians are being more and more aggressive in their arguments for fiscal stimulus.  I see economists arguing for stimulus when we are in a deep slump (2009), a sluggish recovery (2011-14) and even full employment (now.)  Here’s an example from Brad DeLong:

Of all the issues that Trump campaigned on, none got more emphasis that his promise to persecute, I mean to prosecute Hillary and send her to jail.  He was quite passionate on what he would do to that “nasty woman”.  But when a con man appears passionate, that really doesn’t tell you anything about whether he actually cares about the issue:

President-elect Donald Trump conceded Tuesday that he probably won’t make good on his campaign pledge to pursue a new criminal investigation into his political rival, Hillary Clinton.

“It’s just not something that I feel very strongly about,” he said Tuesday afternoon in an on-the-record discussion with reporters from The New York Times.

Nor does he feel strongly about trade, the steel industry, immigration, ending Obamacare, or a host of other issues.  What does he feel strongly about?  Trump. How do his fans feel about this betrayal?

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway had indicated that the president-elect was likely to renege on his promise to jail Clinton, a sharp departure from the “lock her up!” chants that Trump encouraged at his campaign rallies, immediately drawing the ire of some conservatives.

Breitbart News, the alt-right news organization formerly run by Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, headlined the lead story on its home page “BROKEN PROMISE.”

For once I agree with Breitbart.

And Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog agency that sued to get more of Clinton’s State Department emails released, urged Trump on Tuesday to “commit his administration” to investigating Clinton, while promising to continue its own litigation and investigations to help uncover possible scandals.

For Trump to refuse to do so “would be a betrayal of his promise to the American people to ‘drain the swamp’ of out-of-control corruption in Washington, DC,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton warned in a statement. “President-elect Trump should focus on healing the broken justice system, affirm the rule of law and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton scandals.”

These people better get ready for a lot more “betrayals”.  When you hitch your wagon to a skilled con man, don’t expect to avoid being conned.

PS.  What’s my point?  I’m guessing that most of my readers won’t get it, but I’m writing these for the select few out there who do get it.  (Hint: reread the title.)

PPS.  As usual, my macro posts are over at Econlog.

PPPS.  One day earlier:

During the election campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed that the [Trump University] lawsuits were baseless, and vowed that he would never settle. But on Friday, just ten days before one of the cases was due to go to court in San Diego, he agreed to pay twenty-five million dollars in restitution and fines.

Don’t you love the term “vowed”?  Remember when that word meant something? Like a “wedding vow”?  At least the Trump U. students will get restitution for Trump’s education scam.  But where will the American people look for relief?

PPPPS.  Do you think those 13 women are quaking in their boots about Trump’s “vow” to sue them for libel?  I’m sure Trump looks forward to having to appear in court 13 times as President, having one woman after another describe in graphic terms his abuse.  I look forward to Trump to fulfilling that vow:

At a rally in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump declared, “all of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

Yeah, I can’t wait to see that.

PPPPPS.  It’s time to stop bashing Trump for his campaign missteps.  It doesn’t matter whether he is a racist.  From now on I will focus like a laser on what he does today.  Let’s see if he fulfills his campaign promises.  That’s what matters.

An article in The Guardian says that Trump voters should be publicly “shamed”.  Just one more example of how politics takes 30 points off everyone’s IQ.

Here’s why the arguments for public shaming are wrong:

1. “Trump advocates lots of very evil policies.”  I agree but so does Hillary.  Do we publicly shame Hillary voters too?

2.  “Trump’s views are even more evil than Hillary’s”  I agree, but lots of very smart and well-meaning people feel otherwise.  Because you see the world in a certain way, doesn’t mean that’s the only way to see the world. Politics always leads to other people holding views that we ourselves find almost incomprehensible.  Trump’s an extreme case, but not the only one.  You and I may think his anti-Hispanic and misogynist rhetoric is outrageous, but that’s no reason to shame the millions of hardworking Hispanics and tens of millions of women who voted for Trump.  They simply saw his rhetoric in a different light from the way you and I saw it.

3.  “By voting for Trump you are endorsing his vile racism.”  Not at all.  Most people I know who voted for Trump don’t like the guy—indeed they often suggest they only voted for him because they dislike Hillary even more.  Voting is not about “endorsing”, it’s about lesser of evils.  Voting for Hillary was not an endorsement of her vile opinions regarding the War on Drugs.

4.  Public shaming increases the divisions in our society, making Trump-like figures even more likely in the future.

5.  Public shaming of Trump voters is completely inconsistent with the left wing (near religious) belief that the shaming of the “Hollywood 10” back in the 1950s was a disgrace.  You can’t have it both ways.  The Hollywood 10 also had vile political views.

6.  Public shaming of Trump voters also fails on utilitarian grounds; it lowers aggregate utility.  That’s because anger directed at people lowers their utility by more than it raises yours.

7.  Public shaming of Trump voters risks distorting public opinion polls, making it less likely that people like Hillary Clinton will be aware that they need to pour money into advertising in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.

8.  Public shaming risks driving a wedge between friends and family members.  In the old days, people took religious belief way too seriously.  They’ve mostly stopped that, but replaced their stupid religious bigotry with stupid political bigotry.

So for all you people who want to shame voters with different opinions than you hold, I say shame, shame, shame on you!

(If you want to shame Trump himself, that’s fine. But don’t shame Trump voters.)

This comment from 1998 sounds strangely familiar:

[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers—themselves desperately afraid of being downsized—are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots.  . . .

One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words [slur for an African-American that begins with “n”] and [slur for a Jewish person that begins with “k”] will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.

Now you can certainly argue that this is much more extreme than what we’ve seen (and I’d agree), but can anyone deny he captures the mood of the moment?

The article where I found this has a few other remarks about Rorty’s book:

He also then argues, however, that this sadism will not solely be the result of “economic inequality and insecurity,” and that such explanations would be “too simplistic.” Nor would the strongman who comes to power do anything but worsen economic conditions. He writes next, “after my imagined strongman takes charge, he will quickly make his peace with the international superrich.”

I’m actually hoping the last part is true, I like neoliberalism much more than Rorty does.  And again, I give him credit for that prediction, as I think it’s quite possible that Trump adopts the economic policies he describes.

PS.  I also like this article comparing Trump’s win to the OJ verdict.

HT:  Lorne Smith

I always thought the alt-rightists were still living in the 1930s.  Here’s Yahoo.com:

“Like [Andrew] Jackson’s populism, we’re going to build an entirely new political movement,” he [Bannon] says. “It’s everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up. We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution – conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.”

During the 1930s, the US engaged in some of the most counterproductive economic policy in all of American history.  The unemployment rate averaged about 20%.  And speaking of the 1930s, does Huey Long remind you of anyone?  (With luck, Bannon will be kept out of economic policy.)

And here’s the new CIA chief:

With his name circulating as a candidate for the Central Intelligence Agency post, Mr Pompeo took to Twitter on Thursday to promise action on the Iran deal. “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.”

Wonderful, let’s tear up a nuclear deal that’s actually working.

When some Republican presidential candidates criticised the use of excessive surveillance, Mr Pompeo accused them of being “just as weak as Democrats”. He added in an essay in the National Review: “Less intelligence capacity equals less safety.”

When some Republican presidential candidates criticised the use of excessive surveillance, Mr Pompeo accused them of being “just as weak as Democrats”. He added in an essay in the National Review: “Less intelligence capacity equals less safety.”

That last line is worthy of George Orwell.

And no anti-Muslim bigotry in the Trump administration:

After the 2013 Boston marathon bombing, Mr Pompeo accused Islamic leaders in the US of being “complicit” in terrorist acts by not speaking out more.

“Silence has made these Islamic leaders across America potentially complicit in these [terrorist] acts and more importantly still, in those that may well follow,” he said.

Add in that wild and crazy General Flynn, and it’s hard to tell whether Trump is trying to put together an administration, or casting a sequel to Dr. Strangelove:

Mr Flynn was fired from the DIA, the intelligence agency that serves the military, over questions about his ability to lead a big organisation, which raises doubts about how he will manage the national security council. But he was also criticised internally for interpretations that did not align with the views of the analysts who worked for him — leading some people to mock him for propelling “Flynn facts”.

The former official said it was matters like these that made Mr Flynn attractive to Mr Trump, who has also been criticised for egregious lies during the campaign. “That is why Trump likes him. They are similar because they like the big dramatic statement, but when they are confronted with the facts, they kind of say ‘oh really that’s unfortunate’,” said the former official.

And the President that just a few days ago told us that he was going to represent everyone in America, has chosen an Attorney General who was denied a judgeship a while back for a long string of racist and/or borderline racist comments.  (Yes, not every example here is racist, but some are.)

And for those commenters who doubted that Steve Bannon was a racist, check out what he thinks of people like my wife:

In a conversation that actually makes Trump sound reasonable, he tells Bannon that he’s concerned about foreign Ivy League students, highly skilled and otherwise capable of working for or starting their own tech companies, graduating and then returning to their home countries. “When someone is going to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Stanford, all the greats” and then graduate, “we throw them out of the country, and they can’t get back in,” he said. “We have to be careful of that, Steve. You know, we have to keep our talented people in this country.” To which Bannon replied: “Um.” Trump tried to get Bannon to agree with him, but to no avail. Instead, Bannon suggested there were already too many Asian tech C.E.O.s. in Silicon Valley. “When two-thirds or three-quarters of the C.E.O.s in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think . . . ” Bannon said, trailing off. “A country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society.”

Is there a bright side to any of this?  I guess you could say that the fascists are no longer blaming everything on the Jews.  Asians and Muslims are the new scapegoats.  (Of course Bannon’s facts are totally wrong, not even close, but when did facts ever matter to Trumpistas?)

As for all you economic conservatives who held your nose and voted for Trump, I hope you are happy now.  No more Obama “abusing the Constitution”.  Now we have a CIA chief who thinks even his fellow Republicans are a bunch of pansies.  You made your deal with the devil, now you’ll have to live with the results.

And as for the commenters who told me Trump was the “dovish candidate” . . .  I’d hate to see your idea of a hawk.