Springtime for Hitler?

I almost always predict presidential elections correctly—I think I have gotten every one right since I was a teenager (but I’m a bit fuzzy on what I predicted in 1976). But I can’t figure this one out at all.  It’s definitely Trump’s year.  Right wing xenophobic nationalism is sweeping the globe, and that’s his thing.  He’s caught the zeitgeist.  And Hillary is a horrible candidate.  Trump should win easily.  But then there’s Trump himself.

When I predict elections, I always try to picture the news media story after the election.  That’s what I attribute my success to.  Thus in 2012 I couldn’t picture a plausible story explaining the election of Romney.  It would have been a rejection of Obama—but why?  Obama won easily in 2008; why would so many voters have turned against him in 2012?  The recession was blamed on Bush, and any foreign policy failures (“red line” in Syria) were inside the beltway stuff, which voters don’t care about.  It was too soon to know how Obamacare would work out.  I didn’t see a plausible news story for why Romney would win.

Now that the polls have tightened, I’m trying to imagine my November 9 NYT story:

“In a year of unprecedented surprises, Trump pulled off a major upset victory. After gaining the GOP nomination, Trump ran consistently behind in the polls.  He was widely viewed as having done poorly in the three debates, according to experts and public opinion polls.  He continually antagonized the GOP with outlandish statements, earning one rebuke after another.  Four of the past five GOP presidential candidates repudiated him. Many GOP Senators, Congress(wo)men and Governors did the same.  The GOP went into the election badly divided. He was enmeshed in one scandal after another, involving bigotry and misogyny.  He put little of his own vast fortune into the race, and did not match Hillary in the ground game.  Despite a poor campaign, Trump appears to have best matched the mood of the country.  The voters have spoken, and this is what they said:  In an age when people are increasing upset with inequality—especially the power of the 1%, Trump ran on a platform of truly massive tax cuts for the elites, and tax increases for millions of working class Americans.  So Trump’s victory is a sign that the GOP Congress will slash taxes on wealthy entrepreneurs to the 15% proposed by Trump. The estate tax will be abolished.”

And when I try to write the story, it just doesn’t seem to hang true.  Maybe Trump will win.  If so, the previous paragraph will be my election post-mortem.  But I just don’t see why American voters would pick this year to slash taxes for the rich, abolish the inheritance tax, etc., etc.  Is that really the mood of the country?  And if Trump won then the GOP would probably control virtually all of American governance, from state legislatures to Congress to the Presidency.  Does the current dysfunctional GOP seem like a party that the electorate is about to give near absolute power to?

I also believe that the only way Trump can win is with implicit support from blacks, Latinos and Bernie voters.  If he can get millions of Hispanics to vote for him, despite his anti-Hispanic bigotry, and get million of blacks who voted for Obama to not vote at all, and if he can get millions of Bernie supporters to not vote for Hillary, then he can win.  And oddly enough, he almost certainly can do all three of those things.  Indeed I’d say all three are very likely to occur.  Why?  I’m not quite sure, ask the voters.

Now about that unfortunate post headline.  No, I’m not comparing Trump to Hitler; I’m comparing him to Zero Mostel.  Recall that in The Producers, the same earnings from a play were promised to multiple investors—so the producers had to insure that the play failed.  Unfortunately they made the play so bad that the audience thought it was a sort of campy comedy.

The only logical interpretation for the past year is that partial birth abortion-loving Donald Trump, fan of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had a secret plan to destroy the GOP and deliver the election to the Clinton. Perhaps in return for favors, or out of spite over a perceived slight from the GOP.  Everything he’s done in the past 6 months seems designed to lose the election.  What other logical explanation is there for 3am tweets about porn stars?  And yet, I don’t believe this conspiracy theory, even though it’s 100 times more logical than the tinfoil hat Fed/CIA/Rothschild/Davos conspiracy theories I get in the comment section.  I just don’t believe in conspiracies.  Truth is stranger than logic.

The Producers ended with the play being a smash hit.  What if Trump’s diabolical plan fails, and he’s elected?  He has no plan to govern!  He wouldn’t even know who to advise him.  Peter Navarro? Paul Manafort?  And just as in the Producers, he’s promised the exact same money to different groups. He told the small business groups that he’d slash their taxes to 15%, and then told the Tax Foundation that no, those taxes would not be cut. He’s promised to pay off the entire national debt in 8 years.  He’s promised to protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts.  Massive infrastructure. Massive tax cuts.  Then there’s his promise of rapid GDP growth, but also that he will expel the workers that would be needed to deliver that fast GDP growth.  (He’s a builder?  Remember how the 2006 building boom sucked in Mexican construction workers?)  He’ll get our military out of the Middle East, and also destroy ISIS with . . . a magic wand!  Some days when I’m in a naughty mood I almost hope he wins, so that I can experience a Mencken-like moment of pure bliss, watching the insanity.

But then I think of my daughter, and come to my senses.

Here’s the Donald reassuring Pence, after the unexpected win:

screen-shot-2016-11-04-at-10-29-19-amAmong this election’s many interesting features is a close vote to see who holds the Senate.  Then there’s the stock market, which could move much more sharply than in previous elections (and in the opposite direction from usual—a GOP win is usually worth about 2%.) If Hillary wins, will Congress approve TPP and Obama’s Supreme Court pick right after the election?  Lots of news to look forward to. Fasten your seat belts.


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28 Responses to “Springtime for Hitler?”

  1. Gravatar of B Cole B Cole
    4. November 2016 at 17:32

    Trump has been awful and Scott Sumner properly excoriates him.

    Yet defining Trump supporters as nationalist xenophobes may be glib. Are Hillary backers “fainting couch feminists”?

    Probably some.

    When the Harvard men’s soccer team is stigmatized and has its season cancelled as they were “rating” members on the women’s team…freedom of expression even in private is effectively banned…then maybe some voters find Trump appealing.

    These is a contest of uglies, folks.

    BTW Hillary of late has nearly matched Trump on anti-trade rhetoric. Whereas Trump changes positions mid-sentence, Hillary is much more stable, waiting entire days before doing so.

  2. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    4. November 2016 at 18:15

    Sumner looks at the polls then, seeing which way the wind blows, ‘predicts’ the outcome. Brilliant! As for the Producers, it was only funny in retrospect. Had Sumners read the NY Times film review, he would have seen this: “When it was first released, the film [The Producers] received a mixed response and garnered some exceptionally harsh reviews, while others considered it a great success. One of the mixed reviews came from Renata Adler, who writing for The New York Times stated: “The Producers, which opened yesterday at the Fine Arts Theater, is a violently mixed bag. Some of it is shoddy and gross and cruel; the rest is funny in an entirely unexpected way.” About the acting she writes that Mostel is “overacting grotesquely under the direction of Mel Brooks” and that, in the role of Max Bialystock, he is “as gross and unfunny as only an enormous comedian bearing down too hard on some frail, tasteless routines can be”.”

    Max Bialystock (as Scott Sumner): Shut up, I’m having a rhetorical conversation.

  3. Gravatar of B Cole B Cole
    4. November 2016 at 19:20

    BTW…The title of a story covering the cancelled Harvard men’s soccer team should be….”Harvard Manufactures 11 Trump votes.”

  4. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    4. November 2016 at 19:27

    Seen from outside the US it’s even more depressing. We’re all completely helpless watching the whole slow motion train wreck. And we’ll all be affected because the US is just so important in global affairs.

  5. Gravatar of Anon39 Anon39
    4. November 2016 at 19:41

    Dr Sumner,

    I also find it unlikely that trump will win. I assume 538 is giving him a larger % chance of victory in order to drive clicks. Election Over, Essentially Decided After Demo Comvention is a horrible way to drive traffic.

    Since we can be sure that we have a Hillary presidency for the next few years, what can we expect?

    I assume her friends will be well compensated, and Comey under duress , but what else?

    My predictions, for what they are worth (zero)…

    1. We increase our involvement in Syria, to noone’s benefit.
    2. EPA regulates coal out of business almost completely
    3. Some pseudo green energy company gets a multi billion dollar grant, ending in failure
    4. We help topple at least one Muslim country, if not a continuation in Yemen. It ends in complete disaster for the thing that matters: population welfare.
    5. Relations with Russia further deteriorate. Unknown to the American public, Russia refuses to give us intelligence on terrorist agents inside the US. 10% chance of a small successful terror attack by people from unrest areas of the Caucus. Media will not report connection and lack of Intel help. Clinton doesn’t take blame or sink in polls.
    6. She tries to raise subsidies for obamacare to a much larger % of population. Concurrently, she does not try to raise the mandate penalty.
    7. She increases fed gov support for the college rape witch trials of the new millennium. Thousands of innocent men’s lives are burned on the altar of SJW support
    8. The Supreme Court makes it illegal to discriminate in any way against trans people. As much as I support the idea, it ends in a legalistic nightmare, driving more small businesses bankrupt for liability reasons. Trans employment rates go down.
    9. Paid sick leave and paid family leave drives business out of the United States. I don’t know how we could operate if someone could take 6 months or a year off. We would close our factories and move if it reaches insane levels.

  6. Gravatar of Don Don
    4. November 2016 at 20:52

    Michael Moore is a rich guy that remembers his roots. If you want to understand the story of Trump winning, look at Moore’s recent rant. You will never understand it looking around a college campus.

    I assume Hillary will win and that her time in office will be worse than Nixon’s second term. The press hates her (she is has no charisma) and they will dog her about everything. She has zero mandate going in and zero political capital. The GOP in Congress will stop everything including Supreme Court appointments. Eventually she’ll resign for “health” issues and Kaine will finish out the term.

    On economics, the dollar will weaken as other countries withdraw from the US because of the political disfunction and recession starting in 2017. The weak dollar will cause the Fed to react in the wrong direction and make things worse. With hints of inflation, money will move out of the stock market as prices adjust to low earnings. It will look worse than it is.

    In the end, a divided America is united in their demand for “change”. Overall, a Hillary presidency is better than a Trump presidency in the long term. Bad for Democrats and Trumpsters.

  7. Gravatar of Bill Ellis Bill Ellis
    4. November 2016 at 21:31

    “I just don’t see why American voters would pick this year to slash taxes for the rich, abolish the inheritance tax, etc., etc. ” Is that really the mood of the country?

    The mood of part of the country is anger. Blind anger and the need for revenge and punishment is all that matters…not about tax policy that they don’t even understand or believe in.

    A lot of people would rather blame their problems on the government and poor people. When they think of the “bad” elite, they think of wealthy people who want to gain and hold power by ‘bribing poor people”

    It’s not any different than how libertarians always complain about the game being rigged … and their solution is to make things easier on the elite who have the game rigged… and make things harder on all those lazy lucky ducks who have the elites like Hillary giving them free stuff for not working…

    In a way, this election is just a new twist on the same old libertarian vs mixed economy argument we have been haveing since Reagan…
    is the best way forward to make things easier on the elite and harder on the rest…especialy the poor…
    Or…..
    is the best way forward to get the elite to pay more… and give more help to the rest of us ?

    If it were not for libertarians laying the propaganda groundwork for “Trickle down economics ” Trump could not have sold his preposterous economics to America….

    If Trump wins… he owes the libertarians a big thank you for their “Big lie” becoming common knowledge…

  8. Gravatar of Lorenzo from Oz Lorenzo from Oz
    4. November 2016 at 23:09

    Yep, I always go for not-the-conspiracy theory. Human events are just not that coherent because human knowledge and collective action is not up to producing that much coherence.

    “Truth is stranger than logic” is a great line: an an excellently pithy way of making the same point.

    Short of some dramatic FBI arrests, I cannot see the (average of the) polls being that wrong. (But sufficiently dramatic arrests would give you your necessary post-election news story.)

    I would add the slight caveat of “assault on citizenship” as being a motivator (i.e. anti-pc, anti-no border control. etc) but without quite enough specific, in this moment, trigger because, hey, it’s The Donald.

  9. Gravatar of Steve Steve
    5. November 2016 at 02:39

    Look, are some whites racist or xenophobic? Yes. Is white America still the most tolerant and accepting demographic in the world? Also yes. Try being a gringo in Mexico or Japan, or an Asian in inner-city Baltimore (where Asian owned stores were targeted for arson). Or any outgroup in the Middle East, where every outgroup has been genocided out of existence. Only Islam can turn genocide into a verb.

    Race and gender relations are fragile. Trust breaks down when one side is perceived not to be acting in good faith. Hillary’s campaign decided to center on “hate and castrate” instead of “hope and change”. David Plouffe’s words, not mine. Did no one think there might be a counter reaction? People fear a loss of rhetorical decorum on the other side more than just losing majority status. Hillary has already said she wants to purge men from government. Make sure each department “looks like the population” a.k.a., 50% female. No mention what happens to departments that are majority female.

    I talk to blue collar trade people from time to time. In 2008, they overwhelming supported Obama. Obama will protect the working man, the unions. In 2016, they overwhelming support Trump. The energy is incredible. Maybe Trump is a con-man, but some people feel it’s their last chance.

    Another problem is that media signalling is in overdrive. Watching TV or reading news is almost like enduring personal attacks. Nuclear war, racists, end of democracy (from Noahclue). Tell people they are morons for voting. Indeed, tell them they don’t
    even *deserve* to vote (only the “educated” should vote!), never mind this same virtue-signalling group routinely complains about voter suppression. The thing that is scary is this is similar to the rhetorical overdrive in the run-up to the Brexit vote. It’s an open invitation to turn out in droves and be contrarian.

    At some level I blame the pollsters and political strategists. They ask R or D, then race/gender. So it’s leading the witness; if you want to win, either you “appeal to” race/gender group, or you “shift the balance” of race/gender. All of this is stupid, when Rubio gets 44% Latino, and Trump gets 17%. Latinos seem to be
    persuadable by decency and policy ideas, but no one has noticed.
    That requires breaking the crosstab sewage dynamic.

    There are profound dangers to a Hillary presidency. One, she (and the media) conclude that hate and castrate is a permanently winning political strategy. Another is that corruption is corrosive. We’re already seeing the FBI fall apart. Pro-Hillary agents stalling or covering up, pro-Trump leakers, and pro-professionalism (Comey) under personal attack and threat of removal. This is how governments collapse; all the workers choose sides and implement their jobs along partisan lines. It’s not because a clown candidate screams incoherently from the sidelines. Hillary will spend the next four years ripping institutions apart.

    The second risk of Hillary is that the media adopts a Castle-the-Queen strategy. Protect her at all costs, which means becoming very jingoistic toward Russia. Deflect and cast blame. Do the same toward Republicans, and Trumpers, and whites and men.

    Trump isn’t without risks. He’s an egomaniac, who is uninformed on policy. Trump makes promises he can’t cash. He might destroy the Republican party, which is the only counterweight to lunacy. But I sometimes wonder if Hillary was a Russian plant to elect Trump.

    P.S.

    As for NYT headlines, I predict one of the following:

    1. Savior Elected! First Woman President to Make America Great and Crush FBI!
    2. Bigoted Voters Undeserving of Franchise Choose Nuclear War President!
    3. Utah Stands Against Identity Politics: Mormons Reject All Non-Mormon Presidential Candidates!

  10. Gravatar of bill bill
    5. November 2016 at 05:18

    But why are the people so much angrier in 2016 than 2012? We have 10 million more jobs in the past 4 years and an unemployment rate of 4.9%. Maybe the vast majority of people aren’t that angry. At least that’s my hope.

  11. Gravatar of Jose Jose
    5. November 2016 at 05:39

    On the Hispanic vote, maybe legal Hispanics resent illegal Hispanics, blaming them for the negative reactions Hispanics in general receive from certain other groups. Maybe they see the Trump speech as something targeted only to illegals … Maybe.

    PS: I am Brazilian, so I really have no clue about what is going on within the Hispanic community in the US right now. This is just a theoretical speculation.

  12. Gravatar of A Definite Beta Guy A Definite Beta Guy
    5. November 2016 at 06:46

    @Bill

    Pretty sure the people who were angry in 2016 were the same people angry in 2012. The difference is the media hounded Trump endlessly in the Republican Primary, which utterly backfired, as the Angry People really hate the media.

    Trump will capture a lower voting share than either Romney, or McCain. He will certainly capture a lower share than W in 2004. He will capture a lot of votes because a lot of people will vote (R) regardless.

    This is more about Hillary being extraordinarily unlikable, which kills the (D) coalition enough to allow the Angry People Candidate a chance at victory.

    To the extent Trump might win voters at all, you’re talking mostly less-educated whites in predominantly white areas, who still aren’t doing so hot, even despite the economic recovery.

    Ex: Yes, my father has a job now in 2016, and didn’t in 2012. But it’s a crappy job compared to his construction work in 2007, which went out of business in 2008 during the Great Recession.

  13. Gravatar of Philip Crawford Philip Crawford
    5. November 2016 at 07:20

    @Bill, the anger isn’t all or even most about economics, it’s more about culture. Immigrants, gay marriage, black lives matter…

    This sums up why I think Trump has a chance. From a conversation I had with a friend who lives in middle Wisconsin.

    https://twitter.com/wiscoDude/status/794645201188954112

  14. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    5. November 2016 at 08:16

    Here’s Trump’s closing argument:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vST61W4bGm8

    BTW, my representative is a pro-Trump establishment Republican and the hardest of hard-core drug warriors (unlike Trump) and is not pro-civil-liberties at all (like Trump). Should I vote for him by voting straight Republican, or vote for the Democratic candidate? The local Republican party has went all in on the presidential race by portraying Trump as an anti-establishment candidate. Should I reward it for that by voting for a candidate of its establishment?

    I also don’t know whether to support Johnson or Feingold in Wisconsin. Johnson seems conservative, but terrible on civil liberties, while Feingold has stood up to the Clintons and is pro-civil liberties, but is very liberal.

    Trump simply needs all the states George Bush won in 2000 -and he can even afford to lose Colorado and Virginia, at that.

  15. Gravatar of Nate Silver May be Right or Wrong but He's an Outlier | Nate Silver May be Right or Wrong but He's an Outlier |
    5. November 2016 at 11:31

    […] Springtime for Hitler? […]

  16. Gravatar of Anon/Portly Anon/Portly
    5. November 2016 at 14:09

    Anon39: “I assume 538 is giving him a larger % chance of victory in order to drive clicks.”

    Nate Silver really goes out of way to explain what he is doing, going into almost excruciating detail, and this is the thanks he gets. Anon39, please quit trying to give “anon” commenters a bad name. All of the reasons Silver gives for heightened uncertainty about this year’s polling are valid. Not to mention the question, What is it about a 3-point lead in the polls not being historically all that large anyway don’t you understand?

    http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-the-campaign-is-almost-over-and-heres-where-we-stand/?addata=espn:frontpage

    I would just go with the prediction markets, 77% for HRC, 23% for Trump. It’s a coin flip, albeit with a 77/23 coin.

    That Trump has a secret edge because of his great fortune so far is simply a cognitive illusion. It’s like when a team is leading comfortably and suddenly everything goes wrong, most fans believe that at that point they’re almost certain to lose, when actually it’s 50/50. I’m sure after Chapman gave up that HR the other day a lot of Cub fans thought it was over. In this election it seems like everything’s gone wrong, Trump always does better than we think he should, so we start to expect that to continue, and sure it could, but before we were talking about things like “beat Cruz” that none of us understood all that well, this time we’re talking about overcoming a 3-point lead against the party with the better GOTV operation. It could happen, but you shouldn’t expect it to happen. How many of those predicting Trump will win would really put real money on him with 50/50 odds? Very few, in my opinion. (Then again if they’re nutty enough to prefer Trump while knowing enough to find TheMoneyIllusion – I’m feeling better about the decision not to hang Ezra Pound all the time – maybe they would).

  17. Gravatar of Scott Sumner Scott Sumner
    5. November 2016 at 14:19

    Congrats everyone, a non-insane comment section on a Trump post.

    Ben, I had exactly the same thought.

    mbka, If he wins, he won’t do most of what he says he will do, if that’s any consolation. Trump does not have the ability to put together a legislative program, he’ll have to rely on Paul Ryan. He doesn’t have any qualified advisers, and legislation these days is really complex. He still hasn’t given us his tax proposal, and we are just three days from the election.

    Anon39, I actually think he does have a decent chance, due to the factors I discussed in my earlier post. I lot of right wing nationalist votes have over-performed polls recently (candidates and referenda). He won’t win if he’s trailing by 5% in the polls, but might win if trailing by 2%. He can win the electoral college without winning the popular vote, as Hillary will waste lots of votes in California, New York, etc. I think Clinton will win, but I have little confidence in that–so I agree with 538.

    As for your predictions, either candidate would be bad, but Trump has far deeper downside (even if we can be more confident as to what Hillary will get wrong.)

    Don, You said:

    “Michael Moore is a rich guy that remembers his roots. If you want to understand the story of Trump winning, look at Moore’s recent rant. You will never understand it looking around a college campus.”

    You do know I haven’t taught on a campus for years, don’t you?

    Lorenzo, I’m not sure about the polls. Usually they are right, but they were 4% off on the Brexit vote. Even a 2% miss might give it to Trump. He just needs to lose by 1% or less.

    Steve, You said:

    “Maybe Trump is a con-man”

    Maybe? How could anyone have any doubt? I mean, if Trump is not a con man, then con men simply do not exit on this planet. It’s like saying maybe Reagan was not genial, or maybe Nixon was not devious, or maybe Obama is not professorial, or maybe Kennedy was not charismatic. Sorry, but I really get annoyed when people use words like ‘maybe’. If those workers you know can’t see that Trump is obviously a con man, then they will be very disappointed after he wins. Bernie Sanders was not a conman—if they want a “friend of the workers”.

    I agree that it’s a mistake to label Trump voter morons, and the very fact that the election is close shows that Hillary has run a horrible campaign. She should be 20 points ahead.

    Lots of smart people will vote for Trump, and lots of dummies will vote for Clinton—it’s a big complicated country.

    Jose, You said:

    “Maybe they see the Trump speech as something targeted only to illegals … Maybe.”

    Then they have not been paying attention. That Hispanic judge in Indiana was not an illegal. Trump has clearly gone for the white supremacist vote, that’s why people like Harding like him so much. I mean for God’s sake, he’s got the former head of Breitbart as his campaign manager. It’s not like his trying to hide his bigotry.

    Beta, Interestingly, construction is booming right now in Boston, but it’s already a blue state, and hence that fact doesn’t help Clinton.

    Harding, I probably disagree with Feingold on most issues, but he was the only guy to vote against the Patriot Act, so he deserves a medal for that. On the other hand if Hillary wins (75% chance right now), I’d rather have Johnson as a check on her power.

  18. Gravatar of Scott Sumner Scott Sumner
    5. November 2016 at 14:24

    Philip, Keep in mind that even if Trump loses he’ll carry a big majority of the white vote. So anecdotal stories about white people voting for Trump need to be put into perspective. I personally know GOP voters who are voting for Hillary. I mean, 4 of the past 5 GOP presidential candidates are not even voting for Trump. Paul Ryan says he’ll vote for Trump, but I think he’s lying.

  19. Gravatar of Negation of Ideology Negation of Ideology
    5. November 2016 at 15:31

    My free predictions (and worth every penny):

    1. Clinton wins with more than 300 Electoral Votes
    2. Trump gets a lower percentage of the popular vote than Romney did
    3. Latino turnout rises dramatically compared to 2012, black turnout drops slightly
    4. Republicans keep control of the House
    5. Senate split 50-50, Dems control with the VP tie-breaker
    6. Lame duck session confirms Merrick Garland
    7. Lame duck session attempts to pass TPP, but vote fails
    8. Clinton negotiates minor cosmetic side deals on labor for TPP, claims the deal is fixed, and Congress approves
    9. The RNC institutes major reforms to the nominating process to prevent a clown like Trump from winning again
    10. Campaign finance laws are changed to allow larger donations to the parties in an attempt to counter the influence of outside PACs, the media, and wealthy candidates.
    11. Republicans nominate a serious, experienced person, probably a Governor in 2020, who defeats Clinton

  20. Gravatar of Justin Justin
    5. November 2016 at 16:13

    Sad. Comparing Donald Trump, a 70 year old real estate developer and grandfather, who wants to put up some tariffs and control the border and get out of the world police game, with Adolf Hitler. smh. Hitler got 4.5 million German soldiers killed. Cost his nation 20% of their territory. Trashed the USSR and all the rest. A disastrous gambler of a statesman. It’s shameful that you would stoop so low to compare Trump with him. Donald Trump is a human being, an American, and he deserves our respect for his heroic crusade to save our country from oligarchy.

  21. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    5. November 2016 at 16:48

    Construction in Boston has been slowing down for a full year.
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOST625BPPRIVSA#0

    “So anecdotal stories about white people voting for Trump need to be put into perspective. I personally know GOP voters who are voting for Hillary.”

    -And yet, a solid plurality of GOP voters in Newton, MA, voted for Donald Trump (though a majority voted for either Rubio or Kasich). As a rule, more solid Massachusetts Republicans (as measured by their 2012 vote) tended to vote Trump. Less solid ones (many of whom voted for Romney as gubernatorial, but not presidential candidate) tended to vote Kasich and Rubio.

    “Trump has clearly gone for the white supremacist vote”

    -Which is why he has called for a “New Deal for African-Americans” and called for many doors in the wall.

    “but Trump has far deeper downside”

    -I only see modest downside and great upside.

    “the very fact that the election is close shows that Hillary has run a horrible campaign.”

    -Nate Silver says economic fundamentals favor Generic Republican victory by one point.

  22. Gravatar of Scott Sumner Scott Sumner
    6. November 2016 at 06:32

    Justin, You said:

    “Sad. Comparing Donald Trump, a 70 year old real estate developer and grandfather, who wants to put up some tariffs and control the border and get out of the world police game, with Adolf Hitler.”

    Congrats on the dumbest post of the day. I’m going to assume you’ve never seen The Producers. (It’s not about Hitler) Next time read the post before commenting.

    You said:

    “Donald Trump is a human being, an American, and he deserves our respect for his heroic crusade to save our country from oligarchy.”

    Hmm, maybe you are just kidding . . .

    Harding, You said:

    “Construction in Boston has been slowing down for a full year.”

    Nope, in Boston “authorized” is very different from “construction”

  23. Gravatar of A Return to Normalcy? | A Return to Normalcy? |
    7. November 2016 at 07:00

    […] Springtime for Hitler? […]

  24. Gravatar of Bob Murphy Bob Murphy
    7. November 2016 at 09:13

    Seriously Justin, try not to be so dumb next time. It’s THIS thread where Scott openly compares Trump to Hitler. Man you brownshirts lack nuance.

  25. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    7. November 2016 at 14:50

    Bob, At least I never equate Trump and Hitler.

    Suppose I say, “Like Hitler, one of my close friends is a vegetarian.” Is that equating or comparing?

  26. Gravatar of Don't Boo, Vote: how America Can Show the World it's the Exceptional Nation Once Again | Don't Boo, Vote: how America Can Show the World it's the Exceptional Nation Once Again |
    8. November 2016 at 13:40

    […] Springtime for Hitler? […]

  27. Gravatar of For the First Time I'm Truly Ashamed of My Country | For the First Time I'm Truly Ashamed of My Country |
    9. November 2016 at 07:01

    […] Springtime for Hitler? […]

  28. Gravatar of If You Didn't Vote for Hillary, You Voted for Donald Trump | If You Didn't Vote for Hillary, You Voted for Donald Trump |
    12. November 2016 at 07:30

    […] Springtime for Hitler? […]

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