The Dems have little credibility on Trump
When Trump started rising in the polls, Democrats like Paul Krugman told us that he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. After all, Trump wasn’t much different from other recent GOP candidates. The voters also seemed to think he was no worse, and thus gave him the nomination. (No I’m not blaming Krugman, because GOP voters don’t read him. My point is that he was effectively aiding Trump, even though the impact of his assistance was almost nil.)
In a sense Krugman was right. Romney was also demonized as a vile racist and sexist. Jonah Goldberg reminds those of us who had forgotten:
So yes, the coverage of Trump is an outrage. But the outrage it exposes is how grotesquely unfair and partisan the press was to previous Republican nominees. The Trump campaign is getting the coverage it deserves (and is asking for!), and that highlights how the coverage of past candidates was so extraordinarily unfair. Take for example, the bowel-stewed hysteria over Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” comment. Romney said — and did — exactly what feminists and liberal reporters should applaud. He wanted to hire qualified women. So he reached out to women’s groups for suggestions. They sent him lots of recommendations. Binders full of them. And then he hired many of the women listed in the binders. What a monster!
Then Goldberg links to a left wing hit job, with this headline:
With his incendiary speech to the NAACP, Mitt crossed an ugly line. No longer simply spineless and disingenuous, he’s now become a race-mongering pyromaniac.
I admit I do not recall that “incendiary speech”, so I decided to refresh my memory by reading the article. And here’s what I found:
But he wasn’t a race-baiter until yesterday. That speech wasn’t to the NAACP. It was to Rush Limbaugh. It was to Tea Party Nation. It was to Fox News. Oh, he said some nice things. And sure, let’s give him one point for going there at all. But listen: You don’t go into the NAACP and use the word “Obamacare”and think that you’re not going to hear some boos. It’s a heavily loaded word, and Romney and his people know very well that liberals and the president’s supporters consider it an insult.
I have to admit that I did not know that “Obamacare” was considered a racial slur, and still am not quite certain why. But let’s say he’s right—what else does he have?
Nothing. That was it. That was the only offensive item mentioned. Now look again at the headline of the news article. I knew nothing about Michael Tomasky until I read this article. Now I know one thing about him.
Nobody should pay much attention to what the Dems say about Trump. They say exactly the same things about other GOP candidates, just a bit more forcefully in this case. Instead you should read the intelligent conservative commenters, who usually defend GOP nominees. Most of Goldberg’s post savages Trump, and we all know the politics of the author of “Liberal Fascism”. I’d guess 90% of the intelligent conservative commentators have been ruthlessly trashing Trump for months. (And don’t mention Sean Hannity, I said intelligent conservative commentators.) Those are the people you should listen to. Just as Democratic voters should ignore my anti-Bernie Sanders rants, and instead take note of the fact that even a progressive like Krugman found his ideas to be wacky.
Of course Mitt Romney is one of those intelligent conservatives that GOP voters should have listened to. Now it’s probably too late to save the GOP from an embarrassing defeat.
Since 1990, the GOP has produced one President, and he brought us a useless war, increased government spending and regulation, and the Great Recession. Now they’ve nominated someone far worse. They really need to do some soul-searching. I expect Hillary to be a poor president, so 2020 is a good opportunity to rebuild, if they can get their act together. A good place to start is becoming more elitist.
PS. The Goldberg post was emailed to me—I can’t find a link.
PPS. Not one major newspaper endorsed Trump. No surprise the NYT didn’t, but what to make of all the conservative papers? A poll of 45 former CEA people found zero in support of Trump. I know what you are thinking; “But West Virginia hillbillies who don’t know that Trump lies every time he opens his mouth like him because he ‘tells it like it is’.” Well good for them—I’d rather listen to George Will.
PPPS. I now think that the presidency has lower job qualifications than any other job in America. Trump’s statement about grabbing women was so offensive that Billy Bush was fired from his job merely for giggling at Trump’s pathetic comments. What other company would hire people who say things that are so offensive that mere listeners are permanently disgraced, unable to find work? What other fields hire people who openly express contempt for expertise in the job? What other field hires people who openly lie about their qualifications right to the face of the interviewer, with such bold-faced lies that both sides know it? What other field hires people who relentless insult a large portion of the customer base? I’m afraid that the presidency is America’s lowest occupation—a job that will take people who are so unqualified to do anything else that they end up running their own company out of desperation. Trump may be a billionaire, but he’s not qualified to be hired as janitor in the Trump Tower. If you owned Trump Enterprises, would you hire a janitor who grabbed the crotch of elegant women in the elevator? He’s lucky his dad left him $40 million.
If Trump wins, he may well assume that he is still self-employed—Trumps don’t do “public servant”.
Tags:
15. October 2016 at 08:17
I hate Trump, and the republicans. But at this point I’m kinda hoping he wins – because this might be the only way America learns and gets out of this ridiculous hysteria. Once Trump is made actually accountable, and no longer the “underdog” against the “establishment”, his brain-dead supporters will be culpable for all the terrible policies and scandals that happen. Just like the Bush years taught a new generation a valuable lesson about neoconservatives, a Trump presidency will teach America that the whole alt-right movement is a complete con and will hopefully turn on the whole movement and back to sanity.
15. October 2016 at 08:23
Britonomist, Interesting argument, perhaps with more appeal in the UK? But I do see your point.
15. October 2016 at 08:58
Britonomist,
I am not sure if that would work. I have always been taken aback by the number of people that genuinely voted for a Mugabe, a Chavez, or a Peron, over and over again. Yes there was surely voter intimidation too in these countries but from my reading there was also a solid genuine support by a lot of people, through all the hardship brought by bad policies. Demagoguery creates a new equilibrium where people seem capable to believe near indefinitely that they have been cheated by evil forces from the outside. They will just believe that new hardships were created by the mythical revengeful cosmopolitan cabal.
Also, seen what terrible things Theresa May is planning for Britain, never mind Brexit to begin with: policy changes like these will take a long time to do the full extent of their harm and initially people will gloss over problems by sheer belief. Once it’s finally settled, they will have forgotten what caused the new problems and there won’t be any available counterfactuals or alternate histories.
15. October 2016 at 09:09
Given that it looks pretty likely that Trump will lose far more heavily than Romney did, it seems the media left just enough in the outrage tank to signal a real problem, while maximising the damage in ‘normal’ elections. But only just.
15. October 2016 at 09:21
I agree with the main point of the post, that one should not be looking for political opponents for evaluations, because there’s very little information there in a technical sense; they always criticize the opposition.
However, you spoil your point in bringing up Romney.
Romney the ex-politician is very different from Romney the candidate who ran for President. The latter accepted an endorsement from Trump in 2012 who was already the leader of the birthers. Romney praised Trump’s business skills (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/06/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-praised-donald-trumps-business-skill-2/) and commended him. for “an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works and to create jobs” and for being “one of the few who has stood up to say China is cheating” in international trade. (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/02/politics/campaign-wrap/)
I wonder where Krugman could have got the idea that Republicans are all like Trump, only to a lesser degree?
I suggest an alternative explanation. The operative part here is not “intellectuals” vs “politicians”. It is power and those who seek it, vs those without power. When power beckons, intellectuals turn into sophisticated apologists. Not all of them and not all of them to the same extent, of course. Personal integrity matters too. If you want more objective analysis, look at not the partisan differences (though they matter), but look at power dynamics.
Was Krugman really motivated by a disinterested search for truth when criticizing Sanders? It could of course have had nothing to do with Krugman’s preferred candidate, could it? (Recall that Krugman supported Clinton in 2008 as well.) You yourself have talked about how Krugman of today is so different from the Krugman of the 1990s. It couldn’t have had anything do with the shift in agenda of the Democratic party could it?
This is why Libertarians sometimes make good points about the system because they have no power and thus nothing to lose by not being apologists for one party.
Of course, the rational thing to do is to judge the argument made, not the person making them. The role of the opposition is to bring up issues; they often don’t have credibility to convince the people – the latter have to make up their own mind.
15. October 2016 at 09:22
Yglesias’s latest posts are excellent!
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/14/12663318/bartels-achen-democracy-for-realists
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/15/13272980/donald-trump-meltdown
15. October 2016 at 10:42
The Goldberg piece is here: http://www.nationalreview.com/g-file/441092/donald-trump-operation-destroy-gop
“Not only is Trump an exceptionally unworthy presidential candidate on the merits, but he does everything he possibly can to maximize the endemic problems of liberal-media bias… LBJ liked to say, “Let’s not step on our d**ks” on this or that issue. Trump is like one of those Italian barefoot peasant women who make wine by stomping on grapes all day, except instead of grapes it’s d**ks as far as the eye can see and Trump is wearing very expensive shoes.”
That’s hilarious, but I wonder if he has it backwards. Imagine that Trump happened in 2012, and this time around it was Romney v. Clinton. Obviously Clinton is way less popular than Obama and that alone would make 2016 much easier for Romney than 2012, but that’s not what I’m interested in. I wonder: would “binders full of women” etc. really be so bad, if it had been Trump in 2012 and “binders” today? Or would Trump have set the bar for sexism etc. at such a more appropriate level, that it’s really difficult to call “binders” sexist, liberal bias notwithstanding?
Is Trump moving the Overton Window in a direction that attenuates liberal bias?
15. October 2016 at 10:45
Scott,
I don’t know how much you’re trying to troll here versus offering sincere commentary. Romney was obviously not as openly racist as Trump, but he courted racist voters and associated with racists, including Trump. Remember, he sought Trump’s endorsement and praised Trump. Let me refresh your memory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-e92jqug0w
Also, you commented four years ago about what a liar he was and why you weren’t voting for him.
I can go on and on about Romney and his dog-whistle comments, if you’ve forgotten about the last half-century or so of Republican “southern strategy”. It’s even in history books.
And, how I have to defend George W. Bush, who I think is an idiot and was totally unqualified to be President. You stated he brought us the Great Recession. How’s that exactly? I thought you’d been arguing for years that the Fed caused the Great Recession.
If you’re just being sloppy, okay. We’re all sloppy sometimes. I certainly have my moments and days. But, come on.
I may as well comment on Goldburg, while I’m at it. He doesn’t even know what Billy Bush did wrong to get fired.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441063/billy-bush-suspension-nbc-over-trump-lewd-remarks-nonsense
I would say that giggling at bragging about sexual assault, leading Trump to a beautiful woman as Trump is popping Tic Tacs into his mouth in case he wants to force a kiss on her, and then failing to expose Trump sooner are pretty good reasons to fire him, even apart from the fact that few of his current viewers are likely to excuse NBC for having him on the air anymore.
15. October 2016 at 10:46
Scott,
I forgot to mention Romney sought Trump’s endorsement and praised him after the birther claims, just to be clear.
15. October 2016 at 10:52
Generally, the conservatives who write for the National Review are terrible. They have really stupid, skewed views on culture, religion, and are very biased. They are not so biased that they can’t offer objective commentary on the horse-race aspects of elections. I’ll give them that. So, they’re not the worst of the worst, but they’re horrible. I also don’t think they are purposely dishonest, for the most part.
Also, I don’t think most of them are stupid people. They’re intelligent, but warped.
I have read George Will for a long time though, and though I often disagree with him on policy matters, I do think he has a certain integrity. He seems honest, so he’s not someone I block out.
15. October 2016 at 11:01
“Once Trump is made actually accountable”
Hahaha. Most. Dangerous. Idea. Ever.
President Trump:
“Those losin’ establishment cucks in Congress won’t pass my agenda!”
“The Supreme Court overturned my executive order?!?! Lock ’em up!”
“Lyin’ Media says my presidency is failing! They want it to fail! No more press conferences!”
15. October 2016 at 11:02
Jacob,
The one over-riding bias the media has is for making money. All these liberal-bias conspiracy theories are way, way over-blown. Conservative cranks biased the media against real reporting in many cases for decades, pushing the media into false equivalence claims in many cases.
Fortunately, Trump changed that. It’s good to see media sources openly calling him a liar, etc.
15. October 2016 at 11:06
“Is Trump moving the Overton Window in a direction that attenuates liberal bias?”
I hope so. The positive of this cycle with Hillary and Trump is that Republicans could put up a stooge like Kasich again, and voters will be happy just that there isn’t a scandal a second. And they won’t call Kasich a misogynist simply for saying “Young Lady” in a Town Hall response.
15. October 2016 at 11:16
Mitt Romney was horrible because he was an elitist. I despised him. I did not want him to win the presidency. I did not think he could win the presidency. Donald Trump is great. I like him. He still can win the presidency (although, at present, it’s doubtful).
“Not one major newspaper endorsed Trump. No surprise the NYT didn’t, but what to make of all the conservative papers?”
-New York Post definitely counts as a “major newspaper”.
BTW, you aren’t getting it. West Virginia was the first primary to come after Trump became the presumptive nominee. He won more primary votes than Clinton there in all but one county, nevertheless.
“Well good for them—I’d rather listen to George Will.”
-I’d rather not. I’d rather listen to the common people of Macomb County, Michigan, Belknap County, New Hampshire, and Plymouth County, Iowa.
“A good place to start is becoming more elitist.”
-Dole. McCain. Romney. All elitists. All losers.
With elitists, America loses. If Pat Buchanan won in 1996, America would be in a very different place.
Name five things Mitt proposed that was more intelligent than what Trump is proposing now.
All you homosexuals in academia care about is style. Feeling good when a politician says buzzwords. I care about substance. I care about Making America Great Again.
15. October 2016 at 11:17
“A good place to start is becoming more elitist.”
Scott, good commentary until the final sentence.
I think if Republicans decide to attack their own voters in retribution, the party will be dead, permanently.
This is a weird time. Emotions are hot, and a lot of people are heartbroken at the thought that they nominated a clown in the Most Important Election Ever. So people rationalize that he’s a victim.
It will be interesting to see where emotions settle a few months after the election. The concern about centralized, unaccountable power structures is global and secular. I don’t see it going away. But there will be a chance to make more level headed arguments next year.
15. October 2016 at 11:25
“and voters will be happy just that there isn’t a scandal a second”
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/02/ohio_gov_john_kasich_calls_pol.html
Kasich wanted to help Japan if it ever wanted to strike North Korea, supported the overthrow of the Syrian government, and thinks not giving arms to Ukraine to fight Russian-backed separatists is nuts. I’m glad he was not nominated.
“Given that it looks pretty likely that Trump will lose far more heavily than Romney did”
-Not gonna happen. He might lose. He might win. He will win by more than Mitt. He will win Macomb County, MI -something Rmoney never could do.
Good point on how Candidate Romney reacted to Trump’s endorsement. BTW, if Mitt won, Trump wouldn’t be running.
“He seems honest”
-He’s not.
“Fortunately, Trump changed that. It’s good to see media sources openly calling him a liar, etc.”
-Perhaps. It’s bad for American institutions, but great at revealing what’s behind the mask.
“Those losin’ establishment cucks in Congress won’t pass my agenda!”
“The Supreme Court overturned my executive order?!?! Lock ’em up!”
“Lyin’ Media says my presidency is failing! They want it to fail! No more press conferences!”
-Trump’s Supreme Court will never overturn his executive orders. Exactly the same with Her supreme court. That’s why I’m voting Trump.
15. October 2016 at 11:28
Scott and Harding,
West Virginia in a lot of ways was a canary in the coal mine. Many of the Trump voters there were still registered Democrats.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trump-voters-boost-sanders-west-virginia
That’s what happens when the industrial economy is bombed out, health care is 1/3 of WV GDP (bc us must subsidize the rest of world, yay!), and there’s no solid job market coming in to replace the lost working class jobs, and the elitists look down at you because you won’t move to DC and take jobs in consultancies.
Gotta find a way to speak to these people.
15. October 2016 at 11:30
“The truth, however, is that even at his best, Trump was underperforming where fundamentals-based models of the election thought a generic Republican should be reaching.”
-Not the case. He was mildly overperforming just before the debate, and he’s badly underperforming now.
15. October 2016 at 11:33
Good piece:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/05/how-paul-krugman-made-donald-trump-possible.html
15. October 2016 at 11:36
West Virginia was going to vote for the GOP nominee no matter what. It’s true that there were a lot of DINOs there. But it had no role to play in Trump’s rise to power. Trump clearly was greeted with more enthusiasm there than the typical GOP nominee, but nobody cares about enthusiasm if the vote percentage is the same.
15. October 2016 at 11:39
Hi Scott (Freelander),
There is more than one media bias, in fact there are quite a few. I’m more than happy to agree that false equivalence and the need to generate revenue are important biases, maybe (probably?) more important than liberal bias (which is itself actually several mutually exclusive and contradictory biases, further complicating attempts to rank biases).
But I don’t subscribe to any liberal media bias “conspiracy theory.” And I do think that liberal media bias of the non-conspiracy variety matters. It’s way overblown by some (many? most? whatever), of course, but it’s still “underblown” by others (many? most? again, whatever), and important to acknowledge and address in any case.
There’s nothing wrong with hoping for an objective media — not *to the exclusion* of a media with an editorial bent, liberal or otherwise, but alongside it. Especially at this moment, when yes indeed plenty of attacks on Trump look to me like someone stomping their feet and insisting that the time just *can’t possibly be* 4pm right now, because the clock says 4pm and the clock is broken. Trump is a busted clock, but he’s not a contrary indicator — he’s right (or at least in the ballpark) twice a day. For really messed up reasons (e.g., he’s a narcissist), but still. And pretending that he is a contrary indicator because, well, he’s Trump, is poor journalism, poor punditry, and feeds both him and his supporters (and even some of his detractors!) the stories they need to continue on in their mistrust of people not exactly like Trump. (That problem is not the exclusive preserve of liberals, but they do share it.)
…that’s my point of view anyway, and I believe that it’s 100% consistent with a world in which liberal media bias conspiracy theories are way overblown, the need to generate revenue is paramount, false equivalence is a much bigger problem, etc.
15. October 2016 at 11:41
Trump’s performance in the Acela primary (in which he won every county in every single state and won the GOP primary in every state with a majority of the vote) was way more impressive than his performance in some backwoods part of Appalachia, which was both expected and electorally irrelevant.
15. October 2016 at 12:01
Media Bias comes as a concoction of three biases:
1- Cultural Predilection — Most media are Acela residents, so they favor candidates with similar cultural attitudes (including Trump in the primary)
2- Emotion over Reason — Journalists/TV Hosts are mostly liberal arts majors from liberal schools who like writing stories about poor starving brown kids, who if only we cared more… Thoughtful policy is too complex.
3- Access to Power — Media need scoops and interviews. That means they have to suck up to powerful people or risk getting shut out. These days that means the ruling party, the Clinton Foundation network. But it also can mean executives of powerful companies (e.g., Tim Cook), or warmonger Republicans (W Bush), or bankers back in the day (Sandy Weill).
15. October 2016 at 12:03
Jacob,
Yes, it is complex and there are many biases. But, I don’t see much in the way of liberal bias. It certainly isn’t on Fox News, CNBC, or in the Wall Street Journal. MSNBC does not have a liberal bias either. It has a Democratic Party leadership bias, which is a very different thing. I don’t think there’s as much liberal bias as there may have been 30 years ago.
But, none of the biases are as large as that for making money, obviously.
15. October 2016 at 12:07
Steve,
I don’t see number 1 or 2, and in fact, 2 is offensive. If anything, the plight of minorities is under-reported.
There’s a great deal of truth in #3 though.
But,the profit motive still reigns supreme, and it ensures that, to some degree, society’s biases, ignorance, and preferences are simply fed back to society in ways meant to be appealing.
15. October 2016 at 12:08
Anand, You said:
“I wonder where Krugman could have got the idea that Republicans are all like Trump, only to a lesser degree?”
Too late, Krugman’s already backed off on that–now says Trump is radically different.
Jacob, Interesting question, but the window could move either way. After McCarthy was discredited, even legitimate anti-communism was tainted. Maybe we’ll swing too far, and have political correctness run amok. Anyone even a tiny bit non-PC will be called another “Trump”.
Scott, All of your comments are a perfect example of what this post is all about. Nobody is going to come to you for an appraisal of GOP politicians, or Dems (unless you are trashing Hillary).
Romney ran as a racist? Because he used the term “Obamacare?”
Steve, Holy Cow! Is “young lady” now misogynist? I’m so out of it I should just shoot myself.
You said:
“I think if Republicans decide to attack their own voters in retribution, the party will be dead, permanently.”
That’s not what I’m calling for. I’m asking GOP voters to pay more attention when the smart commentators tell them that X is a fraud and a buffoon. Maybe the elites have good reason for saying that, as we are now discovering. BTW, there were other GOP candidates running against amnesty for immigrants, it wasn’t just Trump. They had other outlets. They picked Trump.
Harding, For once you are right—Romney won WV in a landslide. The GOP’s problem is not WV voters, they have a lock on them, it’s suburban professionals. And increasingly (not yet) they are being hurt by extremely poor performances in affluent groups like immigrants from India. Not enough of them yet to make a difference, but an increasing problem in the future.
15. October 2016 at 12:46
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/john-kasich-is-seemingly-baffled-by-young-women-who-get-politics_us_570c07fde4b0836057a2153c
One might be able to excuse this instance of Kasich’s condescension as a misguided attempt at lightheartedness. But this isn’t the first time he has put his foot in his mouth during an interaction with interested, thoughtful political constituents, who also happen to be young and female.
Kasich calls questioner “young lady.” I just don’t think these fellows understand much of anything about sexism.
— Diana Butler Bass (@dianabutlerbass) March 30, 2016
15. October 2016 at 12:47
Kasich has said worse things than “young lady” (read the article), indeed worse than “binders of women”. But the media made it absolutely clear they were going to flush Kasich down the misogyny toilet were he to somehow get the nomination.
15. October 2016 at 12:53
“The GOP’s problem is not WV voters, they have a lock on them, it’s suburban professionals.”
-Macomb county is a suburban county, though more blue-collar than richer, more professional Oakland county. Neither county went for Romney in November 2012. Both went for Snyder in 2014. Macomb will certainly go for Trump in November. Oakland will not go for Trump in November, though he did eke out a win over Kasich there in the GOP primary by a 4.3 point margin. The situation for Trump in Luzerne County, PA is similar to that in Macomb, except it’s more traditionally Democratic (it did not go for Toomey in 2010). It may not be enough to win the state of Pennsylvania, but is a feather in Trump’s hat.
The GOP’s problem is the inner cities -Manhattan, Columbus, Detroit, San Francisco, etc. The Massachusetts suburbs are mixed in partisanship on the gubernatorial level and are more Republican than inner city Boston. Suburbs are, to some extent, a problem for Trump (greater than they were for Mitt) in Pennsylvania. They are more a problem for Trump than Mitt in Ohio. They were not a problem for Mitt in Wisconsin. They will be for Trump in Wisconsin, but he’ll make up for it in the rest of the state to surpass Romney’s performance. Cruz is not Clinton.
The problems for Trump are not quite the same as Romney’s problems. The problems for Romney are not quite the same as problems for state GOPs.
“I’m asking GOP voters to pay more attention when the smart commentators tell them that X is a fraud and a buffoon. Maybe the elites have good reason for saying that, as we are now discovering”
-The elites are generally evil people. They should, as in 1828, be overthrown, not trusted. Trump is a fraud and a buffon. He’s less evil than the typical GOP nominee. I’m voting for him in November.
A lot of middle-class Indian immigrants live around me. So far, I have not been able to figure out their voting preferences by looking at precinct maps. They seem to be generally Democratic-leaning and both economically and socially liberal in matters of public policy, despite their extremely socially conservative lifestyle. The primary voting results where I live resembles those in the rest of Michigan, except a higher Kasich vote and a lower Cruz vote.
“They had other outlets. They picked Trump.”
-Trump was less economically conservative than Cruz and had the same stance on immigration, but he was also more electable (Trump is reducing partisan polarization; Cruz is exacerbating it, so he would have to have won the popular vote by at least two points to win the EC) and had a more realistic foreign policy, and did not pick a known neocon for VP, instead picking an unknown neocon (#DumpPence).
I genuinely believe most elites are evil people. They are certainly generally unlikeable. If a nuclear weapon killed them all, probably even most of their families would not miss them one bit.
15. October 2016 at 13:02
BTW, Trump did not seem to have had any problems in Florida except in the inner city. Ted Cruz seemed to do extremely well in the suburbs of Tallahassee, but that’s it.
15. October 2016 at 13:03
David Gelertner makes a novel ‘pro-Trump’ argument;
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-the-emasculated-voter-1476484865
————quote————
Ordinary politics says that Mr. Trump will not do crazy things or go off half-cocked, because Republicans in Congress will be eager to impeach him and put Mike Pence in charge. That was the subtext of the vice-presidential debate, though Mr. Pence himself (probably) didn’t intend it. When it’s my turn, you can all relax. Democrats, obviously, will be eager to help when the task is removing a Republican.
Impeachment is Trump-voters’ ace in the hole. It’s an abnormal measure, but this is an abnormal year. Impeachment has temporarily dropped out of sight because of special circumstances. Republicans impeached Bill Clinton but got burned in the process; Mr. Obama, as the first black president, was impeachment-proof. Any other president would have encountered serious impeachment talk on several occasions, especially when he ignored Congress and the Constitution and made his own personal treaty-in-all-but-name with Iran.
But Mr. Trump will not have Mr. Obama’s advantages—to say the least. Mr. Trump will be impeachment bait. So will Mrs. Clinton. Even some Democrats have had enough.
Nothing can stop Mr. Trump from shooting off his mouth, but that’s all right. I want America’s enemies off-balance and guessing. For eight years it’s been Humiliate America season—buzz our ships, capture and embarrass our men, murder an American ambassador—a resoundingly successful attempt to spit in our faces and tell each one of us to drop dead. Thanks, Mr. President. Enough is enough. You know that Hillary is Obama Part III. We can’t let that happen. Parts I and II have brought us close enough to catastrophe.
That is the problem for those whose integrity or nobility won’t allow them to vote for Mr. Trump despite their dislike of Mrs. Clinton. There is only one way to take part in protecting this nation from Hillary Clinton, and that is to vote for Donald Trump. A vote for anyone else or for no one might be an honest, admirable gesture in principle, but we don’t need conscientious objectors in this war for the country’s international standing and hence for the safety of the world and the American way of life. It’s too bad one has to vote for Mr. Trump. It will be an unhappy moment at best. Some people will feel dirty, or pained, or outright disgraced.
But when all is said and done, it’s no big deal of a sacrifice for your country. I can think of bigger ones.
————-endquote———–
15. October 2016 at 13:17
Pence should be replaced with some other Cruz supporter with more sensible views on foreign policy, like like Mike Lee. The same foreign policy argument which demonstrates Clinton is dangerous to the whole world applies to Pence as well. I would not vote for Pence if he was the nominee.
15. October 2016 at 14:00
“I now think that the presidency has lower job qualifications than any other job in America.”
That’s what has struck me too. As Scott mentions, the standards for Billy Bush for the Today show are much higher than Trump for President. Similarly, Brian Williams was fired from NBC News anchor for lying about coming under enemy fire while Hillary Clinton retained support after doing the same thing. The email scandal would have cost Clinton a lower level job in the government, but not the Presidency.
For some reason, the parties are just not set up to replace presidential candidates, even long before ballots have been printed. (Clinton’s email scandal and lying about flying under enemy fire were revealed long before the primaries.) Even CEOs of major firms are quickly replaced at the first hint of scandal (witness Wells Fargo). Strangely, candidates’ support largely arises from their party affiliation, not their personal identity, so it should be easy to replace them. Democrats support Clinton because she is the Democratic candidate. They are not Democrats because they like Clinton. Each candidate starts with 40% no matter who they are so why the reluctance to drop deeply flawed candidates?
Trump was right about one thing: he could shoot (or at least molest) someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would continue to support him. Sad.
15. October 2016 at 14:27
Also worth noting: the HuffPo takedown of Kasich for misogyny was a week before the NY Primary, when Cruz was on a roll from the Western Caucuses and Kasich was thought to have good chances coming back east.
15. October 2016 at 16:06
It’s time for the Republican Party to fold and die. They don’t serve a purpose anymore. Communism is gone, so there go the hawk votes. Christianity is a dying religion in the west, and abortion is considered a sacred right, not a sacrilege. What do they stand for? Invading random Muslim countries ? Being racist? That’s not a position. Besides, the democratic party is more than willing to take on the idiot mantle and drone and kill unlawful combatants.
The bare truth is that low taxes is not a vision for the future. It doesn’t sell. What does sell is “progress” and “equality”. On the other hand, the smart people will be fine. Ivy League schools for us, Mexican level poverty for you.
If we really believe in the free market we should celebrate. There’s no reason someone in America should make more than the global poverty rate for unskilled work. That’s racist.
15. October 2016 at 17:14
Scott,
I had hoped that it was clear that I was exaggerating slightly for effect what you wrote in the post in that sentence. Krugman has always said that Trump is worse. Here is his column on the subject (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/07/opinion/when-fallacies-collide.html) and here is a blog post (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/lies-lying-liars-and-donald-trump/).
My point was that one should be careful of a politician (Romney) who says something different when seeking power and when he is out of power. Which one is the “true” face of the GOP – shouldn’t one weight their actions more rather than their professed ideology when out of power?
This is not to say that Romney and Trump are the same – but few people said this. Go back and read the NYT last year. Here is one last November from the editorial board. (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/opinion/mr-trumps-applause-lies.html) “America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by Donald Trump’s racist lies.” Tell me whether the NYT ever used this kind of language against Romney? From the very beginning, Trump was criticized up and down in the media. The problem is that the Republican base liked him (or liked him better than the alternatives)
This is not to deny that there are partisan hacks who will always attack Repubs and defend the Dems. Krugman, all too often, descends into the hack category.
15. October 2016 at 18:36
“For eight years it’s been Humiliate America season—buzz our ships, capture and embarrass our men, murder an American ambassador—a resoundingly successful attempt to spit in our faces and tell each one of us to drop dead. Thanks, Mr. President. Enough is enough. You know that Hillary is Obama Part III. We can’t let that happen. Parts I and II have brought us close enough to catastrophe.”
Can anyone explain the catastrophe that Gelertner envisions? It seems like the US is too powerful to attack directly what am I missing?
15. October 2016 at 18:54
“And increasingly (not yet) they are being hurt by extremely poor performances in affluent groups like immigrants from India.”
-Ergo, Trump does Indian outreach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcjLJ-YpWhY
15. October 2016 at 21:17
Scott,
Your post and reply to me are ridiculous in so many ways. First, you offer an anecdotal article that you call a “hit piece”, and then mischaracterize it. Tomasky didn’t say that merely using the word “Obamacare” meant that Romney was being racist. He said it was part of a strategy to get boos at the NAACP to satisfy his base.
Also, you neglected to mention that at the end of the same day Romney gave his NAACP speech, he said that if those in the audience at the NAACP like “free stuff”, they should vote for Obama.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/07/romney-accused-of-racism-following-naacp-speech.html
I’m not going to speculate on Romney’s intentions with the speech, and I have no idea if he’s racist. However, I was always suspicious of Romney’s claim that he opposed the Affordable Care Act, considering that he pushed a similar plan in his own state when he was governor and claimed for years it was a great achievement.
However, to again bring up a point of mine that you did not address, Romney cuddled up to racists like Donald Trump during his campaign and was the biggest panderer I’d ever seen run for President. Is is reasonable to wonder if a man is racist who seeks the endorsement of the biggest birther conspiracy theorist, and then praises him during the endorsement? There are plenty of other racists Romney was happy to do business with as well.
And then, there were comments, like those from John Sununu, in which he insinuated that Colin Powell only supported Obama because Obama’s black.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2223908/John-Sununu-My-party-racists-Former-Colin-Powell-aide-blasts-GOP-Romney-adviser-says-ex-Secretary-State-supporting-Obama-hes-black.html
Republican Colonel Wilkerson responded by saying that his party is “full of racists”.
To put a finer point on it, since you seem to generally miss the points of my comments, you offered a single article and comments by a single partisan economist to characterize the entire Democratic Party. I didn’t care whether Romney was racist. The fact he was running in a racist party was enough for me to reject him, even if he didn’t flip-flop on abortion and healthcare reform.
For decades, we Democrats have said the Republican Party was full of racists. After this year, are you saying we were wrong?
16. October 2016 at 11:43
Steve, He may be a sexist, but on the basis of “young lady”?
Harding, You said:
“I genuinely believe most elites are evil people. They are certainly generally unlikeable. If a nuclear weapon killed them all, probably even most of their families would not miss them one bit.”
And people get upset about Trump-Hitler comparisons. They said exactly the same about the “elitist” Jews in Germany during the 1930s, except of course nukes didn’t exist.
Patrick, The WSJ is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Can’t they find someone decent to write for them?
Anand, Actually, Trump has completely changed his tone on Trump, as other bloggers have documented. But then no one should read Krugman (or me) for political commentary. They should read people like Scott Alexander.
Scott, I’d suggest switching to a different topic, this partisan stuff is kind of tiresome. I think Tomasky’s article was laughably stupid. You don’t agree. Fine.
16. October 2016 at 12:18
This post is great and honest. The main point is good: don’t trust the Democrats who would fabricate this hysteria over any Republican. Trust moderate right wingers who are criticizing Trump…
So, consider Mark Levin. I’ve read Levin’s books, I trust the guy. He was in adamant opposition to Trump. He endorsed Cruz in the primary. But now he stresses that Trump is simply the lesser evil next to Hillary. He’s also very Jewish and I simply don’t believe that Trump harbors deep anti-semitism and still gets guys like Levin to endorse him.
Also, Peter Thiel. Thiel endorses Trump, he’s my favorite.
I still like Sumner. I trust him on monetary policy. But his opposition to Trump seems to be unreasonable. If other moderate candidates were on the table, I’d be happy with them, but Hillary seems so awful, at this point, Trump is the only choice.
16. October 2016 at 15:24
Okay, I’ll end by saying that we Democrats have been saying Republicans are racist for decades. They’re certainly racist now. Who denies they were racist 4 years ago?
So, without respect to this single anecdote about this speech, have Democrats been correct to say Republicans are racist?
Absolutely.
16. October 2016 at 22:43
Scott – ” we Democrats have been saying Republicans are racist for decades” – surely the Democrats were the racist party until well into the 1970’s? I am thinking of the lock that the Democrats had on the south. Compared to those days, no-one today is racist at all.
17. October 2016 at 05:46
Massimo, So you found 2 smart conservatives who support Trump. Doesn’t that prove I’m right? I said 90% oppose him.
And did Levin have no problem with Trump’s very public mental breakdown in recent weeks? He wants a crazy person with his finger on the nuclear trigger?
Scott, I doubt there’s much difference in the amount of racism in the two parties. Both have millions of racists, and millions of non-racists. Even if the GOP has more, your blanket statement is not accurate.
17. October 2016 at 07:05
“He wants a crazy person with his finger on the nuclear trigger?”
-Neither he or I does. You do.
https://youtu.be/ThPslAHaLmA
You do realize if the leaders of North Korea, Russia, and Israel endorse Trump, this tells a lot about both his and Her fitness for having their finger on the nuclear trigger?
17. October 2016 at 09:13
Second Amendment Solution Proponents (SASPs) believe that it is their right and duty to overthrow by force any tyrant that takes control of our democracy..
… I am not a SASP, for one thing It’s oxymoronic to think that the right to civil war can be guaranteed… in any constitution. And civil war is not a solution, it is a state of failure.
If you are a SASP it must be asked…where is your line ? What Will call you to duty ?
If you believe as Trump does… that a Group of International elites has rigged our election to steal the presidency of the United States ….Is that not Tyranny ?
SASPs… so you can certainly understand why a few of your fellow SASPs would see the rigging of our elections by an international elite bent on hurting americans to the benefit of foreigners…. as crossing a line… Right ?
SASPs who are against violence in response to Rigged elections…
AMERICA NEEDS YOUR HELP… PLEASE !!!
Please!!! explain to your fellow SASPs who feel they are called to duty… why they are wrong !
We need you…because no one who is not a SASP can figure out how to tell someone with your priors that they are wong…
Please.. please… tell us how to show them they are wrong…
17. October 2016 at 10:12
@Bill Ellis,
I’ve adopted a new policy on social media: when I see what you call “SASP”s now I immediately get a screen capture and send both a link & the capture to the FBI & the Secret Service, and I be sure the SASP/RWNJ knows I did so. I also let as many other people as possible know. The RWNJs will often erase their tweet or post. I don’t expect many (or any) to be prosecuted, but it’s nice to let them know there might be consequences to their actions: losing a security clearance or the right to own guns for example. And in the off chance they are help criminally liable, then there’s one less RWNJ voter with guns out there. If I see a LWNJ I’ll do the same, but there’s SO many more RWNJs (from what I can tell). Crackpot scam artists like Alex Jones fuels their lunacy.
@Harding,
Your repeated statement that elites are evil reminds me of the attitude and policy of Pol Pot and his inner circle.
17. October 2016 at 10:46
Tom Brown , I like you advice…
Back just after Obama won his first term, the internet cesspool threads I hung out on were flooded with thinly veiled death threats and calls for his assassination …
All I did was start posting the Secret service web site’s advice on when to report something…over and over…everywhere… back then politico’s comment threads were almost completely unmonitored…They were full of people making threats and people freaking out over people making threats… and it just blew up…
people on the right were posting about how the SS had contacted them over their posts… some quite contrite..
others were hunting for posts to turn in… lot’s of freaking out…
Suddenly Politico became allll about monitoring their threads… I bet the Secret service attention could not have been comfortable…
within a month or so they had banned just about everyone who was an active regular no matter what their political orientation… Me too. (we were all Troublemakers.. no complaints.. Politico or anyone can do what the hell they like with their threads..)
But the Things…back then when I’d tell people about how a lot of the internet was flooded with calls for killing Obama…
no believed me. Well at least none of the people who did not see the same thing somewhere…
Now I tell the same story….no one doubts me…
17. October 2016 at 11:19
@Harding,
Pol Pot himself was a self made elitist (unlike Trump, who’s a born to privilege elitist) and a mass murderer as well, so maybe that was an unfair comparison. But here’s another less murderous guy who rails & wails about elitists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVoVIyL-ERU
Personally I think he’s a fraud (IMO those tears for “the children” are insincere), but my neighbor hangs on his every word, thinking there’s a globalist/elitist conspiracy around every corner, and thoroughly beclowning himself by regaling me with lurid tales of evil elitists (the Clintons, the Bushes, LBJ, Mulholland, the AMA, the Rothschilds, the Fed, globalist bankers, the milk industry, big pharma, big oil, CIA, NSA, SEC, etc) personally murdering (or worse!) those who try to expose the truth!
Is that insanity really so much different than this left wing “anti-colonial” insanity?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i80qaETtw8
“Elitist” science??
17. October 2016 at 11:42
Scott Sumner..
you are probably right that racism is pretty much equally represented across political lines… I would go further and say Racism and other forms of social prejudice are an almost universal condition of being human …to one degree or another…
But it is how racism interacts with privilege that is the point.
It can not be denied that racism impacts white rich males the least…by a large degree.. And the gulf between the cost we must pay for racism is way to large and should be narrowed….
The vast brudon that racism places on society is born by “minorities” in ways unique to their lower status… especially women, unconventionally gendered and black americans..