Beware my post storm. I've been catching a bunch of stuff and the stuff that makes sense, as opposed to the stuff that's mostly histrionic screaming, is coming from the right. I think there are four.
- (3) I do not believe the polls were sinister, fixed, crooked, or evil – I believe they were just plain ole wrong. They were based on models that proved wrong. This ought to be a lesson to those who rely on flawed mathematical inputs to derive outputs of policy (I am talking to you, Keynesian central bankers). I truly do not believe the pollster class will ever recover from this. I chose to believe the polls because the vast testimony of history is that the polls are right. They were wrong here, and as Politico said this morning:
“WE WERE ALL WRONG. That seems obvious, right? But we were more than wrong. We were laughably oblivious. The entire Washington political-media complex completely missed the mark. Not by inches or feet, but by miles. For a year and a half, we scoffed at those who said the polls were wrong. The polling industry is broken. We had our eyes trained on prognosticators and pundits — but they were all wrong, too. There will be plenty of time to dissect it all. The joke is on us.”
Two other things: I'm taking b_b's #seriousseason and using the shit out of it. I'm also inaugurating #foodforthought because while it's the last decent subreddit I moderate, I'm not feeling very reddity right now.
This is a really important part of the article, that he touches on a couple of times, but never fully unpacks. Middle America resonated with the Trump message, but does not understand that the Trump plans in support of that message will only lead to further crushing losses across the board. A trade war with China has fuckall to do with what's on the shelves at WalMart, and has everything to do with our access to the materials we need to build the things we make and sell to others. Here's the simple problem, laid bare: Every single thing the US is known for making - technology products, cars, etc. - relies on an impossibly complex international supply chain. The steel for the hood of an F-150 comes from China. The palladium(?) in every single computer chip comes from one mine in China. The technically-difficult systems in cars - like brakes and transmissions - are made in Hungary and other countries with skilled manufacturing. (Jobs that Americans suck at. See the K-car.) So a trade war with China looks like this: America ceases being able to get the raw materials it needs to make anything of value to anyone else. And this is a problem. Because if you do not sell things outside your country, you are just moving the same $20 bill from your left pocket to your right pocket. Nobody is making any money, because there is no money coming in to be made. It's a zero sum game. (This is, of course, shorthand, but still broadly on point.) That also means that the Federal Government loses its cash reserves, which it uses to subsidize things like gas, and corn, and dairy farms. So now we pay the same amount for fuel that everyone else in the world does - call it, $7/gallon, conservatively - we wind up with a glut of corn, spoiling in grain silos across the midwest with no potential buyers, and beef, milk, and pork disappear from grocery store shelves. (Remember the gas crisis of the 1970's? When store shelves went empty because trucks couldn't get the gas they needed to transport goods? Now imagine that, but with no products to transport inside the trucks, as well.) Of course, all of these things are still available.... to the rich, who live on the coasts and don't need intrastate commerce to get their goodies. Who are also heavily invested in China, and earning righteous piles of money in their overseas accounts. But every other red-blooded American who doesn't have the ability to hide their money in an offshore company, and invest in foreign markets? AKA, the ones who voted for trump? Yeah, they are living in the world of the Walking Dead, without zombies. Stuffing a protectionist trade pact down our throat will not help factory workers in Ohio who have been technologically displaced, but it will be fatal if it creates a trade war with China.
I have a friend who was a principal at TBWA-Chiat Day, a director at Publicis and a partner at McKinney and Silver. The phrase he keeps using is "low-information voters." There are a lot of problems we're dealing with right now and "low information voters" is certainly a major part of it. I personally think that increasing the information available (or perhaps simply increasing the signal-to-noise ratio) is one of the most efficient ways of moving the fight to turf we can win on. But I also think it won't matter much. 'member back when SpaceX blocked the United Launch Alliance from buying RD-180 rocket engines because of the trade embargo we have against Russia? 'member how ULA got it overturned a week later? Why? Because fuck you, that's why. A trade war with China under Trump becomes an embargo against everything except the stuff that gets lobbied for the hardest. I'm wondering how the Trumpkins are going to feel about the new wave of crony capitalism they're sweeping into power. Probably about the same as they feel about the racism. Tribalism trumps human decency.
I just wanted to point a finger to this part of the article seeing as I remember us sharing the hope for the Republican party to dissolve and reform as a new conservative party. Funny, since it looks like the right side of the aisle was looking at the left and thinking the same thing. I can understand where he's speaking to with regards to the far left tugging on the moderates, which seems to be the same on the right as well. <s> Maybe both will collapse and emerge as a far-left, far-right, and moderate party for us all to enjoy. </s> The left faces an internal crisis in the years ahead that I think will be brutal. In short, they are going to have come to terms with what they did – they nominated a totally corrupt and scandal-plagued person when almost any level of a normal, measured candidate could have won the race.
Secondly, the civil war in the left, which my liberal friends do not yet know how massive it is about to become. That radical progressive wing of Warren and Sanders is going to go to war with center-left moderates, and it is going to be nasty.
And then the one which I believe will dictate so much of the future of American political life: The civil war in the right – the battle between populist-nationalists and idea-driven conservatives. I am well aware of the fact that Trump’s win grants appearance that the former is winning over the latter. I am not so sure. The “across country” wave of ideological conservatives who won by much larger margins tells a different story. I am convinced of this: The winner of this battle will determine the fate of conservatism in this generation. The latter must, must, must defeat the former.
I wish there was a small-c "conservative" party that I could support. Stop our foreign intervention. Get our national infrastructure up to snuff. Ignore what people do in their lives that doesn't involve the government (marriage, bedrooms, hair length, music choices, defining what is and isn't "art", etc.), and get back to the basic principle of government, which is to serve as a stable platform from which ALL can build upon, regardless of origin, race, creed, sexual identity, gender, income class, or any other stick used to measure unfairly. Someone who has a healthy skepticism about the effectiveness of government programs, and a loving embrace for anyone who calls themselves an American.
Thanks for bringing the right's perspective here - I would be hard-pressed to find the good ones myself. I'll give it a good read, but my casual read now confirms my suspicion that the left has been wholly incapable of understanding and empathizing with the issues and values on right. It's easier to dismiss the worries of others if they're not even remotely similar to your own issues. We have an election coming up in about 4 months, with the right-wing nutjob Wilders leading in the polls. Here's to hope that we don't make a similar mistake.