It's easy to be dyspeptic, as Neal Gabler puts it in Farewell America: “so many professed to hate both candidates. (But it turned out to be the hate election because, and let’s not mince words, of the hatefulness of the electorate…. This country has survived a civil war, two world wars, and a great depression. Many say we will survive this, too. Maybe, but not unscathed. We know too much about each other to heal.”
Yipe! No, I won’t dive down that hole. Nor will I (this time) tally up the list of cartoon characters that each day Mr. Trump is seen packing into the new government of the United States. As I predicted, they are almost all former Bushite factotums. (Though at the crazy wing.) Despite DT's professed spite toward that clan, this is shaping up to be Bush III.
Meanwhile, he hints that he’ll be living in Trump Tower, not the White House. Think about what that...
No. No. We’ll stay on-topic and continue post-morteming why the recent gut-punch just happened. So let’s resume by going back to the conservative punditocracy.
Some of them take Donald Trump at his word. That he intends to aggressively reverse the only successful international order the world has ever seen, in which a (mostly) benign American pax oversaw and protected a mostly-calm world. The first world order since Sumeria in which most nations could peacefully develop without pouring half their wealth into armies.
Meanwhile, he hints that he’ll be living in Trump Tower, not the White House. Think about what that...
No. No. We’ll stay on-topic and continue post-morteming why the recent gut-punch just happened. So let’s resume by going back to the conservative punditocracy.
Some of them take Donald Trump at his word. That he intends to aggressively reverse the only successful international order the world has ever seen, in which a (mostly) benign American pax oversaw and protected a mostly-calm world. The first world order since Sumeria in which most nations could peacefully develop without pouring half their wealth into armies.
Okay fire away, you mavens of the right. Explain this.
== Maybe it was tactics? ==
Putting aside the stench of almost certain electoral “rigging,” let's look at what happened according to the political wonks. To them, this election was a game, a sport in which the managers, coaches and players of opposing teams made crucial plays or errors. In How Trump Won, Carl Mannon at Pretty Clear Politics lists 31 of these factors.
Among the most important (non-rigging) factors deciding this race was turnout.
“Democrats have worried about the problem that has dogged them throughout the Age of Obama: Unless Obama is on the ballot himself, Democrats have trouble turning out their voters. This hurt Clinton in all of the Rust Belt states she lost to Trump. The Obama political machine turns out to be non-transferrable…. Yes, she enjoyed a 54 percent-42 percent advantage over Trump among female voters, but this “gender gap” was about the same as Barack Obama’s advantage over John McCain and Mitt Romney. Hillary’s candidacy didn’t alter the equation.”
“Democrats have worried about the problem that has dogged them throughout the Age of Obama: Unless Obama is on the ballot himself, Democrats have trouble turning out their voters. This hurt Clinton in all of the Rust Belt states she lost to Trump. The Obama political machine turns out to be non-transferrable…. Yes, she enjoyed a 54 percent-42 percent advantage over Trump among female voters, but this “gender gap” was about the same as Barack Obama’s advantage over John McCain and Mitt Romney. Hillary’s candidacy didn’t alter the equation.”
Oh, there’s plenty of blame to go around. If Beyonce and Michelle and Obama weren't enough to get the black vote out, then self-interest should have. But I heard a lot of "why bother?" and “They’re all the same!” bullshit from quite a number of African-Americans, interviewed on the air. Anecdotal, sure. But it prompts thoughts.
Others point to tactical mistakes. Mark Anderson writes: “If there was a fatal flaw to the Clinton campaign, it was this strategy: she sold it as the chance to put the first woman in the White House. And while most women loved this, it turns out that this group (women for Clinton) comprises less than half of the country. Hillary's decision to make this about one gender over another had a predictable effect: it worked, leading to a gender-centric fight with Trump. It was a fight that, going simply by the numbers, she could not possibly win."
Also, she thought that ads portraying DT's outrageous craziness and falsehoods would sway those less-educated white male aging boomers, but I saw the reactions of many. They laughed out loud, delighted by the effrontery and how it galled their college-grad, smartypants kids & cousins. It just made Trump look "strong."
Also, she thought that ads portraying DT's outrageous craziness and falsehoods would sway those less-educated white male aging boomers, but I saw the reactions of many. They laughed out loud, delighted by the effrontery and how it galled their college-grad, smartypants kids & cousins. It just made Trump look "strong."
Me? You know I offered the dems dozens of polemical riffs that could have made a difference. Like challenging Donald Trump to name august Republican members of a bipartisan commission to:
-- investigate his accusations of rigging…
-- provide a neutral, accepted fact-checking service…
-- sift his tax records - confidentially - and assure us nothing much is there…
-- vet his “secret plans” to defeat ISIS and replace Obamacare and verify at least the plans aren’t smoke…
-- did I mention a fact-checking service?
Here's the point I tried to make. You do not corner good-old-boys and their wives with facts or rebuttals. What works is dares! Challenges, wagers that only a wuss would refuse. In this case, if he balked, it would have looked terrible. Whiney and cowardly. ("What, you can't find any smart and respectable republicans to appoint?")
If he accepted, he’d risk ‘betrayal’ by his appointees. A lose-lose situation for him. The very thing that DT did to her. It’s called judo, Hillary. And, clearly, we need politicians who know some. As Putin does.
If he accepted, he’d risk ‘betrayal’ by his appointees. A lose-lose situation for him. The very thing that DT did to her. It’s called judo, Hillary. And, clearly, we need politicians who know some. As Putin does.
The dems' best judo move for 2018? Nominate 250 retired colonels to run in every single "safe" Republican district. More on this, soon
== More unforced errors ==
Back to Mannon’s List of tactical blunders. One was Crony Capitalism. “The grassroots in both parties have come to believe that corporate riches are increasingly dependent on political connections in Washington. Sanders criticized Clinton during the primary season that she was too cozy with Wall Street. She confirmed this perception by refusing to release transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street banks."
In other words, if people perceive an insanely stupid false equivalency, then it can still be effective.
In other words, if people perceive an insanely stupid false equivalency, then it can still be effective.
On Mannon’s list is one that I think plumbs toward the core truth… “Nobody votes for Trump or likes Trump on the basis of policy positions,” says alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. “That’s a misunderstanding of what the Trump phenomenon is.” Trump is "an icon of irreverent resistance to political correctness.”
Yes, we are getting closer now, to the heart of it. Talk to any member of the Fox Public and you will get this refrain. Resentment of patronization and blue guilt-tripping. The endless nagging that they feel – whether intended or not – from those city-university folks.
And sure, much of this is utter hype, since statistically the middle class always does better in every way, across the span of democratic administrations than republican ones. Yet, bragging about that could have opposite effects, giving an impression you do not feel Middle America's very real pain.
== The ‘gut’ of the matter ==
Writing on Vox, Emmett Rensin blames The smug style in American liberalism. “In 1948, in the immediate wake of Franklin Roosevelt, 66 percent of manual laborers voted for Democrats, along with 60 percent of farmers. In 1964, it was 55 percent of working-class voters. By 1980, it was 35 percent. By 2012 Democrats possessed only a 2-point advantage among poor white voters. Among white voters making between $30,000 and $75,000 per year, the GOP has taken a 17-point lead.”
“The trouble is that stupid hicks don't know what's good for them. They're getting conned by right-wingers and tent revivalists until they believe all the lies that've made them so wrong. They don't know any better. That's why they're voting against their own self-interest….. As anybody who has gone through a particularly nasty breakup knows, disdain cultivated in the aftermath of a divide quickly exceeds the original grievance… Finding comfort in the notion that their former allies were disdainful, hapless rubes, smug liberals created a culture animated by that contempt. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“The trouble is that stupid hicks don't know what's good for them. They're getting conned by right-wingers and tent revivalists until they believe all the lies that've made them so wrong. They don't know any better. That's why they're voting against their own self-interest….. As anybody who has gone through a particularly nasty breakup knows, disdain cultivated in the aftermath of a divide quickly exceeds the original grievance… Finding comfort in the notion that their former allies were disdainful, hapless rubes, smug liberals created a culture animated by that contempt. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
The problem with this Rensin assertion is that he cites no examples. We all know that he could, if he tried. For example, radio raconteur Garrison Keillor recently opined: “So he won. The nation takes a deep breath. Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out, and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president.”
Keillor seems to justify Rensin: “We liberal elitists are wrecks. The Trumpers had a whale of a good time, waving their signs, jeering at the media, beating up protesters, chanting “Lock her up” — we elitists just stood and clapped. Nobody chanted “Stronger Together.” It just doesn’t chant.”
Staring at the fervid, Trumpist rallies, Keillor comments: “It was pleasure enough for them just to know that they were driving us wild with dismay — by “us,” I mean librarians, children’s authors, yoga practitioners, Unitarians, bird-watchers, people who make their own pasta, opera-goers, the grammar police, people who keep books on their shelves, that bunch. The Trumpers exulted in knowing we were tearing our hair out. They had our number, like a bratty kid who knows exactly how to make you grit your teeth and froth at the mouth.”
Keillor fails to mention also scientists, teachers, doctors, economists, journalists, civil servants and every other American profession that deals in strange, mystical things called “knowledge and facts.” We have a right to be angry that Fox & Friends have waged war on all knowledge “elites” for decades, while never against the ripoff oligarchy.
And yet, just by saying all that, am I, in turn, pushing our Trumpist brethren against a wall?
And yet, just by saying all that, am I, in turn, pushing our Trumpist brethren against a wall?
No. Rensin’s guilt trip – while pointing to a region where much work must be done – is intrinsically bullshit. Quoting one of the regular commenters, under this blog: “If someone claims the moon landings were a hoax, and then gets angry when someone who knows different acts smug to them, what's to be done about it?”
(I've said the same thing about fanatics who believe - and fervently pray - that the world is about to end, in a spectacularly gruesome and sadistic revenge festival-apocalypse, in which nearly all of their neighbors, fellow citizens and their children will suffer eternal damnation and torture. Folks fervently desiring an end to all human freedom, ambition, accomplishment, diversity... and the United States of America. Sure, it is their right to wish all that. But the world needs for us to keep their hands off The Bomb.)
Keillor concludes: “America is still the land where the waitress’s kids can grow up to become physicists and novelists and pediatricians, but it helps a lot if the waitress and her husband encourage good habits and the ambition to use your God-given talents and the kids aren’t plugged into electronics day and night. Whooping it up for the candidate of cruelty and ignorance does less than nothing for your kids.”
Oh, but is this anything new? Indeed, one can feel for the rural(ish) trauma that happens every June, when the local High School -- center of all life in most towns -- holds graduation. The teens who are the pride of their community hug and cry... whereupon the best and brightest then streak out of town as fast as their legs can carry them, heading toward city lights and university strongholds of The Enemy. That implicit rebuke happens every single year and it must wear on the souls of those who stay behind, who thereupon create a mythology of the city-as-Mordor. A cesspit of iniquity, lacking all the wholesomeness of small town America...
...despite the real truth about which America has higher rates of teen sex, teen pregnancy, domestic violence, divorce, STDs, unwed mothers, dropouts... and if you leave out a few truly dismal cities, higher crime rates.
No. There must be real outreach! And hence, I'll soon expand upon my suggestion that the Dems recruit several hundred retired colonels and Navy captains to run in every GOP gerrymandered "safe" district down to the state assembly level. (Watch how many more members of the awesomely mature and responsible US military officer corps retire, during the Trump years.)
That is how to "reach out" to those aging, bitter, non-college white male boomers. Not by emulating Foxite pandering, but by sending them folks they will respect enough to listen-to.
Send them adults.
No. There must be real outreach! And hence, I'll soon expand upon my suggestion that the Dems recruit several hundred retired colonels and Navy captains to run in every GOP gerrymandered "safe" district down to the state assembly level. (Watch how many more members of the awesomely mature and responsible US military officer corps retire, during the Trump years.)
That is how to "reach out" to those aging, bitter, non-college white male boomers. Not by emulating Foxite pandering, but by sending them folks they will respect enough to listen-to.
Send them adults.