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| Trump Triumphed Due to Downward Mobility |
| 2016-03-02 |
| ...For the past six months my Republican friends and I have watched Donald Trump’s ascendancy and asked ourselves whether the voters had gone crazy. The voters aren’t crazy. We in the Republican elite were crazy: we thought we could allow the American economy to remain a rigged game indefinitely. The voters think otherwise. That’s why Trump is winning. That’s also why Bernie Sanders, the least likely presidential candidate in living memory, gave Hillary Clinton a run for her money. If you don't give people capitalism, the late Jude Wanniski used to say, they'll take socialism. ...Upward mobility is America’s gauge of well-being. It’s not the decline of median family income that gets under Americans’ skin, but the perception that the elites have pulled the ladder up behind them. During the quarter-century after Ronald Reagan's inauguration, it was only a slight exaggeration to say that someone in every family got rich. They bought a cable television franchise, started a website, got some stock in a high-flying tech company, flipped real estate, or ran a small business that became a big business. Inequality didn’t bother Americans as long as they had a chance at a winning ticket--not necessarily a fair chance, but at least the kind of chance that paid off occasionally for ordinary people. As long they could see that people like them were becoming rich, they kept playing the game. ...In 2008, the door shut on middle-class aspirations with a giant crash. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #11 88 maybe. It was always disturbing to me that Bush Senior and Bubba became friends. And it really was in the late eighties that I starting noticing plastic crap from China. I remember wondering during the first Gulf War what difference it made to us if Saddam overran Kuwait. Which regime was more oppressive, the Kuwaiti royal family or Saddam and why do we care as long as we can buy the oil? Our government keeps meddling over there and things keep getting worse. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2016-03-02 18:04 |
| #10 Maybe that's what they want. EU you're on the right path there. They are all on the same team. I'd put the rot a trifle earlier, with GHWB and his lies. Then Clinton did as you said. GWB noticed a few of the problems but wouldn't really fight the system about them. I won't bash him for the fact of Iraq. Given 9/11 it was really necessary....but the implementation??? The path has been all downhill since '88. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2016-03-02 17:33 |
| #9 I believe the seeds of our discontent were planted by Clinton. People might think the economy was humming back then but some structural problems were being put into place by Clinton. The Community Reinvestment Act, the failure to secure the border and the failure to respond to bin Laden or Saddam Hussein can all be laid at Bill Clinton's feet. Then there was NAFTA and that's when we started noticing that almost everything we found in the stores was made in China. Bush used bin Laden as an excuse to invade Iraq on behalf of the Soddies but he did absolutely nothing about bin Laden, the CRA, China or the border. By 2008 it was ready to collapse on him and it did just that. People got wise to Bush which is why Jeb had to leave this year's campaign in such an ignominious manner. But they might not yet be wise to the Clintons. So if the Republican elites continue to undermine Trump they are quite likely to end up with another Clinton in the White House. Maybe that's what they want. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2016-03-02 16:44 |
| #8 What Sgt. Mom said. |
| Posted by: Sven the pelter 2016-03-02 15:26 |
| #7 I believe that cold simmering anger at what has been done to us over the last eight years or so has a lot to do with the popularity of Trump. The ordinary, rather conservative, flyover-country, working-class Americans are so pissed at the condescension, snobbery and outright sabotage that the bi-coastal elites, to include the media and that Angelo Codevilla calls the "Ruling Class" that they will vote for anyone who appears to be frightening the heck out of that particular class. Trump has the mainstream media and the Establishment GOP baffled and frightened. That's a nice change from eight years and more of being a punching bag for the bi-coastal elites. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2016-03-02 15:08 |
| #6 Pappy, you're correct in your recognition of Reynolds' law. That kind of falls into my second theme about the destruction of individuality in the economy. The salient bit is the Marxist "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". Let's all worry about equality of outcome rather than opportunity. Can't have that nasty individualism round here. Direct from the father of Fascism; the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, Anyone else see the rise of Il Duce 2 as the goal of the progressives? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2016-03-02 15:01 |
| #5 What I think is happening, for what its worth... The left has gone to far left from the union workers and blue dog democrats. These folks can't stomach most Republicans after years of programming but Trump comes off as acceptable. I base this on the reports I've read recently of (a) Trump winning in open primaries but losing in closed primaries (b) Record low Democrat turnout plus really high Republican turnout. That combined with the Evangelicals going for Trump explain the bulk of his numbers. Going into the future we should see more closed primaries so the theory will be easily tested in time. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2016-03-02 14:41 |
| #4 I'd add: 3) The attempt to by the leftward end of the political spectrum to hothouse-grow the middle class. Hence the mandate for sub-prime loans and educational loans, among other things. Mr. Goldman briefly alludes to the former. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2016-03-02 13:55 |
| #3 There are several reasons for what is happening now. I met David Goldman, aka Spengler, last May. He's a really sharp guy with an interesting history and outlook on education. My one surprise in this article is his admission that the elite, including himself, didn't get it at first. It's been obvious to most of us 'burgers and followers of Insty for a long time that the major factors of unrest are as he noted. 1)The ramming down our throats of the whole Nanny State PC agenda; 2)The destruction of the individualistic structure of the economy. It's always been true that polls show that plebs don't vote for "ruin the rich" agenda because they picture themselves as moving "uptown". Now that that is no longer in play (see article) ruining the rich, especially the political elites is very attractive. Basically all the individual issues play into these two major themes. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2016-03-02 13:15 |
| #2 I would say the crash started with the internet bubble popping at the end of Clinton's term followed by Sept 11 which prevented the recovery. George W. Bush's recovery was tepid and ended with the 2008 crash that Obama exploited. People have gone from the economic WOW years of the 90s to a decade and a half of laying low for fear of layoffs and working class folks are sick of it. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2016-03-02 12:04 |
| #1 Many do not realize it but we are witnessing the transformation of the Republican Party that began with the autochthonous Tea Party movement. There is no turning back. The King is dead. Long live the King. |
| Posted by: Bugs Unaviper5548 2016-03-02 11:49 |