November 7, 2018--The Economy, Stupid

Briefly since I was up all night listening to the election results--

First, I did pretty well with my predictions. 

Beto O'Rourke did lose by about three points (which for a Democrat in Texas is remarkable) and one would think that would end any talk about his president possibilities in two years, but last night on MSNBC there was chat about his running and in this morning's New York Times speculation about his potential candidacy.

Then, by far the biggest headline from the evening's results was the Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives. By a somewhat bigger margin than predicted by most. Adam Schiff, who will become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, essentially announced that in January there will be wide-ranging investigations of Trump and his minions, including demands that they have access to his tax returns. 

The takeover of the House by Democrats will also assure that Mueller's eventual report will see the light of day. Even if Trump fires everyone associated with the investigation Schiff and his colleagues will have the power to subpoena it and make it public. 

And, one bonus from Schiff's ascension, is that we won't have to pay attention anymore to the departing chairman, Trump funky Devin Nunes.

On the Democratic side there did not appear to be any stars waiting for 2020 to be born. Perhaps Gavin Newsome, who will become California's governor might turn out to be credible. I know nothing about him (all talk about California presidential candidates have thus far centered around Senator Kamala Harris), but as my father would point out if he were still around--he has "presidential hair."

Finally (and then back to bed) though James Carville's insight when it comes to national elections is that it's always the economy, stupid, that was not true last night. It was about healthcare, healthcare, healthcare and immigration, immigration, immigration. And, yes, concern about Trump's abhorrent behavior. A full 30 percent said to vote against him was a major reason why they turned out.

Thinking about going forward, it will be important to see how many white women and young people voted, for whom, and by what numbers. Because by 10:00 am today the 2020 election moves to center stage.

January 4, 2017--It's Culture, Stupid

Some friends have poked me for not continuing to write about why Hillary Clinton lost the election and what that might say more generally about the long-term prospects of the Democratic Party.

It is not that I have lost interest in the subject, just that I needed a break from that depressing subject.

All the while, during that break, friends continued to attack the Trump presidency even before it commences. There is a lot to be depressed about, friends say, and I half agree.

To prove their point about how dire and scary things are, they tell me how Steve Bannon is hovering and as Trump sinks further into Alzheimer's (some very smart people I know have come to that diagnosis to explain his contradictory behavior) Bannon is itching to "run the show." Sort of like Edith Wilson, after her husband Woodrow had a debilitating stroke, in charge of things during the final years of his presidency. But of course times were simpler then and much less dangerous. North Korea, for example, did not have a nuclear arsenal and a certifiably unstable Supreme Leader threatening to unleash it.

So here goes--one more attempt to explain what happened in the last election and why Clinton and other Democrats were overwhelmed. Yes, I know she won the popular vote by a wide margin, but still Trump will be the one inaugurated in two weeks.

The excuse-makers continue to point to FBI director Comey's two letters about Hillary's emails and more ominously, the effects of the Russians hacking Democratic National Committee's emails.

Neither helped, but even if that hadn't happened Hillary still would have lost in the Electoral College.

Less conspiratorial-minded progressive analysts have come to conclude, as James Carville quotably did during the 1992 election that, "It's the economy, stupid."

Under ordinary circumstances, national elections are about the economy. Particularly how people view their own economic circumstances. This time around, to the struggling majority, things did not look so good.

But as I try to understand what happened, as powerful as economic issues were and continue to be, the reason Democrats have fared so poorly since 1980 when the Reagan era commenced is that more than the economy It's about culture, stupid.

Yes there were eight years of Clinton's presidency and another eight with Barack Obama in the White House, but that masked the political churning going on at the same time below the surface at the state and congressional levels where election-by-election Republicans won more-and-more governorships, congressional seats, and pulled off an astonishing gain of 900 local legislative seats. The latter, all during Obama's time in office.

By culture I am not thinking now about the Culture Wars that have been simmering and at times raging since at least Reagan times. Combatants fought about flag burning, prayer in school, creationism in the curriculum, same-sex marriage, abortion, bias in the media, climate change, science itself.

At the moment, many of these battles have been muted and a few even resolved. Same-sex marriage is now constitutionally protected with an astonishing 70 percent of Americans believing people should be able to marry who they love. And those who want their children to pray in school either have enrolled them in religious institutions or are homeschooling them.

This is not so say that what has divided us in this war has either gone away or been abandoned. I am suggesting that the worst of it may be over and yet a cultural divide continues to exist, even widen. I see this to be a cultural alienation that derives from socioeconomic and geographic causes.

To use Carville's rubric again, "It's the elites, stupid."

In this view, the heart of the cultural problem it's how the professional class, made up mainly of affluent progressives and Democrats, has distanced itself from any empathetic contact with struggling, less educated, less successful working people, except when they encounter them as patients, viewers, readers, clients, constituents, customers, recruits, students, or miscreants. And how it is primarily through these encounters that the liberal elites communicate their disdain for the needs and what they see to be in the supposed best interests of those beneath them on the meritocratic scale.

It is at these times when we professionals say or imply that, "We know better than you what's good for you."

This ranges from claiming to know what your children should learn (Common Core), how you are to receive health care (Obamacare), how you should gather the news (CNN and New York Times), what sports teams to root for (Yankees and Steelers), how much you should weigh, even what you should eat (anything that includes kale).

In all of this, too many professionals evince a form of moral superiority that "average" people feel as criticism and even condemnation.

This election cycle they finally said, ENOUGH. You're not going to tell us who to vote for. In fact, to assert that we will not be politically intimidated, we're going to vote for and elect, from your smug point of view, the most preposterous orange-faced candidate ever. And in this, rather than being offended by his vulgarity and sexism, they flung it back at us as if to assert their own imperviousness, basking reciprocally in his politically incorrect "inappropriateness."

It was a year of in-your-face and f-you.

As evidence of how culture of this kind is playing itself out politically, look at the map of where Duck Dynasty is viewers' favorite TV show.

                                      

It is also a map of Donald Trump's America.

And, as with Duck Dynasty itself, watching it, embracing it and its values is one more way ignored Americas are expressing their anger, culture, and power.

F-us indeed.

April 21, 2016--Headline: TRUMP TAKES 60.5% OF REPUBLICAN VOTE IN NEW YORK

The real headline should have been--

TRUMP TAKES 57% OF FEMALE VOTE AND 54% OF COLLEGE-EDUCATED VOTE

More than anything else, these percentages have befuddled print and digital media pundits. They do not fit the conventional narrative.

Until the New York votes were tallied, the story has been that college-educated voters do not vote for Trump and, even more starkly, only a quarter or so of Trump supporters are women.

Democrats, liberals have been not-so-secretly thrilled about this. If only Trump can hang in there and win the nomination, turning off well-educated and women voters will guarantee that Hillary will win in a landslide.

Not so fast.

As the New York numbers may portend, it could be that a "presidential" Trump has more appeal among the college-educated and women than generally assumed. If so, this makes him a potential winner in November. Even against Hillary Clinton.

How could that possibly be? Are the New York numbers an aberration, perhaps attributable to the fact that Trump is a real New Yorker and that trumps everything else?

We may be chauvinistic in New York (Trump appeared at his rally last night to the strains of Frank Sinatra's swaggering, "New York, New York"), but we're not stupid.

Finally getting a chance to vote in a primary that has real meaning (the nomination process is usually pretty much over when it gets to be New York's turn) focused voters' attention and I suspect registered Republicans took their choice-making very seriously.

So the question remains--why did Trump do so well among women and the college-educated?

To my female and male feminist friends who are supporting Clinton primality because she is a woman (still an insufficient reason to me) or because she is "good" on women's issues such as equal pay, parenting leave, and the right to choose (all critical issues to me as well), for many non-feminst women (and there are millions of them) Trump is a better choice because he for them is on the right side of the issues that count most for them--mainly economic and national security issues.

Exit polls indicated that Trump's female voters care more about who they feel is best able to keep the country safe from terrorist attacks than who will fight harder to achieve pay equity. They care more about the security of their jobs and their capacity to make enough money to support families and themselves than about keeping abortions legal. They care more about how their children will fare in college and their viability as the nature of the American economy continues to morph into something unrecognizable than about securing paid leave for childcare.

Not that these are unimportant issues--women (and men) can support the right to choose but still vote for someone who wants to limit or even end it because they are not litmus-test voters. For them it appears what James Carville said back in 1992--"It's the economy stupid"--is still the most potent impulse.

And, understandable.

This, then, may be at the heart of Trump's appeal and staying power.

August 27, 2015--TRUMP: Swimsuit Competition

Barack Obama's former senior political advisor, the savvy David Axelrod, posted a clever Tweet on Tuesday.

Attempting to sum up the TRUMP phenomenon, especially TRUMP's continued surge in national and local polls, knowing that The Donald has owned the Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants, Axelord said--

"In a parlance Trump would appreciate: We're still in the swimsuit competition. It gets harder in the talent rounds."

Now, I don't know if TRUMP knows how to play the harmonica or can pull off a hula hoop routine, but so far he is looking good and I think will continue to widen his lead over all the other candidates because his talent may be the swimsuit competition.

Not talent of the sort traditional political strategists such as Axelrod respect and feel is essential to a candidate who wants to be taken seriously as a potential commander in chief.

Ditto for James Carville and Mary Matalin. On Morning Joe yesterday, when asked why TRUMP is doing so well they both in effect agreed with Axelrod--TRUMP's electoral balloon will burst soon because of his lack of substance. They both said that once the public begins to pay attention they will want to know his specific policies about the Middle East, strengthening the US economy, fixing the education system, balancing the budget. His shtick will wear thin, they say, and the public will discover that the emperor has no hair.

Or, if you will, there's no there there. Or that there's sizzle but no beef.

They failed to note that the public they claim is not yet paying attention to the campaign is turning out in droves for his appearances and the largest TV audience in history, 24 million, tuned in to the first Republican debate. Four years ago, the initial GOP debate was watched by 3.2 million. Eight times fewer.

The next thing we'll hear from old-school political analysts is that these numbers have little to do with TRUMP but reflect voters' deep interest in Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

Oh really?

They don't get the fact that in addition to liking TRUMP's tell-it-like-it-is style (a quality that huge numbers of potential voters like to think they have), his can-do enthusiasm and optimism (Make America Great Again! is his campaign slogan), and his track record as a business man, a large part of TRUMP's appeal is that he seems to have just stepped out of a reality show.

In fact he did.

But beyond starring in The Apprentice for 11 years, he and his glittering family share many characteristics of the Kardashians. They are beautiful, smart, successful, comfortable with themselves, exhibitionistic, quirky, titillating, and intriguing in a Modern Family sort of way.

If you doubt this, wait until bionic wife Melania, extraterrestrial-looking daughter Ivanka, his three perfect boys, his second Daughter Tiffany (named after the store), and I suspect his previous two wives, Ivana and Marla Maples join him on the campaign trail. There hasn't been as glamorous a political family since the Kennedys.

This mix is very powerful political medicine in our celebrity-sodden culture.

Melania Trump