Have you ever heard of Richard Vander Veen? He’s the only Democrat since 1912 to win a seat in Congress in a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based district. He won a special election in February 1974 and then won again that November earning a full two year term. Why did he succeed where every Democrat before him and since has failed?
Well, that’s interesting.
The special election was called because Rep. Gerald Ford had been chosen to replace Spiro Agnew as the Vice-President of the United States. By February 1974, the Watergate scandal was pretty advanced and the end game was within sight. Nixon only held on until early August before he felt compelled to resign.
Locally, Gerald Ford was immensely popular. Today, the airport is named after him. So, Vander Veen really didn’t run against his opponent at all. Instead, he promised to hold Nixon accountable and make Ford the president. Holding Nixon accountable may have had some appeal to the constituents of Michigan’s 5th District, but making Ford president had a lot of appeal. His strategy worked, and when he faced the voters again in November he could point to President Ford to argue that he’d made good on his campaign promise.
Unfortunately, for Vander Veen, when he faced the electorate again in November 1976, he had to face a ticket headed by Ford. And that was the end of his short political career.
In the greater picture, western Michigan was and still is Republican territory with perhaps more churches per capita than anyplace else in the country. The Democrats had discovered a clever way to steal a seat there for a brief period, but they hadn’t found anything that would alter their position as a permanent minority party in the region.
I have a feature article in the upcoming issue of the Washington Monthly on how Democrats can improve their performance in places like Grand Rapids without compromising on their principles, and it doesn’t involve talking about how horrible Donald Trump is doing as our president. However, that doesn’t mean that talking about Trump can’t be an effective way of winning in 2018. It may help the party win seats that they wouldn’t win at any other time in a hundred years.
The problem is that having success that way can give the Democrats a false sense that they’ve solved a problem that hasn’t really disappeared. And when they face the voters again in 2020 (and let’s face it, Trump won’t be heading the Republican ticket then), the Democrats who won in red districts in 2018 will lose.
More importantly, the Democratic presidential candidate will have to do better in 2020 in these areas than Clinton did in 2016 or the results will be the same. So, it’s true, the Democrats have to take strategy seriously, and while it would be malpractice to fail to exploit Trump’s weakness, it can come with an opportunity cost.
“We need these folks up here dealing with all the investigations and all that stuff. It’s important,” Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia said during a visit to the capital on Tuesday. “But to think they’re going to drive an economic message with this blazing inferno going on today is just not realistic.”
Mr. McAuliffe was in town for a daylong “ideas conference” sponsored by the liberal research group Center for American Progress. The event was designed to showcase the next-generation leadership of the party and highlight an agenda that Democrats can run on next year.
But the gathering mostly revealed how difficult it still is for progressives to present their message while Mr. Trump is grabbing new headlines by the hour.
A raft of potential 2020 presidential candidates showed up, each armed with a policy theme in the hope of standing out. Senator Kamala Harris of California had prepared a speech on criminal justice and drug policy, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York came ready to discuss family leave law and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts brought proposals about how to combat the scourge of “concentrated money and concentrated power.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the one singing from my hymnal, along with Tom Perriello who is fighting in a Democratic primary to earn the right to run as Terry McAuliffe’s replacement as governor of Virginia. It’s important the Democrats win upcoming elections, but it’s also important how they win and what they learn from those wins.
Richard Vander Veen was clever and a strategic mastermind, but we don’t remember him today because the overall trend was from Watergate to the conservative conquest of the Republican Party and the beginning of the Reagan Era. The country has been aligning away from the Democrats in rural and Rust Belt America, and if that process isn’t stopped and reversed, any short term gains will come with potential dangers that provide the illusion of progress. Vander Veen won in a Republican district but the district and the region remained Republican. We don’t want to look back and say the same thing about Jon Ossoff or Rob Quist or a dozen or more others like them who have upset wins in 2018.
Once again, the age divide shows up:
Sorry oldsters, you guys should just step down and stop making the incorrect choices. I hope the youngs turn out for Perriello.
Blue Virginia: WaPo poll has Perriello 40, Northam 38
Not much talk about that split, and how enduring it was in the primaries. We lost support among younger voters in critical states quite badly in the general, and Sanders carried it 80-20 in the primaries.
Maybe the marginal vote to win back isn’t the WWC, it’s among younger voters who left.
In general white progressives have struggled with the African American vote in primaries. This goes as far back as McCarthy and McGovern, but the same thing shows up in the races Teachout has run in New York. Sanders split among younger African Americans in some of the later primaries, but got killed in earlier primaries.
So can Perriello win the young African American vote? Put another way, are progressives breaking through among younger POC? Or put another way is there really that much of a difference between messages that work with young voters irregardless of color?
Because in polling the young absolutely hate Donald Trump.
Perriello leads in this poll among AA’s specifically and non-whites generally. Smaller sample size tho. I think it’ll come down to can he get young people out. If he can, he wins.
One thing you may resist but should come to understand is that Perriello’s message and Warren’s message and my message are completely distinct from Sanders’ campaign message.
It’s not quite anti-Sanders, but it can be considered that way because we’re taking a completely different angle. Our message is resisted by progressives in the comments here because their opinion of our intended audience is that they’re morons, bigots, and unwelcome.
They understand nothing, disagree about what they do understand, and can’t be reached and should never be pandered to.
There are a few who think Sanders-like populism will sway them, but we don’t think that. We think a different kind of populism will sway them, and one that is not about taking away what other people have and more about giving people a real chance to compete again.
I’ve expressed my doubts, know let me express my hope that once again I’m full of shit and am usually wrong in pretty much all my predictions. I’m willing to change if I can see a purpose to the change.
Color me skeptical A ‘real chance to compete again’ is not what those voters want, at least the male-WWC component of those those voters.
That’s what they’ll say. They want to return to a place where they don’t have to compete at all. They want to know the fix is in for them.
A world where you get your job because you’ve got friends who can pull you into the lifeboat, and hammer with an oar on the knuckles of anyone else who grabs onto a gunwhale.
Where school quality and educational opportunity is tied to real estate, and the real estate is solidly red-lined.
A place like Troy, New York, except with the mills open. Or Lewiston/Auburn. Or Altoona.
Eds-and-meds economies are too competitive, too tilted towards credentials, and too permeable.
I don’t remember Obama campaigning on the knuckle-smashing platform, but okay.
People will do strange and untoward things when U6 is at 14% and headed for 18%, or when the monthly jobs figure is negative 700,000 jobs.
They’ll even vote for the colored guy. Desperate times, desperate measures.
I think what people miss is that at the time Obama WAS the outsider. The guy most likely to ‘shake things up’.
Less true about Romney. By the Obama was the insider. But Romney did not make overt racial appeals…..did not hate the right people. Or hate anybody, for that matter.
Plus he was a Mormon. I don’t care what anybody says, or what charts they pull up….that mattered.
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“They understand nothing, disagree about what they do understand, and can’t be reached and should never be pandered to”.
I think this is about as succinct as it can be put! Yes, I do believe that about Republicans. And I KNOW that is true about the ones I know. Trump just solidified this…because anybody that voted for Trump, or voted third party in anything but a true blue state…is just plain stupid. And you can’t fix stupid. Now, you might be able to appeal to it, and get that vote temporarily, like your example in the original diary. But then another Trump will come along and off the stupid go…following their Pied Piper into the cave.
The only way to win their district is to be just like them. I’m fine with that.
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you should definitely apply for a passport and maybe citizenship in New Zealand. Because if you’re right, it’s all over for us and for America.
::SIGH::
See, this is where I fail. Bigly. My poor writing makes it seem like I don’t have faith in our future. Or maybe a better word is optimism.
But to me, I am far more optimistic than many….and I include you in that.
In the end Trump will fail. The Republicans will fail. The old people will die. The young will be better than expected.
I read an article today (sorry, I won’t look for the link) that said 17% of all marriages in America are mixed, and 40 years ago it was 3%.
Trump won because he hated the same people the voters hated. But mainly the person they hated was Clinton. And mainly that was because they are not smart people, and fell for all those years of propaganda (frankly, that includes many commenters here). Still, even with that, she did get a majority.
The worm will turn back, because King was right..
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
I REALLY believe that. I KNOW that is true. That quote rings inside of me.
So…..
Even stupid people want justice…and they know what an injustice looks like when done to others. And even stupid people try to do the right thing.
This is different than pandering. It’s different than seeking some economic ‘hook’.
Obama won twice because he appealed to the better nature of people. On a very basic level people knew he was ‘good’. Probably the best, character wise, that we will get for a long time.
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I have heard Warren speak about 5 times in the last 9 months. There isn’t much difference I hear from Sanders.
Single Payer. Free College. A $15 dollar minimum wage. Break up the banks.
I heard Elizabeth Warren support all of those things in a speech she gave the Weekend before the election.
“and one that is not about taking away what other people have and more about giving people a real chance to compete again. “
In this you channel Charles Peters.
It’s is the same thing Gary Hart said in ’94, and Clinton said in ’92.
It meant something then. Now it is ignorant of the larger economic forces that are shaping the modern world.
Returning even a small bit of the way to tax fairness involves “taking away what other people
havesteal”. The 1% has been buying themselves an ever-increasing share of the economic pie for decades, excluding the Democratic interregnum of 2008-2010. Not only is ~30% of the current expansion of economic inequality a direct result of changing tax-and-transfer policy, many economists believe the second order effects are even larger, such that more than half of the growth in inequality in the US can be attributed directly to the shifting tax burden. Add in the role of automation transferring profit from labor to capital and you have an absolute necessity to “take away what other people have” in order to avoid oligarchy and collapse.Ya, ya, ya,
But needs more ‘Both sides do it, but Democrats are more neoliberal!”.
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If you think you have a fix for this, I am all ears.
I don’t think you have close to one.
In truth, I am not sure anyone does.
The closest thing I have read that makes sense is from Hacker on predistribution. I think he is right for the most part, but I am skeptical there is a way to actually implement what he seeks.
In brief:
http://www.policy-network.net/pno_detail.aspx?ID=3998&title=The+institutional+foundations+of+mid
dle-class+democracy
I also do not see exactly how he gets us from here to there. But I was interested in the comment you reference concerning the backlash from redistribution. I think this is important. Just now there is a backlash against Obamacare. Why not? The law extracts special taxes from the wealthy to fund health care for others. I wonder how much backlash there would be if there were no special taxes like the 3.8% on investment earnings or the .9% medicare tax on higher incomes. Some wealthy people could pay half a million extra tax every year. Is it any wonder they want it repealed? That is meddling in free market forces, amirite?
This is why the Republicans are having and have been having such a terrible time repealing Obamacare. Rhetorically they attack it from the left as being too stingy. As a matter of policy they are trying to undermine it from the right, by reducing access, coverage and support. But they can’t run on “Fuck your cancer, I need that second gold-plated yacht”. Providing health insurance via taxing super-rich people is popular across the political spectrum. So they lie. And when they go to implement the exact opposite policy that they ran on they have no idea how to manage the blowback.
No doubt. But they are coming after it to reduce their taxes. And they have a good chance to do it. They couldn’t care less about someone’s cancer but taxes they care about. My point is only that when you separate out a special class and make them pay for it, there will be blowback. This tax is on those making over some amount.
Yes, but you have to separate out special classes to tax both because you can’t get money from those who don’t have money (blood from a stone and all), and because a Flat Tax is Trump-grade stupid!
Yes, we need another discussion. But take the earned income tax credit. That benefits low income people making their taxes low or none. Not only that. Those people pay no tax to hear some talk. They forget about payroll taxes like Romney and others did. Now just maybe if inequality were reduced, say by a higher minimum wage or policies that help ensure a fairer distribution. Then we might tax everyone using the progressive income tax. It is my view that when you set it out on one specific program you ask some to attack it. Of course any republican government is going to come after taxes, but this is a nice oyster waiting to be taken.
Broad changes in labor laws would allow workers in the growing sectors of the economy to gain access to Unions. The employers engage in massive collective bargaining while smashing the ability of their workers to do the same. That would help quite a bit.
There is no such thing as a “low wage job”. Propaganda has made Americans believe there is. There are jobs which deserve higher compensation and jobs which deserve lower compensation, but almost no job has to be a poverty-wage-with-no-bennies job.
This formula needs something more, You say it is not about taking away what other people have. Obamacare takes away from those with higher incomes (a mistake in my view in making special taxes). And there is rather severe inequality today and it is increasing. Productivity gains are going to the top and will make it worse and create an ever increasing WWC. And if there is ever going to be single payer or ” free” education someone is going to have to pay for it. Taxes are the only way to do that. I am skeptical about creating another entrepreneurial class out of anti business monopoly rhetoric. I don’t doubt it can help, but who exactly is the message going to? Not working class people.
People want to have the dignity of work and an income to support their families. Whatever does this “real chance to compete” mean except that we still want to have winners and losers, but we don’t want the cheaters to have their ill-gotten gains taken away.
What we have here is forcing the real world to obey some Econ 101 notion of competition in which the “wisdom of the market” decides who gets what, how much, where, when, and why. “The market” is a reification of the aggregate actions of employers in an increasingly concentrated and monopsonistic labor market with arcane rules of “human resources”, informal networks of job access, and arbitrary definitions of jobs. Failure to negotiate this maze means homelessness and starvation. Or living in the informal economy. (How big is that today? Just estimate the illegal drug trade alone?)
Abstract economic rules are affecting real human beings.
I’m clear why the professional class is not interested in redistribution of income; they stole it fair and square. Why shouldn’t they get as rich as they can off the misery of others? It is no accident that most physicians in Congress are medical specialists and very conservative Republicans. They graduated from med school with the attitude that an M.D. and a specialty is a license to print money. The same is true of others in the top 10%. The backlash there protects the 1% from change even when they are sinking their own ship.
How are you going to pay for it? Are you going to implement the insights of modern monetary theory and use the printing press to manage unemployment and the power of taxation to manage inflation?
It seemed that the New Deal and its tax policies worked, even to enrich the rich. But that is now too confiscatory for Democrats.
How are you ever going to pay off that $19 trillion that is mostly the consequence of 70 years of war without end and tax cuts for the rich?
The new Democratic progressivism seems like the old Democratic Leadership Conference.
There is a war already between the people who control money and the people who work for them. They are winning and will likely destroy the demand for the products that are the golden goose. Broke people, for example, can’t go to casinos.
no way around it: we NEED those cracker ass crackers.
I don’t understand. First we have to win the specials then the general elections. That makes sense. We do this by taking advantage of a general feeling of malaise and repulsion on the right. But we can’t do more than that unless we cater (in some real sense) to the exact people who hate our guts. That doesn’t make sense.
Booman, you’ve been talking a lot about messaging to these people. How? These are people who say “I choose to not listen”. These are people convinced that New York’s minimum wage was raised by Trump. They are convinced that Obama had more scandals than Trump.
In order to get someone to change their vote, you have to be able to get them to listen. How are you going to get these guys to listen?
I await with bated breath something a bit more action oriented than “we can’t let this become institutionalized in these areas”.
It misses on how Trump became President,
‘He hates the same people I hate, give me the damn ballot’.
How do you appeal to them? One thing I know…telling them shopping at Home Depot, WalMart, and CostCo is bad for them is not going to do it!
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This is what makes my job hard, but that’s okay. I know it’s hard.
You have to look at things from a different perspective and it’s not an easy perspective.
Take some random county where Obama got about 50% of the vote in 2008 and about, say 43% of the vote in 2012.
Okay?
Is this county filled with deplorables?
But now what if I tell you that it only gave Clinton 20% of the vote?
What do you say about these people then?
Okay, but let’s not talk about all of the people in this county. Let’s only focus on the people who voted for Obama once if not twice.
We primarily care about this universe of voters. By definition, they have voted for a Democrat in the recent past, including a black president.
So, admitting that times and sentiments change, a lot of these voters are open to voting for a Democrat again.
I don’t think that most or even many of them are in the category that you and the other commenter describe of being 100% in Trump’s corner, and there much less likely to be in the corner of a traditional Republican like McCain or Romney since they didn’t vote for them.
That’s the starting point. Don’t write off everyone who voted for Trump as a hopeless case.
The next point is to realize that Obama won rather easily two times and he didn’t carry a majority in this county either time. Dems don’t need to win or even break even in this county. But they can’t get 20%.
They have to do substantially better than that.
So, now that we understand that we can get some of these voters and we don’t need all that many of them, you can begin judging messages more appropriately. The messages have to work on a segment of this electorate, not all of them.
Now, if the message is “don’t shop at Wal*Mart” then that’s not likely to work on enough people and may even backfire.
So, stop characterizing an anti-monopoly populist economic message as telling people what they can’t or shouldn’t do. The message is that economic concentration and consolidation has stripped their communities of jobs and entrepreneurial opportunity and autonomy and dignity. They can be great again, and their kids can have opportunities not just to get jobs but to be employers.
That’s where we appeal to their nostalgia, their hope, their desire for dignity, there hope that their kids will do better than they have, that their kids won’t leave them for the big city. All of it.
It’s relevant to their lives. It’s what they need and deserve.
Only commenter talking sense these days. Thanks.
You make the mistake of assuming I don’t get what your message is. I do! And I agree that monopolies have destroyed what I will call, for the lack of a better term, certain cultures.
But you need to boil that message down to its final brûlée, because that is exactly what your political opponents will do. And boiled down it will be…..’The liberals are trying to tell you where to shop!’
It seems to me you have no idea, no idea at all, how destructive that will be. Shit…it would work with me! It HAS worked with me! Because every single time you write about it, even as you try mightily to beat around the bush, I think,
‘Jesus, this guy is talking about running Home Depot out of business! Has he NEVER been to Home Depot? WalMart? CostCo? Lowes?’
There is a reason Home Depot dominates. It’s efficient as hell.
I could go on and on, from ideas from commenters that you can appeal to the white working class with anti American bullshit, or by throwing people of color in a ditch, or, in your case, by picking on how they have chosen to shop. But I know very well I will never win a battle of words with an expert wordsmith.
All I can say….your message has merit, your effort has my respect…but it will NOT resonate with those voters. These are people who absolutely believe an attempt to get them health care is a communist plot. Critizing their shopping habits is a loser.
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I have a feature in the upcoming WaMo issue, but I also have an interview with Perriello. And one thing he says is that he’s (paraphrasing) tired as fuck of listening to liberals make the argument you’re making.
He spends all day in southwest Virginia talking to Trump voters about monopoly and consolidation and automation on a very sophisticated and wonky level and then he goes to a fundraiser in the Northern suburbs in the evening and has to listen to rich liberals tell him how his message won’t resonate downstate.
We’ll keep trying to tell you. Maybe some of you will listen. Maybe you’ll be a believer when Perriello becomes the next governor with stronger support from downstate.
And I look forward to reading your article, like I always do.
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are right on that.
Okay. So they understand. That’s less than half the battle.
Will this understanding change their votes is the question?
History tells us, no it won’t.
The people in question either made an emotional decision, in which case we are screwed because it’s generally not possible to reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into; knew what was going on and decided to vote for the people who want to make this problem worse because they ranked other perceived problems above this problem, in which case we might stand a chance if we can convince them to reorder their priorities; or they made their decision because they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid to the point where they are just like the Republican base, in which case we are screwed because there is no known way of helping people that far off the reservation know as Objective Reality.
If you can think of any other reason they would make the choice they already made, I’d be glad to hear it. But your solution treats these people like their previous decisions will not affect their upcoming decisions.
Here’s the rub. Efficient at what?
There are enough people in distressed areas of the rural South and Appalachia who understand that these companies (and not just retailers) are fundamentally efficient at stripmining–customers, employees, communities, government. What they don’t understand yet and can’t imagine without corruption is government doing anything helpful about it. So they look for an alternative private enterprise angel.
But what they see are distracting shiny objects, which they fall for all over again. Because they are markets that political advertisers are trying to reach and hold in the “private enterprise” camp.
Good Lord.
They are efficient FOR the buyer. For me. I am more efficient when I go there.
Everything under one roof, everything on a shelf where I can reach it and put it in my cart. In and out in under 20 minutes if I know what I want…no matter what that is.
When I go there I am more efficient. I save time, I save effort.
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I’m with you but what are potential government solutions?
We enforce anti-monopoly laws (which I’m not convinced will apply) and break up all the big box stores and Amazon and other big online retailers.
Then what? Are there enough people left in these areas to support smaller businesses? Restaurants? Convenience stores? Hardware stores?
What if there’s not enough people, which is possible?
Not only people, but capital — enough of it, available at terms favorable to small businesses, and with borrowers who can qualify for such loans.
And consumers who’ll be able and willing to patronize such establishments despite the higher prices attendant on lack of bulk buying power and more limited selection of goods.
Also, how far down the chain of chains do we go? Is a TrueValue hardware chain to be broken up? It has over 6,000 stores worldwide but each one in the cooperative is individually owned and operated. An Aubuchon, which is a regional chain of about a hundred stores in the Northeast? Aubuchon Hardware is the oldest family-owned and managed hardware store chain in America — should they be broken up?
Or only national chains?
“Break up the monopolies!” is a fine rallying cry, but the devil, as always, is in the details.
this is a big promise and if we can’t deliver then we’ll be worse off than before
Sounds like a mixed message to me. You’re saying we have to stop the big corporations. You mean Walmart and Home Depot and Sam’s Club? Those are the guys who destroyed our communities? No? Then what are you saying exactly? I think it is dangerous. A republican can spin it. Maybe it is best we can do.
Allright. Fair enough. Stop characterizing anti-monopoly messages as where to shop. How? I’ve been racking my brains for 20 years to figure that out.
I’ve been an example by never (and I mean NEVER) patronizing WalMart. Home Depot gets my business because quite literally they’ve run the competition out of business for the most part. I don’t think I could buy a chainsaw from a “local” store. They are ALL chains.
I tell people that patronizing WalMart, NobleBooks, Shaws, PigglyWiggly and so forth is killing the local businesses that compete with them. The answer is ALWAYS “yeah, but its cheaper and easier. What you don’t like poor people???”.
What you said above is absolutely correct … and will probably work as well as a cement pirogue. I don’t think you can reach the current Trumpers in more than a bumper sticker. Their attention span is that short. The ones who voted for Trump and are no longer Trumpers? I don’t know. Maybe you can get those, but I won’t hold my breath.
One thing I don’t think is true is that most people shop at a place like Home Depot or Lowes because of price (please notice I did not mention WalMart). While I have not been to CostCo in years, it always seemed to me that their main way of saving customers money was offering in bulk…which does not really save money for most people.
Home Depot is successful because of convenience. Everything you need under one roof. Is that lumber cheaper than the lumber yard? (In my case that would be Dixieline) No. but lumber yards are horribly inconvenient. Anybody who has been to one knows what I am talking about. Everything under one roof, on shelves that you can help yourself. Yes, they drove the hardware stores out of business. As a person ‘in the business’ for 45+ years, and a person that LOVED hardware stores, that was not a bad thing. Those of us ‘in the business’ know one rule very well. One rule to guide us.
“Compete or die.”
So we watched as the stores that defined our lives went the way of the buggy whip because they could not compete. And could not compete in a way that made our lives easier.
I would never vote for any politician who told me, or even hinted at me, that this was ‘wrong’. Never.
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Urbanization, specifically suburban and exurban sprawl is what made the all-under-one-roof superstores more convenient. They were located closer to customers because there were enough customers to local closer to. My home town of 29,000 in the 1950s then had a couple of lumber yards and a dozen hardware store and ample onstreet parking. Now that it has a population of 100,000 within essentially the same city limits and is in a county of 300,000, the congested traffic advantages the locations where the big box stores, including hardware/lumber/appliance/garden stores.
And the offloading of service functions onto the customer enables its to happen. A big box store runs on about the same number of employees as a large local store did but has 10 or more times the dollar volume of business (adjusted for inflation).
Efficiency and convenience lead to large-scale unemployment without subsidized jobs to do necessary but not marketable things.
No.
No big box has the same amount of employees as a hardware store. Or even a lumber yard.
They have hundreds of employees. Hundreds. At least 40 are under the roof at any one time.
It makes me think you have never been inside one.
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You’re being disingenuous.
First of all, this is about destroying the entrepreneurial class almost completely in communities all over the country. So, it’s not just about jobs. It’s about ordinary people running businesses vs. working for remotely owned mega-corporations.
Secondly, the Wal-Mart doesn’t replace just the local grocer, but the local children’s clothes shop, the locally owned pharmacy, the electronics store, the shoe shop, the toy store, the hobby shop, maybe even the gas station or the auto supply store.
Home Depot is less broad but as thoroughly destructive in its own sphere.
You don’t count just the number of employees at one hardware store. The have to count even the realtor that focuses on businesses, the small bank that used to make business loans, the folks who serviced those businesses with signs, windows, and office equipment, locks, paint, trash removal and security.
It’s just a massive wipeout of jobs.
And then there’s the loss of dignity and opportunity, as well as downward pressure on wages.
People do understand most of this, believe it or not, because they’ve been living with it much more than the folks in Blue America.
I’m not the one that brought up jobs. I’m not the one who posted a disingenuous comment about the jobs. I responded with a fact. Home Depot (any big box) employs hundreds of people, far more than any particular local shop. Yes, of course they don’t run out one particular shop…they ruin dozens…which makes up the jobs deficit.
I am not..and have not…made that argument! So who here is being disingenuous?
My whole argument/discussion is based on how a big box benefits ME, the consumer. It benefits me (I really only go to one big box…Home Depot) by making me more efficientt. That is a fact…it’s inarguable.
So…if you want to convince me that big box is ‘wrong’, you have to address, and give me something equitable, to this efficiency.
You you calling me disingenuous, and helping a truly disingenuous comment, does not show me you can.
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I know what you are saying, Nalbar. I also know what Booman is saying. The difference is not so significant.
In the South (defined as the RioGrande to the west, the Ohio to the north, the Atlantic in the East and the Gulf in the South) you work to make a million. In the North (defined as north of NYC, East of Albany, South of Canada) you work to make a living. I’ve been in both, I’ve thought about both, and this is a true statement.
Big box? In the North, you can make the argument and it will be accepted … not necessarily agreed to, but “its an argument”.
Big Box? In the South, you can make the argument and you WILL get called a traitor, a communist, class warfare exponent and a fool.
Sorry, been there, done that.
True, not very significant at all. It’s certainly inarguable that big box of all types have devastated communities. Walmart alone has taken out whole towns, over and over.
But like I said…any politician that tries to tell me how and where to shop will never get my vote. Maybe it’s a west coast thing, or a construction thing, or an old man thing. But I mean never.
And I’m not alone..the reason these businesses are successful (particularly Walmart, which stores I find soulless, working in them must be worse than a coal mine) is because people voted with their feet. Millions of people. The issue won’t resonate because it’s been decided.
But what do I know?
Then there is this issue
Thanks, you’re post made me feel better.
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I agree with you fully. Though because they actually compensate their workers properly Im not sure you include Costco.
But regardless, you’re right. I have had the “where to shop” fight with my parents for 15 years. They are staunch democrats but next to saving money when buying stuff at Wal-Mart nothing works. Im not above this myself. Not woth Wal-Mart, but Aldi. My costs on food per week went dowm by HALF. Aldi also starts its employees at a $14 per hour wage. But there are very few per store much less than traditional chains. This comes from personal observations and online discussions with employees. I still patronize smaller chains that cost more for specialty items each week.
Then again the retail destruction of local groceries happened long long ago and Amazon is not quite yet ready to deploy their methods to obliterate this sector.
But there are ways to make the point more easily. Instead of focusing on big-box stores look at other areas. Everyone hates telcos, that is the cable company and mobile companies. To the extent mobile has improved its because T-Mobiles merger was blocked and was forced to engage in competition. In large part this is why dealing with companies in daily life utterly sucks. They are too big to give a fuck about you.
The demographics of who we are talking about suggest a number of these folks do have cable and mobile. How else you gonna watch Fox News for example.
This is why I’m looking forward to Booman’s article. Because while I think his idea that breaking up retail quasi-monopolies that aren’t extracting monopoly rents will benefit rural areas in a way that will provide Democratic votes is wrong (really wrong), I think running on breaking up and/or providing public competition to natural monopolies like cable and internet providers is a no-brainer and a sure vote winner. The devil’s really in the details on this issue.
Oh yes, to both of you!
This
Big box saves money for consumers, it makes everyone more efficient.
TeleCom is just the opposite. The present system is uncompetitive and inefficient.
Any politician that campaigns on blanket WiFi would win votes.
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You dont have to tell me. The best internet I ever had was municipal wi-fi. Then the telcos used their money to buy some local seats and state laws and they sold it off so that it prompty went to hell.
Awesome, they get it. They understand.
But are they going to do anything about it?
I think you are absolutely right in that they get it. But they have gotten it for more than 20 year! The question is what are they and us going to do about it!?
Their answer for more than 20 years has been to make the problem worse by voting more and more with the Republicans.
What exactly are you saying we are going to do different now? What does breaking these business up look like?
I have been inside big box building supply stores quite a bit recently. They have many fewer employees than the aggregate of the hardware, lumber yard, and appliance stores they replaced. My local ACE generally has ten employees for 20,000 square feet. My local Lowes maybe has 25 employees for 400,000 sq. ft. Perry at the local ACE consults on weird fixes and part work-arounds. I increasingly find that the big box no longer carries stuff they used to and the staff are less knowledgeable about where stuff is; forget about weird fixes; they haven’t the practical experience Perry has. Which is more efficient depends on what the customer needs are at the time of the visit; it is a contextual, not an abstract value.
It makes me think you work for one.
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A big box store runs on about the same number of employees as a large local store.
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This is what you wrote.
Like always, you want to rewrite your history. Once again, I learned my lesson.
Never respond.
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They’re hangin’ in there around these parts anyway, at least so far.
You write:
The third sentence does not necessarily follow the first two, Booman.
Here’s why.
Yes, many people voted for a black president. That pretty much proves that racism is not their particular problem, right? So…why didn’t they vote for HRC?
Let me count the ways:
#1-She was not a talented candidate and Trump was. (“The word “talent” being used in no way in terms of content, just as an entertainer.)
#2-She…and the DNC…opted to ignore a wide swath of Americans to concentrate on other “identity politics” targets. Her “deplorables” and “public and private” comments didn’t help, to say the least.
But most importantly:
#3-After a downward-turning 16 years in the overall society…socially, economically and in terms of sheer personal privacy and safety…they no longer trust either party. Trump ran against both parties and that’s why he won.
So…If the Dems are to have a renaissance in this country, they are going to have to rapidly run as far away from the failures of the duopoly/two party/centrist system as their little legs will carry them. Further away than Trump…who of course was full of shit anyway but at least made his shittiness spectacularly entertaining to a well-focused group of voters.
And…on the evidence…they are not doing that. Schumer/Pelosi is dead, old news, but they still hold the reins. Sanders/Warren is the only other likely option, although Biden…if he can overcome fears of his age…might have enough sheer gumption to successfully carry the Dems on his back no matter what his positions may be. And Sanders/Warren continues to be a hard sell in most state Democratic organizations. They’ve been on the DNC take so long it wouldn’t even occur to them to try something new.
So there we are.
Unless some huge set of events essentially takes down the entire Trump system right on through the first 5 or 6 “next president” positions? (Could happen…)
The Dems are sunk.
New Party time?
Where’s the money going to come from?
And how will they fare under the blare of the always bought-and-sold media’s Mighty Wurlitzer?
Or is that a more of a Howitzer?
Whatever.
Somewhere in there…
Answers?
I have none.
After 50+ years of governmental deceit and failure from both parties, I only have questions.
AG
In one sense you’re probably correct. Trump did very well simply by not being a member of either party. That’s a warning to future Democrats AND Republicans.
But Democrats have to be concerned because they lost tons of voters who had never abandoned them before. That happened to Republicans, too, especially in the suburbs, but the shape of it favors the GOP overall.
So, it’s not a realignment that the Dems should be happy about even if it snaps back a little without a real outsider on the ballot next time around.
Why do you think that there will not be a “real outsider” on the ballot next time next time, Booman?
Maybe even two.
Or more.
Let us pray that at least one is an “outsider” on the good foot.
PLEASE!!!
AG
Notably its affecting parties all over the world. Corbyn’s labor is dead (sadly) bcause the working class abandoned them for UKIP. Macron founded a new party. Thats not an option in this country but thete may not actually be a way for the Democratic Party to stop it.
I think many people here, including Boo, are – shall we say “misoverestimating” ? – the power of a political party. Political parties don’t play a big role in shaping opinion. Opinions are shaped by personal experiences, media, and social groups. Political parties have to live with and work with the opinions and beliefs created by the larger society.
The anti-monopoly message would be a good one if we can get people to think about the effects of concentrated economic power. But it’s tricky because the effect is indirect. Modern “monopoly” power is mostly being used to extract money from the sellers, not the buyers, so people don’t immediately see the power that Wal-Mart has accumulated when they’re shopping there. The Democratic party is not a good vehicle for teaching that (or other lessons, for that matter). Something else will have to do it.
A good example of how something else has to do the work is how Occupy got the 1% meme into the public consciousness. Elected democrats could have talked about that forever and nobody would have noticed. But people who don’t have to be perfect in every public utterance could get noticed and get people to think.
I would give this a ’10’ if I could!
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(1) What most people sell these days is their labor.
(2) A party brokers interests. The Democratic Party if it wants to expand its voter ranks among the struggling middle class and poor of the US will need to stop being equivocal about Social Security, step up to the plate on healthcare, finally find an answer for the issue of handling the costs of federal programs (cut the Pentagon to $300 billion, maybe), and start talking about a debt jubilee.
(3) Democrats tried to co-opt Occupy for their own purposes rather than use their educational message to build on.
(4) “people who have to be perfect in every public utterance” — How did we allow the press and politicians to manipulate Democratic politicians and candidates and not Republican politicians and candidates into that position? Methinks it has something to do with the different ways the parties communicate and handle the media. The Republicans own their media. Few billionaires want to buy media to turn over to the interests of ordinary people.
(5) So much comes down to excuses of why it can’t be done and Democratic politicians should not be expected to do it.
(6) I believe there needs to be an authentic opposition party to a clear an deep Constitutional crisis in the US system of government. If the Democratic Party can’t or won’t be that, then who will step up to the plate. If no one, what are the consequences for the US government and people?
One long-ish view would be to start dragging Pence down. Maybe plant the seed in the minds of our conservative friends that it’s Pence who is trying to take down their beloved Trumpster-fire.
Maybe plant the seed in the minds of our conservative friends that it’s Pence who is trying to take down their beloved Trumpster-fire.
That theme is all ready all over right wing media
That is excellent news. Thanks.
I make the same point over and over and over, because I really think it’s the essence of 2016 and nobody seems to recognize its primacy:
The only decisive factor was the 20+ years of relentless propaganda against Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Precisely the sort of long-term, sophisticated, devilishly-effective advanced communication techniques used to convince people to buy Coke or Marlboro, were used to implant a visceral dislike of Hillary. (And it was even more effective than corporate advertising because it worked on so many levels; it included Cokie Roberts and Frank Bruni and voices from all different parts of the system, including the right-wing sites and voices below the waterline that most people don’t tune in to.) (I feel a slight wrinkle of revulsion when I see her picture and I was an ardent supporter! The Madison Avenue techniques really are that effective.)
That’s why all those “Obama voters” went for Trump. That’s the only reason. They got a head start with Hillary going back to the first Clinton administration where they realized intuitively how dangerous she was (the first health care initiative, etc.) and realized she had to be stopped and that it was a long-term project. Obama showed up on the national scene so suddenly and his ascent was so comparatively fast that there was nothing that could be done (and he’s still effectively maligned as a Kenyan and a socialist and everything else).
The way Hillary was turned into a walking shit-stain in the visceral imaginations of millions of Americans is the explanation for Trump. Take everything else away, and Trump still wins. Even the Comey letter was effective because of this — because it was the final tipping point for a public that had been trained over decades not to like her, not to trust her.
I’m not saying that we should stop looking at voters’ economic anxieties etc. I’m just saying, Let’s not kid ourselves. They started hitting Hillary in 1992. You can’t beat that kind of long-range ad campaign.
At this point people generally chime in and make the gender point. I agree — but I don’t think that’s the whole story (and I hate when her defeat, or, anything about her campaign, including her support, is reduced to that). Sure, that was part of it — “She’s a woman” would be a big label on the whiteboard where the Mad Men planned their advertising strategy — but if it wasn’t that it would be something else.
Nail, hammer, head.
Good on ya, boy.
They started hitting her husband in 1984.
See Conason and Lyons’ book The Hunting of the President for details.
Thanks for this. I’ve ben trying to make this point for months here. Its so frustrating that a large segment of the population can be brainwashed by the wurlitzer into voting against their interests. Long term, dems have to find some way to educate citizens and move the dial back toward sane political views.
Public school education is one area where the US drops the ball. I went to school in Canada, my kids in the US, and differences in the systems are stark. In Canada in high school english, we studied books like “Babbit” and “Death of a Salesman”, and we learned that there is more to life than making money (my english teachers would probably be regarded as a bunch of socialists here) . In history and civics classes we were taught that government has an important role in protecting the rights of minorities, in providing health care and basic services for those in need. We were taught to be very leery of foreign military adventurism (mainly by studying 19th century British and 20th Century US examples).
On the other hand, , my US public-schooled kid learned about “freedom”, got butt loads on the American Revolution and wars in general, learned to pledge allegiance to the flag, got a pretty great science and math education, and learned next to nothing about the social compact necessary for a modern democracy.
And this is in a blue state city. I can only imagine what schooling is like in rural areas in red states.
If it was all about Hillary, why did the Democrats lose close Senate races in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida (thought that was close)
The it is all about Hillary hating argument ignores the fact Democrats have been losing down ballot races everywhere as well.
We hold less power than at anytime since the Depression.
Because of the voting mechanics; because enthusiasm-falloff in national elections always hurts downticket candidates. (I thought everyone knew this; it’s been statistically proven over and over again.)
Because of any other reason but that there is a problem with the Democratic Party….
We lost PA, Wisconsin, Fl and NC in a Presidential year in case you did not notice.
We also lost the generic House ballot.
It’s frustrating because the logic and the evidence is right in front of you and you’re not looking at it.
Obama voters switched to Trump. You can’t ask for two more identical Presidential candidates (in terms of weaknesses, strengths, allegiances, resumés, history). And the guy who won was Black.
What happened? It’s obvious. It’s not “systemic” — it’s specific to one tainted candidate.
So, we lost the governor’s races in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maryland because of Clinton?
Why not?
She wasn’t on the ballot in two out of three of them?
Massachusetts: Charlie Baker versus Martha Coakley. I wasn’t surprised. He’ll probably easily beat Setti Warren or whoever else the Dems put up against him. In pretty much any other part of the country he would never get past the GOP primaries, where moderate-to-liberal squishes like him get stomped into the dust.
rally for him here yesterday.
Great stuff from both, from other speakers, and a fired-up crowd.
I was dismayed initially by the Dem convention’s selection (after multiple ballots) of Quist over Amanda Curtis as our candidate in the special election to replace Zinke, now SecInterior (ugh!). Curtis seemed the no-brainer choice, and Quist a much riskier one.
And in fact, a few minor Quist faux-pas have surfaced (e.g., rented out converted barn as residence while not declaring it on the county tax rolls as residential property), which of course the tsunami of rightwingnut dark money has pulled out all the stops to try and flog into “scandal”. (To my knowledge, Quist has rectified all such discrepancies, and for the most part had done so long before this campaign, e.g., years ago.)
Fortunately, Gianforte comes with lots of baggage of his own (and far more serious from my perspective, though not necessarily from that of those inclined to support him in the first place).
Of course, I voted for Quist and turned in my ballot at the county building the day after it arrived in the mail (several weeks ago) despite any misgivings about him as a candidate and despite my preference for Curtis, cuz . . . DUH! . . . Gianforte!
Yesterday’s rally accomplished turning whatever misgivings lingered about Quist into my very enthusiastic support. And except perhaps in some emphases, I’m unaware of any significant policy differences between Quist and Curtis, so that’s good. The policy proposals he emphasized yesterday align with my preferences (as well as with those Bernie espoused in his inspiring speech) pretty much across the board.
In fact, everything about the rally seemed very well thought-out, organized, and executed, including excellent message coordination among Quist, Bernie, and all the other speakers.
Rationally, I still think it’s a long shot, but I’m more cautiously hopeful about Quist chances today than I was on Friday. So there’s that.
Also too, how many congressional candidates are you gonna find who can write and perform very professionally their own campaign theme song, as Quist did at the rally yesterday? (Sorry couldn’t find youtube of that; but here’s a representative Bernie snippet for you:)
link
(sorry, not on youtube so no embed code provided, and I lack expertise to make it up)
Realignments are complicated. This realignment is rooted in poor economic performance since Richard Nixon. That in turn is rooted in the false economics of conservatism and Reaganism that keeps harping on the government as the problem while the billionaires steal the future from millions. It also is complicated by the absence of a real opposition party to these false notions, reinforced by 30 years of radio, TV, and internet propaganda within a naroowcasted audience. And last of all, complicated by wars without end which claim the government resources that could go to infrastructure expenditures to improve the economy.
Even without Trump, we would be in a situtation in which all roads seem to lead to folly. Trump distracts the public attention from that. He also distracts the attention of the possible opposition party or parties, who seem to enjoy being at each others’ throats while the ship of state sinks.
Those Democrats interested in changing the situtation better find an alternative way of reaching people besides the current panoply of media. Otherwise the Rushbo Iron Curtain closes around America.
The long view is that one has to be more places geographically with more people actually opposed to current trends and cognizant of the high-risk environment we are in.
Germans who benefit from the German hegemony of austerity in Europe are in the same fix, but without endless war or Trump. (See Frank Schnittger’s excellent post.)
Getting beyond the media fog to actual organization of the public understanding is the problem.
Beginning to take local actions in anticipation of major policy failures is the wisest course right now. Before DC gets sorted out, a whole lot of people are going to get hurt locally. Tent cities of the homeless have reappeared.
What Congressional Democrats did succeed in doing is postponing any financial catastrophe until after the new federal fiscal year October 1. But in the meantime, the wrecking crew sent into the executive agencies of the federal government will begin their perversion of the regulations and funding priorities that are within their power to do without oversight and public awareness. The first casualty is the 2020 US Census, and its consequential redistricting before 2022. The looting of HUD, HHS, Education, Interior, Transportation, and other federal agencies is about to begin in earnest.
The public doesn’t care because the public does not understand the significance of the Trump administration actions.
That is the first long-term issue that any opposition party to the “permanent Republican majority” must tackle. They see this as war; too bad too many in DC see what’s going on as normal, if hardball, politics. The collapsing of political norms eventually means the collaspe of the structural checks and balances that protect the Constitutional action of government from abuse.
The more recent equivalent of Vander Veen is the Larry Kissell effect, where populist style and rhetoric allowed outside resources to finance a win over Robin Hayes (the guy who sent Cannon towel jobs overseas). And then Larry Kissell started acting like Robin Hayes because of “the special nature of his district”. Members of Congress have some responsibility to shape the information environment in which they operate. The GOP sure does.
The more recent equivalent of Vander Veen is the Larry Kissell effect, where populist style and rhetoric allowed outside resources to finance a win over Robin Hayes (the guy who sent Cannon towel jobs overseas). And then Larry Kissell started acting like Robin Hayes because of “the special nature of his district”.
Yeah, Kissell turned out to be a huge disappointment. I actually donated money to his campaign back in 2006.
Members of Congress have some responsibility to shape the information environment in which they operate. The GOP sure does.
Blue Dogs never do this. It’s part of the reason they always get beaten like a drum after one or two terms, tops. And it’s why they’ll always lose more races than they win generally.
Blue dogs frequently lose because they (almost) always come from Republican leaning districts. With very few exceptions that’s why they run as Blue Dogs in the first place.
Here’s a question I have: Did, in fact, Obama voters switch to Trump? Or in those districts that swung from D. to R. did Obama voters not bother to show up, while people who normally didn’t bother to vote at all came out to vote for Trump? Given the abysmal percentage of the electorate that normally participates in any election, I think it’s a fair question. It seems to me that the discussion so far is conflating these two streams of voters, assuming that it was all or primarily vote-switching when in fact it may have been mostly voter-switching.
I ask because the answer to that makes all the difference in how we attempt to recover from this disaster.
I cover this is my WaMo article.
About 70% of Trump’s margin is explained by party switchers. In other words, voters who had voted for Obama. There are obviously new voters, both because of age and because of previous non-participation. But the damage was done by red and purple counties turning deep beet red in states like PA, MI, IA, and WI. And pretty much everywhere, but it only mattered in a few states.
The quickest way to reach these people is to do what Republicans do for them – lie, validate their fantasies, but with a twist.
Instead of saying no or ‘forcing them to see reality’ before offering an alternative. Jack Kemp learned and then taught other Republicans to be the party of the ‘fake yes.’ That’s supply side economics, a fake yes – spend more, tax less, balance the budget.
Democrats don’t have to become supply side liars – they can simply present (I think I’ve posted this before) a Plan A and a contingency. Plan A is the nostalgic fantasy that Democrats are as committed to as Republicans (in fact it’s unattainable) and the contingency is just in case Plan A doesn’t work. Republicans have no contingency for mfg workers in PA, OH,MI, WI – they don’t give a shit about these people. When Plan A fails to materialize, deliver the contingency.
Democrats need to acknowledge Plan A or they will never get to talk about the real plan/contingency. Hillary’s platform had plenty of non-plan A items in it. But by starting with we’re putting the coal companies out of business and the folks are deplorable it was only read by the choir.
it’s not smart politics, during the election cycle, to try and educate people on why their reasoning is poor, why their hopes are useless, and why their motivations are indecent – you aren’t going to be heard and you won’t have any credibility.
We owe it to the country to not let the malignant liars in Republican Party continue to lie their way Into power.
Joseph Stieglitz and colleagues are moving modern monetary theory and agent-based stock flows into macroeconomic modeling. That might make it easier to counteract the reflexive tendency to austerity in fiscal policy.
Agent Based-Stock Flow Consistent Macroeconomics: Towards a Benchmark Model