Given his history and how he currently makes a living, people should be forgiven if it makes them impatient to get lectured by Tucker Carlson, but his column on Donald Trump is worth reading even if the messenger doesn’t have any moral standing to deliver the message.
He makes more than a few worthwhile points. For starters, the Democrats should take a recent history lesson from the Republicans and stop dismissing Trump as some kind of gift from God. I don’t care what the head-to-head polls say today. The head-to-head polls looked a lot better for Ted Cruz before Trump started savaging him.
He would be the most aggressive anti-Clinton campaigner we’ve ever seen, and there’s nothing in Bernie Sanders’ history that indicates any proficiency with attack politics. Trump is also pulling from the pool of unlikely voters, many of whom are registered Democrats. There’s enough evidence now–the left should not be as complacent about Trump’s candidacy as the right has been.
As for the Republican Establishment, Carlson points out, correctly, that Trump is succeeding because they have failed. Ultimately, they didn’t know their own voters and they didn’t make sure to look after them.
Conservative voters are being scolded for supporting a candidate they consider conservative because it would be bad for conservatism? And by the way, the people doing the scolding? They’re the ones who’ve been advocating for open borders, and nation-building in countries whose populations hate us, and trade deals that eliminated jobs while enriching their donors, all while implicitly mocking the base for its worries about abortion and gay marriage and the pace of demographic change. Now they’re telling their voters to shut up and obey, and if they don’t, they’re liberal.
This is actually the same critique of the Republican Establishment that progressives have been making for years. One part is a charge of hypocrisy and incompetence, that the GOP doesn’t deliver or really believe in many of its core promises. Another part is a critique that most of these policies aren’t actually good for ordinary working people. So, whatever the overall effects of free trade agreements, for example, the losers are quite clearly folks who work in our formerly industrialized heartland. And, whatever the legitimate seasonal labor needs of the agriculture industry, the folks who are actually facing job and wage competition from undocumented workers tend to be working class folks in industries like construction.
I can see how this is working right here at home. I live in the near-Philadelphia suburbs and our local mall is still virtually full, with a small handful of empty stores. Pretty soon, they’re going to film a Hollywood film there. It has several restaurants and a thriving health center that is part the Main Line Health System.
But if I travel out to Berks County, the malls are almost completely empty. Instead of a Macy’s, they have maybe a used furniture outlet, a comic book store, and an old, tired arcade. You can walk from one end of the mall to the other and see no more than two or three operating businesses. The food court was shut down long ago, and the parking lot is pulling in more revenue than the interior by selling Christmas trees and hosting flea markets.
That’s the story of this thriving economy, and it’s analogous to the disconnect between DC and Red State America that Carlson describes in his piece.
It’s true that this is what Bernie Sanders wants to talk about, but these voters have a shorter walk from where they stood (with George W. Bush) to Donald Trump’s Screw-You-Politics than to Sanders’ Democratic Socialism.
This cohort of America, downscale white working class culturally conservative workers, has been dying out at a rate comparable to the AIDS epidemic at its height. They’re being felled by opioid and alcohol poisoning, mainly, but also by the loss of status and hope. And their Republican masters totally missed this. They proposed nothing to combat it except tribalism, anti-elite resentment, and policies that promise to keep more money in the hands of the coastal elites and heartland oligarchs.
It’s no wonder these people feel betrayed. And the religious among them are feeling the additional sting of losing the culture wars. For them, Trump may be faking his piety but it doesn’t matter.
You read surveys that indicate the majority of Christian conservatives support Trump, and then you see the video: Trump on stage with pastors, looking pained as they pray over him, misidentifying key books in the New Testament, and in general doing a ludicrous imitation of a faithful Christian, the least holy roller ever. You wonder as you watch this: How could they be that dumb? He’s so obviously faking it.
They know that already. I doubt there are many Christian voters who think Trump could recite the Nicene Creed, or even identify it. Evangelicals have given up trying to elect one of their own. What they’re looking for is a bodyguard, someone to shield them from mounting (and real) threats to their freedom of speech and worship. Trump fits that role nicely, better in fact than many church-going Republicans. For eight years, there was a born-again in the White House. How’d that work out for Christians, here and in Iraq?
I’ll give Carlson credit here. He nailed it. This perfectly describes why evangelicals prefer Trump to Mike Huckabee or Ben Carson. They’re like the small business that goes to the Mob to solve their shoplifting problem. The pastor wasn’t going to deal with the thugs, and prayer wasn’t working.
So, this election season is really developing into a story about things coming to a head. We’ve been telling ourselves that we’re structurally doomed to live with red state/blue state gridlock and that the country is divided roughly fifty-fifty.
I don’t think the country is looking for someone who is satisfied with that answer even if it’s accurate. And that’s why Trump is doing so well, and also why Hillary Clinton is going to have a bigger challenge than many people realize.
Excuse me, but there are no mounting nor real threats to anybody’s freedom of religion or worship. That part of it is bullshit. What these idiots are losing is the freedom to impose their religion and their worship on other people. Not the same thing at all. And if they think Donald Trump is going to do that for them, they’re stupider than I thought.
What they are really pissed off about is people who have more melanin than they do. Latin American immigrants, legal or not, are typically just as Christian as they are. But they are otherwise different. That’s what this is all about. Carlson didn’t nail anything, he completely evaded the point.
This might be controversial to say, but it’s sadly accurate.
You might as well have told the gay community in 1985 that they weren’t really concerned about AIDs but about discrimination.
You can be concerned about both at the same time.
But the epidemic that is killing off downscale whites is as big as AIDs and so little acknowledged or understood that even its victims don’t know that it’s happening. What they know is that their way of life is being ground into dust.
So, you can dismiss them and detest how they lash out, but that’s just as oblivious as Eric Cantor and John Boehner were.
When people are dying at this rate, they need help and good solid leadership.
They don’t need demagogues and charlatans, but that’s all that’s being offered to them on the right. And I don’t think mainstream Democrats are offering them much either. After all, these aren’t their voters.
Their way of life isn’t being ground into dust, they just don’t like black and brown people. They are perfectly free to keep going to church and handling snakes or whatever their pleasure may be. Nobody is making them same-sex marry or have abortions.
Their economic distress is real but they channel their bigotry into their explanatory model for it. That’s what Trump is all about. I think Carlson is completely full of shit.
Jesus. Educate yourself.
Sure. That’s true, but that’s not what Carlson is talking about. Nor is Trump. And frankly, nor are conservatives. They’ve been so heavily propagandized by the Carlsons of this nation that they don’t see the noses on their faces.
Carlson’s talking about how their freedom of religion is being taken away from them. It’s just more distraction from the very real issues that face us. I couldn’t agree more, but I don’t see Carlson actually doing one damn thing to realistically educate about these important issues. And certainly, if Barack Obama (or some other D Team member) were to bring it up, these self-same self-serving courtiers would be the first in line to yell the usual Obama Derangement Syndrome crap.
Yes, there are truly significant issues facing us here in the USA. No one in the GOP is addressing that, and neither is Carlson.
Sorry, but I cannot stand the man. Just my take on it. Others may disagree with me.
Don’t gratuitously insult your readers. I am highly familiar with that research, and I have written about it. I am a professor of health services, policy and practice at the Brown University School of Public Health. Please listen to what I am saying.
Yes, the middle and working class in the U.S. is suffering economically. This has, among other effects, produced a decline in life expectancy among middle aged women, particularly in the south and in Appalachia. The reasons for this are in part secular economic trends — the value of less educated people on the labor market has declined, the cost of health care and higher education have increased — and partly public policy — public benefits are less generous.
However, Donald Trump most certainly does not offer any solution to these people. The only reason they think he does is because they are racist and they blame their problems on people even less fortunate than themselves. And as I said, nobody is in any way threatening their freedom of religion. They just don’t like looking around and seeing people who don’t have the same beliefs they do.
So educate your own self.
Of course he doesn’t offer any solution. That’s not the point. Neither does oxycontin. That’s the point. These guys aren’t going to vote for a political solution, because they don’t think there is one; they’re going to vote to express their feelings, which undoubtedly include racial hatred, and in the hope of seeing some ass kicked. They’re voting for the comfort of seeing somebody else be worse off than they are, the way it used to be.
One of the smartest things in Carlson’s piece is the bit about Trump’s religion. Many of the voters in question are snake handlers, and they know his religion is a fraud, but they really don’t care; that’s not what they’re voting about.
Hey, yastreblyansky, I just discovered your blog last night (thanks to a link to your Palin poem and the Adorno stuff) and spent more than an hour going back through it.
Great stuff! Your David Brooks takedowns are the best in the business — easily surpassing the work of Charlie Pierce (my previous favorite). And all your other material is just excellent; my favorite blend of erudition, Swiftian vigor and hard data (without the excessive Arthur Gilroy-ian cuteness that plagues Driftglass).
And we’re neighbors! I live a couple of blocks from the Beacon, myself.
Keep up the good work!
Yer very kind! This is the one place I hang out online where the contempt for Brooks is so deep that most people don’t even want to waste time laughing at him. I’m not saying they’re wrong, either, but it’s nice to be appreciated, expecially by a fellow Upper Left Sider.
You can dismiss Mr. Pierce if you want–he’s in the Club anyway and cares little about what people like us think–but take it easy on Driftglass, who is a writer of really immense talent.
yeah, well I have also published in health policy and statistics. UAB, UHouston, UMN.
These people are dying because of lifestyle choices: Fried foods, cigarettes, weekend binge drinking, no exercise, too much salt and too much rage. This may not be the case in RI but it sure as damn hell is the case in AL, MS, GA, TN, SC, LA …
In Ms and Al there are as many Walmarts in those 2 states as there are in Pa. With that fact tell me how does anyone in Ms or Al starts a small business…bakery, hardware store, a neighborhood auto repair…that can compete with Walmart.
I don’t think I ever suggested that Trump was offering them much of a solution.
And I hope you don’t teach this crap to your students at Brown, because that would be a complete disservice to them.
They’re not dying because they’re racist. They’re not angry because they’re racist, they’re racist because they’re angry.
Maybe being angry makes them racist. Let’s find out what they’re angry about? They are certainly lost and confused from our point of view. What’s theirs? Has anyone here spoken to any of these people, whoever they are? Trump certainly hasn’t. Or maybe he skips around from his NY penthouse. And as far as I am concerned Tucker Carlson could do the world a service and stick to staying home and counting is money.
Yeah, I have.
It’s not rocket science. It’s been discussed to death.
What they say is almost all about PP, Obamaphones, and “welfare”. And it’s only a problem when “others” are getting it.
I’ve listened to plenty of them bitch and moan about welfare, while their friends with 6 kids collect food stamps, SCHIP, and medicaid. Or their recently-divorced single-mother daughter receives food stamps. Or their mother receives Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, etc., in order to stay inside and eating.
But ultimately, they know they’re being left behind, as white working class voters in rural areas aren’t doing as well as pretty much everyone else. But it’s much easier to point to PP or “welfare” than it is to analyze our current financial system that is designed to “shock and awe” anyone who hasn’t gone to Harvard to learn how to steal, or someone who hasn’t spent a lot of free time figuring it all out.
So, right off the bat, rather than use the word racism, I prefer “tribalism”, because they aren’t always immediately hostile to people who have more melanin, or different genitalia, or even different religions, as much as they can point out some libruul from the big city, white, black, hindu, or atheist. Especially if that libruul is mocking and pointing and dismissing them as an ignorant racist.
The more tribal identifiers you don’t share with them, the more apprehensive they are to consider you a tribe member. If you become a family member, it’s a little easier, but there is still distrust.
Now, all of that said, if they’re rocking Fox News from the time they get off work until the time they go to sleep enraged at how libruuls have destroyed this country, it’s essentially pointless to debate them.
Instead, I “pick off” the people who are mostly brand-name voters rather than ideologues and true believers. Again, I’ve turned a Republican into a Democratic party voter, who now is a big Sanders supporter. She never paid attention before she met me, and I, without laughing and pointing at her previous beliefs and attitudes, explained how politics is more than just worrying about some gay couple having sex down the street, and instead that the government is We The People, and we have a duty to govern ourselves by electing sane, reasonable people to do what is best for everyone, rather than just a few.
This former-Republican is also a southern-Baptist “believer”, strongly anti-abortion, and a gun owner.
It’s all in how you talk to an individual. Laugh and make fun of them, and if they weren’t before, they’ll be a Trump voter as a way to spite you, their nose and face be damned. They resent being made fun of and spoken about like they’re idiots. So, talk to them like a human and disarm their preconceived notions, and you have a shot. I highly recommend starting any political conversation with, “The Democratic party isn’t particularly good, but they aren’t batshit insane like the Republican party.” I always pepper in how Clinton and Obama are basically socially liberal 70s-era Republicans. If that upsets you, as a liberal, then you see just how effective it is in disarming a conservative who is expecting you to talk about the Democratic party as if you have to support them or you’re a racist, fascist piece of shit.
Of course, it takes a little time. You have to be able to find clear cases of Republicans saying crazy shit that is demonstrably false and insane. And most importantly, you have to be able to tell a story. Remember, they like their bibles and their narratives, so just showing them a chart or a powerpoint presentation is counterproductive.
One quick example, with abortion. She is still solidly anti-abortion. I think it should remain safe and legal. Guess what, she supports PP. Because I’ve shown her how Republicans talk big about abortion, but don’t make it illegal and in fact use it themselves when they accidentally knock up their mistress, or their daughter gets pregnant. When I also show her how PP mostly does regular health clinic stuff and not abortion, and is heavily regulated, she gets it. And then she gets into arguments with her Fox-by-Proxy mother about PP videos and baby parts, because unlike her mother, she actually knows the reality, and not the Carly Fiona/Fox News “BABYPARTS!” talking points.
But that’s me. Your milage may vary.
Yes, talking to them is the only possible means to change their mind. Too many people laugh and jeer. You have the right approach. Good luck.
Nonsense. They have always been racist. They didn’t suddenly get racist because they are in economic distress. Racism is foundational to white culture in the parts of the country where these people are the Republican base. The republic was founded on racism. Racism has always divided the white poor and working class from others in that category. It’s the reason we have never had a European style progressive party and we don’t have a European style welfare state. Evidently you don’t understand that. Educate your own self Jack.
You have no right to continually insult me. It is inappropriate and unbecoming. But since that’s how we roll here, I will say that you need to get your head out of your ass, you don’t know what you are talking about. I will continue to teach that “crap” to my students because it is the truth.
Look in the mirror. Can’t you see that you are them?
You both ascribe all your problems to people of the other skin color and scapegoat them. While people like Trump, Bush and Clinton laugh all the way to the bank.
There are lots of casually racist people in the 1% (see Donald J. Trump), in the safely middle-class federal bureaucracy (blasting out racist emails about Obama, Muslims, and/or Jews) , and at schools across the country (Maryland student’s dismissal of `Black Lives’ movement prompts backlash).
The racism that infects blue collar whites has nothing to do with anger. It’s about birth-right privilege.
Curious how little coverage it got when they delved into the breakdowns and learned it was overwhelmingly women doing the dying. I was going to post on that, but saw you had already done so.
Add diabetes and heart disease. Also decades of smoking are taking their toll.
Metabolic syndrome, almost always paired with pre-existing hypertension, is essentially one of the biggest health crises that our species faces that is totally preventable.
Amen! Carlson’s a straight up propagandist. He can kiss my @ss. White people in America can do whatever the eff they like. No one is threatening them over their freedom of speech, religion, right to bear arms.
Just more propagandist bullshit from Carlson now whining and moaning that the riff-raff that Carlson’s flim-flammed for years are now choosing a low-life like Trump.
Clearly demonstrates the stupidity of these highly paid Versailles courtiers. Go stand in a corner somewhere Tucker.
Word.
Their way of life (ignoring, for a moment, the question of addiction/mortality/economic distress) hinges, in part, on pervasive and unchallenged white (and male, and straight) supremacy. That is changing … at least the part about being challenged. I’m very pleased that it’s changing, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a real thing, and no doubt traumatic.
no, you’re wrong. booman nails it.
I think it’s accurate that these communities are suffering from an unprecedented health crisis due to a mix of drugs, alcohol and economic collapse. No wonder they feel their way of life is at risk: it actually is.
Where Carlson goes of the rails is claiming that their freedom of speech and worship is under attack. This is arrant bullshit. I don’t know if they’re flocking to Trump because they believe he can protect them from this imaginary attack, but the fact that Carlson is repeating this lie with a straight face makes it hard to take his analysis at all seriously.
The freedom of religion issue is bullshit of course, but there’s something behind it–the feeling that God has abandoned them, and it must be some bad person’s fault (“Not me, I’ve been good!”). Just because somebody’s stupid, and projects all his guilt onto some innocent bystander, doesn’t mean the pain’s not real.
I rec’d this because it’s mostly right, but you are missing the point if you think it’s all about skin color. That’s only a very tiny piece and only resentment because of their perception that the government only cares about you if you are non-white and non-native born.
I can see how this is working right here at home. I live in the near-Philadelphia suburbs and our local mall is still virtually full, with a small handful of empty stores. Pretty soon, they’re going to film a Hollywood film there. It has several restaurants and a thriving health center that is part the Main Line Health System.
Don’t know that I’d say the mall is virtually full. Also, remember the Circuit City that closed? Nothing ever replaced that. How many years has that space been empty now?
What mall are you talking about?
The one nearest to you. Isn’t there a mall closer to you than the KoP Mall?
Not one that ever had a Circuit City, in my memory.
The Circuit City was in the Strip-mall thingy a little south across Route 100.
Circuit City, the company that fired all their store employees and told them that after sixty days they could re-apply for their old jobs back at half wages.
They had good merchandise, but I wouldn’t spend a DIME there after that. The same with every techie that I knew. It was just too outrageous.
Who would have thought that it would become a standard business model, along with “train your replacement so you can get another months pay” and “buy a small foreign company and invert to avoid US taxes.”
Still wondering why people are looking for a man on a horse with a sword? And most of you want to elect a woman who is the poster girl for that.
Hasn’t Circuit City gone completely out of business now?
Bankruptcy the year before which had followed several years of remaking and downsizing the stores.
7 years already? Wow!! Time flies!!
Good riddance. Yes, their former store in Bloomingdale IL is still empty.
Tucker Carlson is making sense? No offense, but not from where I sit.
Take this:
“What they’re looking for is a bodyguard, someone to shield them from mounting (and real) threats to their freedom of speech and worship.”
OH really now, Tucker?? Yeah, rightwing fanatical American Christians are just soooo under threat!!!111!!! OR so you SAY (and say and say again). Bullshit.
No, Tucker Carlson is excreting his usual effluvia but packaging it in David Brooksian fashion of saying: ohmigawd however did the riff-raff pick that buffoon to champion?? THIS after high-born, wealthy, sheltered Ivy League frat boy Carlson has been propagandizing said rubes for years upon years, whilst sucking mightily (take that any way you want) at the wingnut welfare teat circuit, enjoying himself as a valued courtier in Versailles.
Tucker’s bullshit is just more whining like Brooks and Frum before him, who are slowly awakening to the Frankenstein monsters that THEY’VE had a yoooge part in creating. Yet none of them takes one whit of responsibility for how this has come about. Oh yeah, typical deflection from the members of the so-called “party of personal responsibility.” My @ss.
Maybe Carlson awakened from his splendid day dreams one day and realized that Trump is representing some dent in his future lazy-man-boy “income,” so now he’s all “het up” about this THING that has JUST HAPPENED by chance. Gimme a break. Grow up, Tucker, and grow a pair (fat chance) and recognize that YOU and your fellow wingnut welfare propagandist cocktail weenie circuit denizens are one the bigger reason for this present situation.
Sorry, can’t take one word that Carlson scribbles seriously. Maybe he makes some “points” about Trump, but so effen what? It’s because of the Carlsons of this nation that we’re here in this muck today.
Gimme a break.
As if they haven’t been manufacturing fake large and small narratives dressed up as facts to keep their base in line for decades. Their whole War on Christmas schtick because someone had the audacity to point out that not all Americans are Christian and maybe we should be more polite towards and respectful of them. An earlier version of this was prevalent among Christian churches preaching against the excesses of consumerism and commercialization of a religious holiday. Implicit in that was “give to the church (cough, cough, the poor)” and less to those merchants selling shiny new stuff. But media today and the businesses that support them need consumerism and the commercialization of Christmas to keep them going. So, presto, the enemies of Christianity are those not indulging in the excesses of the holiday.
I’ve said it before dozens of times. Back in the 50s through the 70s, my rightwing fundamentalist family had NO problem saying “Happy Holidays.” It was considered gracious and polite, and no one thought of it as being “politically correct” and horrible. My family (and I used to) lives in the NE, where there are many Jewish people (and close Jewish family friends). My family acknowledged that they celebrated a different holiday. It was: No. Big. Deal.
Comes the 700 Club followed by Hate Radio and Fox, and all of sudden it’s this giant “attack” on Xtians to be “forced” to say “Happy Holidays” rather than Merry Xmas. Please. Spare me. What a load of hooey, but it continues on and on.
Yes, these people are getting sick bc they’ve permitted themselves into being constantly ANGRY over a big f*cking nothingburger.
Nowadays it makes me laugh when Xians actually get in my face and snarl (really) “Merry CHRISTMAS!!!111!!” at me with a glowering frown. I do feel sorry for them that they’ve been so manipulated and brainwashed, but otoh, it’s also disturbing and unpleasant.
Every December I do my best in the liberally mandated WarOnChristmasTM by saying “Happy Holidays” back to each and every person who says “Merry Christmas”.
Carlson is a distinctly unpleasant guy who makes some reasonably accurate points.
My own extended family is perhaps a useful illustrative, compare-and-contrast example of Carlson’s and Booman’s points. My spouse and I are both from distinctly working-class roots, but on my side of the family, there has been upward mobility as nearly everyone in my generation got a college education, in some cases grad school, and moved into various professions or into business. Our children are doing the same. We’re probably 95% Democratic voters, and we’re nearly all urban dwellers. On my spouse’s side, however, she was one of the few of her generation to get a college education. Ditto for the next generation. They’ve mostly stayed in the small towns and rural communities where they grew up, commonly stuck in crummy jobs, and guess what? They’re mostly part of that reliably conservative Republican base, convinced that the brown people are taking their jobs, that Barack Obama wants their guns, and that the Democrats want “illegals” to vote. Some of them have addiction issues and/or have done time in prison.
Heaping scorn on people like my spouse’s side of the family sure as hell isn’t going to win them over to progressive politics. I’m not sure what would do that–but insulting them isn’t going to work. Would you, dear reader, be persuaded by someone who insulted you? Of course not. So draw the obvious lesson.
…convinced that the brown people are taking their jobs,
They’re right, but too provincial to recognize where the POC that are taking away their jobs live/work, and don’t have enough money in their pockets to indulge themselves in the “blessing” of the ever wider array of less costly stuff that those POC are manufacturing. Urban/suburban folks can more easily ignore the loss of those manufacturing jobs and even if their incomes are flat, they can afford to buy more stuff than they could several decades ago.
I do think Carlson is some kind of evil genius. Completely amoral, and aware that nothing is more powerful than the truth; consequently his life’s work is to manipulate the truth.
So as Booman stipulates, there is a lot of sense in what Carlson wrote. If we are just aware that it’s ultimately self-serving for CARLSON, you can read in it how adroitly he is jumping ship on his republican beltway neighbors. He sees great possibilities in the proto-fascist trumpistas.
That’s why he ends his article with an effort to normalize the fascism:
“Washington Republicans look on at this in horror, their suspicions confirmed. Beneath the thin topsoil of rural conservatism, they see the seeds of proto-fascism beginning to sprout. But that’s not quite right. Republicans in the states aren’t dangerous. They’ve just evaluated the alternatives and decided those are worse.”
This is a very good point. Glenn Greenwald used to excoriate Karl Rove for publishing “advice” to Democrats; this is the same thing.
The whole topic of white voters’ cunningly-redirected rage (which has been shrewdly and systematically deflected away from the real villains and onto helpless scapegoats) is obviously the real story here, and it has terrifying precedents as we know. Any discussion along those lines — whether it’s inspired by a jerk like Carlson or not — is useful.
But the basic premise of Trump threatening Clinton’s candidacy? I just can’t see it. I mean, I know we have to “proceed as if it’s a real danger” (like plaintiffs in a civil suit who must proceed as if they’re going to trial even though they know they’ll settle — that kind of strategic double-think) but I think a Trump victory is flat-out impossible.
I want to think about this for awhile. Because I’ve never seen anything worthwhile come out of Tucker’s mouth it’s virtually impossible for me to think of him as a guidepost.
But I am initially struck by your points of how the Trump followers are a band of desperate people. I doubt they know themselves, nor do they want to. That they don’t care that Trump lies but are drawn to his no prisoners memes means they probably never have known a deeper side to themselves.
That Trump has enthralled so many people for so long with nothing more than loud rhetoric makes the realism of ‘fixing’ them (whatever that means) all the more daunting.
Electorally speaking doesn’t this argue for Bernie from the democratic side? If we are in for a real battle we need an excited and committed electorate, and Bernie is the only candidate from the left who can provide that.
Sure Clinton is by far the more experienced political operator but, fair or not, people really just don’t like her. For anyone who supports Bernie to claim they will not vote for Hillary is insane (and hopefully just bluster), but it’s a big stretch to expect Bernie supporters to be excited for Hillary and to work hard for her.
This blog and others have pointed to some very real problems with Bernie’s proposals, but if Carlson is actually making sense, then you might want to apply that perspective to the Democratic side as well.
Liberals may strive to be rational more often than conservatives, but its a big mistake to think we can win an important election based on nothing more than a rational argument. After all, that’s not what got Obama elected.
yes, only candidate who is addressing the problems
I agree that Trump would be the most aggressive anti-Clinton campaigner we’ve ever seen. You might also add effective anti-Clinton campaigner because Hillary does not think on her feet relying on the Clinton Machine for her focus group tested answers. Hillary could be in real trouble if Trump lands one of his zingers on her in a debate, especially if it’s true.
Then you say, “…there’s nothing in Bernie Sanders’ history that indicates any proficiency with attack politics.” While attack politics is not Bernie’s style (what a relief) after a lifetime in politics he is effective, just look at where he is today. The Clinton Machine is throwing everything at Bernie but the kitchen sink (maybe that too) and none of it sticks. This has been going on for some time but Tucker Carlson is not going to point it out.
“Trump is also pulling from the pool of unlikely voters, many of whom are registered Democrats. There’s enough evidence now–the left should not be as complacent about Trump’s candidacy as the right has been.”
If this is true, instead of worrying about Trump’s candidacy we should worry more about what’s wrong on the Democratic side for this to happen. Are we simply looking at the failure of establishment politics?
What you are describing about Carlson disconnect between DC and Red State America and your observation of Berks County really applies to most all of America. This is the very reason a populist movement exists today. People have been fucked and hard too, the only question is who gets the blame. Trump’s entire campaign is based on maintaining white supremacy blaming anyone who does not belong to that group. This is the very dark side of populism.
I disagree with you that “these voters have a shorter walk from where they stood (with George W. Bush) to Donald Trump’s Screw-You-Politics than to Sanders’ Democratic Socialism.” Except for the minority of these voters who remain white supremacist drawn to Trump’s dark side populism, Bernie’s walk to the bright side of populism is a short walk. I believe all these voters will only vote for a populist candidate for President.
You are quite correct that “this election season is really developing into a story about things coming to a head.” Bernie has been telling us all along that establishment politics will not solve the problems we face today, the voters already know that, the reason Hillary could lose this election.
Also, it’s not like Sanders has to actually pay/support attack ads, now that $=Speech.
Maybe not so much, that is if you think this is an attack ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4kcH42oxYw
I posted part of this at Dkos, and it is anecdotal, but:
I am at a McDonalds in Des Moines. As I type here, 4 women are talking about a company they work for . The company has laid people off, and then called them back 3 days later. They play games with schedules to avoid paying benefits.
You know why Bernie has a chance: because by and large the Democratic Party hasn’t had a fucking thing to say to these people for a long time.
The simple truth is that though Obama is the best President of my lifetime, he (partially because the GOP has prevented him), doesn’t have a lot to say to them either.
Median family wages peaked in late `98. People know it and feel it. Nobody I know with some knowledge of policy actually believes Clinton will do anything about it beyond the margins.
DOES ANYBODY HERE BELIEVE SHE WILL?
So here is a thought experiment: Imagine you have to go and try to convince them Hillary Clinton is going to help them.
Try not to laugh.
Because I can tell you what I would say as a Bernie supporter.
These people are invisible to Democratic pundits and GOP conservatives.
Here is something I realized while listening to them:
It is true that the GOP created Donald Trump.
And so did the Democrats, by failing to listen.
I was turned from a potential career in political organizing because my first paid job involved having to convince people to support Hillary’s health care plan. Never again (in fairness the computer programming thing has worked out pretty well, so perhaps I owe Hillary a thank you).
Yup. That’s essentially Thomas Frank’s thesis in “What’s the matter with Kansas”- In the Democrats hunger to be the other party of business, they gave up talking to working class voters and the policy choices made by both parties ended up grinding working class people into the dirt and is starting to shrink the middle class. Unfortunately, the wealthy professional wing of the Democratic party is still very blind to the anger that exists in the rest of America over the average American’s declining economic prospects.
Unfortunately, as illustrated by the ultimate multimillionaire San Fransisco “liberal” Nancy Pelosi demagoguery of Bernie Sanders health care prpoposal, the Democratic establishment still wants nothing to do with progressive economic policy and apparently are deathly afraid of the Republicans becoming opposed to health care reform proposals… rolls eyes
“Median family wages peaked in late `98.”
And inflation adjusted Engineer salaries peaked in ’73.
At least 3/4 of the engineers that I know say they would beat the crap out of their kid if he went to engineering school. My own uncle, a mechanical engineer, refused to funds his two boys unless they studied something other than engineering. One studied Journalism and went into banking (highly successful). The other studied education and now is a High school Principal.
You push people to the wall with unpaid overtime, salary freezes (but not for the CEO’s) then you lay them off to be replaced with non-complaining dirt cheap H1-B’s from the Third World. Finally, when their kids don’t borrow a king’s ransom to study science and engineering, you complain that there are no STEM workers. Apparently, in the belief that engineers are child-like geeks that don’t really care about being paid as long as they can work on cool stuff.
That’s a generic “you”, not you personally, fladem.
Republicans are angry. But they’re always angry. Maybe the better question that we should be asking is how does the level of anger compare to that in the past and what they’ve done with their anger in the past?
The GOP has long relied on an ability to channel that anger into rigid and loyal partisanship. Works better in some election cycles than others. At the national level, a candidate that’s not too hot and not too cold wins the general election (or gets close enough that it can be stolen as the votes are counted and/or by the SCOTUS). Nixon, Reagan, and GWB achieved that “not too hot/not too cold” persona. The others have fallen short.
However, the angriest GOP voters have been the primary election loyalists. Generally preferring “hotter,” but at some point in the process succumb to the electability argument made by the less hot candidates and party elders. But what would be they do at peak anger when their choices are limited to candidates that are simultaneously “too hot and too cold,” “not hot and too cold,” and “scalding with frost around the edges?”
Reports I’ve seen of the response to last night’s debate is that none of them helped themselves (with the possible exception of Paul). Cruz, Christie, and Carson hurt themselves. Those not already in the Trump camp (and it’s not clear that a high percentage are motivated enough in their anger to religiously participate in primary elections), seem to be struggling to find a “nth/ntc” candidate that also mirrors their anger. As angry as the ID driven Trumpters, but more ego driven with a smidgen of super-ego thrown in.
If someone is ahead of all of us, next Monday night could be unusually interesting.
“It turns out the GOP wasn’t simply out of touch with its voters; the party had no idea who its voters were or what they believed. For decades, party leaders and intellectuals imagined that most Republicans were broadly libertarian on economics and basically neoconservative on foreign policy.”
Yeah that’s right, you heard it here first. It was all a failure of insight on the part of the clueless wheels running the GOP.
It most certainly was NOT the result of a most deliberate plan by the aforementioned to exploit and discard useful idiots in the service of top down class warfare.
The disingenuousness is repellent.
I believe in taking Trump seriously, but I just don’t see him as a threat. He has a very strong appeal, but only to a limited population and it seems to me that for every person he attracts he pisses someone else off. Am I being too naive about the American public?
And why hasn’t anyone really opened up on Trump? His infidelity and marriages, his bankruptcies, his ties to the mob and other nefarious New York players, his flip flopping, etc etc etc. The man almost certainly has a closet full of skeletons we don’t know about as well.
And why hasn’t anyone really opened up on Trump?
Because when a large chunk of the GOP electorate, that’s also the angry noisiest, say, “we don’t care about that stuff,” going there to attack Trump could lead to more Republicans dismissing the importance of that stuff. And once a large portion of Republicans get there, what else to they begin to question and how can the GOP get them back on the farm with the same old same old message when those voters don’t care?