This election is between NOT Trump and NOT(NOT Trump). Before you point out that 2 "NOTs" cancel out, they don't in this usage. For example, a pear is a fruit that's NOT a grapefruit, but a fruit that's NOT a pear isn't inherently a grapefruit - it might be a blackberry.
Our first candidate, NOT Trump, happens to be Joe Biden, but it could be a rabid dog or a rotten tomato and it would still get a similar number of votes. Biden is a nice enough fellow. There's concern by some about his age and declining mental capabilities, concern by others about his occasionally sniffing about the ladies when maybe he ought not, concerns by still others about signs of corruption, and various other fairly mild personality concerns, but really, he's one of the most milquetoast candidates for president in quite some time.
But it doesn't seem that a lot of people are really that excited about Biden and really think he'll be a great President. Rather, they're voting for him primarily because he's NOT Trump. Again if it was a rabid dog instead of Biden they'd still be voting NOT Trump.
But how many people are voting FOR Trump? Some, for sure, but I suspect not all that many. I think never-Trumpers are a good example. One commenter here, PatrickH, claimed to be a never-Trumper, but said he was gonna vote for Trump this time around. At first I thought that was contradictory and certainly sounds contradictory, but then I realized he wouldn't vote FOR Trump but he would pull the lever (or punch the chad or whatever) for NOT(NOT Trump) and that it isn't contradictory at all! The fact that NOT(NOT Trump) happens to be Trump in this case is immaterial.
So what's so scary about NOT Trump that people would consider voting for NOT(NOT Trump)? Hardly anything really. EXCEPT! NOT Trump coupled with far left Democrats controlling all other branches of government scares a LOT of people to death. And when I write all other branches, I mean ALL other branches. It's believed, perhaps incorrectly, that NOT Trump with a democrat controlled congress will pack the Supreme court with far left judges that will strongly assist in completely remaking America, and not in ways that will benefit non-Democrats or Conservatives. Indeed, the belief of non-Democrats and Conservatives is that this remaking of America will badly damage their well-being in many ways from economic to spiritual.
Note that many of these beliefs about how they're going to be damaged may not be objectively true. But the NOT Trump party has done a poor job of allaying these fears and NOT(NOT Trump) has been able to exploit these beliefs to his advantage. Here are a small subset of the fears:
Religion: The vast majority of atheists and anti-religionists belong to the NOT Trump party and many of those do think that religion is a very bad thing and should be squashed as much as possible. For evidence look no further than the contentiousness of nominating Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court Justice. She's Catholic and it's clear that the left believes that somewhat devout Catholics should NOT be allowed on the Supreme Court no matter what. If you don't believe that to be true, show me one at least somewhat devout Catholic that the left would accept as a Supreme Court justice going forward.
Manufacturing Jobs: While NOT(NOT Trump)'s foreign policy includes trade wars and border walls, NOT Trump's foreign policy is likely to be more globalist and more pro-China. While NOT(NOT Trump)'s policy may or may not have increased manufacturing jobs in the United States, it is strongly perceived by many that it did and NOT(NOT Trump) has very successfully exploited this perception.
Riots: Many who will vote NOT(NOT Trump) are watching with horror and fascination as Democrat run cities with Democrat headed police in Democrat controlled states burn because of riots (allegedly) caused by Democrat controlled police forces brutally killing black males. NOT Trump and the NOT Trump party have been slow to condemn the violence leaving many to fear that the whole country will burn if NOT Trump is elected. This fear is perception and not necessarily reality but NOT Trump and party have done little to nothing to alleviate the fear.
Abortion: Many people are very anti-abortion and want to limit it as much as possible. NOT(NOT Trump) has been much more supportive of their position than many of the NOT Trump party.
Systemic Racism and Other Wokeness: Many people greatly fear the concept of Systemic Racism, Critical Race Theory, White Fragility, etc. After all, the general concept is that all white people are racist (and therefore evil) no matter what. It's not surprising that not everyone wants to jump on that bandwagon. NOT(NOT Trump) has banned Critical Race Theory training for government institutions and that was very appealing to many.
And many more.
Again, all of these things are perceptions and fears as opposed to some cast-in-concrete objective future reality. But what is certain to me, is that the party of NOT Trump has not only done very little to address these fears and perceptions, but has in many cases actively stoked them and has "othered" those with different perceptions, goals and beliefs (for example, Obama's "bitter clingers," Hillary's "basket of deplorables," etc.). The problem with "othering" many tens of millions of people is that a very large "other" is created and they become the enemy.
And that enemy is voting for NOT(NOT Trump). Not because they like Trump but because NOT Trump is extremely scary to them.
Who am I voting for? Well, I endorse NOT Trump. Mostly because many of those I care about are severely negatively affected by Trump being president. For the most part, they're not directly or tangibly adversely affected, rather the mere circumstance of Trump being president badly damages their mental health and well-being.
If not for that, I might have been a NOT(NOT Trump) voter. After all, trade wars and border walls coupled with ever rising minimum wages is fantastic for a roboticist like me and I'm guessing I'll be thousands or tens of thousands of dollars richer if NOT(NOT Trump) wins.
21 comments:
Bret,
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For the most part, they're not directly or tangibly adversely affected, rather the mere circumstance of Trump being president badly damages their mental health and well-being.
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Likewise, your post mostly argues the same for NOT(NOT Trump) voters, i.e. they also look to be hardly affected if NOT Trump is elected in real material terms.
So it is all about feelings for everybody.
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After all, trade wars and border walls coupled with ever rising minimum wages is fantastic for a roboticist like me and I'm guessing I'll be thousands or tens of thousands of dollars richer if NOT(NOT Trump) wins.
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Wasn't it supposed to be a demonstration that Trump's economic policy is horrible, for any Libertarian inclined person? I am pretty sure that guy at Cafe Hayek would say so -- and that whatever boos his econonmic protectionism gives to you is being stolen from everybody else.
Clovis wrote: "So it is all about feelings for everybody.
That's how it looks to me.
Clovis wrote: "Wasn't it supposed to be a demonstration that Trump's economic policy is horrible, for any Libertarian inclined person?"
Sure. I'm all for free trade when it doesn't hurt me! :-)
Most of the Cafe Hayek folk were safely ensconced in their tenured academic environment so, yeah, they probably completely benefit from free trade and free markets with no risk. No wonder they advocated for it so strongly.
For those of us in more risky situations, we're probably not so hot on free trade and markets when it hurts us. I don't think that anyone will argue that by far the best situation is to be in a position where the government completely protects you from competition, perhaps even giving you a monopoly, but everybody else has to be exposed to the free market and compete. A tenured professor at a major university in the US is pretty close to that person.
Clovis,
In some fairness I argued constantly against free trade at Cafe Hayek even before Trump came on the scene. For example, this post. Note he promised but never fully responded to my questions.
Bret,
I do remember that post of yours back from 2016. But why are you using the past tense for Cafe Hayek? I just checked it and they are still there.
It is though interesting how you went personal in your answer. So you believe academics who defend free trade and competition do so only because they are protected from it? And the academics who defend protectionism and govt intervention also do so because they are ensconced in protected position - hey, we can explain everybody away with this one-fits-all explanation! :-)
Well, I am also an academic ensconced in a protected position. It is indeed very cosy: I can think about physics the whole day without producing anything resembling immediate economic gains for anybody. The downside of it, though, is that I will never achieve your economic gains - you are far richer than I will ever be, unless I win the lottery.
So it is the old low risk/low gains versus high risks/high gains choice, common to all investment choices around. What protectionism gives you is to lower your risks without lowering your gains (maybe even boosting it). But Don would argue it does so by lowering the gains (and freedom - which for him is an existential pain above all) of everybody else.
Now, of course you and any other business owner in the winning side of this arrangement won't care much. But why the rest of your fellow citizens should accept that burden?
Mind you, I am in a pretty protectionist country myself, and I have heard my whole life from economists here and abroad that this is one of the main reasons Brazil keeps being poor. I am just trying to understand how we can get rich and keep our protectionism, since there is not much of a chance we can get rid of it :-)
Clovis asks: "But why are you using the past tense for Cafe Hayek?"
Because I haven't visited the site for a few years. It may still be there but I haven't graced it with my wit or wisdom for a while! :-)
Clovis wrote: "It is though interesting how you went personal in your answer."
You're right and I shouldn't've done that. I apologize.
They're just the most dogmatic libertarians I've ever encountered who believe that economic freedom is more important than anything else and anything and anyone who curtails economic freedom is intensely wrong and immoral and I just wonder if they'd feel the same way if their economic situations were different.
Clovis wrote: "...you are far richer than I will ever be..."
Maybe. That certainly would've been true if my company had done well. It has not and has been hanging by a thread for more than a decade so I'm FAR poorer than I would've been had I taken a normal engineering career path and also likely poorer than if I had managed to get a tenured academic position.
Like you, I do enjoy what I do and money isn't everything though I've been enjoying the extra security the trade wars and border walls have brought quite a bit.
So in my case it's the old high risk, (near) failure outcome. I bet my career and marriage and have little (materially) to show for it. What wealth I do have was derived from working with Howard trading futures (perhaps I'll go back to that). Nonetheless, I would've been miserable in some socialist engineering position so I'm still better off overall than I would've been in an intensely regulated market environment.
Clovis wrote: "I am in a pretty protectionist country myself, and I have heard my whole life from economists here and abroad that this is one of the main reasons Brazil keeps being poor."
A main reason? My guess is no but I don't know enough about Brazil to even have that guess be any good. Other reasons that I would guess would be more "main" than lack of international free trade are lack of domestic free trade, corruption, bribery, low social trust, inefficient (and maybe heavy) per capita spending by government, little or ineffective general education, and about a million other things. Does Brazil have any of those problems? If so, lack of international free trade may not much matter.
Bret,
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Like you, I do enjoy what I do and money isn't everything though I've been enjoying the extra security the trade wars and border walls have brought quite a bit.
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You keep mentioning border walls. You do know they weren't built, right?
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Clovis wrote: "...you are far richer than I will ever be..."
Maybe. That certainly would've been true if my company had done well.
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"Maybe"?
Heck, the way our currency has been going down, you are still richer than I if your company goes bankrupt and you work fixing computers for old people at weekends in your neighborhood.
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I bet my career and marriage and have little (materially) to show for it.
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I guess, in one way or another, we are betting our careers every day at every choice. But marriages? Sorry Bret, I don't think so.
They can go sour when economic difficulties are indeed high, to the point you can't provide the basics for the kids. To the other cases, economic reasons are more of a (often unconscious) smokescreen for other reasons.
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Does Brazil have any of those problems? If so, lack of international free trade may not much matter.
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Of course, Brazil ckecks all items of your list, but you would be naive to separate them from protectionism, they go hand in hand: you need to really protect your cronies from (internal and external) competition if you want to keep indulging in all that corrruption and incompetence.
And I am sure you are aware that, even in a high functioning economy like yours, protectionism may lead to inefficiences and corruption in the long term, if there wasn't corruption already when that protectionism started. And since this is a govt led by Trump, corruption can hardly be discarded, can it?
But how many people are voting FOR Trump?
I am. I can't think of an administration since Reagan that has had a better foreign or domestic policy record than Trump's.
Which is really what I'm voting for — goals and achievements. I'm not looking for a new best friend.
So what's so scary about NOT Trump that people would consider voting for NOT(NOT Trump)? Hardly anything really. EXCEPT! NOT Trump coupled with far left Democrats controlling all other branches of government scares a LOT of people to death.
Hardly anything? Really?
I know I took some heat from Clovis for this, but I was completely right: the Obama administration conspired with the FBI and the DNC to first meddle in an election, then subvert it, along with the eager willingness of legacy media.
Do you remember that the Democrats impeached Trump? You could be forgiven for having forgotten, in as much as they have — astonishingly — completely neglected to bring it up. Dogs that do not bark.
Facebook and Twitter are totally in the tank, and should be charged with election law offenses.
Kavanaugh. Nick Sandmann.
And all these horror shows happened without the Democrats being in charge.
Who am I voting for? Well, I endorse NOT Trump. Mostly because many of those I care about are severely negatively affected by Trump being president. For the most part, they're not directly or tangibly adversely affected, rather the mere circumstance of Trump being president badly damages their mental health and well-being.
My brother, and one of my first cousins, have heaped vitriol on me for suggesting, from the get-go, that the Russian collusion thing was facially baseless, and likely involved significant corruption. Oh, and Dr. Ford, along with everyone who jumped on board were conducting an evidence-free character assassination campaign. And the impeachment was a complete farce. And the vast majority of reporting on Trump was pervasively malignant.
Their fervent desire to believe in an alternate reality that just doesn't exist is their problem, not mine.
It is worth keeping in mind that the parade of horribles Trump would be leading, that our betters just knew was going to happen, didn't.
@Clovis: Wasn't it supposed to be a demonstration that Trump's economic policy is horrible, for any Libertarian inclined person?
Which is why I'm no longer a libertarian. Had millions of illegal immigrants crossed the Rio Grande wearing Brooks Brothers suits and carrying brief cases full of law and accounting degrees, there would have been a stainless steel wall stretching from Brownsville to San Diego forty years ago.
——
I know, I've been gone a long time. Haven't called, haven't written.
Eight or so years ago, I started noticing an increasing effort to write comments, until finally I just stopped. Don't read many blogs anymore, either. Althouse, Ace, David Thompson, Volokh and Second City cop are 95% of what I look at anymore.
So what are the odds I'd run into Annoying Old Guy two and a half months ago? One hundred percent, as it turns out.
Oh, and I've been retired for nearly six months, and living just outside Boise, ID for nearly a year.
Hey Skipper,
Welcome back!
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I am. I can't think of an administration since Reagan that has had a better foreign or domestic policy record than Trump's.
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If we are to believe the polls, Reagan is a good comparison only in reversed roles: Biden is Reagan, Trump is Mondale. Apparently, your fellow citizens aren't much in agreement with your performance assessment here.
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I know I took some heat from Clovis for this, but I was completely right: the Obama administration conspired with the FBI and the DNC to first meddle in an election, then subvert it, along with the eager willingness of legacy media.
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Yes, you were so right that DOJ will now prosecute and put in jail those corrupt conspirators... oh, wait, not yet? But, but... why?
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Which is why I'm no longer a libertarian. Had millions of illegal immigrants crossed the Rio Grande wearing Brooks Brothers suits and carrying brief cases full of law and accounting degrees, there would have been a stainless steel wall stretching from Brownsville to San Diego forty years ago.
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Just because you are not a libertarian anymore, doesn't mean you should act like you don't get anything about economics. You have had immigrants taking (or inventing) many of the best jobs in the country for quite some time now. Law and accounting degrees are rather trivial, many immigrants went up to do better things. The last one I've sent to America has just got a prize from NASA.
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Oh, and I've been retired for nearly six months, and living just outside Boise, ID for nearly a year.
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Pra tell us, Skipper, of the many places on Earth you could retire to, why Boise?
If we are to believe the polls, Reagan is a good comparison only in reversed roles: Biden is Reagan, Trump is Mondale. Apparently, your fellow citizens aren't much in agreement with your performance assessment here.
That's as may be, but my performance assessment is not dependent upon what other people think.
Moreover, it is long since undeniable that legacy media has long since lost any sense of objectivity or morality with regard to reporting on Trump.
We got treated to several years of a facially nonsensical Russian collusion hoax. Maggie Haberman, the lead NYT reporter, won a Pulitzer. Too bad that virtually every word she wrote was wrong. Mollie Hemingway at the Federalist had it right from the outset. Yet somehow Haberman still has the Pulitzer, and the NYT hasn't so much as spent a paragraph explaining how they could have gotten it so wrong for so long.
Justice Kavanaugh was subjected to a fact-free character assassination campaign. Tara Reade was awarded with radio silence. Trump gets impeached for a perfectly legitimate phone call. E-mails incriminating the Bidens get the same treatment Reade got, while Twitter and Facebook actively censor references to them.
I could go on, but the point should be clear: many of my fellow citizens' opinions could very well be different had legacy media not acted as a contribution-in-kind the the Democrats.
Yes, you were so right that DOJ will now prosecute and put in jail those corrupt conspirators...
Do you mean to tell me the DNC didn't fund the slanderous Russian dossier? That the Obama DOJ didn't use it as a pretext to spy on its political opponents? That the unmasking, and subsequent persecution of Gen Flynn was completely legitimate? That the FBI and CIA never acknowledged how farcical the dossier was, despite knowing it at the time?
Just because you are not a libertarian anymore, doesn't mean you should act like you don't get anything about economics. You have had immigrants taking (or inventing) many of the best jobs in the country for quite some time now. Law and accounting degrees are rather trivial, many immigrants went up to do better things. The last one I've sent to America has just got a prize from NASA.
You missed my point entirely, which had everything to do with the fact that had US economic elites faced anything like the same competitive pressures that low-skilled laborers have, those elites would have long since made sure our borders were hermetically sealed.
I was never that much of a libertarian, because libertarianism makes it all too easy to disregard its downsides.
Our porous southern border, and our trade policies with China have ensured that the least well-off Americans have been taking a beating for the last fifty years.
Lawyers and accountants?
Not so much.
Pray tell us, Skipper, of the many places on Earth you could retire to, why Boise?
Oh, no reason. That, and both of the sprogs are here.
We live in a new development. A few weeks ago, one of our neighbors set up a block party. At least 40 households showed up (out of the 60-ish houses that are finished).
I talked to at least 30. With the exception of our immediate neighbors, who had lived in the Boise area since the 1980s, and us, everyone else came from California, Oregon or Washington.
There is no denying our neighborhood is upper middle-class. That's a lot of tax base that is getting the hell away from benevolent progressivism.
Skipper,
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I could go on, but the point should be clear: many of my fellow citizens' opinions could very well be different had legacy media not acted as a contribution-in-kind the the Democrats.
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You mean, in this day and age, they can't google around for their own good? Gee, I do remember this bad-rich-guys-in-media-control mindset from way back then, but it used to come from the Left. The world is round though...
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Do you mean to tell me the DNC [...]
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You answered my question with a lot of other questions. Let's take a step back: why DOJ is sitting down over this? Any idea?
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You missed my point entirely, which had everything to do with the fact that had US economic elites faced anything like the same competitive pressures that low-skilled laborers have, those elites would have long since made sure our borders were hermetically sealed.
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I didn't miss your point, I directly denied it. US actors (be it their economic elites or anyone below) are facing competitive pressures from foreign laborers since the foundation of America.
Your porous borders and trade with China made everyone in America richer, including the "least well-off Americans" you supposedly speak for (though probably can't name one you met in the last 30 years).
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There is no denying our neighborhood is upper middle-class. That's a lot of tax base that is getting the hell away from benevolent progressivism.
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Would you risk a guess on how many of them are there for retirement too?
By the way, nice picture and congratulations for the new place. Mountain landscapes make up for the best sunsets - maybe you can beat Bret's pictures now.
Clovis wrote: "You mean, in this day and age, they can't google around for their own good?"
You have to know what to google for. Indeed, you would have to know that the media you're reading is (potentially) skewing their reporting.
The NY Post Hunter Biden story is interesting in that Facebook & Twitter went too far and more people heard about it (probably) than if they hadn't censored that one. But generally I don't think that's the case. If you didn't suspect anti Trump bias would you ever google "anti trump media bias"? I wouldn't and I don't think most other people throw random search queries that they know nothing about into google. Somehow you have to be clued in to start with.
Clovis wrote: "...why DOJ is sitting down over this?"
I'm not sure a lot of what they did is provably illegal beyond reasonable doubt which is required for a DOJ proceeding. A lot of it is certainly just dirty politics. To me it looks like the preponderance of evidence supports Hey Skipper, but not to the level required for criminal convictions. On the other hand, I'm not sure they've stopped investigating either. On the 3rd hand, assuming Biden wins, all such investigations will be shut down anyway.
Clovis wrote: "Your porous borders and trade with China made everyone in America richer, including the "least well-off Americans" you supposedly speak for..."
All policy decisions have winners and losers. Yes, some or even most of the trade with China and immigration from the southern border was beneficial to the least well off. But some definitely hurt the least well off.
And the problem is that those that benefited saw small benefits (somewhat cheaper goods) while those that lost often lost catastrophically (their jobs and communities devastated).
Lastly, in this particular case, if China's borders with the rest of the world were completely closed we wouldn't be suffering from Covid-19 now which has cost the world huge sums, with the greatest impact on the poor.
BTW, I don't know about Hey Skipper, but working in agriculture I've met a lot of least well off people over the years and I certainly remember some of their names. I don't claim to speak for them though...
Bret,
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You have to know what to google for. Indeed, you would have to know that the media you're reading is (potentially) skewing their reporting.
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We are four years deep in daily discussions and pronouncements about fake news, promoted by all parts of the political spectrum. Not to mention the few decades of profound partisanship, with all parts accusing the other of being more blindly partisan.
Yet you think your fellow citizens didn't notice any of it?
Anyone who bothers can do a fast reading of opposite opinions in 2 minutes of daily checking a few websites. I agree most people don't, but only because they *really* don't want to. It is more cosy to stay in your bubble after all. But this talk of "only if they knew the truth" makes you and Skipper more like cosy bubble partners.
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I'm not sure a lot of what they did is provably illegal beyond reasonable doubt which is required for a DOJ proceeding. A lot of it is certainly just dirty politics.
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Oh, I think you are on the verge of an insight here.
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And the problem is that those that benefited saw small benefits (somewhat cheaper goods) while those that lost often lost catastrophically (their jobs and communities devastated).
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Really? Anyone you can name?]
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BTW, I don't know about Hey Skipper, but working in agriculture I've met a lot of least well off people over the years and I certainly remember some of their names.
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It is a good start - tell us their names, Bret, and a bit about their personal lives please.
Clovis asked: "Really? Anyone you can name?"
Say what? Why would I have to name them? It's been fairly extensively studied. For example:
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.103.6.2121
Even Krugman cites these guys.
Clovis wrote: "It is a good start - tell us their names, Bret, and a bit about their personal lives please."
Your (snarky) challenge was "though probably can't name one you met in the last 30 years." Their names are Jose, Fernando, Roberto, Concha, Margarita, Chase, and Leo. Of those I know/knew Concha and Leo the best. Concha was one of my maids (for about 12 years), we paid her approximately minimum wage. She speaks very little English so my Spanish actually got pretty good during that period. She lived in a 2-bedroom apartment with her 3 kids and her mother. There was a husband but he vacated at some point. Her older daughter, Maribel (not sure the spelling) got pregnant at 16 and dropped out of high school. They are catholic so an abortion was not a possibility.
Leo is a musician, 31-years-old, only has the occasional gig, his income is probably less than all the others I named. However, he's very good at mooching off family and friends so his consumption may be higher than some of the others. He practices polyamory and is bisexual. Leo was in one of my barbershop quartets. I had to pay all of entry fees and expenses or there was no possible way for him to participate.
And before you ask, no, I don't know anyone as badly off as the poorer citizens of Brazil.
Bret,
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Say what? Why would I have to name them? It's been fairly extensively studied. For example:
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I have no doubt it's been an standard topic for economists to study. But I've asked you to name them because, as you can see from your own link, the affected people are mostly not the ones you have even an acquaintance in your daily life. That's also true for Skipper.
Individualistic and materialistic as you and Skipper are, I sincerely doubt you guys do really care for the people who may have lost their jobs to manufacturing abroad. And maybe you are right to not really care: most of them could get on with their lives without much trouble, being immersed in the richest country on Earth as they are.
Back in 2016, when Trump won, many pundits would pose the 'losers' of globalization were the reason for his win, but since then this economic explanaton has been debunked. Even back then there were people refuting so.
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Your (snarky) challenge was "though probably can't name one you met in the last 30 years."
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I don't know if snarky was my main intention. I did want to show the hypocrisy though, so it is a sincere challenge I offered. Skipper's discourse reminded me too much of the feelings I had when discussing with Marxists who proclaim their most true Love for the People but really care only for themselves.
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And before you ask, no, I don't know anyone as badly off as the poorer citizens of Brazil.
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The comparison with Brazil was not my intention. What I wanted to point out - and you kindly helped by your answer, thank you - is that the least well off people you actually know are in no way affected by open borders and commercial competition.
Even by their names I can bet part of them may have come illegally at some point in your country, and you can hardly point out how they are made off worse because they can buy cheaper trash from China. Are they looking for jobs in manufacturing sectors affected? Doesn't look like so.
Clovis: You mean, in this day and age, they can't google around for their own good?
No, I mean that if the legacy media resolutely and uniformly fail to provide any coverage to a major story, then that neglect will leave a mark. To presume otherwise is to declare that every second and dime spent on the NYT/Washington Post/major networks et al is completely wasted. It also would require flying in the face of facts: the Russian collusion hoax was propelled by the legacy media, as was the Kavanaugh character assassination campaign. Compare and contrast with Tara Reade's accusations.
How far does Trump's impeachment get without the legacy media?
They have completely ignored the Hunter Biden emails and accusations of corrupt behavior. Not just a little bit ignored, completely ignored. (Note well the dogs that aren't barking: given how big a deal impeachment is, it is astonishing the Democrats haven't brought it up once during the campaign. Okay, not astonishing. At all.)
As Bret mentioned, Twitter and Facebook are actively impeding sharing of links to stories about the Biden emails. Google is known to skew search results.
Shelby Steele is a very accomplished African-American intellectual. His latest book, "Shame", is outstanding. He just released "What Killed Michael Brown", the young man that a police officer shot in Ferguson, Missouri about five years ago.
Amazon Prime decided not to host it. For a week, anyway. Until its grotesque perfidy became too much to ignore.
My wife and I watched it yesterday. Absolutely brilliant.
I didn't miss your point, I directly denied it. US actors (be it their economic elites or anyone below) are facing competitive pressures from foreign laborers since the foundation of America.
Wait. What? There is no way American lawyers, accountants, entertainment execs, politicians, university professors, etc have faced any, or scarcely any pressure from foreign labor. Hollywood hasn't been hollowed out like any number of mid-Western cities. Lawyers aren't competing against foreign lawyers getting paid less than the minimum wage.
Had lawyers faced anything even remotely like the threats to their income that US laborers have, there is no doubt that wall would have been built long ago.
Your porous borders and trade with China made everyone in America richer …
At a very macro level, that is true. But the further away you get from the macro to the micro, it becomes increasingly clear that the lowest skilled US citizens are the ones who are taking the brunt of free trade, over and over again. Free trade, of which I used to be a fervent proponent, has succeeded in making America as a whole richer, while impoverishing a very specific part of America.
… including the "least well-off Americans" you supposedly speak for (though probably can't name one you met in the last 30 years).
I have absolutely no idea what my ability to name any "least well-off Americans" has to do with anything, other than as a form of ad hominem attack: my presumed inability has no effect on the validity of my conclusions.
Keep in mind that the least well off Americans I probably can't name in the last 30 years would include myself. After I lost my airline pilot job following 9/11, my first job was installing satellite TV systems during a Michigan winter for a salary less than a tenth of what I had been previously earning.
And it shouldn't matter that I can't remember the names of my co-workers.
Would you risk a guess on how many [recent immigrants from west coast blue states] are there for retirement too?
One.
We are four years deep in daily discussions and pronouncements about fake news, promoted by all parts of the political spectrum. Not to mention the few decades of profound partisanship, with all parts accusing the other of being more blindly partisan.
Yet you think your fellow citizens didn't notice any of it?
Let's restrict the universe to readers of the NYT or Washington Post.
Read a story about Trump that includes a comments section. (If you hit an NYT paywall, refresh the page and immediately stop the page download. The NYT loads its paywall code after the story itself.)
It will become immediately apparent that NYT and WaPo readers get their news solely from outlets like the NYT and WaPo, in that they endlessly repeat the lopsided and downright wrong reporting they have been getting fed since 2015.
If the NYT and WaPo, to pick just two examples, were to report the news fairly, then their readers at least wouldn't have any excuse for being so bloody ignorant. They might still be rabid, who knows, but at least they wouldn't be spouting the same lies as the legacy media have so endlessly done.
Hmmm. Might even make a difference in opinion polls and elections.
(And the same could be side of climate reporting, too.)
I have no doubt it's been an standard topic for economists to study. But I've asked you to name them because, as you can see from your own link, the affected people are mostly not the ones you have even an acquaintance in your daily life. That's also true for Skipper.
So what?
Seriously, that has to be the most irrelevant thing I've heard in a long time.
It is absolutely true that I, at the moment, have very few acquaintances among the people most affected by China's rapacious trade practices.
Yet despite that, I would very much welcome restricting trade with China, and illegal immigration, even if I would end up paying more for some goods and services.
Search as you might, there is no hypocrisy to be found.
As it happens, there are a great many workers from Central and South America building the houses here. I have — SHOCKER! — actually talked to some of them as if they are actual human beings!
Uniformly very nice people. Undoubtedly hard workers. Is there a problem that I hope they are all here legally?
What I wanted to point out - and you kindly helped by your answer, thank you - is that the least well off people you actually know are in no way affected by open borders and commercial competition.
Bollocks. There are no US citizens working in masonry, roofing and framing in the border states. There aren't a lot of non-Central/South Americans doing those trades here.
Leaving their immigration status completely aside, unless you have somehow managed to repeal the law of supply and demand, there is no way the least well off US citizens haven't been badly affected.
Hmmm. Perhaps I can answer some questions.
Religion; Name a somewhat devout Catholic the left would accept on the Supreme Court: John Roberts.
Maanufacturing jobs: No 'may' about it. Didn't happen. Didn't even save the Whirlpool jobs that were the poster child of the campaign. They went to Mexico.
Riots: Oh, my. I suppose you would like to erase this one.
Abortion: The pro-life party gets to count 500,000+ needlessly dead on its side of the ledger. I am careful never to state my opinion about abortion (I do have one), but viruses are not accounted for in the New Testament.
Systemic Racism: I am closer to full-blown chattel slavery than anybody, since my grandfather owned a slave, but it does not frighten me. Perhaps people are frightened of publicizing racism because they are racists and -- mirabile dictu -- it isn't couth to say so. I never would have predicted that when I was young.
I have just finished reading a 2-foot stack of books about McCarthyism. I had read up on McCarthy 30 years ago (and had some childish memories of the fear), and had concluded that Trumpism is just Mccarthyism in lifted shoes. But a lot of scholarly effort has been expended on mccarthyism in the past 30 years and I decided to see whether my impressions hold up under scrutiny.
Did they ever. In dozens of instances I found paragraphs written as long as 70 years ago which, if dropped into an Atlantic article about Trump, no one would spot as an intruder.
I don't contest your distinction between NOTTRUMP and NOT (NOT) TRUMP, but I say it is not relevant. We are in the third wave of the Red Scare, and we have understood Wave 1 and Wave 2 well enough. We don't need any new explanations.
Skipper,
We have formed a Discord for former Althouse commenters. If you would like an invitation, e-mail me at twixella@aol.com
Hi, Harry.
Manufacturing jobs: No 'may' about it. Didn't happen. Didn't even save the Whirlpool jobs that were the poster child of the campaign. They went to Mexico.
Not quite sure what point you are trying to make here.
There are a great many jobs that can't be exported — precisely the ones I mentioned above. Instead, porous borders that wouldn't be tolerated had lawyer incomes been threatened, allowed importing labor to drive down US wages in low education jobs.
Not at all the same thing as Maytag.
Riots: Oh, my. I suppose you would like to erase this one.
No, I don't. When one side has massive riots, it gets to flout Mao Tse Lung restrictions. And the rioters get released post haste, some with their bails paid by VP Harris.
A very small scale riot in the capital gets widespread suspension of a right to a speedy trial, unnecessary pre-trial confinement, and sequestering video of the goings on.
And that is before getting to the part that the Jan 6 protestors had a point: the elections *was* rigged. I'm not talking about voting, because the secret ballot will ensure the answer to that will forever remain unknowable.
Rather, I'm talking about the widespread collusion between social media companies and the government to suppress stories unfavorable to Biden. Remember the Hunter laptop? Are you reading anything about the Twitter files?
Abortion: The pro-life party gets to count 500,000+ needlessly dead on its side of the ledger. I am careful never to state my opinion about abortion (I do have one), but viruses are not accounted for in the New Testament.
Once again, your point is obscure. It sounds as if the set of anti-baby-murder people significantly intersects with the set of C-19 anti vaxxers. (Ignoring for the moment that all the C-19 vaccines substantially failed to meet promises.) And, consequently most of the C-19 fatalities were down to the vaccine hesitant.
As usual, when it comes to numbers, you are wrong.
The NYT does a pretty good job compiling Kung Pao Sicken numbers.
Scroll down to State Trends. Select All Time, and rank order by deaths/100,000. Note the correlation in death rates and vaxx rates. There *is* a correlation between deaths and vaxx rates, the lower vaxx rate states do tend to cluster towards the higher death rates. But nowhere near enough to create anything like half of all C-19 deaths. Besides, the overwhelming majority of C-19 deaths have been among those older than 65, 93% of whom are fully vaccinated.
Systemic Racism: I am closer to full-blown chattel slavery than anybody, since my grandfather owned a slave, but it does not frighten me. Perhaps people are frightened of publicizing racism because they are racists and -- mirabile dictu -- it isn't couth to say so. I never would have predicted that when I was young.
An unwarranted claim to authority. Why should anyone care whether an ancestor of yours owned a slave?
Then you turn to the tar brush. By all means, give us some examples of those who are frightened of publicizing racism because they are racists. And while you are at it, use the dictionary definition of racism.
I have just finished reading a 2-foot stack of books about McCarthyism. I had read up on McCarthy 30 years ago (and had some childish memories of the fear), and had concluded that Trumpism is just Mccarthyism in lifted shoes.
Wait. What? During the Trump administration there was a House unAmerican Committee getting people informing on, well, what exactly, and getting people fired from their jobs?
Meanwhile, there are more instances than can be counted on progressives all too eagar to reenact the Cultural Revolution.
By all means, detail for us exactly what this Red Scare is about.
And the paras that could be dropped into an Atlantic article about Trump, since the Atlantic is so famous for being fair and balanced.
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