Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[kenberg]

A fascinating psychological experiment could explain Donald Trump's rise and why some people did not vote for Bush.

 

I strongly believe that emotions play a large role in political decisions. I have said before that if Trump changed his political views entirely I would still find him repulsive. This is fundamentally emotional. I cannot imagine myself voting for him.

 

There of course could be something to the argument that support for Bush (in 2004) or Trump (now) is related to fear of death. Perhaps it is so. But it is a rather fatalistic view. If people support Trump because they fear death, we cannot relieve that fear so we are stuck. It would be better, and I think accurate, to see support for Trump as coming from several sources and then try to address the parts of this that we can do something about.

 

It is true that some uneducated people support Trump. It is also true that some educated people gave Obama a Nobel prize. Both cases remind me of the George Wallace slogan "Send them a message".. Whether we do or do not like the message does not change the fact that it is, at its root, a message. In the current case, with Trump, I think that writing this all off as stupidity (the usual explanation) or fear of mortality (a novel explanation) is a serious error.

 

We cannot make others smarter, it's tough enough to make ourselves smarter, and we cannot relieve their fear of death. So we could look for something we can address.

 

If this country really cannot do better than Hillary versus Donald in 2016, we have a problem.

[blackshoe]

If this country really cannot do better than Hillary versus Donald in 2016, we have a problem.

You make it sound like the problem is no more serious than a hangnail. I do believe it's worse than that. B-)

[Winstonm]

I strongly believe that emotions play a large role in political decisions. I have said before that if Trump changed his political views entirely I would still find him repulsive. This is fundamentally emotional. I cannot imagine myself voting for him.

 

There of course could be something to the argument that support for Bush (in 2004) or Trump (now) is related to fear of death. Perhaps it is so. But it is a rather fatalistic view. If people support Trump because they fear death, we cannot relieve that fear so we are stuck. It would be better, and I think accurate, to see support for Trump as coming from several sources and then try to address the parts of this that we can do something about.

 

It is true that some uneducated people support Trump. It is also true that some educated people gave Obama a Nobel prize. Both cases remind me of the George Wallace slogan "Send them a message".. Whether we do or do not like the message does not change the fact that it is, at its root, a message. In the current case, with Trump, I think that writing this all off as stupidity (the usual explanation) or fear of mortality (a novel explanation) is a serious error.

 

We cannot make others smarter, it's tough enough to make ourselves smarter, and we cannot relieve their fear of death. So we could look for something we can address.

 

If this country really cannot do better than Hillary versus Donald in 2016, we have a problem.

IMHO, this is the problem - those who promote a continuation should be considered a common enemy.

[kenberg]

IMHO, this is the problem - those who promote a continuation should be considered a common enemy.

 

 

I doubt that speaking of wealth inequality will swing elections.

 

I think of myself as, despite all evidence to the contrary, reasonably normal. If I think on it, I can see reasons why a large amount of money in very few hands can be dangerous to the country. These dangers coould be discussed, and I would probably agree that they need to be dealt with. But it is an abstract intellectual argument. At the emotional level, I simply am not offended by some people having a lot, or even many times more than a lot, more money than I have.

 

Here is a column by Colbert king in today's Post. To his credit, King makes no claim that he knows where the solution lies. He has thoughts, i have thoughts, but it seems resistant to solution.

 

 

The above just happened to be an article that I saw today. i see many problems, and most seem tough to solve. Money helps, no doubt about it. To the extent that I favor grabbing money from the rich, it is to solve problems such as this. Other than that, the fact that some people have a lot of money simply doesn't bother me. And it didn't bother me when I was young and taking the diapers by bike to a laundromat because we had neither a washer nor a car. I don't mind and never did mind people having more money than I do.

 

Problems exist, problems are serious, problems need to be solved. it will take money. It will also take good judgment.

 

My point in brief: Simply speaking of wealth inequality doesn't get my vote, and I doubt it gets many votes. Presenting plans to address problems, what it will cost, where thee money can come from, might get my vote and the vote of others.

[y66]

From David Shribman's January 2nd Boston Globe political analysis essay titled Trump and the unfiltered tradition in American politics:

 

... in a forthcoming book on recurring American culture wars, the Boston University scholar Stephen Prothero instead speaks of the importance of worry and apprehension in American political life.

 

A critical motivator in our politics, he argues, “is anxiety — anxiety about loss, about the passing away of a beloved ‘way of life.’ ”

 

That — a surprising sense of nostalgia, from a candidate who has little impulse to sentimentality — may actually be at the heart of the appeal of Trump, as it was from the left for such figures as Bryan and Long, and from the right for such figures as McCarthy and Henry Ford, himself once considered a formidable presidential prospect.

 

Americans, says Trump campaign chief Laudner, believe old notions of government accountability and political responsibility have disappeared. “The federal government doesn’t do anything right, and it’s past embarrassing,’’ he says. “It’s both parties and it’s a culture in Washington that refuses to serve the people who elected them.’’

 

It sounds like a new siren call, but it’s as old as the Republic. The contemporary presidential candidate whose rise is fascinating all America is, in his way, a fascinating all-American candidate.

Excerpts from interview with Stephen Prothero:

 

R&P: Your lecture at Washington University in St. Louis has quite a provocative title: “Why Liberals Win: America’s Culture Wars from the Election of 1800 to Same-Sex Marriage.” Can you explain to R&P readers in a few distilled points why liberals win?

 

SP: The book that I’m working on looks at the culture wars as a recurring phenomenon in American history, from the early nineteenth century to the present. In all the cases I look at, the culture wars are started on the right and won on the left. The reason, I think, for that is that conservatives, in picking these fights and starting these culture wars, typically choose issues that are already going the other way because it puts them inside this narrative of loss and recovery, where the society is moving away from their traditional values. It suits them to pick subjects where they are already losing. If they pick subjects they are already winning, then the complaint that is inherent in this narrative of loss and recovery doesn’t resonate. So they pick an issue such as, ‘There are too many Catholics in America,” at a time when the Catholic population is growing relatively quickly to the point that Catholics are going to become mainstreamed into American life. If they had picked that fight earlier, there would not have been enough Catholics to reasonably be worried about them, and if they picked it later, no one would have cared. They pick it right at the moment when they are losing, and it seems that this recurs and is part of the reason why liberals seem to win these battles.

 

R&P: Why do those on the right choose that specific moment to raise an issue? Is it to paint themselves as victims?

 

SP: Yes. Culture wars are often seen as these battles between liberals and conservatives over cultural questions. But I see them more as dramas that are produced and acted in by conservatives. They are conservative projects whose purpose is to drum up support from traditionalists in society who perceive that something precious is being lost to them, and that something precious changes over the course of history. It might be the traditional family, with a man at its center. It might be a society in which the leaders are all white. It might be a society in which the important figures are Protestants. In order to activate that anxiety, which is an important part of my book, which is going to create a political upsurge for your party, you need to find an issue that will agitate peoples’ emotions. The moment of highest agitation seems to be the moment when it’s becoming clear that the liberals are starting to win, the conservative complaint kicks in, but lo and behold, the liberals actually do win. It is a fixed game. It’s not really a fair fight because the conservatives are not picking the issues on which they are winning, which are many. In my lifetime, conservatives have done better than liberals on many political issues. But on questions in the culture wars, they tend to pick the issues that they are losing or are about to lose.

 

R&P: This lecture stems from your upcoming book of the same title. What led you to pursue this research and this topic?

 

SP: It started for me in the Ground Zero Mosque controversy. There was a lot of debate whether Muslims could build this Islamic community center a few blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan. I followed the debate because I have always been interested in church-state questions. I was very surprised when it shifted from being a local issue to a national issue, and when some of the leading members of the Republican Party began weighing in against the mosque. I was surprised because it was a clear-cut case where you had two issues deeply held in American society that were in favor of the Muslims who wanted to build the mosque: first, was private property rights—they owned the land—and second was religious liberty. It surprised me that there was so much agitation about it. Since I’m a historian, I tried to understand it in a historical context, by going back and looking at these moments in the past. The moment I discovered was when Thomas Jefferson was accused of being Muslim in the election of 1800, so Barack Obama is not the first American president to be accused of being Muslim. So that is how I got started looking at culture wars before the Islam wars.

 

R&P: With today’s global upheaval, which seems to be ever-present in the media, what is to be done about religious tolerance internationally?

 

SP: That’s the hard question. You certainly saved the hardest question for last. There is some pretty good evidence, from people who study genocide and the places where the danger of racial or ethnic killing is highest, that there is no civic engagement across the boundaries of race, ethnicity, or religion. If you look at areas that have experienced that kind of killing, it is typically lower in places that have integration. For example, if Muslims and Hindus are engaged in civic institutions, activities, and leadership together, then the probability of violence is much lower than in places that are completely separated. The premise is pretty simple and intuitive: people become humanized as you engage with them. Say you are hostile toward Muslims, and the first Muslim you meet seems to be a good person. You might be able to say, “Well, they are the exception.” But if you meet 12 Muslims and you start working with them on a library committee or a parks committee in the city, you start to see that they have families like yourself and they share in the effort to promote the civic goods that you are also promoting. Another idea is this diffusion of tolerance, with which you started your question. It is a very laudable goal. However, there are a lot of people in academia who don’t see tolerance as such a good thing. They want what they call pluralism, where difference is celebrated as a positive good, rather then merely tolerated. But tolerance would be much better than what we have in a lot of places. I would add that, and I have written about this, tolerance is an empty virtue unless you actually know something about the people you are tolerating. If you claim to be tolerating Muslims or Christians or Buddhists, but you don’t understand much about them, that is very shallow and a probably less effective form of tolerance.

[Winstonm]

I doubt that speaking of wealth inequality will swing elections.

 

I think of myself as, despite all evidence to the contrary, reasonably normal. If I think on it, I can see reasons why a large amount of money in very few hands can be dangerous to the country. These dangers coould be discussed, and I would probably agree that they need to be dealt with. But it is an abstract intellectual argument. At the emotional level, I simply am not offended by some people having a lot, or even many times more than a lot, more money than I have.

 

Here is a column by Colbert king in today's Post. To his credit, King makes no claim that he knows where the solution lies. He has thoughts, i have thoughts, but it seems resistant to solution.

 

 

The above just happened to be an article that I saw today. i see many problems, and most seem tough to solve. Money helps, no doubt about it. To the extent that I favor grabbing money from the rich, it is to solve problems such as this. Other than that, the fact that some people have a lot of money simply doesn't bother me. And it didn't bother me when I was young and taking the diapers by bike to a laundromat because we had neither a washer nor a car. I don't mind and never did mind people having more money than I do.

 

Problems exist, problems are serious, problems need to be solved. it will take money. It will also take good judgment.

 

My point in brief: Simply speaking of wealth inequality doesn't get my vote, and I doubt it gets many votes. Presenting plans to address problems, what it will cost, where thee money can come from, might get my vote and the vote of others.

 

It is estimated that 40% of the U.S. population has zero or negative wealth, meaning there is nothing there for retirement, for emergencies, to pass on, or for any of the myriad of opportunities that the wealthier have. I have no complaint against the wealthy having wealth - but not at the expense of the poor and middle class.

 

I believe you are wrong that voters ignore such information - Bernie Sanders campaign is built around just this.

[awm]

Wealth inequality is something of a shorthand for a number of related problems, and I agree that on some level the inequality itself should not be an issue. The related problem story goes something like this:

 

1. A lot of Americans have not been doing well economically. The inflation-adjusted median wage has been stagnant (or decreasing) for a long time. Jobs which pay a living wage without requiring a college degree have been drying up. The financial crisis destroyed a lot of wealth for the middle class, many of whom had little to nothing in retirement savings even before the crisis.

2. Many of the costs Americans are struggling with are things government could potentially help with (and in fact does help with in most advanced countries). These include medical costs, cost of college education, saving for retirement, and availability of affordable housing.

3. Many of the economic problems Americans face have been made worse by government policy. In particular a series of global trade agreements have helped to gut the American manufacturing sector (which used to provide living-wage jobs for non-college-educated people). Another related issue is a lack of infrastructure spending (construction is another source of jobs for non-college-educated people).

4. Further, the appearance of unequal treatment under the law is troubling. The law does not protect the poor from usurious loans, and in fact does things like jailing people for unpaid tickets which they cannot afford to pay. At the same time, insider trading goes mostly un-prosecuted and the "white collar" crime that facilitated the economic crash has gone unpunished. This is outside all the recent evidence of racial inequity in policing.

5. There is a great deal of evidence that lawmakers are more responsive to the wishes of the very wealthy who are funding their campaign than to their constituents. This is related to all the above; there is other evidence like the relative tax rates paid by the wealthy, the citizens united decision, continued attempts to cut the estate tax. While Republicans are "worse" on these issues, Democrats are not much better -- it is Obama who is pushing the latest trade agreement, and somehow neither the party which "always wants to cut taxes" nor the party which "defends the middle class" wanted to extend the payroll tax cut which quietly expired a few years ago. This also plays into the suspicions of many voters that all politicians are crooks.

6. All of the above is happening at a time when the United States (already the wealthiest country in the world) has seen a long stretch of economic expansion with the stock market doubling and the wealthiest citizens doing exceedingly well. So it's far from the case that we "don't have the money" to fix these problems.

[mike777]

Ok so taxes are up, regulations are up and the economy is bad for many. Some argue for even more tax increases and new taxes, even more regulation as the answer.

 

Winston points out that Sanders campaign for one is built around this theme.

 

I note Senator Coons from Delaware argues persuasively for a war tax.

[nige1]

Agree with awm. Just before the Iraq-war, a friend with a good UK job, returned to Iraq to care for her family. She wondered why we were determined to go to war. She suspected our motives. In particular, she said: we overvalued our so-called democracy which she perceived as a plutocracy. Tax regimes make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Also, the law is continually adjusted to sanitize and legalize what common-sense would classify as blatant corruption. Libel laws, privacy legislation, commercial confidentiality, and off-shore companies plug remaining gaps. Corruption is expensive, typically wasting a million pounds to camouflage a few thousand pounds of corruption. Public-inquiries and court-cases demonstrate that politicians and the super-rich are above ordinary law.

 

IMO We should be less apathetic and try to salvage what we can of democracy, transparency, and freedom of speech.from the morass.

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.

[y66]

If this country really cannot do better than Hillary versus Donald in 2016, we have a problem.

What are the non-problem scenarios?

[billw55]

What are the non-problem scenarios?

While you may not like any of the R candidates, I suspect you will agree that most or all of them would be preferable to Trump.

 

As for Clinton, I am not particularly fond of her, but I know that Sanders has no realistic chance. And at least she won't do the drastic damage that Trump claims to be seeking.

 

 

[kenberg]

What are the non-problem scenarios?

 

I wish I felt more confidence in Hillary's judgment, I wish I felt more confidence in her leadership skills, but the plain fact is i worry about her abilities.. Maybe this is my own lack. I don't think it is my fear of mortality taking over, but who knows?

 

Bottom line, I am open to an alternative.I don't have any suggestions, at least not at the moment.

[kenberg]

L looked up the Pew report that has been making such a splash. It's a mixed bag. I'll think some more about it.

 

As we think of what to do, and what might work, I come back to a story I have told before, from long ago.

 

In my childhood we rented the upstairs of our house to a woman, Marie, with two young girls. Very small space. Surely illegal by today's standards. She had left her abusive husband and needed a place. Quarrels developed between Marie and my mother (I was generally on Marie's side) and eventually she and her kids moved out. Not to a better place physically, but away from the tension.

 

My point: Life has always been tough for a single woman with a couple of kids and limited skills. Was then, is now.

I ask: When we see the bad situation of people at the lower end, to what extent is this ue to the increase in one parent families? I am not making moral judgments here, I am asking a practical question. To see what can be done, we must see where the problem lies. No government program was going to find a suitable husband for Marie. {Added: I see that Pew also has a report related to such issues. 6% of married parents say they lack adequate funds for basics, 14% is the figure for unmarried parents living with a partner, and 19% for those unmarried and not living with a partner.I would have expected the disparity to be larger. .]

 

Back in post 629 I linked to Colbert King . He is searching for answers to just what can be done with the horrible scores posted by African-American students in the D.C. schools. Mr. King grew up in the city and frequently writes thoughtful columns on racial issues. He is, I think, about my age. Age might be relevant. Some of his thoughts, hardly revolutionary:

 

It helps when students go to school from homes where parental supervision is strong, where respect for teachers and other students is taught, and where getting a good education is valued. It helps, too, if students are exposed at home to correctly spoken English, and where homework must be done and checked for errors.

 

And it helps when students don't enter the classroom burdened by adult-level problems, like the fear and grief associated with acts of violence. Test scores improve when students go to school feeling secure — both economically and socially — and ready to learn from teachers with high expectations.

 

I feel confident that Mr. King generally votes for Democrats and that he believes we all have a shared responsibility to solve problems. That does not mean we can ignore some basics.How to do what is needed? Aye, there's the rub ( to borrow from a man who in April will have been dead 400 years ).

 

 

Anyway, I plan to read the Pew report.

[y66]

Colbert King gave the commencement address at my nephew's high school graduation 10 years or so ago. This was one of my nephews that we were all relieved to see reach this milestone. King commended the grads for their achievement and reminded them in an avuncular way that this was a shared achievement. I think that's also the message of his WaPo article and a big part of the income inequality issue. One of the weird things about Trump and his fellow Republicans is their nostalgia (and mourning) for a world in which income inequality -- and all the things that produce it and result from it -- was not nearly as problematic as it is today no thanks to them.

[kenberg]

This was one of my nephews that we were all relieved to see reach this milestone.

 

I am very familiar with this. As are many people I know.. "It takes time to pick a place to go" is more than just a line from a song, and I wish him well.

[Al_U_Card]

Like those empires that came before it, the American dream has been co-opted by the plutocracy as that income gap widens. The well-to-do have always controlled the reins of power but the "wild-west" expansionist mentality favored those with gumption and tenacity. Nowadays, toeing the line is the expected (and rewarded) behavior. Iconoclasts and mavericks are now anathema to this exercise of privilege in the American experience.

[mike777]

the general guess in GOP race:

 

1) if the same person wins OHIO and FL in march they will win all

2) If only 2-3 really in race on 3-15...trump will lose

3) if 4+ race on 3-15 trump will win

[Winstonm]

the general guess in GOP race:

 

1) if the same person wins OHIO and FL in march they will win all

2) If only 2-3 really in race on 3-15...trump will lose

3) if 4+ race on 3-15 trump will win

 

My guess: if Trump wins the Republican nomination, we all lose.

[mike777]

My guess: if Trump wins the Republican nomination, we all lose.

 

my guess is Winston wins

 

wins...big...including Senate and perhaps perhaps house.

 

Winston and his will control the govt and economy.

[billw55]

My guess: if Trump wins the Republican nomination, we all lose.

Huh, that would just mean Clinton waltzes in, I would think you would be happy about that? Not as much as if it was Sanders but even so.

 

Although I still say Trump is a joke candidacy and will not be the nominee.

[Winstonm]

Huh, that would just mean Clinton waltzes in, I would think you would be happy about that? Not as much as if it was Sanders but even so.

 

Although I still say Trump is a joke candidacy and will not be the nominee.

 

Not at all. This country needs two effective parties willing to negotiate compromises so the interests of all can be served. Sane, effective conservative leadership is not to be feared; unfortunately, there is no party left for those types of conservatives - they are now called independents or Democrats.

[helene_t]

But the GOPs in congress are going to obstruct everything no matter who was their candidate so you might as well hope for the one who has the smallest chance of becoming president.

[barmar]

Although I still say Trump is a joke candidacy and will not be the nominee.

I think so, too, although the longevity of his candidacy scares me.

 

I'm hoping that when people actually go into the voting booths they'll come to their senses. It's easy to say you'll vote for him in a poll, because he's charismatic and makes all the headlines. But when it really matters, maybe people will be more rational.

[Winstonm]

But the GOPs in congress are going to obstruct everything no matter who was their candidate so you might as well hope for the one who has the smallest chance of becoming president.

 

This is not necessarily so. It is the Tea Party caucus in Congress (about 60 members) who compel the rest of the GOP to dance to their tune. The latest budget was created by a coalition of Democrats and constructive conservatives who worked without the Tea Pary votes, which will need to be done to get anything done going forward.

 

I think this will happen because, to survive, the GOP will eventually have to face and defeat the internal challenge created by their own gerrymandering. A party held hostage to its most extreme elements cannot function.

[Al_U_Card]

This is not necessarily so. It is the Tea Party caucus in Congress (about 60 members) who compel the rest of the GOP to dance to their tune. The latest budget was created by a coalition of Democrats and constructive conservatives who worked without the Tea Pary votes, which will need to be done to get anything done going forward.

 

I think this will happen because, to survive, the GOP will eventually have to face and defeat the internal challenge created by their own gerrymandering. A party held hostage to its most extreme elements cannot function.

Doesn't the same rationale apply to the Dems? To whom are they in thrall? What faction is holding them hostage or are they that different from the GOP?