Trump is repositioning for the general election. He is an economic progressive now.
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Trump's victory speech last night displayed a new Trump, with new focus. Trump described himself as a unifier: "We’re going to be a much bigger party. We’re going to be an expanded party. We’re going to win in November." He spoke of the Republican party being a large, dynamic party, with huge turnouts. He sounded like a party leader.
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| Last Night |
The most important thing Trump did, though, was make a progressive argument describing the American economy. The old established Republican coalition has been held together by hypocrisy. The Republican party of several decades and most recently of Romney-Ryan aggressively courted the votes of working and middle income voters by talking about traditional values social conservative issues (gay rights, crosses in parks, War on Christmas, abortion, guns, home school, etc.) while carrying out the economic policies of economic and political elites. They said we need to cut marginal taxes for the richest so we can have growth. We need to cut business and environmental regulation. We need benefits-austerity. But don't worry, wealth trickles down, they said. Only rich people can hire workers, Romney assured voters. Revise Social Security and Medicare so they become less generous so we can afford to cut taxes, Paul Ryan said. America will be better for it.
Except that trickle down didn’t work. America got richer, but the wealth went to the top 1/10th of 1% and stuck there. The average American is no richer than he was 30 years ago, inflation adjusted.
Last night Trump did not focus on the threat from below to the middle class who may want to share in government benefits: immigrants, blacks, Muslims, the poor. Trump focused up, at the rich. The same direction as is Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are focusing.
Trump’s victory speech last night attacked, by name, corporations who moved factories to Mexico, Ford and Nabisco. He called on Apple to build the I-phone here. He has positioned himself as the direct defender of the interests of struggling Americans over the interests of Wall Street and K Street. He has exposed the hypocrisy in the old Republican formula. The rich are not on your side. He is re-shaping the Republican party.
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| Bernie punches up at the billionaires |
Trump argues for the middle class at least as well as Bernie, and better than Hillary. Progressives who expect to vote Democratic may be blinded to this, but Trump is sounding like a progressive. But he is a xenophobe and quasi racist, some think. He cannot be a progressive, one might say. But remember: Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were gleefully racist. You can be an economic progressive and exclude black and brown people from the tent of inclusion.)
Bernie talks about "social class." A lot of Americans are uncomfortable with naming economic classes. Americans like to think there is no class system here, that there is social mobility, and that nearly everyone is--or could be--middle class. Besides, to my ear Bernie sounds like someone who read Karl Marx literature in college--something which would surely be exploited if he were to be the nominee. Trump speaks for “American workers” versus corporations who put their interests ahead of those of working Americans. And Bernie sounds unrealistic with “free education.” Trump seems more plausible with a 35% tariff on Ford. Is it actually plausible? I don't know, but Trump seems confident, of course, and few people understand tariffs and everyone knows that free college would be a political and economic stretch.
Bernie talks about "social class." A lot of Americans are uncomfortable with naming economic classes. Americans like to think there is no class system here, that there is social mobility, and that nearly everyone is--or could be--middle class. Besides, to my ear Bernie sounds like someone who read Karl Marx literature in college--something which would surely be exploited if he were to be the nominee. Trump speaks for “American workers” versus corporations who put their interests ahead of those of working Americans. And Bernie sounds unrealistic with “free education.” Trump seems more plausible with a 35% tariff on Ford. Is it actually plausible? I don't know, but Trump seems confident, of course, and few people understand tariffs and everyone knows that free college would be a political and economic stretch.
Hillary talks of making America “whole again” and says wages have stagnated. Trump dismissed this, saying he has no idea what “whole again” means and that in any case she and her team have been there for 8 years and she hasn’t done anything and it is time to try something new. Trump exposed a vulnerability for Hillary when she ties herself to Obama. She had her turn. There are still problems. Now it is time for something new.
Hillary Clinton is making the unity, end the division of people, we are all in this together argument. This is the "establishment" position and it is eerily like the traditional Republican argument. We need to partner with Wall Street, and regulate it better.
Trump's actual policies are unclear but his tone and mood is utterly clear: These people are bad and he is going to fight them.
Trump says he fights Wall Street and K Street because their interests are not the same as those of the regular people. Teddy Roosevelt made this argument 110 years ago: regulate and break up the trusts and protect the workers with child labor and work week standards.
Trump is making a progressive argument. He has turned toward the general election. Possibly it is too early for him to do this. He isn't the Republican nominee yet. The knives are out for Trump and he is being attacked by his Republican opponents. And look what they are saying. They say he isn't a conservative. They say he is a progressive. They are right.
3 comments:
While every delegate Clinton wins moves her toward the nomination, the delegates she won yesterday (Super Tuesday) were largely in states that for years have gone Republican in the general election. Massachusetts is an exception (she had a very small lead there). Another is Virginia, where she won big and could possibly win in November if Trump or Cruz is her opponent. But with the exception of Oklahoma, Bernie won in states that are more purple than red. Do you think this point will make any difference in the calculations of Democratic Party professionals as they weigh the "electability" factor that from the start they think has heavily favored Hillary?
Herb, you are very right. Her big margin is with the black community and her big deficit is with white Democrats of all kinds and especially young people. Bernie seems new and exciting and she is same ol', same ol'. And her analysis of the economic problem is that there are barriers. Again and again it is "break through the barriers". This works if what one is doing is collecting resentful groups that have experienced discrimination: women, blacks, Hispanics, gays, etc, which of course are a giant majority when put together. Trump's criticism is not of barriers, it is that the rich have gamed the system and he knows because he was a businessman who played along and it is wrong. He is willing to have enemies: banks and corporations who send factories offshore. She is so "unity-oriented" that she doesn't have enemies. She should get them. Until she does agree that there are some people she opposes then she will look like she is a mushy, do-goody, ineffective pawn of the whole corrupt system. Bernie, at least, takes on billionaires. Hillary needs an economic enemy to oppose. Surely the banks who lobbied against allowing loan refinancing would be ok to dislike. Surely the outrageous "carried interest" loophole that allowed Mitt Romney to pay a 15% marginal tax rate. Surely Pfizer which uses American patent laws and American law enforcement and the American navy and air force to protect its physical and intellectual assets, then moves its HQ offshore. Herb, I agree that she has an electability problem with progressives, but she could fix this.
I'm thinking that in the general election, Black and Hispanic voters will go with whomever the Democratic nominee is. Blacks always go Democratic (the only question is whether they turn out in force). Hispanic voters have historically been persuadable, but the recently Republicans have done a marvelous job persuading them to vote Democratic. My sense is that, in the general election, the battleground will be with White independents. Sanders has demonstrated a capacity to reach them, mainly for the reason you lay out cogently in your reply to my first post.
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