Wait! There's Even More!

Introducing a Podcast:  Two Left Eyes:  Two Liberal Democrats view the election.

The blog is not enough.  It is not enough that I brighten and inform your day with updated observations about this incredible election cycle.   Readers have something to read: a daily vitamin pill of whatever insight I can draw by attempting to be clear eyed and objective looking at political messaging, branding, and craftsmanship.

But what about people who want to in the car or on an exercise bike or wherever?
And what about the type-A multi-taskers, people who need to be doing several things at once?  What about them?  Can't they get something to listen to?

Yes.

I started a podcast, titled Two Left Eyes.  

Logo for the new podcast

Frequent Guest Post author Thad Guyer is an employment law litigator who has a specialty in assisting whistleblowing employees.  Thad served a 13 month tour in Vietnam as a 20 year old sergeant in a platoon that did repeated search and destroy missions into the Vietnam jungle.  His time there had a deep impact on him.  He has returned to Vietnam and lives in Saigon where, thanks to the power of technology--the internet, email, Skype, and jet travel--he both carries out an active law practice and observes this election from a 7,000 mile distance.

I have tried to get insights about the election by being up close, attending events live, and looking at primary sources.   Readers have a pretty good sense of who I am.   I did not go to Vietnam thanks to my student deferment.  I've been involved in progressive politics for my entire life.  I was a Jackson County Commissioner as a young adult, then I was a Financial Advisor for 30 years.  In retirement I am a political observer and supporter of some good causes and people.

Thad and I are both Democrats and both of us plan to vote for Hillary over Donald Trump.   But both of us feel required to be cold-eyed and objective, which has allowed us better understanding of Hillary's vulnerabilities and Trump's skill in dominating the media and getting his message out.  Some readers think we are harder on Hillary than on Trump, which doesn't surprise me.  Trump is a deeply flawed candidate who is doing better than anyone expected, which I interpret to mean his campaign is doing something more effective than it seems.    Hillary was expected to have every advantage, yet the polls are about tied, which means to me that her political messages and craft are not as effective as one would expect.

The link to the podcast is right here:  www.soundcloud.com/twolefteyespodcast.   We expect to issue a new one every Monday until the election.   There is also a link to the podcast on the right side of the page of the blog, when seen on an pad or full size screen.

We will learn what makes a podcast interesting and listenable.  Check us out.  And check us out in a week and in two weeks.

Hillary Loses. How to console yourself

The CNN poll shows Trump ahead by 2 points among likely voters.

The "likely voter" thing matters.   A big group of Hillary's voters find her acceptable-in-comparison.   Trump does really well among non-college white men, that big group of people who sometimes vote and sometimes don't, so he motivates exactly those people who need extra motivation.

Trump Leads

I was in Hillary audiences and Trump audiences.   Except for those enthusiastic young women identifying with Hillary as a female pioneer I saw people who were polite and supportive.   Trump supporters were enthusiastic.   The difference may not be obvious on TV but it is undeniable when seeing events in person.   

So, let's say Trump might win.  Hillary turnout might be lower than expected.  Hillary has a lot of begrudging supporters who have to decide how motivated they are.  Would Trump really be that awful.  Maybe they could live with Trump.   What's the upside?

Here is what may go through the back of their minds:

1.  If Hillary is elected there will be endless tiresome investigations by the Republican House.  More hearings.  More revelations that Republicans will call shocking.  It is so wearisome.  Anything would be better.   Fox, O'Reilly, Hannity, Rush, that Trey Gowdy guy, that Gomer Texas guy, the Steve King from Iowa not the author, all of them would start saying how wonderful the world is instead of how crappy.   What a relief.

2.  If Hillary is elected TV will be boring.  She will give speeches about trying to push gun legislation that will go nowhere, she will try to fix Obamacare's obvious glitches and she will get stymied.  She will protest on TV and Republicans will say what she is doing is terrible.  There will be stories about gridlock.  Nothing will change and it will be boring.

3.  If Trump is elected TV will be interesting.   Trump is all-American and he is new, pushing new things.  It is like opening a wrapped up surprise package.  He will talk tough about trade deals.   Who knows what will actually happen but he will sound like an American, not a UN person.  

4.  Trump will shake things up.  He will have a Republican Congress and can get things done.  He will immediately sign bills to end Obamacare and he will appoint a really conservative judge to the Supreme Court and he will  make news about deporting people.   There will be stories about families being broken up by deportation and people losing health insurance and re-affirming Citizens United but Trump's voters will realize this effects no one in their immediate family.  

Maybe they should have paid more

5.  Deportations will maybe cause some employers to start begging for workers, which will shake things up and there will be TV ads for people desperate for employees, so maybe they will raise wages.  Maybe hotel maids will be offered $15 an hour.  Maybe high school kids will pick fruit again. 


6.  He says he will cut taxes and make jobs.  Who knows.  Maybe something will happen.  Anything is better than gridlock.

7.  It will be fun to see the end of so much PC.  Everyone acts offended over every imagined little thing, so it will nice to let loose a little.  Sheltered college students can't read Tom Sawyer without a trigger warning because someone found a dead body.   Blacks assume that every time a white cop arrests a black guy it is because of racism, not because the black guy actually did a crime, and things have gone totally overboard, so it's nice to put some reason back in.

8.  It will be fun to stick it to the media.  Their view of things is so different from what one hears on Facebook and from friends.   They push what rich and powerful people like, not what regular people like.

9.  The rich and powerful people get special treatment.   Wall Street.  Hillary.  Anybody with a high priced lawyer.  Trump knows the game is rigged and he will de-rig it, or try to.  It will still be better to be rich and powerful but Trump will move the needle.

Sweet are the Uses of Adversity

Sometimes you are better off when you lose.

Colin Kaepernick slams Hillary.   Whew.

One of the themes of this blog is that in politics--and in life--sometimes the things that appear good on the surface are really bad, and the things that look bad are really good.

The pundits thought that Trump's gaffes (Mexicans are rapists; women have every advantage; support for torture and war crimes) would hurt him.   In fact, the controversy over them kept him in the news nonstop and it turns out that enough people agreed with him that he won the GOP nomination.

Rock breaks Scissors.  Patriotism beats Competence

Hillary Clinton is generally assumed to be--more or less--an extension of Obama's presidency, and Obama would easily win a 3rd term if he could run.  But Obama's policies have largely been stopped by a Republican congress, so there is no clear legislative direction for voters to look to, nothing like the New Deal record that candidate Truman could point to.   Obamacare is a mixed bag, particularly since Republicans have blocked efforts to fix problems with it.  The bailouts that saved the auto industry and the financial industry are old business.

So Hillary point to her competence as her selling point.  Competence, not policy direction.   

That is what Michael Dukakis said back in 1988.  Theoretically this should work.  Hillary Clinton has a great advantage on the issue of competence.  She is experienced in government; Trump is not.   Of course, Trump has attempted to use her strength against her, her experience proof of her imbedded conflicts of interest.  Hillary's strategy is to show that Trump is hugely incompetent, temperamentally unsuited.  It may work, but her strategy has vulnerabilities.

Think of the game Rock, Paper, Scissors.  The power of each position, and their vulnerabilities, are asymmetric.  Rock smashes Scissors, but loses to Paper, which can be cut by Scissors. 

Big flag at the Boca Raton speech I attended

We learned something in 1988.  Competence is not enough.  Competence doesn't compete only with Competence.  It competes with Patriotism, and it loses to flag waving patriotism.  Why?  Because the Patriotism argument puts into question on whose side the competence is used.  Trump says he is fighting for us, and that competent Hillary is fighting for foreigners. 

Asymmetric warfare.

Donald Trump is patriotic, nationalistic, flag waving, America First strength.  America is good.  America must fight.  America must win. America must be strong. 

The Bush Charge stuck

Michael Dukakis, as Massachusetts governor, vetoed a state law that would have required teachers to salute the flag.  There was close Supreme Court controversy over whether the proposed law was constitutional or not.  Here's some background: Click Here.

Maybe the law was constitutional, maybe not.  What is undisputed, though, is that Dukakis was vulnerable to the charge that he was unpatriotic for not standing up for America, for the flag, for loving America, because that is what George H W Bush charged, and it worked.  In the high point of his Republican nominating speech Bush condemned Dukakis for that veto and he called on the convention to rise and proudly recite along with him the Pledge of Allegiance.

Lots of flags

Patriotism beats Competence.

Last week Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the National Anthem.   He condemned police violence against blacks.  He also condemned Hillary Clinton.  He says harsh things about her. 

This is a blessing for Hillary.   

Trump is positioning himself as the American patriot in contrast to Hillary Clinton as the globalist.  She is vulnerable here.  She is in fact global in her thinking, recognizing that America's economy and safety depend in large part on conditions around the world.  (Trump, too, recognizes this, but he has voiced the frame that we Americans are in a competition against the world, rather than a player in the world.)  

Trump gets to position himself as the defender of America, America First, while Hillary's loyalties are muddled by concern for international order, for fairness, for reasonableness, for equality.  Trump identifies this as foolishness and weakness.  Trump doesn't want fair.  He wants America to win, win, win, win, win.  

David Duke: face of the KKK

Trump is well positioned to articulate the contrast because there is good basis for it.  Hillary is, in fact, part of the long American traditional of internationalism and globalism, a bipartisan policy since World War 2 and the Marshall Plan.  Better to help Europe and Japan than fight wars over them.

Had Kaepernick said anything nice about Hillary then Trump could tie Hillary to refusing to stand for the National Anthem.   It could have been a replay of 1988: Bush putting Dukakis on the defensive.   We would see Hillary on defense, saying she loves the national anthem, that Kaepernick does not speak for her.  We would see Trump surrogates condemning Hillary for her hatred of America.  Somewhere there must be a photo of Hillary in mid blink during the national anthem, looking sleepy or bored.   We would see a lot of that photo in Trump advertisements.  Why not.  She hates America and the national anthem.

Anti-Semitism; Hillary is a witch.  The alt-right is a bad ally.

Trump and the KKK.  Trump might have said about Hillary exactly what Hillary is now saying about David Duke, the KKK, and the alt-right radicals on talk radio and the internet.  Dangerous friends go both directions.  The alt-right people say they prefer Trump.  He likes whites and hates immigrants.

The Clinton campaign is delighted to associate Trump with extremism, racism, and hate speech. 

Hillary is fortunate that Kaepernick trashes her.  Trump must be wishing that David Duke and the websites of the Alt-Right would say equivalent things about him, but so far Trump is not so lucky.

Watch out, Hillary. Trump has stepped up his game.

Old Trump:  Muslims and Mexicans are bad and scary.  Keep them out!

New Trump:  Only let in people who share our liberal values of diversity.

The old Trump said things that appealed to GOP primary voters who tolerated--or preferred--xenophobia and racism expressed plainly and overtly.   Trump's campaign announcement reversed the traditional immigrant story of America getting the smartest and most ambitious of the world's people.  Instead, he shocked people by saying that Mexico sent its criminals and rapists.  Mexican immigrants weren't ambitious and good.  They were bad.

What then shocked the pundit world was that instead of Trump's campaign dissolving into oblivion in the face of that "gaffe", the campaign flourished.   Trump uncovered an important political constituency within the GOP primary electorate: people who wanted it said clearly and firmly that they were tired of immigrants from Latin America and afraid of immigrants from the Middle East and they wanted them removed.

Over the past year Trump demolished the Republican field by being the clearest voice against immigration, and he frequently made it evident that his objection was only partially economic--they do jobs that native born Americans could do.  He expressed ethnic animus. He protested slow assimilation ("We speak English here.") for Hispanics and expressed fear of Muslims as an entire suspect class of people.  He said that a judge born in Indiana of Mexican ethnicity could not judge fairly.  Trump has stopped talking about Obama birtherism but voters remember, in part because the suspicions Trump raised still linger within the GOP electorate.

Paul Ryan called it "textbook racism."    Hillary's campaign was built around reminding people that Trump is racist, that he goes too far in his criticism of foreigners, that it is unconstitutional in denying people the "equal protection of the laws."

As of a week ago that was the state of the race:   Trump said things that struck a majority of people as "too far out there", including some Republicans.  He kept saying them and Hillary stood back and said, "you cannot vote for Trump."   The polls favored Hillary.

It was working for her.  Now it isn't.

Trump changed his language, and did it very deftly.  Instead of criticizing immigrants for their ethnic and religious identity--the xenophobic argument based on dislike for excessive "diversity"--he has switched to insisting immigrants adopt the values of diversity and toleration.    He is making Hillary's argument  but doing so in the pursuit of the exclusion that his core supporters favor.   It has the potential to capture the reluctant voters who thought Trump was "sort of right" but went too far.  It moves some people from undecided to Trump. It gets him his majority.

Trump asserts liberal values and protection for diversity

 In his speech in Youngstown, Ohio he voiced the new Trump, speaking against the oppression of women, gays, nonbelievers, anti-Semitism, bigotry, hatred, and ethnic division.  He identified Hillary's coalition, called them out by name, and claimed to be their true defender and advocate:

     "Nor can we let the hateful ideology of Radical Islam – its oppression of women, gays, children, and nonbelievers – be allowed to reside or spread within our own countries.

     "A Trump Administration will establish a clear principle that will govern all decisions pertaining to immigration: we should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people.  In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test. The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today.  

     "In addition to screening out all members or sympathizers of terrorist groups, we must also screen out any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles – or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law.  Those who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred, will not be admitted for immigration into the country.  

     "Only those who we expect to flourish in our country – and to embrace a tolerant American society – should be issued immigration visas.  Assimilation is not an act of hostility, but an expression of compassion." 


Will this work for Trump? Trump will have to remember his new lines and criticize bigotry,not ethnicity. He may flub his lines sometimes. And there is lots of video on record of the "old Trump". Hillary Clinton ran a risk when she said that Trump's temperament and values were the reason he could not be elected. She gave to Trump the power to win or lose. If he could fix what was wrong he could win. Trump's campaign appears to be trying just that.

Man with a Plan

Hillary Clinton is giving Trump rope to hang himself.  The meta message is that Trump has a plan to do something.    Watch out, Hillary.

Everyone who has watched TV or movies has seen a version of the scene.   The protagonists are in a grim spot.  One turns to the other and asked if they had a plan to get out of the jam.  A person advances an uncertain, dangerous idea.  The questioner says the plan is crazy, that it will get them killed.   He is asked if he has a better idea.  He doesn't.    So they proceed with the bad plan because at least it is something.   

In comedies and caper movies, the plan works.  (Usually.    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were in trouble, with lawmen closing in.   What to do?   Butch: "Let's go to Bolivia."  A plan!  Later, Butch and the Sundance step into a hail of bullets.)   

A bad plan is better than no plan.   

Trump has a plan, and so does Hillary.  Her plan is to let Trump self destruct by letting him be seen as an untrustworthy carrier of his message--indeed any message.  She is playing rope a dope.   She is hanging back.   Let Trump make news.  She is near-invisible.

Meanwhile, Trump is out in front, talking, making news.  

Anyone paying any attention at all knows that Trump has an analysis of what is wrong with America and a simple solution.   America is weak and the economy bad, he says, because foreigners are taking advantage of us.   Immigrants, legal and illegal, are taking our jobs here at home and jobs are moving offshore because of bad trade deals.   We are unsafe at home because bad people are here, and come here, and we should protect ourselves better with walls on the borders and internal surveillance of those suspicious people.   Normal, regular, white native born Americans have been saps, letting others take advantage of us, and he will stop that on day one.    That summarizes Trump well enough.

Worse than worthless as a way to sell herself.

I have attended Hillary Clinton speeches once in Oregon and four times in New Hampshire.  She lists what she wants to do:  allow refinancing of student loans at lower costs, make college scholarships available to lower and middle class families, deal with comprehensive immigration reform.  There's lots more.  (I went to her website to refresh my memory.)   

Her problem could be summarized with this screen shot taken directly from her campaign website.   She and her campaign list 112 reasons (and counting) for her to be elected and they perceive this as good and persuasive.   It is worse than persuasive: a list of 112 communicates muddle and lack of purpose.  It communicates "nothing will get done."   It communicates status quo because nothing is super-important.  

It communicates hopelessness in the face of problems.  Even Butch and Sundance, surrounded by lawmen, had a plan: Jump off a high cliff into a deep river, escape, and go to Bolivia to rob banks there.  ("I can't swim."  "It's ok.  The fall will probably kill you.")  Still, it was a plan, and better than nothing, so they jumped.

Experience shows:  In Presidential politics "patriotism" beats "competence"

Hillary's plan for change is incremental improvement, which I rationally understand to be the plausible way that progress in a democracy can sometimes happen.   It is an approach but it is not one that persuades.  

We have seen this before.  Michael Dukakis presented himself back in 1988 as the competent one, the successful practitioner of realistic governance.   That was his point of differentiation.  His opponent, George H. W. Bush, sold a very different idea: His point of differentiation was greater patriotism, American pride, and law and order.  Bush was the candidate with flags everywhere, the one who said the pledge of allegiance defiantly implying Dukakis said it reluctantly or with his fingers crossed.  Bush said it should be required in every school.  And Bush said he was the law and order candidate.  Bush paraded Willie Horton, a black man Dukakis released from prison.  In the debate Dukakis was the one who kept a cool head when asked about his wife being raped and killed; Bush was the one who sounded angry and indignant when American values weren't championed.   Bush came from behind in the polls and won in a landslide.   The Trump-Clinton race has some parallels to the Bush-Dukakis race.

Trump's version of Willie Horton

My Democratic friends keep looking at the Real Clear politics polls and think to themselves that they have a big lead, that everything will work out, that the electorate is different today than it was 20 years ago, that the lead is insurmountable in states with 270 electoral votes.  I think this is a mistake.  Voters want hope and change.  Hillary's gender is not change and competence is not hope.   And besides, her lead in the polls is evaporating.

Trump is catching up

1992: "It's the economy, stupid."   The message on the wall for Bill Clinton back in 1992 was to communicate a message simply and clearly.  Hillary has not communicated a clear brief message of change that even a daily blogger like myself can articulate in a paragraph.   And if I cannot do it then the millions of undecided and swing voters cannot do it.  

Hillary's rope a dope is not enough.  Competence is not enough.  Being not-Trump is not enough.  She needs to tell us what she would do with her competence and the direction she wants to take us.  She has to be clear and passionate and persuasive.  

Even a bad plan is better than no plan.

Breaking News! Trump beats Hillary

It isn't your imagination.    

There is a steady background noise: "Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. . . "

Fox News: Trump 24/7

I woke up this morning and made coffee.  I turned to Fox News on TV.   With surprise in their voices the Fox morning team (two men in suits, blonde woman in short tight dress facing camera with bare legs exposed but crossed) said, and we have a guest, Eric Trump, welcome back!   Eric says nice things about his dad.   I expect this from Fox News.

I go into my office and turn on my computer to the NY Times and hit the politics page at 5:15 a.m. Pacific Time.   Here it is.  Take a moment to look closely at the articles with bold headlines.  Left Column:  1. What Trump should say at black church.  2. Excerpts from proposed Trump script. 3. Explaining Trump on Immigration.  Middle Column: 1. Trump effect on Senate. Right Column videos: 1. Trump on border security. 2. Trump on immigration.   There were zero headlines regarding Hillary Clinton, but in tiny type at the top there were teasers to two stories on inside pages, one advancing a future Hillary speech and one entitled "Emails Raise New Questions about Clinton. . . "  See for yourself.  

 Click here to go to current NY Times politics page

Peter Coster

A regular reader in Virginia, Peter Coster, a retired businessman, took time to count the headlines in a variety of news sources yesterday.  I paid attention this morning because of his heads up and demonstration of the value of actually counting what we observe, the better to observe it. 

"It occurred to me that most of the political headlines I'm seeing are regarding Trump.  I'm not seeing much on Clinton.  So, to confirm my suspicions, I checked various major news sources and took a count.  I noted every headline with either Trump or Clinton in it, today only.  It didn't matter what it was about, just so their name was mentioned in the headline.  Here's what I found:

                     

                                  Trump     Clinton

Yahoo                            2            1                       

Boston Herald                5            0

Boston Globe                 1            0

Huffington Post              7            2

NY Daily News              1            0

Washington Post          10           2

CNN                              13          3

NY Times                       7           0

LA Times                       5           0

Chicago Tribune            4           1

Chicago Sun                  4           0

Dallas Morning News     2          0

Seattle Times                 4          0

Wall Street Journal         4          0

Philadelphia Inquirer       2         1

Atlanta Constitution        2         0

Total                             73        10

So, it was not my imagination.  Trump is getting over 7 times more publicity than Clinton, today alone.  That's why he has a chance.  As they say in Hollywood, it doesn't matter what they say about you, as long as they're saying something."

Trump represents change.  He says things are terrible now and he will fix them.  Trump is making news.   Hillary is letting him.  I infer a strategy here within the Clinton campaign: an assumption the more people see of Donald Trump the less voters will like him.  Trump's speeches are interesting and obviously draw viewers because even MSNBC covers the speeches in full, then puts on pundits to talk about them.  Trump had a hyped discussion with Hannity hinting at a policy change on immigration, a hyped trip to Mexico, a hyped speech on immigration in Arizona, hyped outreach to blacks, resignations by Hispanic advisors, another speech on jobs in Ohio all amid talk by pundits on the cable talk shows about whether there was a change or not, whether it was a "hardening" or a "softening", whether Ann Coulter was happy or sad, on and on.  

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton disappeared into private fundraising meetings.  The news on Hillary regards emails, the Clinton Foundation, and why she is invisible, whether he lack of press conferences is smart or cowardly.  What it is not about is how she might make the lives of Americans better.   This is strategy, not accident.  The Clinton campaign did not forget to be in the news.  It is intentional.

Coster's letter concluded "it doesn't matter what they say about you, as long as you are saying something."  Trump in the news is simultaneously making the argument that each campaign considers the centerpiece of its message.   Trump's:  Elect me and I will be bold and active and shake things up and make things better.  Clinton's: Elect Trump and he will shake things up so clumsily the world will be worse off.

"Donald Trump is great TV"

Either way, it is all about Trump.   

That's OK with the candidates and it is OK with the networks.  Trump is more interesting TV, and the networks know it.

Trump attracts eyeballs

"It's pretty sweet to be a rich, white guy in America."

It's nice to be King of the Hill. Things get even better if Trump wins.   

A reader explains.

Case Study:  a prosperous Hillary Clinton supporter writes me.

Some of my readers plan to vote for Trump.   This includes people who don't think America is a miserable dystopia of bad trade deals, a bad economy, deteriorating demographics, crime, and international disrespect.   Actually they are pretty comfortable and they know it: rich, white, heterosexual.  The kind of person that police immediately profile as "good citizens" and who are treated with respect.   Conditions are good and have gotten better since the 2008 collapse.  So they don't buy the Trump premise of current misery but they are voting for Trump.  They think Trump will help keep them comfortable.

My Correspondent

And some of my readers plan to vote for Hillary, but aren't in the Hillary coalition of the held- back (i.e. women, blacks, Hispanics, gays.)    This group includes some of those comfortable people I mention above.  I got a letter from such a reader, and started a correspondence.  He told me he is a white male, rich, and retired.  He said he sold a business and makes enough to be deeply into the 39.6% top federal tax bracket, which starts at $465,000 in income.  He's in the 1%.  

Here is a comprehensive breakdown of which demographic groups prefer Hillary vs. Trump: Gallup Poll

But demographic groups do not cast votes.  People do.  So let's hear some more about my correspondent, an actual voter.

He tells me he is very conscious of tax rates.  A Trump presidency would cut his rate from 39.6, plus various surcharges to 25% minus some additional deductions and exclusions.  His taxes would be cut almost in half.   He referred me to a non partisan tax policy group for a good summary of Trump's proposal.   Click here for a readable summary.    "It's pretty tempting," he said.  "The deficit goes through the roof, but I come out great.  If things collapse who do you think comes out all right?  Rich people.  I'll do fine."

In years past he would fit the Republican demographic, but in a 2016 he fits the Democratic coalition demographic because he lives on a coast and had advanced professional degrees, the source of his wealth.  The clincher is that he thinks religion is a "fairy tail" and he golfs on Sunday mornings after reading the NY Times.   Secular, educated people living on the coasts who read the NY Times tend to be Democrats.   



He said he watches Fox News sometimes "to see what they are up to" but gets most of his news from sources he considers mainstream and "normal."  He doesn't consider CNN "liberal" but thinks MSNBC is.  He reads political blogs on the internet and stumbled onto mine and likes it.

He voted for Hillary in the primary, but his adult children voted for Sanders.   "I'm practical.  I couldn't see America actually electing a socialist. My Republican friends hate Hillary because she is Hillary, but they are actually afraid of Sanders' policies.  Sanders said rich people are the problem, which cuts close to home.  I think the problem is that poor people can't get rich and that's Hillary Clinton's way of thinking."   In the primary election Hillary's voters skewed older and more affluent than did Sanders'.   New Republic article

His correspondence with me made an ironic point.   "It's win-win for me," he wrote me.  "If Hillary wins, the country is a better place, and her tax plan addresses the deficit,  so that's how I'm voting.  But the guys I'm voting against, the GOP,  are working to make things even better for guys already on top.  Guys like me.  Amazing. It's already pretty sweet to be a rich white guy in America.   If I'm outvoted, I won't sulk.  I will enjoy my good fortune.  They say living well is the best revenge.  I'm going to spend the money I save thanks to his tax cuts, at least until the world figures out Trump was a big mistake.  That's the message I'm going to send: elect Trump and you make the rich richer and I'll cry about it all the way to the bank."

A nice way to spend tax savings

He goes on:   "If a majority of voters think I need more toys, who am I to argue?  I'm going to buy a new hundred thousand dollar Tesla with my tax savings and park it out on the street, and then another one every year, put them out in a row in front of my house.  I'll put a sign on them, "Thanks, Donald!""

He said that if Trump could possibly accomplish what he promises it would be great:

"Trump says that business will boom and we will have growth of some 4% a year, no sweat. Let's pretend he can do that.  It would mean my investments will go up a lot.   I can slip $100 to my United Way--solve the world problems with that!-- so I can tell myself that private charity solves social problems, I've done my part.  Then get a nice suite on a nice cruise ship and book it for the year, $40,000 a month.  They go around the world twice every year.  Whatever happens back in the USA is out of mind.  Life on a cruise ship is great.  Young people wait on you hand and foot bringing you lobster and chocolate 24/7, whatever you want.  It's nice to be rich, white, and American.  If Trump does what he says, investments go up I come home richer than when I left.  If America goes to hell, well, I am in Johannesburg.  Or Hong Kong.   I'll send cards home, telling friends  'Thanks, Donald!"

"Thanks, Donald"

"Trump says ISIS will have been bombed to shit, his words.  Easy victory.  OK, I'll take him at his word there, too.   It will be nice to visit the peaceful Middle East.   I hear Beirut is a charming French colonial city, sort of like Saigon.   It will be nice to be an American in Beirut, Americans once again commanding instant respect and fear.  It will be like the old days, after World War Two.   'Mister', this.  'Mister', that.  

"Trump says America can go back to the old days.  I can look myself in the mirror with new self-respect.   I am a white male American.  I'm on top.   King of the Hill.  I personally don’t mind if dark skinned people share the country with me, or women get to be bosses, but a Trump world says this is just PC indoctrination.  I could get used to the respect rich white guys got as the standard, normal non-hyphenated American, everyone else on the outside looking in, looking up.   Like the first couple seasons of Mad Men, men on top, women got coffee.  White receptionist.

Make America Great Again

"Trump says he's going to fix the law so churches and other 501c3 organization can do politicking.  What's good for the goose [is good for the gander.]   This means that instead of giving after-tax dollars to politicians I can give tax deductible dollars to the ACLU who will do my political contributions for me.   Currently that would save me about 45% federal, but with low tax rates under Trump it would still save me 25%, which is still pretty sweet.  Tax deductions for politics.  More influence for rich people at lower cost.   Thanks, Donald!"

My need to edit and my agreement to remove personal details from his emails may have obscured the fact that his tone is sardonic rather than earnest, so let me clarify that here.  That Hillary Clinton supporter does not seriously welcome a Trumpian return to a golden era of white male eminence and he thinks Trump has no actual way to turn back the clock on civil rights or world trade or to bring back postwar American world hegemony.   He doesn't think a president, of either party, can make the American economy grow 4% or defy the long term trends of global competition.   And he tells me he doesn't think Trump can actually implement a significant tax cut.  

Besides, he said, stacking Teslas out in front of his house would break the rules of his neighborhood CC&Rs.

But he understands the appeal of the Trump message, however implausible,  which was the point of his win-win argument.