Party realignment ending or just starting?

[Mikebert]

There are two views of the meaning of the Trump/Sanders phenomenon.  One is they represent the beginning of a party re-alignment.  The other being made by Michael Lind is that they present the end of a party re-alignment and the beginning of a policy shift to reflect that realignment.

I have one criticism of Lind's views. For Lind, the sum total of economics is trade and immigration, which are really side issues in economic policy.  Far more important is tax policy and the nature of the policy made by economic policymakers.  It is still not politically correct in either party to talk about this.  Lind glosses over this. 

In effect he is saying that the realignment that has occurred as a result of the culture war will stick.  That white working class voters will continue to support anti-union, low tax rates on the investor/management class, and accept falling real wages as long as their party shows hostility to nonwhites and cultural elites.  In other words guns, gays and abortion have been augments by illegals, Muslims and the Chinese as culture war talking points.

In other words that the 1% will continue to control both parties and politics will be continue to be about stupid shit with real policy limited to rearrangements of the economic deck chairs.

[Anthony '58]

What happened to the Democratic Party in 1972 (or at least it was finalized in 1972) with the victory of George McGovern in its primary, has now happened to the Republican Party in 2016 with the victory of Donald Trump in its primary: One set of positions - Darwinian economics and moral judgmentalism - is out, and a new set of positions - nationalism and "Fortress America" isolationism - is in.

Of course the similarity may very well end in November, when Trump might actually win.

[Kinser79]

Lind doesn't understand what he's talking about, his article is the definition of "stuck in the 1990s".  This election more than any other is based on cultural issues--and I don't mean silly crap like can fags get married or is a fetus a human being.  Those are stupid wedge issues that the Dems and GOP have both used to whip up their respective bases.

No, this election goes deeper than that.  It is an election as to shall the culture be culturally libertarian, as in everyone can do, be and say whatever they like (I like to think of this as being Traditionally American).  Or will the culture be culturally authoritarian where one has to be afraid of the latest Euphemism for black people, or be concerned over they can use the "whatever" restroom.  

As I've pointed out before in this forum Trump is re-aligning the GOP to take over the mantle as the Party of Cultural Libertarianism.





As such the Cultural Authoritarians must align themselves with the Democrats.

Rather Lind is trying to justify, at least to himself and maybe others with Cultural Libertarian instincts to remain voting for Democrats even though that party has already or will become the party opposed to their own cultural viewpoints.  In short he is trying to justify going against his own intersts because if he expects the freedom to publish anything that isn't the Party Line under a Regressive Left regime then he has already drank the kool aid and is therefore a lost cause.

[Anthony '58]

Donald Trump is a national liberal - with even a slight left-liberal tinge: He says he doesn't care what bathrooms transgenders use, and has hemmed and hawed on abortion from Day One - while advocating policies that would send wages soaring, particularly for the lowest-paid workers, and would grant total tax forgiveness to the working poor.

I can't believe that someone as sophisticated as Mikebert could fall into the trap of going by tone over substance.

If you loved the late Morton Downey Jr., chances are you are going to vote for Donald Trump.

[pbrower2a]

Donald Trump is simply a demagogue, telling whatever audience is near him at the time whatever that audience wants to hear. He believes in nothing other than himself. He is ego above all else.

[Anthony '58]

But was he furthering his ego when he was contributing cold, hard cash to Planned Parenthood - and to his now putative opponent's political campaigns?

[Eric the Green]

(05-23-2016, 09:27 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote: Donald Trump is a national liberal - with even a slight left-liberal tinge: He says he doesn't care what bathrooms transgenders use, and has hemmed and hawed on abortion from Day One - while advocating policies that would send wages soaring, particularly for the lowest-paid workers, and would grant total tax forgiveness to the working poor.

Only one policy of his might help wages rise, and that is his trade policy. Even that one could backfire if carried out poorly. But in other cases he is against policies that would help the working poor and middle class. We already have tax forgiveness for the poor. Trump would only make taxes higher on the rich and lower on the poor if forced to by a Democratic congress, which he won't have if he is elected. No, he'll be able to do as much as he can for his fellow crony capitalists. He opposes raising the minimum wage, which is essential. His policies would hurt poor immigrants, which add to the economy, not subtract as he says. His massive cuts to government spending and regulation would not benefit workers, but hurt them. His advocacy of climate change will hurt the economy in a massive way. And how is he going to help unions organize more easily? That is essential to getting wages raised. He might stop companies from relocating outside the USA, but will he stop the massive buyouts and automation? How will he see that workers get more of the benefits of productivity so that the millionaire and billionaire bosses don't get it all, like they do now? Higher taxes on the wealthy and redistribution to the poor and middle class is the only way I can see that the government can help this to happen. Trump will not propose this.

[Eric the Green]

(05-23-2016, 10:47 AM)Anthony Wrote: But was he furthering his ego when he was contributing cold, hard cash to Planned Parenthood - and to his now putative opponent's political campaigns?

He was furthering his own interests as a crony capitalist, which he freely admits.

[Anthony '58]

Quote:Only one policy of his might help wages rise, and that is his trade policy. Even that one could backfire if carried out poorly. But in other cases he is against policies that would help the working poor and middle class. We already have tax forgiveness for the poor. Trump would only make taxes higher on the rich and lower on the poor if forced to by a Democratic congress, which he won't have if he is elected. No, he'll be able to do as much as he can for his fellow crony capitalists. He opposes raising the minimum wage, which is essential. His policies would hurt poor immigrants, which add to the economy, not subtract as he says. His massive cuts to government spending and regulation would not benefit workers, but hurt them. His advocacy of climate change will hurt the economy in a massive way. And how is he going to help unions organize more easily? That is essential to getting wages raised. He might stop companies from relocating outside the USA, but will he stop the massive buyouts and automation? How will he see that workers get more of the benefits of productivity so that the millionaire and billionaire bosses don't get it all, like they do now? Higher taxes on the wealthy and redistribution to the poor and middle class is the only way I can see that the government can help this to happen. Trump will not propose this.

We only have total tax forgiveness for the working poor who have tons of kids. If you're single and make over $10,000 a year - that means any single person who has a full-time job - you do pay federal income tax, in addition to FICA, and regressive state sales taxes, etc. Trump would take that $10,000 figure and make it $25,000. And if deporting poor immigrants would hurt them, then I guess that Trump would "hurt" poor immigrants - while greatly helping poor citizens; and who cares what the statutory minimum wage is, when the prevailing wage on the "free market," rigged by massive labor shortages, is higher than what even the most progressive politicians would advocate raising the minimum wage to?

[Eric the Green]

(05-23-2016, 09:27 AM)Anthony Wrote: Donald Trump is a national liberal - with even a slight left-liberal tinge: He says he doesn't care what bathrooms transgenders use, and has hemmed and hawed on abortion from Day One - while advocating policies that would send wages soaring, particularly for the lowest-paid workers, and would grant total tax forgiveness to the working poor.

I can't believe that someone as sophisticated as Mikebert could fall into the trap of going by tone over substance.

If you loved the late Morton Downey Jr., chances are you are going to vote for Donald Trump.

I can agree with that one. I didn't watch Downey; he might have been on cable I don't know. But here's an article. By the way I watched Joe Pyne in the late 60s with considerable delight, partly because he had on so many eccentrics and visionaries and hippie types of the time on his show, which he proceeded to berate but still gave them a platform. Pyne was the pyoneer

Morton Downey Jr. paved the way for the angry talk show host of today


Morton Downey Jr. is shown during a roundtable discussion on "Trash TV" at the National Convention of TV Programmers in Houston on Jan. 25, 1989. 
(Gaylon Wampler/AP)

Rick KoganContact ReporterSidewalks

Before Nancy Grace, Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh, there was one angry mouth on TV: Morton Downey Jr.

He is but a footnote now but a memorable one for any of those who watched, with a combination of mild horror and fascination, the television antics of Morton Downey Jr.
They flashed for less than two TV years in the late 1980s and he has been dead since in 2001. But he remains a significant character, and you can see his influence now in the confrontational style of such "angry" media mouths as Nancy Grace, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and so many others, and in the raucous behavior of those cavorting on so-called reality shows. (my comment: including Donald)

The television premiere of a documentary film makes that point clearly and brings Downey back in all his vivid and loud and cartoonish weirdness. "Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie," which airs 8 p.m. Thursday on CNN, is a fine film, featuring many of the principal players in the Downey saga, from former producers of his show, audience members, rival hosts and some of the now-familiar TV talking heads who got their feet wet on his program.

It makes the case that Downey himself was following in the footsteps of the now-forgotten Joe Pyne, a loudmouth of the first rank who pioneered the confrontational style in which the host advocates a viewpoint and then argues with anybody within earshot. He did this on radio and television in Los Angeles and, for a time in the 1960s, across the nation's airwaves.

Downey, always living uncomfortably in the shadow of his famous father, Morton Downey Sr., a hugely successful singer in the 1920s and 1930s, grew up in considerable luxury, in a house near the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass. He tried early on a singing career but drifted instead into radio, honing his increasingly nasty style at various stations across the country, including at WMAQ-AM here.

The man who "saved" him from that life and created this media monster was Bob Pittman, the founder of MTV, who says in the film, "(Downey) understood performance, how to turn everything into something theatrical. He was good on radio but he was made for television."

Actor Bill Boggs and talk show host Morton Downey Jr. sighted on May 11, 1988 at Elaine's Restaurant in New York City. 
(Ron Galella / WireImage)
And so, Pittman put him on in 1987. Taped in front of a live and loud audience in studios in Secaucus, N.J., the "Morton Downey Jr. Show" was an immediate ratings success, moving into national syndication in 1988. Chain-smoking cigarettes and berating most of his guests, Downey was in sharp contrast to the other popular talk show hosts of the time, most notably the avuncular Phil Donahue. Another rival, Sally Jessy Raphael, comments in this film on Downey's appeal "as the prurient excitement of not nice people saying not nice things."

He and the format of the show — which took full advantage of the raucous studio audiences, collectively known as "the beast" — made it appear to Downey's supporters that he had the ability to capitalize on collective American frustrations and anger.
Interviewed in this film, Pittman also says, with the callousness we have come to expect from the executive suites of media folk, "Self-destructive people are always entertaining."

Not so much, frankly, as we see details of Downey's crude womanizing, his wicked temper and instability. He was married four times and had four children but only one of those intimates is interviewed for the film, a sad-faced daughter named Kelly.

At the height of his fame Downey took his show on the road. Not for cameras but rather live audiences, and when he parked at the Riviera Theatre in February, 1989, I was there.

In the Tribune I wrote that the show was one "of the strangest and most disturbing events" I had ever seen. "In front of a predominantly male, well-oiled and rowdy audience, the television phenomenon offered his unique brand of entertainment."

The evening's topic was the death penalty, with a four-person panel on stage.

"Now certainly many of the people in the crowd were not stupid," I wrote. "But judging from the attitudes of those who spoke from microphones placed in the crowd on either side of the stage, they were largely misinformed, inarticulate and terribly angry.

"Some of this might have been absurdly laughable — Downey is a showman who does not take himself as seriously as do his fans — were not people so enraged. Downey, sipping a beer and swaggering, played tour guide into the darkest corners of fears and frustrations …. However satisfied some might have been after (the show), I'm sure they weren't fully sated until later socking some poor schnook in the kisser in a barroom."

It all came to a quick end when the show began focusing on the case of Tawana Brawley, a 15-year-old African-American girl who claimed to have been raped by six white men, including a police officer, and had "KKK" and other vile words scrawled on her body. Show after show was devoted to this case, many featuring the Brawley advisor and then relatively unknown Al Sharpton. Downey beat that story to death and his ratings began to plummet, especially after Brawley's accusations were deemed false by a grand jury.

In a desperate stab at resurrection, Downey (echoing Brawley's lie) claimed to have been attacked in a San Francisco airport bathroom by three "skinheads" who chopped off his hair and drew a swastika on his face. The story made national headlines but was quickly and embarrassingly deemed false.

And that was that. The show was canceled and Downey drifted into a few unsuccessful comeback attempts, did some work in movies, contracted lung cancer and died. In some strange sort of immortality there is a website devoted to him, (mortondowneyjrhome.com), offering such items as coffee mugs and T-shirts.
"Evocateur" offers so much more, some of it compelling, some of it disturbing and some of it revelatory (Downey's first name was Sean).

When his show ended in 1989 I wrote, as this paper's TV critic, that the announcement "removes from our lives one of the most abrasive people ever to appear on television. But do not think that this represents a move toward a calmer clime. Downey whetted people's appetites for confrontational TV. There will be someone to take his place."

I had no idea how many would eagerly follow in his in-your-face footsteps.
"After Hours With Rick Kogan" airs 9-11 p.m. Sundays on WGN-AM 720.
rkogan@tribune.com
Twitter @rickkogan

This article and video goes further and mentions Trump:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/12/opinions/s...owney-era/

[Eric the Green]

(05-23-2016, 11:56 AM)Anthony Wrote:

Quote:Only one policy of his might help wages rise, and that is his trade policy. Even that one could backfire if carried out poorly. But in other cases he is against policies that would help the working poor and middle class. We already have tax forgiveness for the poor. Trump would only make taxes higher on the rich and lower on the poor if forced to by a Democratic congress, which he won't have if he is elected. No, he'll be able to do as much as he can for his fellow crony capitalists. He opposes raising the minimum wage, which is essential. His policies would hurt poor immigrants, which add to the economy, not subtract as he says. His massive cuts to government spending and regulation would not benefit workers, but hurt them. His advocacy of climate change will hurt the economy in a massive way. And how is he going to help unions organize more easily? That is essential to getting wages raised. He might stop companies from relocating outside the USA, but will he stop the massive buyouts and automation? How will he see that workers get more of the benefits of productivity so that the millionaire and billionaire bosses don't get it all, like they do now? Higher taxes on the wealthy and redistribution to the poor and middle class is the only way I can see that the government can help this to happen. Trump will not propose this.

We only have total tax forgiveness for the working poor who have tons of kids.  If you're single and make over $10,000 a year - that means any single person who has a full-time job - you do pay federal income tax, in addition to FICA, and regressive state sales taxes, etc.  Trump would take that $10,000 figure and make it $25,000.  And if deporting poor immigrants would hurt them, then I guess that Trump would "hurt" poor immigrants - while greatly helping poor citizens; and who cares what the statutory minimum wage is, when the prevailing wage on the "free market," rigged by massive labor shortages, is higher than what even the most progressive politicians would advocate raising the minimum wage to?

I think it's already much higher than $10,000; I know people who make much more than that and pay no income taxes. It's already more like $25,000. Trump offers nothing for low income people. Deporting poor immigrants only opens up jobs to those who don't do them, and which pay too little anyway. There is no labor shortage; why complain about that if you are concerned about immigrants stealing our jobs, as Trump and his followers claim? There is no net immigration today; Obama has been the toughest president ever on illegals. There is a massive labor surplus and chronic unemployment because the Trump class sends jobs overseas, automates factories, buys out smaller companies, fires workers, keeps wages low, keeps liberals out of office, causes recessions with speculation, etc.

[Kinser79]

Current no tax line is around 12,500 for single filers, and 20K for joint filers. Trump's plan would simplify the tax code and shift the burden to higher brackets. Those making under 25K as a single filer would not pay tax, 50K for joint. The income tax savings of course will be off set by Yuge! Tariffs so in order to get cheap stuff it needs to be made here.

So for poor people Eric, Daddy is great. Jobs for blacks by deporting the illegals. Rising wages by restricting labor supply, oh and cutting taxes on the very poorest while bringing back manufacturing by making imported bric-a-brak much more expensive. Over all a win for everyone who is poor--unless of course you think people should be sitting on welfare like some sort of parasite instead is preferable. Personally I would prefer people worked and had something to take pride in again. A winning nation has winners as its backbone and you don't win on welfare, welfare is slavery, it is debasement, it is the very essence of being a loser.

And this has been your education on MAGA.

[Dan '82]

I"m working on something longer on this subject but I think that this years election is the start of a realignment like 1964 and 1928 were.

[radind]

(05-23-2016, 02:10 PM)Dan Wrote: I"m working on something longer on this subject but I think that this years election is the start of a realignment like 1964 and 1928 were.

I think that you are correct and expect changes in the GOP first soon after the election.

[Mikebert]

(05-23-2016, 09:27 AM)Anthony Wrote: Donald Trump is a national liberal - with even a slight left-liberal tinge: He says he doesn't care what bathrooms transgenders use, and has hemmed and hawed on abortion from Day One - while advocating policies that would send wages soaring, particularly for the lowest-paid workers, and would grant total tax forgiveness to the working poor.

Lind comes across as trying very hard to believe your thesis.  It seems to me that you and he are working with some mighty thin gruel.  Trump is offering very little that will material affect the economic situation of working class Americans.  Of course, all of Trump's Republican opponents were offering even less.

The economic problem workers face today is not a new one.  An earlier generation of workers faced a similar situation during the Gilded Age.  Their attempt at a solution was to create a an organized entity for the explicit purpose of looking out for worker's economic interests, labor unions.  It look generations, but after WW II workers made major gains.  Labor unions were a key part of this success. They needed political allies and had them.

For 60 years Republicans and Southern conservatives have worked to destroy unions. 

Now you are saying that the nominee of the party containing both of these groups is a national liberal with a leftist tinge?

[Mikebert]

Anthony \58 Wrote:We only have total tax forgiveness for the working poor who have tons of kids.

Not tons of kids.  My granddaughter got several thousand in EIC when she worked at Taco Belll when she was a single mom with just one kid.  My grandson is single with no kids, earns about 12-13K and has gotten some EIC (hundreds IIRC). I looked it up, EIC is phased out at an AGI of 14.8K.
 
So single people with no kids actually don't pay any net income  taxes until their income reaches nearly 15K.  They do pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes etc.

[pbrower2a]

Another founder of trash talk was Paul Harvey. He did return to an avuncular style so that he wasn't pure unlistenable rubbish.. but he was reading folksy trivia or trying to make ad copy seem as if news (really, really bad practice; I'd insist that a radio host not use his voice for ad copy on his show) between excoriations of liberals and counterculture types. Maybe that was GI style... go folksy to give the appearance of backing off.

[Eric the Green]

(05-23-2016, 05:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Another founder of trash talk was Paul Harvey. He did return to an avuncular style so that he wasn't pure unlistenable rubbish.. but he was reading folksy trivia or trying to make ad copy seem as if news (really, really bad practice; I'd insist that a radio host not use his voice for ad copy on his show) between excoriations of liberals and counterculture types. Maybe that was GI style... go folksy to give the appearance of backing off.

Perhaps influential, but I would hardly call Harvey in the same league with Downey or Pyne, let alone Limbaugh or Springer or Stern. He mixed news with his opinions, and was up front about doing so. He was conservative, but somewhat maverick. His "rest of the story" stories were classic.

[Eric the Green]

(05-23-2016, 02:10 PM)Dan Wrote: I"m working on something longer on this subject but I think that this years election is the start of a realignment like 1964 and 1928 were.

Possibly, meaning 2016 is like 1964/1928 the prelude to the realignment elections of 1968 and 1932.

I suspect though that 2024 may be even more important. There is a delay factor working in this 4T.

[Kinser79]

(05-23-2016, 04:12 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Lind comes across as trying very hard to believe your thesis.

Mike did you even bother reading the article? He is trying to compare newly forming parties that are composed of primarily Xers and Millies with those composed of mostly Silents and Boomers. Nomad and Civic generations have different expressions than Artist and Prophet generations. That is of course if you even buy into the theory that archetypes matter.

 

Quote: It seems to me that you and he are working with some mighty thin gruel.  Trump is offering very little that will material affect the economic situation of working class Americans.

I can't speak for Anthony, but Lind's gruel may as well be water because the article contains absolutely no critical thought. As for Trump's policy, we have to consider that the alternatives are "Cheap imported shit" from Establishment Republicans (never mind that cheap imported shit is paid for with inflated currency and destroys the economic libido of working age Americans it tastes pretty good in the short term but has the nutritional value of a big mac), and the Democrats are offering the opposite of help--literally massive increases of welfare if you're Sanders or an attempt to freeze progress if you're Clinton. The former the country cannot afford without debasing the currency and losing reserve status (at which point the empire is over), the latter is an impossibility. One of the few universal constants is that change is constant.

Quote: Of course, all of Trump's Republican opponents were offering even less.

Indeed, so-called free trade hasn't worked. Importation of cheap labor has resulted in stagnant wage growth (see law of supply and demand). As such the obvious choice for any improvement is to limit labor importation (restrict supply), and institute protectionist measures (increase demand for labor). As a result wages will rise far higher and far faster than a statutory increase in the minimum wage which would just drive what jobs that remain to be automated.

Quote:The economic problem workers face today is not a new one.  An earlier generation of workers faced a similar situation during the Gilded Age.  Their attempt at a solution was to create a an organized entity for the explicit purpose of looking out for worker's economic interests, labor unions.  It look generations, but after WW II workers made major gains.  Labor unions were a key part of this success. They needed political allies and had them.

Except for some key problems. In the US during the gilded age workers were some of the most highly paid in the world (the US was running a more or less constant labor shortage through the 19th century due to westward expansion), furthermore industry had the protection offered by tariffs and so forth. As such with such protections unions could form, and once they did form the sought out political allies.

However, in order to have unions, and have them be effective a state must also protect the production of the country from foreign competition in the form of dumping and similar practices.

Quote:For 60 years Republicans and Southern conservatives have worked to destroy unions. 

I would argue that Unions destroyed themselves by being largely successful.

Quote:Now you are saying that the nominee of the party containing both of these groups is a national liberal with a leftist tinge?

I would argue that Trump is to the left of most Establishment Republicans (not that that means much since they are so far right), but he is no leftist. Trump's ideology can be best phrased as Nationalist with Classical Liberalism which should not be confused with what passes for liberal these days which used to be called socialist. You know back when people were honest with labels. It speaks to a Jacksonian tradition that in the US is centuries old.