To make things even worse, we often outright mock anyone who can’t keep up, or doesn’t fit in with the new order. We call them dumb. Idiots. Religious freaks. Rednecks. Thugs. Hoodlums. Ghetto trash. White trash.
The language we use to talk about those who have been left behind is rife with nasty attempts to turn them into lesser humans. We use the tactics of racism, and apply it to economic losers.
If you hate racism, then you really really really should hate any economic and social system that creates and rewards massive inequality. Because when you get that. You get racism.
And that is the system we have built and now have. That is the system that most everyone screaming about the dumb racists is part of, usually supports, and wins from.
– From the post: Thoughts on Brexit from Someone Who Spends Time in the “Forgotten Places”
In order to prevent people from mischaracterizing my point of view, I want to once again make something completely clear. I do not support Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and will not be voting for either in 2016. My intent had been to once again vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, but recent comments to Politico about how he would support the TPP have prompted me to pull back. I don’t know if there’s anyone I can vote for in November. Nevertheless, the purpose of this article is to provide some political analysis for those interested in that sort of thing.
Trump experienced a horrible period from mid-May to mid-June, which culminated in the dismissal of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Based on my Twitter feed, Trump is finished. I’ve been incessantly bombarded with articles highlighting an ever widening lead for Hillary Clinton nationally in the polls. So is Trump finished? Not by a long shot.
First off, let’s discuss the macro environment. As the Brexit vote demonstrated in spades, people are not in a cheery mood and appear willing to suffer negative consequences in the short-term in order to blow up the status quo. This is hugely important and a huge part of the Trump phenomenon. I also think the arrogant, dismissive, undemocratic and paternalistic attitude of so-called “elites” in the aftermath of Brexit will not be lost on U.S. voters. For example, Felix Salmon apparently expressed the following all too common sentiment during a recent conference in California:
Yesterday at the IMN Global Indexing and ETFs Conference, Felix Salmon delivered an opening keynote that was both brilliant and ballsy. Felix explained his view that governing by referendum is insane, and that democracy done properly requires “attenuation” by a technocratic class that understands policy implications and can shepherd the will of the people into a a more feasible version of what they want.
This sort of attitude will only serve to confirm the suspicions of Donald Trump supporters and bring more into the fold. It will also further erode the rapidly disintegrating credibility of the status quo and its ever eager sycophants. As I tweeted earlier today:
Gotta love how so-called elites suddenly panic about democracy only after blowback from their failed, corrupt policies comes home to roost.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) June 28, 2016
Democracy is fine as long as the status quo is maintained.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) June 28, 2016
Equally interesting, is how incredibly close the race between Clinton and Trump is in a wide variety of swing states, as well as states that typically lean one way or the other. The reason this is happening is we essentially have a race between a nativist populist versus a Wall Street neocon for the first time in recent memory. As such, anyone claiming they know how this will play out is full of…
To give you a sense of just how crazy the whole electoral map has gone, check out these excerpts from a recent Hill article:
Battleground state polls show Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton locked in a tight race for the White House with just more than four months to go before Election Day.
President Obama coasted to reelection in 2012 by defeating GOP nominee Mitt Romney in nine out of 10 battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
He lost a tenth battleground, North Carolina, which he had won four years earlier.
Heading into the 2016 conventions next month, polls in those 10 states show close races across the board.
The polling suggests Clinton has an edge because she has leads in six of the 10 states, while Trump is only consistently leading in North Carolina.
Clinton’s lead, however, is just a percentage point or two in most of the states.
Clinton’s largest lead is in Wisconsin, a state Democrats haven’t lost in a presidential election since 1984. According to a CBS News-YouGov poll released Sunday, she has a 5-percentage-point lead in the Badger State.
In every other state, the candidates are either tied or within 3.5 points of one another.
Polls suggest Clinton has a strong chance of winning Arizona, for example, and the race is also surprisingly close in Georgia and Utah.
States with 163 electoral votes are seen as toss-ups on the RCP map, including the nine other traditional battlegrounds as well as Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, which has been a safe Democratic state.
Pennsylvania is the battleground giving Democrats the most heartburn.
Its 20 electoral votes have not gone to the GOP nominee in almost 30 years, yet a Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey of the state released this month found Trump and Clinton tied, while a Quinnipiac University poll showed Clinton ahead by only 1 point. Analysts at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics recently shifted Pennsylvania from “Likely Democratic” to “Leans Democratic.”
The contest in New Hampshire, which has gone for the Democratic candidate in five of the last six presidential cycles, is also a toss-up, with the latest poll showing the candidates are tied.
Even Clinton’s 5-point lead in Wisconsin is emblematic of the challenges both candidates face: Sixty-one percent of voters said they have a negative view of Clinton, against 62 percent who view Trump unfavorably.
Trump and Clinton are tied in Ohio, but Clinton holds a 3.4 point lead over Trump in Florida, according to the RCP average.
Florida, by far the biggest swing state with 29 electoral votes, was won by Obama by less than 1 point in 2012.
Clinton has only a 1-point lead in Colorado, according to a CBS-YouGov poll released over the weekend. That poll found that a plurality of voters only support Clinton because they oppose Trump, and vice versa.
In Virginia, Clinton has a 42 to 39 lead over Trump, according to a recent PPP survey.
But again, there are warning signs here for the Democrat.
Trump leads big, 42 to 29, among independent voters.
And that survey found that Clinton’s lead would be larger, but that supporters of Bernie Sanders have yet to get on board with her campaign.
Indeed. If Democrats actually wanted to win, they would’ve nominated Bernie Sanders, who destroys Trump in swing states as we learned in the post: New Quinnipiac Survey – Trump and Clinton Tied in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania
For related articles, see:
Thoughts on Brexit from Someone Who Spends Time in the “Forgotten Places”
Brexit = Death of the Technocrats
If the British Vote for Brexit, Will They Get the Greek Treatment?
Why Hillary Clinton Cannot Beat Donald Trump
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Well then you need to change who you follow on Twitter because minus about 2 ex (washed up) friends I can not name ONE person who does not despise Hillary Clinton and I know more people than anyone I know.
My closest friends range 22-70. My demographic is anything but typical.
In fact the entire dialogue for months now has been that ever-looming question: Who ARE these people who “support” her ????
I get the old bean bag boomers who not only see her as a “peer” but also think they live in some country that has never even existed in their entire lifetimes.
But past that ????
Now that’s not to imply that every single one of those people are going to vote but it does imply that if they don’t NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE is going to cast a vote for that national embarrassment.
This is going to be exactly like Brexit.
All of Hillary’s lap dogs are going to babble on and on like 8 year olds attempting to pull some emotionally manipulative tantrums to get their way with their mommies. They’re going to lie & mock & blah blah blah.
It’s not going to work this time and if she keeps rolling with this Warren Geek Squad they’ve got going on it’s just going to get worse.
THAT’s going to be the “big” story mid-Nov.
In the last four months I’ve been in south Missouri, most of Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and east New Mexico. Based on bumper stickers and other signage I’ve seen you would think Trump is winning by a landslide. I’ve seen hundreds of signs that support him and around twenty favoring Bernie. There have been about a dozen that had Clinton’s name on them but most said something like”Hillary for Prison” ? .
Trump is good for one position, Sewage Treatment Specialist, cause all he speaks is manure. No substance on his speeches, does not outline how he is going to bring jobs back, when everybody I know says he won’t be able to bring back even one job! Therefore, with all of his racist rhetoric and disparaging remarks, and his daily changing of any position he makes, I do not know of maybe one person that I know that intends to vote for him, and my friends IQ is not very high but his heart is bigger than Rhode Island. Trump is for all practical reasons “a moron”!
He outlined that jobs question step-by-step in Penn today. Your timing is impeccable. None of these geniuses you know need to vote for Trump but if they vote any other way it’s because they’re deluded plain & simple.
Oh and any time i see/hear/read anyone babbling any combo of Trump+Hitler+racist+misogynist I now know I’m dealing with a script-reciter in desperate need of some original material because it’s all empty trite media rhetoric with no basis in any substantive rationality.
The only “morons” left in this race at this point are a former lawyer who has zero grasp on business and an abysmal track record to prove it & all the mindless sleepwalkers who applaud that.
there is an all out concerted effort on the part of google/facebook/amazon(washingtonpost)/nytimes/wsj/cnbc/hbo/viacom/ and every msm outlet or media channel out there to push clinton.
despite ALL this, despite dumb far right talk radio chumps being paid to undermine trump——–he is still holding up.
trump has all the momentum he needs right now. the harder the msm attempts to deceive the public, the more people will be thrown off clinton.
i know a bunch of bernie bro’s—-they are not going to vote clinton at all. they’ll stay home. most of them say they might vote 3rd party, but they won’t likely get their ass out the door to vote at all.
Hillary and supporters are spending a ton of money – in the summertime A time when such spending is generally ineffective. That is a tell.