It's become common, among intelligent, political-science-literate types, to say that the Democratic and Republican Parties are organized in qualitatively different ways. The Republican Party is highly ideological, the thinking goes: it's defined by a monolithic commitment to conservative principles. The Democrats, on the other hand, are commonly described as a coalition, maybe even a loose one, of different interest groups. Paul Krugman's latest blog post is largely in this same tradition, with one major variation; it repeats the "coalition of interest groups" description of the Democrats verbatim, but Krugman describes the Republicans as "an engine designed to harness white resentment on behalf of higher incomes for the donor class"--and, as he notes, "the base never cared about the ideology." It's not very hard to diagnose this particular fault-line in the party right now, since Trump basically represents a rebellion on behalf of the white-resentment-y voters against the donor class-favoring party elites.
But I've always thought that this description of the two parties is wrong. Certainly I think it's wrong as to the Democrats, and it might even be totally backwards. Certainly the common wisdom accurately captures the way the parties seem to behave in practice. But if you look deeper, I'm not sure it's so true. The Democrats do have an ideology. You could call it liberalism if you wanted, but egalitarianism is probably a better name. Liberal egalitarianism is better still, if not so pithy. I like that formulation, though, because I'm using the word "liberal" in its technical or political-theory sense, meaning generally a commitment to expansive individual freedom. I also demote liberalism, in this sense, to the position of modifier, with egalitarianism remaining the noun.
And I like that, because I do think that egalitarianism is the central organizing concept of the Democratic Party.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Who Says Resurrection Is All That?
Last night I happened to see an article posted on Facebook titled, "The Challenge of Easter." It's a very thoughtful and well-articulated statement of the importance of Easter, and the event it celebrates--the resurrection of Jesus after his crucifixion and death--for the Christian world-view. There's one passage in particular that I thought was interesting:
Or, at least, we haven't yet established that god exists: the author uses his resurrection as evidence for his authority. Obviously if you already believe he's god, then he's god, but if you don't already believe that he's god, I don't see how his supposed resurrection really gets you any further toward that destination. I might be very impressed by someone who can rise from the dead (presuming, of course, that he's not in the zombie/vampire/etc. scary-undead category of people who rise from the dead), but why on earth should I conclude that he's my sovereign?
If you don’t believe in the Resurrection, you can go on living your life while perhaps admiring Jesus the man, appreciating his example and even putting into practice some of his teachings. At the same time, you can set aside those teachings that you disagree with or that make you uncomfortable—say, forgiving your enemies, praying for your persecutors, living simply or helping the poor. You can set them aside because he’s just another teacher. A great one, to be sure, but just one of many.
If you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, however, everything changes. In that case, you cannot set aside any of his teachings. Because a person who rises from the grave, who demonstrates his power over death and who has definitively proven his divine authority needs to be listened to. What that person says demands a response.Uhhh... why? I don't entirely get the logic here, the one that says "resurrection → authority." And I'm not even talking here about my own personal quibble with the "god → authority" logic, although I do also have a problem with that. No, I'm talking about the "resurrection → god" step in the reasoning. Because there's plenty of non-god creatures that can rise from the dead. Vampires, for instance, and zombies. Or wights, though they're less popular these days. Oh, and Time Lords, of course. (Jesus was clearly a Time Lord.) The simple fact of his resurrection doesn't really narrow down which of these he was. Now, you may say, ah, yes, but vampires, zombies, and Time Lords aren't real. Okay, but... neither is god. It's a level playing field!
In short, the Resurrection makes a claim on you.
Or, at least, we haven't yet established that god exists: the author uses his resurrection as evidence for his authority. Obviously if you already believe he's god, then he's god, but if you don't already believe that he's god, I don't see how his supposed resurrection really gets you any further toward that destination. I might be very impressed by someone who can rise from the dead (presuming, of course, that he's not in the zombie/vampire/etc. scary-undead category of people who rise from the dead), but why on earth should I conclude that he's my sovereign?
Friday, March 25, 2016
You Don't Have the Votes
"This is a wonderful moment to be a conservative," declares David Brooks in the opening of his column today. That sounds strange, given the general despair gripping the Republican Party, and in particular the "it would be nice if our party weren't so goddamn crazy" faction of the Republican Party, but his closing paragraph explains what he means:
But here's the thing: that new Republican Party doesn't have the votes. Not yet, and probably not for a long time. The big problem in American politics right now is that there's a section of the country, no longer large enough to win a general election, as it was back in the 1980s, but still big enough to dominate one party's primaries, which is bitterly committed to a mixture of what we might charitably call white nationalism and conservative Christian traditionalism. Those voters want nothing to do with the new Republican Party Brooks wants. They're angry about America's increasing pluralism, and about the fact that white Christians no longer get to just run everything without serious opposition. Hell, it's worse than that, for them, as this piece about Trump-as-Jefferson-Davis observes: like the South after the Election of 1860, these voters are looking at a bleak future of being consistently outvoted by those who would tear down the social institutions and traditions they hold most dear.
Brooks wants the new Republican Party to be "compassionate," but these voters have, it appears, no compassion for anyone outside their own little group, and precious little of it even within the group.
Brooks wants the new Republican Party to have an "expansive open" nationalism, but these voters are practically defined by the "closed, ethnic nationalism" Brooks decries.
Brooks wants the new Republican Party to be "honest," but these voters feel so threatened by reality that they demand unwavering loyalty from their politicians to ideas they'd have to be either fools or knaves to espouse.
Brooks wants the new Republican Party to focus less on economic theory and more on "sociology," but... well, okay, let's be honest. These voters don't give a damn about homo economicus and the conservative economic theories which have used him as their justification. As for sociology, though, I fear these voters only have interest in "binding a fragmenting society, reweaving family and social connections" in one way, and not one that involves "relating across the diversity of a globalized world."
The basic point is that the people voting for Trump like Trump. They like what Trump stands for, and it's everything Brooks is against. What's more, even those Republicans who aren't voting for Trump are mostly voting for Ted Cruz. Let's run Cruz through the Brooks checklist. Compassionate? Hah. He's one of the least compassionate politicians you'll ever see. Expansive and open in his nationalism? Try "let's see if sand can glow in the dark" and "let's secure Muslim neighborhoods." (Actually, file those under the compassion thing as well.) Honest? Well, I guess Cruz is slightly more honest than Trump, but he's hardly honest. And as for sociology, Cruz is as fanatic about Reagan-style conservative economic theory as anyone on the Republican debate stages. Probably more. So between Trump and Cruz, we're looking at close to 80% of the Republican Party's voters who really don't want the kind of party Brooks wants.
So while I'd sure like to think the Republican Party might rise from its Trump-induced ashes in a form similar to what Brooks describes. But I just don't see where it's going to get the votes. Because the thing is, the people who have been deciding to vote for the Republican Party these last few decades are a lot more like Donald Trump than David Brooks. Perhaps that's because what David Brooks is describing is a lot more like Barack Obama's Democratic Party than it is like the Republicans.
In fact, thinking about it a bit, it sort of seems to me like American politics, particularly in the coming years, is divided in something like three parts. The first divide is between people who think that, e.g., global warming and health care and poverty and race discrimination are the problems with the world (broadly liberal priorities) and those who think that, e.g., godlessness and sexual perversion and invading hordes of Muslim terrorists and racial entitlements are the problems with the world (broadly conservative priorities). The latter form the Trump/Cruz part of the electorate. It's the vast majority of Republicans, but probably not much more than a third of the electorate. Then within the first group there's a division between those with broadly conservative (in a traditional, 1950s sense of the word) ideas about how to solve these problems and those with more aggressively liberal, verging on socialist ideas about how to solve them. That last is the people supporting Bernie, plus those who would support him except for fear that he'd lose the general. So then in the middle, the people who have broadly liberal sensibilities about what the problems are but broadly conservative sensibilities about how to fix them, are people like David Brooks. And Barack Obama, at least as he's manifested as President. (It's tough to know how much more radical he might have been in his approach with fewer political constraints.) Of course, it's really more of a spectrum between Brooks at one end and Bernie on the other, with Obama and Clinton somewhere in the middle.
In a lot of ways, this three-way divide looks a lot like the Socialist/Liberal/Conservative party systems we see in many countries. And it would be really, really nice if we could end up kicking the Trump/Cruz-style conservative faction out altogether, and having something like a socialist party and a liberal party. But those reactionary conservatives aren't going away, not all at once anyway. It'll be many decades yet before we can have a party that includes the Trump/Cruz voters but isn't dominated by them. And in the meanwhile, given that people like Brooks are starting to wake up to the fact that the reactionaries really aren't the kind of people they want to be making common cause with, it's awfully tough to see how we're gonna get two parties out of this electorate in the near future.
David Brooks may think it's a great time to be a conservative, but he's looking at a generation of alliance with either the party of Trump or the party of Obama, Clinton, and *gasp* Sanders.
We’re going to have two parties in this country. One will be a Democratic Party that is moving left. The other will be a Republican Party. Nobody knows what it will be, but it’s exciting to be present at the re-creation.On the one hand, that sounds about right. I've long thought something along these lines: that the Republican Party as we know it has a clear expiration-date, that eventually it would have to reshape itself, but that I couldn't for the life of me imagine what it would come out the other side looking like. Brooks suggests that Trump represents the destruction of the old party, the "model crisis" in which the old Republican ideas, having grown unworkable over the past few decades, come crashing to the ground. This sets up an opening for a new Republican paradigm, a new model for the party.
But here's the thing: that new Republican Party doesn't have the votes. Not yet, and probably not for a long time. The big problem in American politics right now is that there's a section of the country, no longer large enough to win a general election, as it was back in the 1980s, but still big enough to dominate one party's primaries, which is bitterly committed to a mixture of what we might charitably call white nationalism and conservative Christian traditionalism. Those voters want nothing to do with the new Republican Party Brooks wants. They're angry about America's increasing pluralism, and about the fact that white Christians no longer get to just run everything without serious opposition. Hell, it's worse than that, for them, as this piece about Trump-as-Jefferson-Davis observes: like the South after the Election of 1860, these voters are looking at a bleak future of being consistently outvoted by those who would tear down the social institutions and traditions they hold most dear.
Brooks wants the new Republican Party to be "compassionate," but these voters have, it appears, no compassion for anyone outside their own little group, and precious little of it even within the group.
Brooks wants the new Republican Party to have an "expansive open" nationalism, but these voters are practically defined by the "closed, ethnic nationalism" Brooks decries.
Brooks wants the new Republican Party to be "honest," but these voters feel so threatened by reality that they demand unwavering loyalty from their politicians to ideas they'd have to be either fools or knaves to espouse.
Brooks wants the new Republican Party to focus less on economic theory and more on "sociology," but... well, okay, let's be honest. These voters don't give a damn about homo economicus and the conservative economic theories which have used him as their justification. As for sociology, though, I fear these voters only have interest in "binding a fragmenting society, reweaving family and social connections" in one way, and not one that involves "relating across the diversity of a globalized world."
The basic point is that the people voting for Trump like Trump. They like what Trump stands for, and it's everything Brooks is against. What's more, even those Republicans who aren't voting for Trump are mostly voting for Ted Cruz. Let's run Cruz through the Brooks checklist. Compassionate? Hah. He's one of the least compassionate politicians you'll ever see. Expansive and open in his nationalism? Try "let's see if sand can glow in the dark" and "let's secure Muslim neighborhoods." (Actually, file those under the compassion thing as well.) Honest? Well, I guess Cruz is slightly more honest than Trump, but he's hardly honest. And as for sociology, Cruz is as fanatic about Reagan-style conservative economic theory as anyone on the Republican debate stages. Probably more. So between Trump and Cruz, we're looking at close to 80% of the Republican Party's voters who really don't want the kind of party Brooks wants.
So while I'd sure like to think the Republican Party might rise from its Trump-induced ashes in a form similar to what Brooks describes. But I just don't see where it's going to get the votes. Because the thing is, the people who have been deciding to vote for the Republican Party these last few decades are a lot more like Donald Trump than David Brooks. Perhaps that's because what David Brooks is describing is a lot more like Barack Obama's Democratic Party than it is like the Republicans.
In fact, thinking about it a bit, it sort of seems to me like American politics, particularly in the coming years, is divided in something like three parts. The first divide is between people who think that, e.g., global warming and health care and poverty and race discrimination are the problems with the world (broadly liberal priorities) and those who think that, e.g., godlessness and sexual perversion and invading hordes of Muslim terrorists and racial entitlements are the problems with the world (broadly conservative priorities). The latter form the Trump/Cruz part of the electorate. It's the vast majority of Republicans, but probably not much more than a third of the electorate. Then within the first group there's a division between those with broadly conservative (in a traditional, 1950s sense of the word) ideas about how to solve these problems and those with more aggressively liberal, verging on socialist ideas about how to solve them. That last is the people supporting Bernie, plus those who would support him except for fear that he'd lose the general. So then in the middle, the people who have broadly liberal sensibilities about what the problems are but broadly conservative sensibilities about how to fix them, are people like David Brooks. And Barack Obama, at least as he's manifested as President. (It's tough to know how much more radical he might have been in his approach with fewer political constraints.) Of course, it's really more of a spectrum between Brooks at one end and Bernie on the other, with Obama and Clinton somewhere in the middle.
In a lot of ways, this three-way divide looks a lot like the Socialist/Liberal/Conservative party systems we see in many countries. And it would be really, really nice if we could end up kicking the Trump/Cruz-style conservative faction out altogether, and having something like a socialist party and a liberal party. But those reactionary conservatives aren't going away, not all at once anyway. It'll be many decades yet before we can have a party that includes the Trump/Cruz voters but isn't dominated by them. And in the meanwhile, given that people like Brooks are starting to wake up to the fact that the reactionaries really aren't the kind of people they want to be making common cause with, it's awfully tough to see how we're gonna get two parties out of this electorate in the near future.
David Brooks may think it's a great time to be a conservative, but he's looking at a generation of alliance with either the party of Trump or the party of Obama, Clinton, and *gasp* Sanders.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Shut Up, Bernie
So, last week Bernie Sanders said some things. Things like this:
But the bottom line is that when only half of the American people have participated in the political process, when some of the larger states in this country, people in those states have not yet been able to voice their opinion on who should be the Democratic nominee, I think it's absurd for anybody to suggest that those people not have a right to cast a vote.And like this:
We think if we come into the convention in July in Philadelphia, having won a whole lot of delegates, having a whole lot of momentum behind us, and most importantly perhaps being the candidate who is most likely to defeat Donald Trump, we think that some of these super delegates who have now supported Hillary Clinton can come over to us. Rachel, in almost every poll, not every poll, but almost every national matchup poll between Sanders and Trump, Clinton and Trump, we do better than Hillary Clinton and sometimes by large numbers. We get a lot more of the independent vote than she gets. And, frankly and very honestly, I think I am a stronger candidate to defeat Trump than Secretary Clinton is and I think many secretary -- many of the super delegates understand that.Okay, so, a few thoughts.
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Thoughts on Merrick Garland
First of all, I must confess error: I really, really thought it was going to be Sri Srinivasan. It wasn't. Whoops. (I did however predict that Obama would announce his choice today, right after Trump has seized control of the Republican primary, thus helping with the "make Republicans look like damned fools" strategy.)
As far as the nomination itself, I think Garland is probably the unique solution to the question of "who would this President and this Senate pick as a nominee?" Now, of course, we know that this Senate has no interest in solving that question, and I actually think that's why it's important that Obama chose Garland. Senate Republicans oppose this nomination on spurious grounds of principle, and I think Obama has a solemn responsibility to contest that principle with all his might, lest it become settled precedent. That doesn't just mean nominating someone. It means nominating the very person he would choose if his goal was to reach a reasonable compromise with this Senate. After all, if this President has the right to participate in this process, surely so does this Senate. Nominating some liberal firebrand would feel more like Obama's responding in kind to the Republicans, saying, hey, pretty soon you guys won't be in office either, I'd rather wait until then.
Of course, that depends on Garland's status as someone acceptable to both liberals and conservatives. I've gone back and forth a bit on whether I think he should be acceptable from our side of things; basically what gives me pause is the possibility that he would be more conservative than Scalia on certain criminal justice issues. That's the area where Garland is said to be at his most conservative, and many of Scalia's idiosyncratically liberal stances were in that area. It would rub me a little the wrong way for the Court to get worse on any major set of issues by dint of replacing Antonin Scalia. But right now I'm feeling pro-Garland. Partly that's just because Obama nominated him, and I trust Obama's judgment. Partly it's because, while Scalia did have a few liberal views about criminal procedure, mostly he was awful on criminal justice stuff.
But partly it's just because Obama has successfully appealed to the small-d democrat in me. It's not fun when the other side wins, but sometimes they do, and when they do, it's their right to participate in governance. Garland, as the most reasonable compromise between President and Senate, is the correct answer to the question "who should replace Scalia?" in terms of how our constitutional system is supposed to function. And while I applaud Obama for his willingness to reject lopsided compromises that would shift public policy in a conservative direction when it comes to ordinary matters of legislation, I do think it's kind of different here. There's a real argument that it would be a dereliction of duty to just leave the seat unfilled for a year because Obama hoped that his side would be in a more commanding position after the election. And, of course, Garland would shift the Court massively to the left compared with Scalia, even if he might not do so on every single issue. We also might get another opportunity to shift the Court leftward if Justice Kennedy retires sometime soon; I've heard rumors to the effect that he's maybe not doing so well. Garland would probably be a really good Supreme Court Justice, even if I might not agree with him about everything, and frankly, I'm not entitled to a nominee I agree with about everything right now. So, count me in.
That being said, by far the most important thing about this whole situation is that he's not going to end up on the Court, not as a result of this nomination in any event. (Watching him tear up at his press conference earlier I couldn't help but feel kind of sorry about that, even though I'll probably like the Justice who ends up in the seat in his stead better.) I bet the Republicans are really regretting that they decided to take this pseudoprincipled stand right now, because as a matter of pure strategy, the obvious play is to fold like a cheap suit and confirm Merrick Garland. Their party is going to nominate one Donald J. Trump. He's more than likely going to lose to one Hillary Rodham Clinton. It's not even clear that they'll be rooting against that result. And when he loses to Hillary, she'll likely wind up with a Democratic Senate. At the very least it'll be a less Republican Senate than we've got now. If this vacancy is still open then, they'll be longing for the days of Merrick Garland. But having staked out this supposed constitutional principle, they can't follow the strategic logic without making it painfully obvious that they were lying earlier.
And their idiocy isn't just a matter of strategy. They're saying that they want "the American people" to have a say in the process, but in cutting the people who elected Barack Obama out of the process, they're also cutting the people who elected them out of the process. Honestly I feel like they're betraying their constituents more than anyone else.
I also think it's very likely that if, as I think is likely, we get President Hillary and a Democratic Senate next year, the Senate Democrats will both be entirely within their rights to get rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees (thus ensuring that no Republicans have an ounce of influence over Hillary's nomination), and will be kind of likely to do so. Those same Senate Republicans will have spent a year instituting a blockade on spurious constitutional grounds purporting to defend the right of the people; they'll have forfeited any right to block the President and Senate that the people chose from making their preferred choice.
Oh, and one final point: people are talking about what will happen during the lame duck session. Suppose, for instance, that the Democrats win big, taking the Senate and holding the Presidency. Well at that point, Republicans should leap to confirm Garland, right? Yes, but Obama shouldn't let them. He's perfectly within his rights to withdraw the nomination, and if the vacancy is still open on November 9th I think it would be entirely proper of him to do so. Indeed, even if he left the Republicans with a little sliver of time to vote Garland through before withdrawing the nomination, he would be perfectly within his rights to decline to sign the commission, thus defeating the appointment. His rationale would be as follows: "look, I wanted to work with you to fill this seat, but you insisted on waiting until after the election, and you lost. You've forfeited your right to be a part of this process; I'm done with you." Particularly if Hillary's position in the polls looks commanding, he might even want to announce that a little in advance of the election. One way or another, it would be unacceptable to allow this Garland nomination to serve as a "heads we win, tails we don't lose very much" device for the Republicans.
I wish I could say that the next little while will be very interesting, but unfortunately it looks like the plan is for just nothing to happen for many months, and then eventually we'll see if it had an effect on the election. Ah well.
As far as the nomination itself, I think Garland is probably the unique solution to the question of "who would this President and this Senate pick as a nominee?" Now, of course, we know that this Senate has no interest in solving that question, and I actually think that's why it's important that Obama chose Garland. Senate Republicans oppose this nomination on spurious grounds of principle, and I think Obama has a solemn responsibility to contest that principle with all his might, lest it become settled precedent. That doesn't just mean nominating someone. It means nominating the very person he would choose if his goal was to reach a reasonable compromise with this Senate. After all, if this President has the right to participate in this process, surely so does this Senate. Nominating some liberal firebrand would feel more like Obama's responding in kind to the Republicans, saying, hey, pretty soon you guys won't be in office either, I'd rather wait until then.
Of course, that depends on Garland's status as someone acceptable to both liberals and conservatives. I've gone back and forth a bit on whether I think he should be acceptable from our side of things; basically what gives me pause is the possibility that he would be more conservative than Scalia on certain criminal justice issues. That's the area where Garland is said to be at his most conservative, and many of Scalia's idiosyncratically liberal stances were in that area. It would rub me a little the wrong way for the Court to get worse on any major set of issues by dint of replacing Antonin Scalia. But right now I'm feeling pro-Garland. Partly that's just because Obama nominated him, and I trust Obama's judgment. Partly it's because, while Scalia did have a few liberal views about criminal procedure, mostly he was awful on criminal justice stuff.
But partly it's just because Obama has successfully appealed to the small-d democrat in me. It's not fun when the other side wins, but sometimes they do, and when they do, it's their right to participate in governance. Garland, as the most reasonable compromise between President and Senate, is the correct answer to the question "who should replace Scalia?" in terms of how our constitutional system is supposed to function. And while I applaud Obama for his willingness to reject lopsided compromises that would shift public policy in a conservative direction when it comes to ordinary matters of legislation, I do think it's kind of different here. There's a real argument that it would be a dereliction of duty to just leave the seat unfilled for a year because Obama hoped that his side would be in a more commanding position after the election. And, of course, Garland would shift the Court massively to the left compared with Scalia, even if he might not do so on every single issue. We also might get another opportunity to shift the Court leftward if Justice Kennedy retires sometime soon; I've heard rumors to the effect that he's maybe not doing so well. Garland would probably be a really good Supreme Court Justice, even if I might not agree with him about everything, and frankly, I'm not entitled to a nominee I agree with about everything right now. So, count me in.
That being said, by far the most important thing about this whole situation is that he's not going to end up on the Court, not as a result of this nomination in any event. (Watching him tear up at his press conference earlier I couldn't help but feel kind of sorry about that, even though I'll probably like the Justice who ends up in the seat in his stead better.) I bet the Republicans are really regretting that they decided to take this pseudoprincipled stand right now, because as a matter of pure strategy, the obvious play is to fold like a cheap suit and confirm Merrick Garland. Their party is going to nominate one Donald J. Trump. He's more than likely going to lose to one Hillary Rodham Clinton. It's not even clear that they'll be rooting against that result. And when he loses to Hillary, she'll likely wind up with a Democratic Senate. At the very least it'll be a less Republican Senate than we've got now. If this vacancy is still open then, they'll be longing for the days of Merrick Garland. But having staked out this supposed constitutional principle, they can't follow the strategic logic without making it painfully obvious that they were lying earlier.
And their idiocy isn't just a matter of strategy. They're saying that they want "the American people" to have a say in the process, but in cutting the people who elected Barack Obama out of the process, they're also cutting the people who elected them out of the process. Honestly I feel like they're betraying their constituents more than anyone else.
I also think it's very likely that if, as I think is likely, we get President Hillary and a Democratic Senate next year, the Senate Democrats will both be entirely within their rights to get rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees (thus ensuring that no Republicans have an ounce of influence over Hillary's nomination), and will be kind of likely to do so. Those same Senate Republicans will have spent a year instituting a blockade on spurious constitutional grounds purporting to defend the right of the people; they'll have forfeited any right to block the President and Senate that the people chose from making their preferred choice.
Oh, and one final point: people are talking about what will happen during the lame duck session. Suppose, for instance, that the Democrats win big, taking the Senate and holding the Presidency. Well at that point, Republicans should leap to confirm Garland, right? Yes, but Obama shouldn't let them. He's perfectly within his rights to withdraw the nomination, and if the vacancy is still open on November 9th I think it would be entirely proper of him to do so. Indeed, even if he left the Republicans with a little sliver of time to vote Garland through before withdrawing the nomination, he would be perfectly within his rights to decline to sign the commission, thus defeating the appointment. His rationale would be as follows: "look, I wanted to work with you to fill this seat, but you insisted on waiting until after the election, and you lost. You've forfeited your right to be a part of this process; I'm done with you." Particularly if Hillary's position in the polls looks commanding, he might even want to announce that a little in advance of the election. One way or another, it would be unacceptable to allow this Garland nomination to serve as a "heads we win, tails we don't lose very much" device for the Republicans.
I wish I could say that the next little while will be very interesting, but unfortunately it looks like the plan is for just nothing to happen for many months, and then eventually we'll see if it had an effect on the election. Ah well.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
A Reality Check on the Democratic Primary
It's Tuesday. Specifically, it's Tuesday, March 15th, the Ides of March, and a key turning point in both presidential primaries. But who cares about the Republicans; this post is about the Democrats. One week ago, on Tuesday, March 8th (a.k.a. International Women's Day), the soon-to-be first female President suffered a really shocking defeat in Michigan, where polls had her up by over 20 points. Bernie ended up winning, just barely, by about 1.5%. It was shocking, and made us reconsider everything we thought we knew about how the race is going. Today (well, tomorrow, really, since it's only just barely Tuesday as I'm writing this), five big states will vote, the first and last time that will happen. It's Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, and Florida. And we'll see whether Michigan was a harbinger of things to come, in terms of polling error, or whether things will be basically back to normal. If the latter, we're looking at big Clinton wins in Florida and North Carolina, the last Southern states to vote, a more modest Clinton win in Ohio, a close race in Missouri, and... god knows what's going on in Illinois.
But it's worth taking stock of how things are going, because... they're going really well for Hillary. You can see how well using the FiveThirtyEight delegate targets. In almost every state, Hillary's meeting or beating her targets. And while Bernie does have a few states where he's beat his targets, they're tiny little victories. He netted one delegate versus his target in Oklahoma and Maine, two apiece in Vermont (by shutting Hillary out) and Colorado, and by five in Kansas. That's his biggest win. In Michigan, his great victory only amounted to holding Hillary to her targets. Meanwhile, Hillary has seven wins bigger than Bernie's biggest, in South Carolina (+7), Georgia (+9), Alabama (+9), Mississippi (+9), Virginia (+10), Tennessee (+11), and Texas (+22). Indeed, Tennessee all by itself is enough to cancel out all five of Bernie's wins. Put it all together and she's 88 delegates ahead of her targets, which means he's 88 delegates behind his targets. He doesn't just need to win going forward. He needs to win big. He needs to win big states by big margins. He needs to beat his targets by big margins in big states. And those targets include winning New York. Hillary's from New York.
And all this, having not delivered a single win of the sort he needs.
Here's another fact about tomorrow: it marks the half-way point of the campaign. 2006 delegates will have been awarded after tomorrow, with only 1946 to come (plus a handful here or there from non-state primaries). So after tomorrow, Bernie will need to win by the same margin he's lost by to date. Let's assume he manages to hold Hillary even in delegates. And let's also say he manages to hold her even in delegates between California and New York. All of that is generous to Bernie, I think. The 538 targets would have Hillary winning 723 of the 1413 delegates at stake in those seven states, and that has Bernie narrowly winning New York. So that would leave Bernie 223 delegates behind (as he is right now), with 1224 delegates left to be awarded. He'd need to win 724 of those delegates, or nearly 60%. Take Pennsylvania and New Jersey out of the mix, the two biggest states, where a combined delegate split also looks pretty generous for Bernie, and you're talking about only 909 delegates left. He'd need to win 557 of those. Here are the states where Bernie's won more than 60% of the delegates: Kansas and Vermont. That's his home state, and one other state. (EDIT: whoops, I forgot Maine. There's also Maine.)
If he can't win big tomorrow, bigger than it looks like he should, and if he can't win big in the four biggest states that will remain after tomorrow, his task is to win everywhere else as thoroughly as he won Kansas. (And Maine!)
That really doesn't seem very plausible. And that means that, 24 hours from now, it might start looking pretty much impossible for him to win. Unless we get another Michigan.
But it's worth taking stock of how things are going, because... they're going really well for Hillary. You can see how well using the FiveThirtyEight delegate targets. In almost every state, Hillary's meeting or beating her targets. And while Bernie does have a few states where he's beat his targets, they're tiny little victories. He netted one delegate versus his target in Oklahoma and Maine, two apiece in Vermont (by shutting Hillary out) and Colorado, and by five in Kansas. That's his biggest win. In Michigan, his great victory only amounted to holding Hillary to her targets. Meanwhile, Hillary has seven wins bigger than Bernie's biggest, in South Carolina (+7), Georgia (+9), Alabama (+9), Mississippi (+9), Virginia (+10), Tennessee (+11), and Texas (+22). Indeed, Tennessee all by itself is enough to cancel out all five of Bernie's wins. Put it all together and she's 88 delegates ahead of her targets, which means he's 88 delegates behind his targets. He doesn't just need to win going forward. He needs to win big. He needs to win big states by big margins. He needs to beat his targets by big margins in big states. And those targets include winning New York. Hillary's from New York.
And all this, having not delivered a single win of the sort he needs.
Here's another fact about tomorrow: it marks the half-way point of the campaign. 2006 delegates will have been awarded after tomorrow, with only 1946 to come (plus a handful here or there from non-state primaries). So after tomorrow, Bernie will need to win by the same margin he's lost by to date. Let's assume he manages to hold Hillary even in delegates. And let's also say he manages to hold her even in delegates between California and New York. All of that is generous to Bernie, I think. The 538 targets would have Hillary winning 723 of the 1413 delegates at stake in those seven states, and that has Bernie narrowly winning New York. So that would leave Bernie 223 delegates behind (as he is right now), with 1224 delegates left to be awarded. He'd need to win 724 of those delegates, or nearly 60%. Take Pennsylvania and New Jersey out of the mix, the two biggest states, where a combined delegate split also looks pretty generous for Bernie, and you're talking about only 909 delegates left. He'd need to win 557 of those. Here are the states where Bernie's won more than 60% of the delegates: Kansas and Vermont. That's his home state, and one other state. (EDIT: whoops, I forgot Maine. There's also Maine.)
If he can't win big tomorrow, bigger than it looks like he should, and if he can't win big in the four biggest states that will remain after tomorrow, his task is to win everywhere else as thoroughly as he won Kansas. (And Maine!)
That really doesn't seem very plausible. And that means that, 24 hours from now, it might start looking pretty much impossible for him to win. Unless we get another Michigan.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
So, the Republicans are Running the 1836 Whig Play, huh?
It looks like, in the wake of Super Tuesday, the anti-Trump forces within the Republican Party, decreasingly a.k.a. the Republican Party, have recognized that Trump will "win" the primaries, in the sense of getting the most votes, winning the most states, and having the most delegates pledged to him at the convention. Their goal is to keep his delegate count below the 50% threshold so they can get to a second ballot and then ignore him and nominate someone less, y'know, Trump. And this means jettisoning the old anti-Trump strategy of consolidating around a single champion. Now they want Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich to all stay in for the long haul, each performing well in different areas of the country and collectively denying Trump a majority even though no one opponent will have anything like his overall support.
If that strategy sounds familiar, well, it shouldn't, unless you're familiar with the 1836 election. There, Martin Van Buren was running to succeed Andrew Jackson, and the anti-Jacksonian Whigs ran this exact same play. William Henry Harrison was their real candidate, but he wasn't on the ballot in every state. Instead, they ran Daniel Webster in Massachusetts, Willie Person Mangum in South Carolina, and Hugh L. White throughout much of the South, with Harrison as their northern and midwestern candidate. The plan was to deny Van Buren a majority in the electoral college and thereby throw the election to the House of Representatives, which the Whigs controlled. It was a fascinating moment in American politics: had the Whigs succeeded, they might have made this multiple regional candidates strategy the norm in American politics for the party that controlled the House.
They, uh, didn't succeed. Van Buren won 15 states and 170 electoral votes, compared to 7 and 73 for Harrison, 2 and 26 for White, one (Massachusetts) and 14 for Webster, and one (South Carolina) and 11 for Mangum. That's 170 for Van Buren, 124 for the various Whigs: a majority for Van Buren, and a third term for the Jacksonians. Four thousand votes in Pennsylvania could've swung that state for Harrison, taking its 30 EVs out of Van Buren's column and making the Whigs' gambit work. But they didn't, and it didn't, and the strategy has never been tried again.
Until now.
We'll see how it goes. I mean, it won't go well, that's for sure: if it "fails" it means they nominate Trump, and if it "works" it means they deny the guy who won their primaries the nomination and he probably storms out and runs as an independent and throw the election to Hillary and the party humiliates itself. But as between those two, we'll see how it goes. Good luck!
If that strategy sounds familiar, well, it shouldn't, unless you're familiar with the 1836 election. There, Martin Van Buren was running to succeed Andrew Jackson, and the anti-Jacksonian Whigs ran this exact same play. William Henry Harrison was their real candidate, but he wasn't on the ballot in every state. Instead, they ran Daniel Webster in Massachusetts, Willie Person Mangum in South Carolina, and Hugh L. White throughout much of the South, with Harrison as their northern and midwestern candidate. The plan was to deny Van Buren a majority in the electoral college and thereby throw the election to the House of Representatives, which the Whigs controlled. It was a fascinating moment in American politics: had the Whigs succeeded, they might have made this multiple regional candidates strategy the norm in American politics for the party that controlled the House.
They, uh, didn't succeed. Van Buren won 15 states and 170 electoral votes, compared to 7 and 73 for Harrison, 2 and 26 for White, one (Massachusetts) and 14 for Webster, and one (South Carolina) and 11 for Mangum. That's 170 for Van Buren, 124 for the various Whigs: a majority for Van Buren, and a third term for the Jacksonians. Four thousand votes in Pennsylvania could've swung that state for Harrison, taking its 30 EVs out of Van Buren's column and making the Whigs' gambit work. But they didn't, and it didn't, and the strategy has never been tried again.
Until now.
We'll see how it goes. I mean, it won't go well, that's for sure: if it "fails" it means they nominate Trump, and if it "works" it means they deny the guy who won their primaries the nomination and he probably storms out and runs as an independent and throw the election to Hillary and the party humiliates itself. But as between those two, we'll see how it goes. Good luck!
What Religious Liberty Really Looks Like
I just read Linda Greenhouse's piece about how the Court is shaping up in the wake of Justice Scalia's death, and something in it caught my eye. She mentions a case, Ben-Levi v. Brown, in which Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissent from the denial of certiorari, a highly unusual move and one that Greenhouse couldn't recall ever seeing Justice Alito make. That case concerned a prisoner's religious liberty claim: he wanted to meet up with fellow Jewish inmates for religious study and/or worship (there was some dispute about which one, and it might matter), but the state wouldn't let him, because there were only two other Jewish inmates. You might think that shouldn't matter--and you would be right!--but it mattered because the state had apparently been informed by a rabbi that collective Jewish worship requires the presence of ten Jews in order to form a minyan. Hence, the state's rules allowed Jewish inmates to meet up for worship so long as there were at least ten of them. Alito, in his dissent from the denial of cert, thought this was ridiculous: what mattered isn't what some rabbi says, but what Mr. Ben-Levi himself believed.
And... he's right about that. I think Ben-Levi should have won that case, and easily so. I don't even necessarily even need to get the Free Exercise Clause involved here: this policy seems to me to violate the Establishment Clause pretty clearly. One prong of the traditional test under that Clause is that government policy must not create "entanglement" with religion. Basically the idea is that we really, really don't want the government dictating religious doctrines. This is the aspect of the Establishment Clause that's meant to protect religion from government as much as the reverse. And so I would say, the government has absolutely no business enforcing the minyan rules. Maybe they could simply not allow for group study/worship by Jewish prisoners, or maybe in appropriate cases they could limit the right to participate in those groups for individual prisoners whose poor behavior merits it. But if they're gonna allow the study at all, they absolutely cannot base their rules about when it is or is not permissible based on some view of what constitutes the correct interpretation of the religion in question; that's flatly impermissible.
And it's totally different from the other "religious liberty" case this term, and all the high-profile one of the past few years. Greenhouse speculates that Alito may have been "practicing" for the upcoming blockbuster case Zubik v. Burwell, where a bunch of religious groups and/or companies (because apparently that's a thing now) are complaining about the government's new rule saying that they don't have to provide insurance that covers contraception to their employees if they don't want to, they just have to let the government know that they object and then the government will provide that coverage separately. This, you see, still makes them culpable for whatever sins they think the contraception will perpetrate, according to their own religious convictions.
Spot the difference? It's simple: whereas Ben-Levi (and presumably his fellow Jewish inmates) just wants to practice his own religion his own way, these companies are fairly explicitly claiming a religious right to obstruct others' behavior that violates their own beliefs. I deny wholeheartedly that the latter has anything to do with "religious liberty." But to anyone who thinks this means I don't believe in religious liberty, that's wrong: I do support real religious liberty claims, like Ben-Levi's.
And... he's right about that. I think Ben-Levi should have won that case, and easily so. I don't even necessarily even need to get the Free Exercise Clause involved here: this policy seems to me to violate the Establishment Clause pretty clearly. One prong of the traditional test under that Clause is that government policy must not create "entanglement" with religion. Basically the idea is that we really, really don't want the government dictating religious doctrines. This is the aspect of the Establishment Clause that's meant to protect religion from government as much as the reverse. And so I would say, the government has absolutely no business enforcing the minyan rules. Maybe they could simply not allow for group study/worship by Jewish prisoners, or maybe in appropriate cases they could limit the right to participate in those groups for individual prisoners whose poor behavior merits it. But if they're gonna allow the study at all, they absolutely cannot base their rules about when it is or is not permissible based on some view of what constitutes the correct interpretation of the religion in question; that's flatly impermissible.
And it's totally different from the other "religious liberty" case this term, and all the high-profile one of the past few years. Greenhouse speculates that Alito may have been "practicing" for the upcoming blockbuster case Zubik v. Burwell, where a bunch of religious groups and/or companies (because apparently that's a thing now) are complaining about the government's new rule saying that they don't have to provide insurance that covers contraception to their employees if they don't want to, they just have to let the government know that they object and then the government will provide that coverage separately. This, you see, still makes them culpable for whatever sins they think the contraception will perpetrate, according to their own religious convictions.
Spot the difference? It's simple: whereas Ben-Levi (and presumably his fellow Jewish inmates) just wants to practice his own religion his own way, these companies are fairly explicitly claiming a religious right to obstruct others' behavior that violates their own beliefs. I deny wholeheartedly that the latter has anything to do with "religious liberty." But to anyone who thinks this means I don't believe in religious liberty, that's wrong: I do support real religious liberty claims, like Ben-Levi's.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Congratulations to Bernie Sanders on his First Good State Result!
Woohoo! He finally beat the 538 benchmarks in a state! And it'll almost certainly be two of them by night's end. His shocking 10-point victory in Oklahoma was six points ahead of his +4% benchmark, and he looks on pace to win Colorado by about six surplus points as well, with a 17-point win.
That is officially the end of the good news for Bernie Sanders tonight. Well, okay, a 73-point win in Vermont ain't bad, even if it falls short of the +83% benchmark. But his ~15-point win in Minnesota will fall short of a +21% benchmark. Meanwhile he's failing to win two states he should've won: Massachusetts, which he should've won by about 11% and will instead lose by 2% (which I think is brutal for his campaign), and Tennessee. Oh, Tennessee. 538 thinks it should've been a very competitive state. It had other ideas, joining its Southern neighbors in giving Hillary a landslide win at +37%. Taken all by itself that would imply a 39-point national lead for Hillary. Obviously that's ridiculous, but these benchmarks are just approximations and the real results would vary a little. Which is to say, the massive surplus in Tennessee for Clinton makes up for Bernie's good results in Colorado and Oklahoma.
And then we get to the rest of the South, where he was projected to lose big but actually lost bigger. In the current approximations of the final results, he's 16 points behind his benchmark in Georgia, 20 points behind in Texas, 24 points behind in Arkansas, and 28 points behind in Alabama.
Add it all together and Hillary's running about 15 points ahead of the benchmarks in the states that voted tonight. Add in the four early states and it's... still 15%. We're getting a fairly consistent view of the race, not so much state to state but when you add it all up. Sanders has run a great campaign, and his five state wins so far really are amazing given where he came from. But he's not there yet, and at this point, with the battle-lines hardening ever more, it really doesn't look like he can get there.
And even if he does, he'll need to make up for the big wins Hillary's already banked. Which looks basically impossible given the proportional delegate allocation.
Within a few weeks it's gonna start looking like Bernie shouldn't really be in the race anymore.
That is officially the end of the good news for Bernie Sanders tonight. Well, okay, a 73-point win in Vermont ain't bad, even if it falls short of the +83% benchmark. But his ~15-point win in Minnesota will fall short of a +21% benchmark. Meanwhile he's failing to win two states he should've won: Massachusetts, which he should've won by about 11% and will instead lose by 2% (which I think is brutal for his campaign), and Tennessee. Oh, Tennessee. 538 thinks it should've been a very competitive state. It had other ideas, joining its Southern neighbors in giving Hillary a landslide win at +37%. Taken all by itself that would imply a 39-point national lead for Hillary. Obviously that's ridiculous, but these benchmarks are just approximations and the real results would vary a little. Which is to say, the massive surplus in Tennessee for Clinton makes up for Bernie's good results in Colorado and Oklahoma.
And then we get to the rest of the South, where he was projected to lose big but actually lost bigger. In the current approximations of the final results, he's 16 points behind his benchmark in Georgia, 20 points behind in Texas, 24 points behind in Arkansas, and 28 points behind in Alabama.
Add it all together and Hillary's running about 15 points ahead of the benchmarks in the states that voted tonight. Add in the four early states and it's... still 15%. We're getting a fairly consistent view of the race, not so much state to state but when you add it all up. Sanders has run a great campaign, and his five state wins so far really are amazing given where he came from. But he's not there yet, and at this point, with the battle-lines hardening ever more, it really doesn't look like he can get there.
And even if he does, he'll need to make up for the big wins Hillary's already banked. Which looks basically impossible given the proportional delegate allocation.
Within a few weeks it's gonna start looking like Bernie shouldn't really be in the race anymore.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Ronald Reagan and the Meaning of Trump
So, it sure looks like Donald Trump is going to seize firm control of the Republican primary tonight. His eventual victory and nomination will be, pretty literally, unprecedented: there's been nothing remotely like it since the 1970s primary reforms, and pretty much by definition there couldn't be prior to then, because party elites literally picked the nominee themselves. This means we can't really avoid talking about, y'know, what exactly the whole Trump phenomenon means. Is it the break-down of the Republican Party? Is it a rise of bigoted, authoritarian sentiment? What's going on?
Here's my take, and it's a relatively optimistic one. The key thing about Trump's campaign is that the guy running it is Donald J. Trump. Or, to give him his full title, "businessman Donald J. Trump." That's right, his title doesn't even get capitalized! Unlike "Senator" or "Governor" or "Secretary" or whatever. He's a not-politician, or rather he's a dilettante politician. And this matters because we really have seen a fairly similar campaign before. It's basically Ronald Reagan's campaign. Reagan was a celebrity who had been a liberal Democrat for decades, switched to more conservative views in the 1960s (alienated by the Civil Rights Movement, perhaps?), had a brash demeanor on the campaign trail, did not have the world's most sophisticated understanding of public policy, and openly appealed to racial resentment and white identity politics. Remember "welfare queens" and their Cadillacs?
In a lot of ways, Trump is running the Reagan campaign. Why does it feel so different, then? Why is it so different? Because I do think it is different. And I think it's different because Reagan was a real politician, Governor of California before even his first unsuccessful run for the White House. Back in 1968, and 1976, and especially in 1980, this was a campaign you could run and win with. Nixon ran something similar, and won with it, in '68 and '72. Republicans ran a somewhat more polished version of the same play in the elections directly succeeding Reagan. But then something changed: the demographics. White identity politics is not going to be a strong enough force in American politics for very much longer to actually deliver the Presidency. There just won't be enough white people.
And all the real politicians can see this coming. They saw it coming a mile away in 2013, when they tried to get away from the white nationalist image with immigration reform. Didn't work. Its champion is falling relatively flat in the primary. And that's because, while white nationalism is in decline, there's still enough of it to dominate a Republican primary--and it's been seriously inflamed by a Mr. President Barack Hussein Obama. Actual politicians know they need to try to get away from this, but of course they still need it to win the nomination. And so we get Rubio, awkwardly trying at once to broaden his party's base and to pander to the existing base. He's in a bind.
Donald J. Trump is in no such bind, because he's not a politican. He has no commitment to the Republican Party; he doesn't give a damn about the future. Running a forthright version of Reagan's old campaign is plenty to win the nomination, and so he's blundered in and done it. And it's working, so far at least; I still believe, and/or hope, that there aren't enough of these guys left to win a general election, and that Trump won't be able to reinvent himself with Hillary running the "I don't know anything about white supremacy" clips on a loop 24/7. It's certainly got him closer to the White House than he deserves.
And so this, I think, is the real meaning of Trump. It's not about the rise of bigotry, but its decline. The Republican Party has always (in its current incarnation at least) basically been a "wars and tax cuts" agenda supported by, in large part, racist sentiments in the electorate. Romney and Rubio have tried to keep on playing that same old game, but it doesn't work anymore, because now all the real politicians know that they have to jettison many of the things that made their party attractive to the racists. They lose too many votes among non-whites, and there are too many non-white voters, to afford it. But the racist voters ain't happy about it. They were happy to go along with wars and tax cuts so long as the people they voted for defended America's white Christian identity. What they're not okay with is compromising on that national identity. The Republican Party knows it needs to make that compromise, eventually, in order to survive; that identity is dying. And that's opened up a space for any idiot willing to reject the compromise.
Enter Trump.
This is, of course, a hopeful story. It suggests that the current alignment of American politics really is shifting, that the alliance between the white nationalists and the Republican agenda is coming undone. There's any number of ways that could go. Perhaps we'll see a genuine split within the current Republican coalition that will persist for several elections, until something puts one side or the other out of their misery. Perhaps we'll see, in effect, a few cycles of "grand coalitions" behind Democratic Presidents while the rump Republican Party works through the dying throes of its dedication to racial resentment politics, unable to reach the median voter in a new, more diverse nation. Or perhaps the racial conservative faction will at some point concede defeat and splinter apart as a political force. They're not really united by commitment to conservative principles; some of them might find their way back into the Democratic Party, willing to support its pro-working class policies even though they're not thrilled with its stance in the culture wars. I can't say which of those is going to happen; I can say that we've known for a long time that the Republican Party as we know it had an expiration date, and it looks like Trump has come along to upset the apple-cart a little earlier than any of us had really dreamed.
Here's my take, and it's a relatively optimistic one. The key thing about Trump's campaign is that the guy running it is Donald J. Trump. Or, to give him his full title, "businessman Donald J. Trump." That's right, his title doesn't even get capitalized! Unlike "Senator" or "Governor" or "Secretary" or whatever. He's a not-politician, or rather he's a dilettante politician. And this matters because we really have seen a fairly similar campaign before. It's basically Ronald Reagan's campaign. Reagan was a celebrity who had been a liberal Democrat for decades, switched to more conservative views in the 1960s (alienated by the Civil Rights Movement, perhaps?), had a brash demeanor on the campaign trail, did not have the world's most sophisticated understanding of public policy, and openly appealed to racial resentment and white identity politics. Remember "welfare queens" and their Cadillacs?
In a lot of ways, Trump is running the Reagan campaign. Why does it feel so different, then? Why is it so different? Because I do think it is different. And I think it's different because Reagan was a real politician, Governor of California before even his first unsuccessful run for the White House. Back in 1968, and 1976, and especially in 1980, this was a campaign you could run and win with. Nixon ran something similar, and won with it, in '68 and '72. Republicans ran a somewhat more polished version of the same play in the elections directly succeeding Reagan. But then something changed: the demographics. White identity politics is not going to be a strong enough force in American politics for very much longer to actually deliver the Presidency. There just won't be enough white people.
And all the real politicians can see this coming. They saw it coming a mile away in 2013, when they tried to get away from the white nationalist image with immigration reform. Didn't work. Its champion is falling relatively flat in the primary. And that's because, while white nationalism is in decline, there's still enough of it to dominate a Republican primary--and it's been seriously inflamed by a Mr. President Barack Hussein Obama. Actual politicians know they need to try to get away from this, but of course they still need it to win the nomination. And so we get Rubio, awkwardly trying at once to broaden his party's base and to pander to the existing base. He's in a bind.
Donald J. Trump is in no such bind, because he's not a politican. He has no commitment to the Republican Party; he doesn't give a damn about the future. Running a forthright version of Reagan's old campaign is plenty to win the nomination, and so he's blundered in and done it. And it's working, so far at least; I still believe, and/or hope, that there aren't enough of these guys left to win a general election, and that Trump won't be able to reinvent himself with Hillary running the "I don't know anything about white supremacy" clips on a loop 24/7. It's certainly got him closer to the White House than he deserves.
And so this, I think, is the real meaning of Trump. It's not about the rise of bigotry, but its decline. The Republican Party has always (in its current incarnation at least) basically been a "wars and tax cuts" agenda supported by, in large part, racist sentiments in the electorate. Romney and Rubio have tried to keep on playing that same old game, but it doesn't work anymore, because now all the real politicians know that they have to jettison many of the things that made their party attractive to the racists. They lose too many votes among non-whites, and there are too many non-white voters, to afford it. But the racist voters ain't happy about it. They were happy to go along with wars and tax cuts so long as the people they voted for defended America's white Christian identity. What they're not okay with is compromising on that national identity. The Republican Party knows it needs to make that compromise, eventually, in order to survive; that identity is dying. And that's opened up a space for any idiot willing to reject the compromise.
Enter Trump.
This is, of course, a hopeful story. It suggests that the current alignment of American politics really is shifting, that the alliance between the white nationalists and the Republican agenda is coming undone. There's any number of ways that could go. Perhaps we'll see a genuine split within the current Republican coalition that will persist for several elections, until something puts one side or the other out of their misery. Perhaps we'll see, in effect, a few cycles of "grand coalitions" behind Democratic Presidents while the rump Republican Party works through the dying throes of its dedication to racial resentment politics, unable to reach the median voter in a new, more diverse nation. Or perhaps the racial conservative faction will at some point concede defeat and splinter apart as a political force. They're not really united by commitment to conservative principles; some of them might find their way back into the Democratic Party, willing to support its pro-working class policies even though they're not thrilled with its stance in the culture wars. I can't say which of those is going to happen; I can say that we've known for a long time that the Republican Party as we know it had an expiration date, and it looks like Trump has come along to upset the apple-cart a little earlier than any of us had really dreamed.
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