US Election Week 2020

[OttoVonBismarck]

Romneyism I think is definitely dead--it's a brand of politics that basically can only appeal to a minority of voters. Trumpism has more legs because it can actually appeal to the working class. But how effectively it can do so over time is the question. I see a lot of perpetually panicked liberals and a lot of perpetually overconfident Republicans who seem to think 2020 represents an eternal norm. When I can point to like 5 examples from the past 10 years where people have acted this way before only to see the new eternal norm upset the very next election.

The core issue the GOP will always have that will hurt it trying to become the equivalent of some of the other far right, working class nationalist parties around the globe, is that it also has tremendous racial resentment, and in a few election cycles most of the actual working class, working age people in America won't be that likely to be comfortable in a white grievance political party. Trump has shown that right wing nationalist rhetoric works on minorities too, albeit at very low rates--Trump improved from abysmal performance with minorities and demonstrated you could improve, he also likely improved with very specific minority groups which may not be amazingly representative outside of a couple states. There's a lot to unpack with this election by the way, I find it kind of funny how many people actually think we have enough data to make ironclad pronouncements about it.

I do think the one thing we can say, however the data ultimately comes out--is the Dems do not want to become like British Labour or similar parties. You don't want to be the party of the educated and cultural elite, because that coalition is almost never going to represent 50%+1 of any country. Appealing to working class voters used to be pretty bread and butter for Democrats, and it's looking like they are going to struggle with that. The Dems were likely saved by America's diversity this election because the same playbook that has worked for working class right wing nationalist/populist parties elsewhere gets short circuited a little bit when the working class is so racially diverse and your message is only appealing to one racial group.

The biggest problem I see has nothing to do with most of the issues usually raised, which is generally a focus on big city far left Dems being too annoying for the white working class to vote for (the Dems have always had people like that in the party and used to clean up with working class whites), I think the simpler reality is Dems don't campaign well to the working class. If you actually look at any successful campaign anywhere that has had mass appeal to the working class, it's been a campaign focused on simple, broad issues, effective slogans repeated endlessly, typically a refusal to engage in nuance, and generally you need to give them an enemy to target. The Dems used to unabashedly campaign against corporate masters and greedy rich people, but it's hard now that the Dems have such a large percentage of the cultural and economic elite in their party because those people abhor campaigns like that.

[OttoVonBismarck]

FWIW as the ex-Republican "outsider" in a lot of Dem groups I talk to, I've pointed to the Brexit campaign as a pretty perfect example of how Democrat style campaigning loses to Republican style campaigning. The more you focus on deep dives into issues and details, and the more the other side makes simple but powerful promises and refuses to acknowledge nuance, the more you struggle with working class voters.

Nuance is what loses you elections, at least if there's lots of lower information and lower propensity voters voting, and in most elections in America those are a majority of voters.

[The Minsky Moment]

FDR was a wealthy patrician from an old established family, but he used to say stuff like this:

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

The American people know from a four-year record that today there is only one entrance to the White House—by the front door. Since March 4, 1933, there has been only one pass-key to the White House. I have carried that key in my pocket. It is there tonight. So long as I am President, it will remain in my pocket.

Those who used to have pass-keys are not happy. Some of them are desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope campaign against America's working people. Only reckless men, heedless of consequences, would risk the disruption of the hope for a new peace between worker and employer by returning to the tactics of the labor spy . . . The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country . . . Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse—it is deceit....

But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies [social security and medicare] will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy. Let them emigrate and try their lot under some foreign flag in which they have more confidence . . .

[grumbler]

From the GOP perspective Trumpism (for lack of a better word) is good. Trumpism works.

It worked for Peron, it can work for post-Trump republicans.

[Monoriu]

Will Trump attend Biden's inauguration 

[merithyn]

Will Trump attend Biden's inauguration 

Not likely, no.

[Eddie Teach]

He should be made to walk in Biden's triumph.

[Monoriu]

He should be made to walk in Biden's triumph.

Careful.  If you set this precedent, a future Obama 2.0 or Biden 2.0 may have to walk in Trump 2.0's triumph too 

[Eddie Teach]

Still be good entertainment.

[FunkMonk]

Are you not entertained?!

[Eddie Teach]

Animal rights groups killed off the circus. 

[Valmy]

He should be made to walk in Biden's triumph.

Careful.  If you set this precedent, a future Obama 2.0 or Biden 2.0 may have to walk in Trump 2.0's triumph too 

I mean Biden 1.0 and Obama 1.0 pretty much did so in the 2017 Trump triumph.

[The Minsky Moment]

Surveying the allegations of the various allegations, it's kind of amazing how little in the way of irregularities or improprieties the Trump campaign has been able to find.  I would have expected that in an election with over 150 million voting in unusual circumstances and with heavy use of mailed ballots in jurisdictions with little history of widespread usage there would have been a lot of glitches and screwups.  It seems like there were a few inconsequential ones but really nothing of significance.

[Syt]

Yeah, Austria is mentioned in the Washington Post!

Oh.

Oh.





Turns out shutting down bars and restaurants and otherwise mostly relying on people observing social distancing didn't quite do the trick. There's expected to be tighter measures announced today or tomorrow. I suppose the next step would be to shut down all non-essential places again.

[celedhring]

Shutting down bars and restaurants seems to have worked pretty well over here, I must say. We've been under Rt=1 for nearly a week now.