I always thought "weird" was something the Democrats celebrated as being inclusive while the Republicans were sneered at for being conventional and conformist country club people. Funny how words change.
Still, there's clearly plenty of frustration and puzzlement over that one political party is allowed to behave very weirdly (ranging from dying on the transgender hill to the mysterious who's really in charge pulling the puppet strings style of governing) while calling the other party weird, when it just exhibits historical Jacksonian American behaviors and has straightforward and uncontroversial campaign platforms like strong borders. And, of course, that one candidate is allowed to campaign by not campaigning by a party that constantly rewrites the rules to its benefit while the other candidate is under microscopic scrutiny every second of the day by a hostile press and establishment that would gladly send him to the electric chair for jaywalking. Irregardless of one's personal feelings of the candidates or policy, the broad acceptance of this outcome by substantially large enough of the American electorate does mean we are heading for a different kind of political future and concept of democracy than the one we'd taken for granted. The danger is that once the precedences and common understanding are destroyed, there's no going back.
The only thing the average young Democrat on social media knows about Jackson, or Jacksonianism for that matter, is that he is on the $20 bill and that he was mean to Indians. The large swath of the electorate that you are talking about does not care that the candidate they hate is under microscopic scrutiny because the idea that Trump and Trumpism are an existential and irregular evil is a sine qua non of their worldview, which you must believe for them to even engage with you or your political ideas.
Eh, I can't say I share your indignation. If your job is to win elections, you employ the strategy that gives you the best chance of success. If that involves shielding a weak candidate from scrutiny then so be it. I think most people know what a Harris Administration is likely to produce, policy-wise, anyway. I won't be happy with it, but that's democracy.
I feel the same. Arnold is mad that a candidate is doing the most important thing: win elections. He’s upset about “irrational” voters as if a vote for deportation of 15 million people is completely rational and won’t have any downstream effects. Is this really how an economist thinks?
Just last week Kamala unveiled an ad with a very coherent border plan: pass the bill that Democrats negotiated with Jim Langford, one of the most conservative members of the senate. It’s the most comprehensive bill in a generation and there’s absolutely no way it passes if Trump is elected.
"Arnold is mad that a candidate is doing the most important thing: win elections."
That's not right. It's, "Don't hate the player; hate the game." In any competitive game with high stakes, players are going to do whatever they can get away with in order to win.
So for something like democracy to have any chance of "working as advertised" at all, one relies on institutions such as the press but others as well, social norms, public expectations and demands, etc. to police candidate behavior, make sure they "can't get away with" a lot of bad behaviors, and insist upon high standards of availability for examination and policy clarity.
Ideally the institutions holding the candidates' and parties' feet to the fire are not just genuinely trying their best to be neutral and fair, but going the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of bias and favoritism. Even if they are clearly biased in one direction, or outright propagandists for one party, perhaps they would still be willing to keep up appearances and pay lip service to the ideas of applying equally rigorous scrutiny to each candidate and compel them to be forthright about various positions and promises and so forth.
As bad as things have been in the American press for a hundred years now,, there was still a lot of ruin left in those institutions as recently as 30 years ago. Today all those norms, qualms, principled commitments, etc. are all clearly out the window and there is not much ruin left, and few institutions seem interested in even pretending to care about not being obviously intent on giving maximum help to their side. They are not "covering the candidate", they are "covering for the candidate".
About this recent and dismal collapse in standards and gloomy state of affairs, one is well within one's rights to be infuriated and resentful.
One must say that the executive has all the tools necessary to secure the borders. No legislation is necessary. It is a reflex in our Congress to solve problems with legislation. So our Jim's error is understandable.
My point is that he’s either lying or has an absurd plan that will create mass chaos. They were waving around Mass Deportation signs at the convention for a reason.
As opposed to the last 3 1/2 years that WASN'T mass chaos?
Not sure why you throw in lying. Trump also threatens to let Putin do as he pleases in countries that don't spend 2% on defense. I don't like him saying that no matter what the reason but if it is bluster to get NATO countries to spend more on defense and it works, is it really lying?
Is it lying when the left exaggerates the predicted consequences of GHGs?
I'm in a similar conversation elsewhere on another topic but also focused on lying. I'm starting to realize when Trump does it is deceitful lies but for anyone else it is just political positioning and understood as "innocent" exaggerations. Trump doesn't play the game quite the same but he is also treated very differently.
15 million people in in buses and on planes to their home countries, with way stations at in hastily built camps, arrested after house-to-house searches, is unheard of in this country. The WW2 internment camps only held 130,000 people.
Apples and oranges. Most of those Japanese were sent to internment camps within weeks or a few months. Sending illegal entrants home would happen over years. Also, sending people home is easier than housing them. But none of that matters. I already said it's never going to happen. Why are you taking it so seriously?
According to his voting record he’s the sixth most conservative senator out of 48 total. That fits one of the most conservative in my book.
Look, they were going to vote for it. It was scheduled and Mitch McConnell had promised a majority of R votes. Then Trump raised hell and the deal was off.
You can dream up all the post-hoc explanations you want but the fact remains that 1) it’s the toughest border bill in a generation and 2) there a ZERO CHANCE a bill this strong comes up again if Trump is elected. ZERO. iIf you want to blame someone for that, I suggest you direct your ire at the ONE PERSON who blocked it.
We totally agree on your point 2, and thank goodness. That bill was a TERRIBLE bill.
We disagree on 1) except perhaps in a technical sense: merely enforcing existing law would be the toughest “border bill” in a generation.
I have no ire that that terrible bill was torpedoed, I am thrilled.
I just want common sense: enforce the law and drastically reduce illegal immigration. Border wall would help incrementally with that, but merely reinstating “remain in Mexico” would be the most important element by far.
I am confident that a clear 60%+ majority of the country would agree with my position above.
Once that is completed, then personally I am in favor of a LOT MORE *legal* immigration. On that point I acknowledge that there is little agreement in this country.
So you’re saying that even though Biden has let in between 10M and 14M people illegally in the last 4 years alone, that it would be a bad thing to send even a minority fraction of them back to their home countries?
But we *should* ensure that they don’t show up in NYC or Martha’s Vineyard or DC, so as not to impose too much on the mayors of sanctuary cities, right?
Well... They use the rule of the crook: There are things you can do, and things you can't do. They withhold information, lie, cheat, steal, and so forth. They do not run remarkable people for office, they run the people whose turn has come.
Yes, employ the strategy that gives you the best chance of success. But within the limits of the law.
“we will see a historic number of people vote for a Presidential candidate while having no idea what they are voting for“
I always assumed that a vote for Harris was a vote for the continuation of everything that we’ve already seen from Biden who was never really calling the shots anyways. Am I missing something here?
What I find most weird is Arnold’s newly discovered outrage on the new normal. I’m like 4 years ahead of a highly accomplished Othello player in terms of figuring out the playbook of the Democrats and their partners in the media. As a result, I’ve already progressed through the stages of grief to acceptance while Arnold appears to be stuck at stage 1.
Yes. You are being logical, you are not being woke.
A vote for Kamala is a vote for identity. Identity is all that matters. Who cares what’s going on in the world or the country (well, except for the Palestinians. We do care that the genocidal Israelis that Josh Shapiro seems to support are being mean to those nice terrorists Hamas who rape, murder, take hostages and stone gays…).
I never understand the narcissist comments relative to Trump alone. Im sure he is, but how is he any different than Biden or Harris or any other political animal?
Only in this: Trump is an outsider, so he can honestly say he doesn’t like people disloyal to him. Biden’s no different but because he was constrained by the other powerful people in his party, it wasnt on display.
I agree that top politicians have been narcissistic, especially since Bill Clinton. But most of them are better able to tolerate people who do not fawn on them.
I question that empirically. Trump selected a guy as his running mate who compared him to Hitler.
In fairness, Harris called Biden a racist, but that was in the context of a presidential primary where they were both candidates.
But once Biden became the candidate she seemed just as fawning as everyone else. Likewise with every other candidate and especially the ones who go on to hold positions in the administration.
Literally no candidate or president tolerates anything but fawning supporters.
I think the appearance that Trump is different is just because he was outside his party’s power structure.
To draw an analogy, if, say, Anthony Blinken were to not fawn over Biden, he would be quickly replaced and his career as a Democratic apparatchik would be over.
When John Bolton did it to Trump, he would be quickly replaced, but I (unfortunately) don’t think he’d be banned from the Republican establishment. And has status as a guy who “turned on” Trump gave him a career as the house Republican crazy person in Democratic media outlets.
The difference isn’t in the level of behavior tolerated by the president. It’s the incentives underlings have for defecting.
In a normal, insider-party administration , defecting is high risk and low reward. In an outsider administration, the risk of defecting gets lower and the benefits get higher.
Ok, you are starting to convince me. It's not often underlings publicly disagree with other presidents the way they do with T. Clearly T is far ruder about dismissing them but that's a rather superficial component of getting rid of those who publicly contradict the President.
... The damage he has done to the Republican party in trying to get rid of members of Congress (sometimes successfully, sometimes helping Democrats) who go against him might be a different story.
The fact that I prefer them to publicly contradict T in most of these cases is largely immaterial to your point.
“most of them are better able to tolerate people who do not fawn on them.”
Here you are referring to Kamala’s staff’ 91% turnover rate, I take it? And demanding people stand and call her “General” when she entered her AG office in CA?
I think the reason President Trump seems weird and narcissistic to the establishment is that he aspired to and won high office even though alien to their community of what I call ideogrifters. By that I mean people who proffer an eschatological or salvific ideological vision of society under their control which serves as justification and moral cover for their social predation, or grifting. This is not to say they don't actually believe in it, just that they have blinded themselves to their real motivation and the moral depravity of their project. It was inconceivable to the ideogrifters that anyone not a part of this would ever succeed; hence their bafflement and hatred.
Crosby Stills & Nash!....we don't often get to talk Rock history on In My Tribe. But since we are.....
https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well [My title Teach Your Children Well is taken from a 1970s Crosby Stills & Nash song which the boomers among you might vaguely remember. As a song it’s so-so but it does have this rather apposite line: You who are on the road must have a code you try to live by.]
And as Steve Winwood also gets a mention..... when he finally went out on his own was/is (in my opinion) a very underrated singer songwriter.
I think that the Trump/Vance ticket needs to add a third plank, which is *concrete* support for families with children.
You need to make this debate about why Kamala Harris thinks that the SALT deduction is more important then the child tax credit, by putting a concrete proposal out there. Perhaps even bringing it to a vote in congress in September. It would be great if Harris was the tying vote on turning down the Child Tax Credit.
I’ve been toying with various calculators to see what it would cost to go big on support for families with children. Below I would propose the following.
1) Child Tax Credit increases drastically from the current $2,000 to up to $5,000 (single)/ $10,000 (married filing jointly). It will be 50% refundable. No income phase out. (marriage is the wedge)
2) Everyone continues to pay FICA taxes, but the government refunds FICA taxes paid by households with children out of the general budget (not the trust fund).
3) There is a 35+ hour/week per household work requirement to get these benefits. (work requirement is the wedge)
7.65% FICA Refund Household Two Kids
15.3% FICA Refund Household Three+ Kids
CTC $5,000 Single / $10,000 married, 50% refundable
35+ hour/week household work requirement
Elimination of SALT & MORTGAGE Interest Deduction + SS Income Cap Removal should pay for it all
For reference, the USDA says it costs $330,000 to raise a kid to age 18.
Family with three kids making $50k:
FICA Savings: $7,600
Child Tax Credit: $15,000
Total Savings: $22,600
Per child: ~ $7,500
Per child lifetime: ~$135,000
% of income: ~45%
Family with three kids making $100k:
FICA Savings: $15,300
Child Tax Credit: $20,000
Total Savings: $35,300
Per child: ~ $11,750
Per child lifetime: ~$210,000
% of income: ~35%
Family with three kids making $200k:
FICA Savings: $30,000
Child Tax Credit: $30,000
Total Savings: $60,000
Per child: ~ $20,000
Per child lifetime: ~$360,000
% of income: ~30%
We could probably cap the FICA savings at like $50k per household, just to keep the ultra rich from maxing it.
I did not count the negative impact of SALT/Mortgage and SS cap removal on households with children, but should be pretty small outside the very well off.
In general I think I’ve been pretty conservative with these numbers.
This works because there really aren’t that many households with children, when you actually look a the numbers its shocking.
Finally, of course link all these to CPI.
As a further optional change, you could pay a Stay at Home Parent of children below age 10 a “salary” of $2,000 a month in any household with a working spouse with a full time job and it would only require a couple % increase in income tax rates (alternatively, a small VAT or tariff would do the trick too). This would also probably raise household income to the degree that they no longer qualified for things like Medicaid, which would further reduce the cost.
Re: your point #2. There is no trust fund. There never was a trust fund. There is a filing cabinet in Virginia full of IOUs that Congress wrote to itself before it blew the money.
We’re already eyebrows deep in debt and you want yet another tax cut. Cut spending first. Cut the bureaucracy. See the economy pick up without fooling with the revenue side.
Not getting into the details, I generally like and agree with what you say. Maybe it is all good but I think it needs to be trimmed WAY back. As you propose, it is so big it is too easy to vote against. Something more modest becomes harder to vote against but could still have much of the benefit if it were passed.
When I started doing the math, I found the the number of households with multiple children under 18 was actually very low. A definite minority. This is a recent phenomenon, demographic changes make it possible.
So any benefit paid to them has multiple payers per recipient.
Of course this could change, but if it changed it would be because we succeeded (people had more kids!)
It doesn’t quite sound like my (a foreigner’s) vision of America that trans children are normal and the success story from Appalachia is the weird one.
I kind of love the class angle to it. You sensed that with Bill Clinton and his dubious antecedents a little bit but he had that "cute popular boy" thing going on that papered over it. And his "boyhood" or birth home - however erratic his mother's romantic career - which was that of his grandparents - remains in a condition that suggests ordinary respectability. Vance really comes from nothing. His mother has had a nice makeover but bears all the signs of a life and world apart from the circles he now moves in, regardless of party. I don't mean that to flatter.
Trump's extreme trashiness and vulgarity of both manner and taste is striking and odd but seems deliberate, like a personal preference. I don't know enough about him to understand how he came to be that way, but his sister going to law school and becoming a federal judge, and hence probably one of the most boring women in the world - if that was not owing to his celebrity, reinforces the view that he just embraces the sleaze rather than Yankee restraint. Given that he attended college in the 60s, he almost seems like a throwback to an earlier era's fat cat stereotype.
He is by far the weirdest person who ever was president.
So they can't touch him on that front. It bounces right off.
But Vance - that's another story. This is a real "not one of us" moment for influential members of the media class and they aren't going to be able to resist it.
I suspect there is much truth in what you say except one big exception - they generally only talk and behave as he does in private and semi-private conversation. Few if any would speak or act as T does in an interview or public venue.
weird means deviating from what is typical. a normie person doesn’t care about, pay attention to politics. nor do they spend much time thinking about ethics or logical consistency for the simple reason that normies find this deeply boring. weirdos are people who vote. ideological partisans are even weirder.
bryan caplan was onto something with the myth of the rational voter.
Either party can nominate candidates whose affect and policy positions can seem more moderate than the other guy, where moderation is determined by the weirdos known as swing voters. trump and vance are deeply off putting to normies. turns out harris is campaigning in such a way that she comes off as boring DLC democrat. also shes 20 years younger than the other guy and doesn’t look like an orange raisin. you say she doesn’t have policy positions and maybe she doesn’t as you’d define it but she definitely has campaign commercials. which is fine for voters. only weirdos care about policy platforms and spend the time to read.
I never predicted Harris would do so well. like many other democrats i thought she’d be a disaster. prolly means i am a weirdo.
David Crosby did not coin "let your freak flag fly". It was already a commonplace in the underground press by the time he picked it up. Establishment rock groups like Crosby, Stills and Nash lagged the print and "street" culture of the time by a mile.
so, a spoonful from the Common Pot of Memory: flying the freak flag "... reportedly originated from song lyrics for If 6 Was 9 (1967) by Jimi Hendrix..." [OED] - see also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YctunKl2HBk (Jack, here's lookin' atcha!)
but really? Yglesias just shows the heavy hand of Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1821 "A Defence of Poetry." The unacknowledged lelgislator thing. Whether you like Croz or not.
"The Biden entourage does not see a problem with this. My guess is that they are used to proceeding without have to worry about what the party leader is thinking."
Democrats have expected their candidates to lie about any and all manner of positions for decades. This began in earnest after Mondale's infamous debate line that Ronald Reagan was lying about whether taxes would be raised and he wasn't, and then he got beat like a rented mule. It expanded to the 'personally opposed to abortion' lie, and then into supposed opposition to gay marriage on which the Democrat politician would 'evolve' after they'd won the election. As with many other things, Republicans finally decided to give up playing the mug's game of thinking Democrats were honest about a decade ago.
I always thought "weird" was something the Democrats celebrated as being inclusive while the Republicans were sneered at for being conventional and conformist country club people. Funny how words change.
Still, there's clearly plenty of frustration and puzzlement over that one political party is allowed to behave very weirdly (ranging from dying on the transgender hill to the mysterious who's really in charge pulling the puppet strings style of governing) while calling the other party weird, when it just exhibits historical Jacksonian American behaviors and has straightforward and uncontroversial campaign platforms like strong borders. And, of course, that one candidate is allowed to campaign by not campaigning by a party that constantly rewrites the rules to its benefit while the other candidate is under microscopic scrutiny every second of the day by a hostile press and establishment that would gladly send him to the electric chair for jaywalking. Irregardless of one's personal feelings of the candidates or policy, the broad acceptance of this outcome by substantially large enough of the American electorate does mean we are heading for a different kind of political future and concept of democracy than the one we'd taken for granted. The danger is that once the precedences and common understanding are destroyed, there's no going back.
The only thing the average young Democrat on social media knows about Jackson, or Jacksonianism for that matter, is that he is on the $20 bill and that he was mean to Indians. The large swath of the electorate that you are talking about does not care that the candidate they hate is under microscopic scrutiny because the idea that Trump and Trumpism are an existential and irregular evil is a sine qua non of their worldview, which you must believe for them to even engage with you or your political ideas.
“mean to Indians”
You mean to say - or at least *should have* said - Native Americans.
Shame on you, you are cancelled…
Eh, I can't say I share your indignation. If your job is to win elections, you employ the strategy that gives you the best chance of success. If that involves shielding a weak candidate from scrutiny then so be it. I think most people know what a Harris Administration is likely to produce, policy-wise, anyway. I won't be happy with it, but that's democracy.
I feel the same. Arnold is mad that a candidate is doing the most important thing: win elections. He’s upset about “irrational” voters as if a vote for deportation of 15 million people is completely rational and won’t have any downstream effects. Is this really how an economist thinks?
Just last week Kamala unveiled an ad with a very coherent border plan: pass the bill that Democrats negotiated with Jim Langford, one of the most conservative members of the senate. It’s the most comprehensive bill in a generation and there’s absolutely no way it passes if Trump is elected.
"Arnold is mad that a candidate is doing the most important thing: win elections."
That's not right. It's, "Don't hate the player; hate the game." In any competitive game with high stakes, players are going to do whatever they can get away with in order to win.
So for something like democracy to have any chance of "working as advertised" at all, one relies on institutions such as the press but others as well, social norms, public expectations and demands, etc. to police candidate behavior, make sure they "can't get away with" a lot of bad behaviors, and insist upon high standards of availability for examination and policy clarity.
Ideally the institutions holding the candidates' and parties' feet to the fire are not just genuinely trying their best to be neutral and fair, but going the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of bias and favoritism. Even if they are clearly biased in one direction, or outright propagandists for one party, perhaps they would still be willing to keep up appearances and pay lip service to the ideas of applying equally rigorous scrutiny to each candidate and compel them to be forthright about various positions and promises and so forth.
As bad as things have been in the American press for a hundred years now,, there was still a lot of ruin left in those institutions as recently as 30 years ago. Today all those norms, qualms, principled commitments, etc. are all clearly out the window and there is not much ruin left, and few institutions seem interested in even pretending to care about not being obviously intent on giving maximum help to their side. They are not "covering the candidate", they are "covering for the candidate".
About this recent and dismal collapse in standards and gloomy state of affairs, one is well within one's rights to be infuriated and resentful.
Winning the next election is so important to these political operatives that fielding a candidate competent to be POTUS isn’t on their agenda. At all.
One must say that the executive has all the tools necessary to secure the borders. No legislation is necessary. It is a reflex in our Congress to solve problems with legislation. So our Jim's error is understandable.
You want to make a bet? I would be flabbergasted if the illegal resident numbers go down more than 10% via deportation. 15mil deported? Lol.
My point is that he’s either lying or has an absurd plan that will create mass chaos. They were waving around Mass Deportation signs at the convention for a reason.
As opposed to the last 3 1/2 years that WASN'T mass chaos?
Not sure why you throw in lying. Trump also threatens to let Putin do as he pleases in countries that don't spend 2% on defense. I don't like him saying that no matter what the reason but if it is bluster to get NATO countries to spend more on defense and it works, is it really lying?
Is it lying when the left exaggerates the predicted consequences of GHGs?
I'm in a similar conversation elsewhere on another topic but also focused on lying. I'm starting to realize when Trump does it is deceitful lies but for anyone else it is just political positioning and understood as "innocent" exaggerations. Trump doesn't play the game quite the same but he is also treated very differently.
Exceptionally well said!
15 million people in in buses and on planes to their home countries, with way stations at in hastily built camps, arrested after house-to-house searches, is unheard of in this country. The WW2 internment camps only held 130,000 people.
It’s a fantasy.
Apples and oranges. Most of those Japanese were sent to internment camps within weeks or a few months. Sending illegal entrants home would happen over years. Also, sending people home is easier than housing them. But none of that matters. I already said it's never going to happen. Why are you taking it so seriously?
That was a terrible bill which enshrined as legal more than 2 million illegal immigrants a year!
If in fact Jim Langford negotiated it as you suggest, then he is most certainly not one of the most conservative members of the Senate.
According to his voting record he’s the sixth most conservative senator out of 48 total. That fits one of the most conservative in my book.
Look, they were going to vote for it. It was scheduled and Mitch McConnell had promised a majority of R votes. Then Trump raised hell and the deal was off.
You can dream up all the post-hoc explanations you want but the fact remains that 1) it’s the toughest border bill in a generation and 2) there a ZERO CHANCE a bill this strong comes up again if Trump is elected. ZERO. iIf you want to blame someone for that, I suggest you direct your ire at the ONE PERSON who blocked it.
We totally agree on your point 2, and thank goodness. That bill was a TERRIBLE bill.
We disagree on 1) except perhaps in a technical sense: merely enforcing existing law would be the toughest “border bill” in a generation.
I have no ire that that terrible bill was torpedoed, I am thrilled.
I just want common sense: enforce the law and drastically reduce illegal immigration. Border wall would help incrementally with that, but merely reinstating “remain in Mexico” would be the most important element by far.
I am confident that a clear 60%+ majority of the country would agree with my position above.
Once that is completed, then personally I am in favor of a LOT MORE *legal* immigration. On that point I acknowledge that there is little agreement in this country.
So you’re saying that even though Biden has let in between 10M and 14M people illegally in the last 4 years alone, that it would be a bad thing to send even a minority fraction of them back to their home countries?
But we *should* ensure that they don’t show up in NYC or Martha’s Vineyard or DC, so as not to impose too much on the mayors of sanctuary cities, right?
🙄
Well... They use the rule of the crook: There are things you can do, and things you can't do. They withhold information, lie, cheat, steal, and so forth. They do not run remarkable people for office, they run the people whose turn has come.
Yes, employ the strategy that gives you the best chance of success. But within the limits of the law.
“we will see a historic number of people vote for a Presidential candidate while having no idea what they are voting for“
I always assumed that a vote for Harris was a vote for the continuation of everything that we’ve already seen from Biden who was never really calling the shots anyways. Am I missing something here?
Don't you find it weird that people the entire line with Kamala now is "change" even though though your literally voting for the incumbent.
What I find most weird is Arnold’s newly discovered outrage on the new normal. I’m like 4 years ahead of a highly accomplished Othello player in terms of figuring out the playbook of the Democrats and their partners in the media. As a result, I’ve already progressed through the stages of grief to acceptance while Arnold appears to be stuck at stage 1.
“Am I missing something here?”
Yes. You are being logical, you are not being woke.
A vote for Kamala is a vote for identity. Identity is all that matters. Who cares what’s going on in the world or the country (well, except for the Palestinians. We do care that the genocidal Israelis that Josh Shapiro seems to support are being mean to those nice terrorists Hamas who rape, murder, take hostages and stone gays…).
I never understand the narcissist comments relative to Trump alone. Im sure he is, but how is he any different than Biden or Harris or any other political animal?
Only in this: Trump is an outsider, so he can honestly say he doesn’t like people disloyal to him. Biden’s no different but because he was constrained by the other powerful people in his party, it wasnt on display.
Until it was, of course.
I agree that top politicians have been narcissistic, especially since Bill Clinton. But most of them are better able to tolerate people who do not fawn on them.
I question that empirically. Trump selected a guy as his running mate who compared him to Hitler.
In fairness, Harris called Biden a racist, but that was in the context of a presidential primary where they were both candidates.
But once Biden became the candidate she seemed just as fawning as everyone else. Likewise with every other candidate and especially the ones who go on to hold positions in the administration.
Literally no candidate or president tolerates anything but fawning supporters.
I think the appearance that Trump is different is just because he was outside his party’s power structure.
To draw an analogy, if, say, Anthony Blinken were to not fawn over Biden, he would be quickly replaced and his career as a Democratic apparatchik would be over.
When John Bolton did it to Trump, he would be quickly replaced, but I (unfortunately) don’t think he’d be banned from the Republican establishment. And has status as a guy who “turned on” Trump gave him a career as the house Republican crazy person in Democratic media outlets.
The difference isn’t in the level of behavior tolerated by the president. It’s the incentives underlings have for defecting.
In a normal, insider-party administration , defecting is high risk and low reward. In an outsider administration, the risk of defecting gets lower and the benefits get higher.
Ok, you are starting to convince me. It's not often underlings publicly disagree with other presidents the way they do with T. Clearly T is far ruder about dismissing them but that's a rather superficial component of getting rid of those who publicly contradict the President.
... The damage he has done to the Republican party in trying to get rid of members of Congress (sometimes successfully, sometimes helping Democrats) who go against him might be a different story.
The fact that I prefer them to publicly contradict T in most of these cases is largely immaterial to your point.
“most of them are better able to tolerate people who do not fawn on them.”
Here you are referring to Kamala’s staff’ 91% turnover rate, I take it? And demanding people stand and call her “General” when she entered her AG office in CA?
Did the latter really happen? Wtf
Sure did:
https://www.theunion.com/opinion/columns/terry-mcateer-another-side-to-kamala-harris/article_f79b5fff-5a50-5eed-a63b-d67d8419c3d3.html
“As Attorney General, Senator Harris instructed her entire staff to stand every morning as she entered the office and say, ‘Good Morning General.’”
The above is a 2019 piece.
Recent NY Post piece linked to it: https://nypost.com/2024/08/02/us-news/kamala-harris-berated-staff-with-f-bombs-report/
I think the reason President Trump seems weird and narcissistic to the establishment is that he aspired to and won high office even though alien to their community of what I call ideogrifters. By that I mean people who proffer an eschatological or salvific ideological vision of society under their control which serves as justification and moral cover for their social predation, or grifting. This is not to say they don't actually believe in it, just that they have blinded themselves to their real motivation and the moral depravity of their project. It was inconceivable to the ideogrifters that anyone not a part of this would ever succeed; hence their bafflement and hatred.
Related to Max Yasgur! Nice, Arnold! Always appreciated this clip of him at Woodstock https://youtu.be/2RDxHfvFQJI?si=uqMVoTXICTVdMygH
Crosby Stills & Nash!....we don't often get to talk Rock history on In My Tribe. But since we are.....
https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well [My title Teach Your Children Well is taken from a 1970s Crosby Stills & Nash song which the boomers among you might vaguely remember. As a song it’s so-so but it does have this rather apposite line: You who are on the road must have a code you try to live by.]
And as Steve Winwood also gets a mention..... when he finally went out on his own was/is (in my opinion) a very underrated singer songwriter.
I was always partial to “Holding On” (1988) from Winwood.
https://youtu.be/fUogHq9fqME?si=Z8_U9fa1SsZVU_zL
I think that the Trump/Vance ticket needs to add a third plank, which is *concrete* support for families with children.
You need to make this debate about why Kamala Harris thinks that the SALT deduction is more important then the child tax credit, by putting a concrete proposal out there. Perhaps even bringing it to a vote in congress in September. It would be great if Harris was the tying vote on turning down the Child Tax Credit.
I’ve been toying with various calculators to see what it would cost to go big on support for families with children. Below I would propose the following.
1) Child Tax Credit increases drastically from the current $2,000 to up to $5,000 (single)/ $10,000 (married filing jointly). It will be 50% refundable. No income phase out. (marriage is the wedge)
2) Everyone continues to pay FICA taxes, but the government refunds FICA taxes paid by households with children out of the general budget (not the trust fund).
3) There is a 35+ hour/week per household work requirement to get these benefits. (work requirement is the wedge)
7.65% FICA Refund Household Two Kids
15.3% FICA Refund Household Three+ Kids
CTC $5,000 Single / $10,000 married, 50% refundable
35+ hour/week household work requirement
Elimination of SALT & MORTGAGE Interest Deduction + SS Income Cap Removal should pay for it all
For reference, the USDA says it costs $330,000 to raise a kid to age 18.
Family with three kids making $50k:
FICA Savings: $7,600
Child Tax Credit: $15,000
Total Savings: $22,600
Per child: ~ $7,500
Per child lifetime: ~$135,000
% of income: ~45%
Family with three kids making $100k:
FICA Savings: $15,300
Child Tax Credit: $20,000
Total Savings: $35,300
Per child: ~ $11,750
Per child lifetime: ~$210,000
% of income: ~35%
Family with three kids making $200k:
FICA Savings: $30,000
Child Tax Credit: $30,000
Total Savings: $60,000
Per child: ~ $20,000
Per child lifetime: ~$360,000
% of income: ~30%
We could probably cap the FICA savings at like $50k per household, just to keep the ultra rich from maxing it.
I did not count the negative impact of SALT/Mortgage and SS cap removal on households with children, but should be pretty small outside the very well off.
In general I think I’ve been pretty conservative with these numbers.
This works because there really aren’t that many households with children, when you actually look a the numbers its shocking.
Finally, of course link all these to CPI.
As a further optional change, you could pay a Stay at Home Parent of children below age 10 a “salary” of $2,000 a month in any household with a working spouse with a full time job and it would only require a couple % increase in income tax rates (alternatively, a small VAT or tariff would do the trick too). This would also probably raise household income to the degree that they no longer qualified for things like Medicaid, which would further reduce the cost.
Re: your point #2. There is no trust fund. There never was a trust fund. There is a filing cabinet in Virginia full of IOUs that Congress wrote to itself before it blew the money.
We’re already eyebrows deep in debt and you want yet another tax cut. Cut spending first. Cut the bureaucracy. See the economy pick up without fooling with the revenue side.
The proposal is revenue neutral.
Not getting into the details, I generally like and agree with what you say. Maybe it is all good but I think it needs to be trimmed WAY back. As you propose, it is so big it is too easy to vote against. Something more modest becomes harder to vote against but could still have much of the benefit if it were passed.
Honestly, its less big then I thought.
When I started doing the math, I found the the number of households with multiple children under 18 was actually very low. A definite minority. This is a recent phenomenon, demographic changes make it possible.
So any benefit paid to them has multiple payers per recipient.
Of course this could change, but if it changed it would be because we succeeded (people had more kids!)
It doesn’t quite sound like my (a foreigner’s) vision of America that trans children are normal and the success story from Appalachia is the weird one.
I kind of love the class angle to it. You sensed that with Bill Clinton and his dubious antecedents a little bit but he had that "cute popular boy" thing going on that papered over it. And his "boyhood" or birth home - however erratic his mother's romantic career - which was that of his grandparents - remains in a condition that suggests ordinary respectability. Vance really comes from nothing. His mother has had a nice makeover but bears all the signs of a life and world apart from the circles he now moves in, regardless of party. I don't mean that to flatter.
Trump's extreme trashiness and vulgarity of both manner and taste is striking and odd but seems deliberate, like a personal preference. I don't know enough about him to understand how he came to be that way, but his sister going to law school and becoming a federal judge, and hence probably one of the most boring women in the world - if that was not owing to his celebrity, reinforces the view that he just embraces the sleaze rather than Yankee restraint. Given that he attended college in the 60s, he almost seems like a throwback to an earlier era's fat cat stereotype.
He is by far the weirdest person who ever was president.
So they can't touch him on that front. It bounces right off.
But Vance - that's another story. This is a real "not one of us" moment for influential members of the media class and they aren't going to be able to resist it.
Work with enough people from New York (by birth, not relocation) and you recognize Trump's type is not uncommon there.
I suspect there is much truth in what you say except one big exception - they generally only talk and behave as he does in private and semi-private conversation. Few if any would speak or act as T does in an interview or public venue.
Gold toilets though? - that sort of thing went out when they knocked down the last of the Gilded Age mansions on Fifth Avenue.
Eating a hamburger with a fork? Would be met with derision by a Rockefeller.
But I believe you. I'm sure it's a useful affectation and maybe even a kind of fraternity (the commercial property bros?), just foreign to me.
“Eating a hamburger with a fork?”
Even worse than that, eating a NY slice with a knife and fork!
[Personally, I *do* have a problem with that one…]
the whole Trump/personal loyalty thing is left wing projection
this is how THEY see the world
if I'm wrong then come up with 3 people in trumps 1st adm that he fired for lack of loyalty
or loyalists he kept around even when they proved incompetent
weird means deviating from what is typical. a normie person doesn’t care about, pay attention to politics. nor do they spend much time thinking about ethics or logical consistency for the simple reason that normies find this deeply boring. weirdos are people who vote. ideological partisans are even weirder.
bryan caplan was onto something with the myth of the rational voter.
Either party can nominate candidates whose affect and policy positions can seem more moderate than the other guy, where moderation is determined by the weirdos known as swing voters. trump and vance are deeply off putting to normies. turns out harris is campaigning in such a way that she comes off as boring DLC democrat. also shes 20 years younger than the other guy and doesn’t look like an orange raisin. you say she doesn’t have policy positions and maybe she doesn’t as you’d define it but she definitely has campaign commercials. which is fine for voters. only weirdos care about policy platforms and spend the time to read.
I never predicted Harris would do so well. like many other democrats i thought she’d be a disaster. prolly means i am a weirdo.
Wow, a bit of great trivia about your mom’s maiden name; Yasgur. I got a real kick out of that.
Pedant time -- "Almost Cut My Hair" was from 1970, not 1969.
But the group was formed in 1969, and appeared together at Woodstock
David Crosby did not coin "let your freak flag fly". It was already a commonplace in the underground press by the time he picked it up. Establishment rock groups like Crosby, Stills and Nash lagged the print and "street" culture of the time by a mile.
so, a spoonful from the Common Pot of Memory: flying the freak flag "... reportedly originated from song lyrics for If 6 Was 9 (1967) by Jimi Hendrix..." [OED] - see also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YctunKl2HBk (Jack, here's lookin' atcha!)
but really? Yglesias just shows the heavy hand of Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1821 "A Defence of Poetry." The unacknowledged lelgislator thing. Whether you like Croz or not.
"The Biden entourage does not see a problem with this. My guess is that they are used to proceeding without have to worry about what the party leader is thinking."
Democrats have expected their candidates to lie about any and all manner of positions for decades. This began in earnest after Mondale's infamous debate line that Ronald Reagan was lying about whether taxes would be raised and he wasn't, and then he got beat like a rented mule. It expanded to the 'personally opposed to abortion' lie, and then into supposed opposition to gay marriage on which the Democrat politician would 'evolve' after they'd won the election. As with many other things, Republicans finally decided to give up playing the mug's game of thinking Democrats were honest about a decade ago.
Great point, very well backed.
It’s disappointing that Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker couldn’t get along. We could have had more Cream albums.
She was like a bearded rainbow.
https://youtu.be/DjKvB09zK0w?si=fsHBYNJtujlfQicz