It would seem to me that congressional leaders would not be unaware of what their nominal constituents want, but are in fact, answerable to their real constituents, their reelection donors. I'm sure many join congress with great intentions on both sides, but are ground down by the leadership and money-raising. The best at it rise to the top and really are beholden to their paymasters. No confusion - just clear priorities.
How about Education?????????
Tech Music Art.....Etc....
Crazy.
So to sum it up, finally... America wants Bernie Sanders. Looks like the center-left were suffering from some delusions themselves in the last election.
2
I've maintained for a long time that most Americans may be personally conservative (temperate in personal habits, not profligate fiscally, attached in some form to religious tenets) they tend to be center left in their feelings towards others (compassionate toward the poor, pro-equality of opportunity and treatment by law, accepting of diversity as long as it isn't "enforced"). In other words they want to live their own lives and let others live theirs.
4
Mr Krugman,
The variable or proximate cause you left out for center-left or center right views of politicians are large campaign donors. Either Republican or Democrat, by staking out those positions , this appeases both the voter and the donor. Even if mainly a corporate tax cut for corporations, it is sold as a 'middle-class' tax cut. For Obama care, it maintains the private health care insurance with no public option and then stops tax credits or subsidies above $64,000 for a family of two. Also, exchange health insurances have high deductibles. It is a political shell game foisted on the public to maintain corporate control of the US government.
3
@John
I've been saying for years that the difference between the two parties is that Democrats meekly ask their corporate sponsors not to [involuntarily sodomize] working people TOO harshly, while Republicans applaud the [involuntary sodomization] and do everything they can to facilitate it.
Don't get me wrong, this IS a significant difference.
But this perception is leading young liberals to stay home on election day or embrace Bernie Sanders or third parties.
1
Trump maybe a liar but during the 2016 campaign he showed that the pundits and experts were wrong about what right wing voters want. They want benefits for themselves. More the better. They don't care about the deficits. They just don't want the wrong people, aka people of color to get their tax money for being "lazy."
8
Mr. Krugman,
Funniest line of the week is your joke about "gay married terrosits," they are all coming over tonight for a dinner party at my home.
Your article is complely spot on, the problem in this this country can all be put at the floor of representation. There is no one vote. Bush2 and Trump both lost in actual count, look how well that turned out. The 2 Senators per state is laughable and the gerrymandering of the US House of Representive districts is even a bigger joke (except for yours)!
Your premise is correct, but the powers that be work day and night to protect their turf and keep the 'white' power structure in place. It is very sad.
Keep up the good word!
4
@Michael: Fake democracy obviously produces abjectly fake politicians.
Dr. K; this a little off topic, but I think you'll appreciate it. I am an elderly white progressive -- yes we exist. But my generation is literally committing suicide by voting Republican. Cuts to Medicare are occurring NOW. They have been and are continuing to slash reimbursements for level 4 and level 5 patients. Doctors are abandoning these patients in droves. (Fortunately, mine are not -- but they are seeing me virtually pro bono). And NO ONE IS REPORTING THIS!
12
So democrats are inhibited by "a fear fed by journalists who keep insisting that the public wants centrists who are somewhere between the parties."
We finally have an issue that both parties can rally around: lying lamestream media pundints are destroying democracy.
@Robert M: Too many "centrists" are just prima-donnas playing hard to get.
2
Washington Post columnist and former Republican Max Boot wrote an excellent column recently on his eye-opening reexamination of conservatism. He realized how much it always has relied on implicit racism though he had never seen it before from inside the movement. He's also written a book "The Corrosion of Conservatism" on his awakening to this and other realities.
4
I made much the same argument about the Democratic push to hand Clinton the nomination. The move seemed completely out of touch with most I've seen about America. I've seen a lot of America and many other places besides.
Not that Clinton was the worst of two evils. She wasn't. However, I found the Democratic platform meek and humble to a degree that left voters feeling disillusioned. Running on identity politics was the second mistake.
Racial antagonism is the Republican playbook. No doubt. However, "America" doesn't want a platform centered on demographic politics. For most people, a policy benefiting a minority is no longer a problem so long as the benefit applies equally to themselves. You get your Medicare so long as I get me mine. That's how it works. Everyone is happy.
You start diving into politics that benefit specific constituencies over others though? You've lost the public's support outside those specific constituencies.
That's the one thing that gives me hope going forward. Trump, for all his bombast, is nothing but a poster child for selective favoritism. America doesn't like nepotism. I suspect we'll see the impact of that sentiment demonstrated on Tuesday. Dampened of course by Republican election rigging. I'd add 15 points to the Democratic average and you might reach an accurate representation of the electorate.
Democrats are guilty too of course. As Phil Keisling and Sam Reed noted in their opinion, why don't all 50 states have at-home voting?
2
@Andy It is one these to be the right of Republicans it is another to be like Sanders to be more concerned with the division of the economic pie rather than making it grow. Democratic Presidents and successful nominees are much more about growing the economy and making sure those who are left behind participate more fairly.
@Andy: The claim that advocating equal protection of the law for all is "identity politics" is patent nonsense that should have been laughed off the stage from the beginning. Democrats advocate "identity does not matter" politics under equally protective law.
"Mr. McConnell, we have a job open for you at the drive-up window."
- Shift manager at the McDonalds on 1212 W Broadway, Louisville, KY
5
Citizens United is the root of all evil in the 21st century U.S.
7
@FP: It sure dopes the media with moronic ads in run-ups to elections.
1
The sad thing is- the center right take is that being pushed by the NYTimes for decades. Does that make the Times interpretation fake news?
This shows that the paper Mr Krugman writes for has a tenuous connection to the truth, with opinion substituted for facts about the public.
The thing is, if one had looked at polling on issues for the past two decades, this has been pretty consistent. But the Times always pushes the “middle”, and is always first to take down any movement to the left.
So afraid of being called a liberal paper, they can’t handle the truth. Fact based journalism.... suuurrreee...
1
@Edward Brennan: advertisers call the shots directly and indirectly in the media. It is bad business to air news that causes viewers to tune out.
One big, big problem is the level of disinformation, or ignorance.
Only a week ago talking with a group of middle age, middle class men while waiting for an available tennis court one member of the group, an IT technician at the local university told us what he believed Obamacare was: an insurance policy sold by some people close to Obama that was a rip off, very expensive and not accepted by most hospitals and doctors.
OK, you could say, that guy is a moron, but problem is while he was ranting about this. others in the group, of similar economic and education level were expressing their acceptance of this guy´s interpretation, probably taken directly form FOX and perhaps some radio blabbers.
It is not that these men don´t read the news, is that they read and listen to false news, all day, everyday. Also they come from an education systems that trains people in some trade, but that do not educate or inform,.They are basically bodies and votes ready for the taking by the first enchanter that comes along.
4
“who grew up entirely inside the right-wing bubble and don’t understand how people outside that bubble talk, think, and behave.”
Am I the only one who finds this statement hilarious? An ultra-liberal resident of Manhattan who writes an opinion column for the NY Times talking about people living inside a right-wing bubble? Oh the irony.
1
I can make this even easier to understand. When the Supreme Court made corporate political spending protected free speech, they made Money king. In the old days, when politicians could only (legally) get a few thousand dollars per donor, they had to court more donors. Unless they wanted to accept the proverbial "suitcase full of cash". Very risky. The FBI could be in the room.
It is tough to please a diverse constituency. Now, politicians have it easy. They need only please a small handful of donors. This will be the most expensive midterm election in history. And even local elections--like school board---are awash in money. Every other television ad is a political ad. Fox is one big political ad. And the ads paid for by Money pretend that good Americans want what is best for Money.
Karl Rove, who used to brag about his Math is probably pleased. The Citizens United Ruling was a carefully staged coup by Money. Now, Money Talks and the rest of us have no voice. Democracy in America died on January 21, 2010, and it has been on life support since then.
I point this out, because overturning Citizens United is the way to make Money stfu and restore the voice of the people.
3
The problem is not ideology.
Fake conservatives don’t have one.
The problem is fake conservatives have no grasp of real cause effect yet believe they have the Grand Unified Theory Of Right. GUTOR. This is not ideology. Just dumb.
Complications ensue.
And DC democrats are smelling their own selves as their major contribution to civics.
1
If racism can be so easily exploited to win elections the electorate isn't particularly liberal, to say the least. If Trump figures out a way to combine nativism with a more generous welfare system that won't make him a liberal. To give an extreme example: Nazis approve of a generous welfare system for non-Hispanic white Americans, since nazism stands for national socialism.
2
"...his very crudity means that he understands that his electoral chances depend not on repeating conservative pieties but on maximum ugliness."
So, if Americans (more than sixty million) didn't vote for Trump because they were center-right, but rather because of his "maximium ugliness, " what does that say about nearly half the electorate?
1
SECOND TIME POSTING THIS
Apropos the view that "most people want to raise taxes on the rich and maintain social benefits" is a 2011 poll conducted before the Republicans almost caused a default over the debt ceiling (and S&P downgraded the US), a time when tax increases were "off the table." http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/07/21/rel11b.pdf.
Nearly twice as many of those polled (by 64% to 34%) wanted any deficit reduction package to include tax increases as well as spending cuts (question 14). When the tax increases were limited to those earning over $250,000, pollees favored tax increases by nearly 3 to 1 (73% to 26%) (question 24K). And that included not only a majority of Republicans (51% in favor v. 49% opposed) but almost half (44%) of “Tea Party” supporters.
And there are a string of polls showing consistent and substantial support for single-payer healthcare - no room to post them here, but look for a follow-up post.
And finally, apropos the pundit class, as well as the politicians, who are clueless as to what the American public wants, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
1
Democratic Party has “centre-right” views?
Well, I guess Cuba has had a great centrist government over the last 60 years then.
Out of touch? Dr. Krugman seems to define "out of touch" by poll numbers, while Republicans define "out of touch" by winning or losing elections. And No, everyone who votes Republican is not a racist, or a misogynist, or a plutocrat. The Dems have injected race and gender into the elections through their adoption of Identity Politics, vigorously practiced by Hillary, and defended by Kamala Harris. White men, especially if they're "old," and unless they're gay, are out of fashion this election season. Sorry Bernie, you are racially and sexually unqualified to be President this year.
1
I just wish more of the people on the left would vote.
3
@terri smith: I wish my vote mattered. Under the moronic system of representation is this fake democracy, it doesn't, simply because I live under a permanent gerrymander.
1
As usual, Dr. Krugman presents a thoughtful, non-partisan, and (probably) true assessment of the situation.
This strongly supports his point:
"Lots of polling suggests that voters overwhelmingly... want the substance of the A.C.A., even if they say they disapprove of the law."
Remember all the "stop the average person on the street" interviews in which "normal" Americans stated that they ""hate Obamacare" but "Support the Affordable Care Act"?!?!
It's clear that most American voters are ill-informed about most major issues. It's also clear that the Right has been much better than the Left in convincing (brainwashing) these low-info voters to believe their lies and half-truths (as well as buying into their divisive and hate-filled rhetoric).
More bluntly: There are a lot of stupid voters who vote Republican because they don't understand the contradictions that they're fed by the Right.
I will never forget an interview with a jobless, toothless White man from Louisiana in front of his run-down trailer, complaining about the lazy Black welfare moochers in Northern cities; but when the interviewer asked him why he lives on food stamps and Medicaid that are paid for by Northerners' taxes, he answered: "That's different; that's my right as a citizen."
And the West Virginia coal miners who hate "socialism," but live off of special welfare checks for coal miners with Black Lung Disease (part of Obamacare)!
Sorry, but I have no compunction against calling them stupid.
1
Is there room in the Democratic Party for those who don’t want socialism and don’t view life through the lense of identity politics?
@David: Democratic politics is identity does not matter under equally protective law politics.
"based in racial antagonism'..and i would add religious antagonism. terrible but sadly true.
Occam's razor: the reason why Hillary Clinton lost the election was because she was too far to the center while most of the working people in the rust states were looking for someone closer to Bernie Sanders, though smart enough not to call herself a socialist.
Nancy Pelosi is a Republican in blue San Francisco.
Paul Krugman thinks social scientists are scientists! Even conomics is more scientific than social science, Professor K.
Check out Archipumpkin to complete the crazy House mirrors: Happy Halloween!
https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/firms-compete-for-best-pumpkitecture_o?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=Article&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=AN_103118%20%281%29&he=
It's the annual sugar high sponsored by the American Association of Dentistry! Architects are anxious to join the public discussion as always!
@San Francisco Voter: This place is a social science Petri dish.
You're a truly blind man that lives in a NYC bubble, the Democrats and Republicans are the opposite sides of the same coin. They use race and identity to fire up the base and turn out voters who are either to ignorant or busy to realize they are being used for getting to the prize 'All' political hacks consider the holy grail. And that's the 3 trillion dollars DC controls and all the trappings that come with it. Spare me the lecture about Democrats being on the moral high ground in American politics or the lesser of 2 evils speech.
An excellent analysis.
Certain racial issues are the Achilles heel of Democrats who can’t attract white working class men, as they used to.
The bulk of white (middle) America is conscientious, even pious than “Nordic socialists.” Put it in another way truer Christian, like Pope Francis, Mother Teresa & Billie Graham, if you will (not Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, et al). They are not averse to humanistic socialism but most left-wingers tend to be atheists and crude, which turn them off. They’re against abortion. Their opposition to gay-marriage is more out of naivete. They don’t realize that Jesus never condemned homosexuality though he said if you look at a woman with lust you’re committing adultery in your heart!
And if the white majority realizes the dynamics of poverty at greater rates in minorities they would not object to more liberal welfare spending.
The nation as a whole, meaning around 65% of the population, including that of the the whites, is as socialistic as the Danes or Swedes.
In other words, if people understand the moderate ideas of Bernie Sanders they will whole-heartedly support them. He proposed a top 52% tax-rate on over about $12 million income. In 1980, the top rate was 70% on over about $630K in 2016 dollars, which was actually confiscatory.
I remember Nancy Cordes of CBS News visibly cringed when somebody said, “Bernie wants to raise tax to 90%,” implying at least to some listeners that uncle Sam would take away 90% of everything you make!
1
The American Revolutionaries who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 and then created this great nation were political activists committing criminal acts of high treason against the British Empire.
Those men committed their fortunes and their lives to the creation of the USA.
They would have all been hanged by the English Government for Treason if the American Revolution military forces had failed.
Today, politicians are only in the game for their own personal financial gain with perks, bribes and cash in paper sacks for their congressional votes and for no-bid PAY TO PLAY contracts paid from the taxpayer’s Public Treasury awarded to their political campaign contributors!
Today, only those politicians that accept sufficient campaign contributions or contributions to that politician’s foundation in return for political favors and “PAY TO PLAY” no-bid contract awards from the public treasury can collect enough campaign money in order to buy enough TV advertising can get themselves elected to public office.
The “DONOR CLASS” and the PACs (foreign and domestic) are (probably) very unhappy over the situation of losing free access to taxpayer’s money from the US Treasury and control of US foreign policy since Donald Trump was elected POTUS instead of one of the elected “Mainstream” US Democrats or Republicans as head of the US government!
1
Well yeah, you're basically right. But here's where your wrong. First, the mainstream Democratic electorate is neither to the left or the right of the Party leadership. It is a big tent that takes in both the ideological and biological descendants of the old New Deal coalition, but as mediated by the politics of the last of the 70 years. Plus it takes in people repelled by the direction of the Republican politics since Richard Nixon. Big tent.
The Republican Party is more like a reflection of a society on the verge of a nervous break down. But the glue that holds the particular Trumpite iteration of the Party together is hatred of liberals. And this has particular resonance today, as the liberals have fallen into Trump's trap of outrage over his deviations from the norms of politics, discourse and even civilized behavior.
Trump is right: the media is out to get him and has been out to get him since people woke up and realized he was actually gonna be the Republican nominee.
So the establishment media attacks him and by doing so, appears and in many cases, actually is, aligned with the right-center corporate&charter school wing of the Democrats, which leads both the know-nothing and the left-behind working class branches of the Republicans convinced that the Democrats are actually a front group for the New York/California media, finance and tech elites.
And the worst part: since the Democrats ARE a big tent, the know nothings and the left behinds are only half wrong.
I am not convinced. Every white working class person I know is wildly in favor of Trump, McConnell and the policies of the conservatives. Even union stagehands in New York vote republican, despite the clear truth that the Republicans want to destroy the union that has given them incomes of $150,000.
Firefighters, policemen, security staff, all people whose unions are in the sites of the conservative movement - all the ones I’ve ever met - favor the party that wants to disempower them. They listen to Rush and Fox, and they think the mainstream media is bent on robbing them of their freedom. Then there are the college-educated ultra right conspiracy nuts, (eg forbiddenknowledge.com, who actually offer some good reporting amidst the right wing nonsense) who see Trump as an outsider, who bucked the system and will save America. They think the Washington Post, CNN and the Times are puppets of the “deep state”, just as Trump says. I hear this everywhere.
In short, I think the pundits may be correct, the majority of white Americans, many of whom are afraid to admit it, even in anonymous polls, favor the essential agenda of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, of Donald Trump, the Kochs and Sheldon Adleson. They believe immigrants are taking their jobs and driving down wages, they hate Muslims and blacks, and they think America is in decline because of the liberal agenda favoring minoities and gays.
1
Why do people even read Krugman? Everyone knows that every column is an anti-Trump and anti-Republican rant. What is to be gained by reading him?
I very much enjoyed this article.
For those who think that Krugman lives in a liberal bubble, as it turns out:
What right-wing populism? Polls reveal that it’s liberalism that’s surging.
On most of the key issues, the public is more liberal.
http://prospect.org/article/most-americans-are-liberal-even-if-they-don’t-know-it
Dr. Krugman,
PLEASE run for President, or at least Senate? House?
We all know you would rather teach through your classes and columns, but it's time for you to take responsibility for your nation.
Sorry Paul.
Whoever gets elected "got America right", or at least they got their particular geographic slice of America "right"in the case of Congress. The primary goal is to get elected and stay elected and not to actually produce anything of value. The losers of elections are the ones who (per the sub headline) "get America wrong". Any guesses on who was the biggest loser in this regard? I'll give you a hint. Her initials are Hillary Clinton.
And don't waste time crying about popular vote vs. Electoral College. The rules are the rules.
We will never convince him and his base that Republican policies are wrong and dangerous, that tolerance and diversity strengthen our country, that inequality is incompatible with democracy, and that there is no place for hate, abuse and killing. They are who they are. And the Republican worldview will always find new believers.
The question for us is whether we will allow them to continue to define our country and our place in it? My answer is NO. And the process for regaining control of our government begins on November 6th. And it will continue for every election thereafter.
4
@Mr. Anderson: Uniformity is just plain boring. Mutually beneficial exchanges are possible between people who value things differently.
It serves the right to have people think the U.S. is to the right of center. Lying works and the bigger the lie the better. This big lie has been used to define Americans politically for decades.
3
Delusion has not only been the case. Why do you think the founding fathers granted only 10% of the people the right to vote? They knew then that democracy was antithetical to the maintenance of privilege. The Republicans today know it too. That is why they disenfranchise voters likely to vote against them. To safeguard against unsuccessful disenfranchisement, they stir up racial hate into a frenzy.
2
The irony here, Paul, is that you too are one of those out of touch pundits who thinks the country is more right than it is.
Remember when you spent the spring of 2016 decrying Sanders’ ideas as absurd and unrealistic?
Then Trump ran to the LEFT of Clinton on economics and won. To repeat, Clinton, and her Republican economic platform circa 1992 lost. To a game show host who certainly appears to have a sub-normal IQ.
Rather than point your finger, when will you too eat a bit of humble pie?
You may not like Sanders (and you clearly loathe him AND his supporters, sadly), but his message clearly resonates.
It is not his good looks, taste in clothes, or a la mode hairstyle that makes him the most popular politician in American to this day. It’s not his charm, warm personality, or calm, reasoned demeanor.
It’s his economic message. A clear, liberal, neo-FDR Democrat
6
@Objectively Subjective: Hillary sure bungled her handling of the education she got from Wall Street while politicking with it. That beast won't be tamed by anyone who doesn't fully understand it. She should have touted what she had learned.
Krugman needs to get out of his intellectual cocoon more often. His dismissal of the Dems needs to meet the expectations of centrists is itself delusional and a prescription for 6 more years of Trump, appalling as that sounds. His thesis may play well in Manhattan, San Francisco and Portland but the dilemma we face is national.
1
"We should not place all the blame on Congress. The public contributes to the problem by not taking the time to express its opinions to politicians or vote."
No, that isn't a mere "contribution" but rather the ENTIRETY of the problem.
In other words, the opinions of those who do not vote -- literally -- do not matter. Do. Not. Matter.
The general theme of this piece is false. Politicians are not out of step with the public but rather reflect what the average white 60 year old wishes were true, a sort of aged Reagan 1984 vision of the red, white, and blue.
1
@JDS: US politics is emotional, not rational.
Some of the wackier "conservative" positions such as climate change denial are because of the Koch Brothers and their allies. They fund the politicians who espouse these extreme positions and the right wing media promotes these ideas creating a feedback loop.
Unfortunately Dr Krugman, there are many more racists and just plain ignorant people out there in the general public than you can imagine. You've lived in a bubble. When you get out in the real world - well - you would be shocked.
4
If only: “If we can’t sell this [tax cut] to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work,” declared Mitch McConnell.
Well they couldn’t, and so every single one of them who voted for it should go into another like of work. McConnell says so, and he’s the GOP leader.
2
Most Americans I meet are generous
and do not want people punished because
they slipped into near or actual poverty
or have a medical condition that makes it
difficult for them to work.
However, they are tired of paying high taxes
and seemingly getting very little for it.
Eisenhower gave us Peace and the Interstate,
LBJ the Great Society, Nixon more Liberal Policies
than you can imagine...but since then all I can think
of is Obamacare - which I support and which I wish
was cheaper as the Insurance Companies are still
making billions at our expense.
Democrats do the following:
Back off on Identity Politics.
Slow down on the whole Transgender issue.
Actual Immigration Reform.
Allow voices against Abortion on Demand
to be heard within the party.
Revise Obamacare to be more affordable.
Just ignore Trump - he thrives on getting
into shouting matches.
Find a Middle of the Road Candidate for 2020
and campaign on behalf of all Americans
and the White House/Senate/House are yours.
3
I'v never met, read, or heard a Republican who accurately perceived anything in the fields of politics, economics, social science, or much of anything else. Just take a look around, they are working to drive us all over a cliff.
1
The last paragraph illuminates why Trump rules his party.
1
The politicians think we all pine over the fate of the heroin addict or the drunk. No. We really do care about ourselves more than anyone else. And that is not being selfish. We have skin in this game. The middle class is worried that we will lose everything we have worked for if we become ill. And we will drown in debt, as well. It's the slavery issue of our age.
Both parties should take our concerns seriously, or it's time for a new party.
4
The Very Smart People kept assuring me in 2016 that Sanders was too radical to get elected.
The Very Smart People dismissed the polls that showed Sanders beating Trump and Clinton losing to Trump, and dismissed Sanders’ supporters as racist, sexist, “bros.”
The Very Smart People told me that anyone with Sanders’ economic views would be unelectable in Peoria.
Then Trump adopted Sanders’ economic message, giving him an economic message to the LEFT of the “party of the people,” added some racism, and beat the candidate of the Very Smart People.
Now the Very Smart People are informing me that America is not as right wing as the Very Smart People have been telling me it is.
Perhaps the Very Smart People are very smart in the way that the President is a “very stable genius.”
Welcome to reality. It’s about time.
I’ll believe the Democrats have caught up with reality when they manage to jail a few bankers and strengthen Social Security and Medicare as opposed to cutting them, as Obama proposed.
I won’t hold my breath.
2
Apropos the view that "most people want to raise taxes on the rich and maintain social benefits" is a 2011 poll conducted before the Republicans almost caused a default over the debt ceiling (and S&P downgraded the US), a time when tax increases were "off the table." http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/07/21/rel11b.pdf.
Nearly twice as many of those polled (by 64% to 34%) wanted any deficit reduction package to include tax increases as well as spending cuts (question 14). When the tax increases were limited to those earning over $250,000, pollees favored tax increases by nearly 3 to 1 (73% to 26%) (question 24K). And that included not only a majority of Republicans (51% in favor v. 49% opposed) but almost half (44%) of “Tea Party” supporters.
And there are a string of polls showing consistent and substantial support for single-payer healthcare - no room to post them here, but look for a follow-up post.
And finally, apropos the pundit class, as well as the politicians, who are clueless as to what the American public wants, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
3
Brilliant column, Dr Krugman. You take obscure observations and move them to the top of the page where they belong. I hope more than just us loyal readers get the message!
2
Krugman is a novice political analyst, and any politician who took his advice would lose big.
He is right about one thing, however: there is little demand for a Bloomberg/Kasich/Jeb Bush style 'centrist', and such a politician will almost certainly fail to appeal to the voters. Mitt Romney, anyone?
So go ahead and try running a leftist. Sure, Americans tell pollsters they'd like free health care and free college education. While you're at it, I'd like a free chauffeured limo, too. But when it comes to paying the taxes required for all these goodies, they're cheap as all get-out.
The existing, elected politicians are no dummies. Their soft life depends on being continually re-elected, and they know what to say and what to do.
1
One wonders what the world would be like if billionaires recognized that their own wealth is the product of processes as fickle as lottery-drawings.
2
The vast majority of Americans are liberal when you look at their positions on policy, whether or not they self describe that way.
You know who's center-right and often extreme right? The billionaires who influence the policies of the people that we elect, with their bribes - er, I mean campaign contributions.
Campaign finance reform. NOW.
5
Republican pols know what they're doing and have for over 50 years. The fact that the main objectives have been to cut regulations and taxes on the rich while the appeal to working people has been with racism and religion has drawn the most cynical and opportunistic of political aspirants. If Republicans really believed in the premises of the tax cut they would still be touting it, but instead they dropped it as soon as was clear it was a loser in polls. They didn't win the 2016 election on tax cuts - many Trump voters may not have noticed that he switched from calling for tax raises on the rich. As Krugman has often pointed out, their supposed budget hawkishness is completely fake, to be dropped when a Republican is President and tax cuts are on the agenda.
Are pundits and the media industry in general really fooled by Republicans, or are most of them now really on the side of the interests for whom Republican politicians really work?
8
@skeptonomist: Theocracy is the worst of all forms of government because absolutely nothing is negotiable with "God".
@skeptonomist: The same interlocked corporate directorship manipulates both US political parties.
“Republicans run on anything but their policies.” And people vote on everything but party policies. Their reasons are psychological, personal and instinctual. People vote for a feel-good experience, and some people feel good standing in an arena with Trump shouting at them.
Whether they are center left, far left or upside down, the challenge for Democrats is to explain policy to a field of turnips.
5
@Andrew Kelm: For those who see life as a zero sum game, failure to win is always a loss.
"Lots of polling suggests that voters overwhelmingly want protection for pre-existing conditions and subsidies to help lower-income Americans afford insurance — that is, they want the substance of the A.C.A."
Paul, no. That's half the substance, The other half is that premiums have to rise to pay for it.
The truth is, people want the benefits of the A.C.A. without the costs, and just between us, one of the reasons they want that absurdity is that Obama told them they could have it. I'm sure you remember that.
1
@Bob Acker-- Obama said they could have it, because there would be support from the government, partly by increasing eligibility for Medicaid and by offering assistance to pay for premiums. Yes, there would be an increase in taxes, but it would fall mostly on the upper income groups, who certainly can afford it. And that's what the Republicans want to destroy.
5
@DocM
Several points.
First, I didn't refer to taxes at all. I referred to premiums rising, and I coud have added, and deductibles rising as well. That happened.
Second, denialism is exactly what got us here.
Third, as for where "here" is: overselling the A.C.A. was the first in the chain of events, starting with the 2010 midterms, that ended up giving us Trump.
At this point, I suppose there is no hope whatsoever, that Krugman will ever leave the greater New York City are, and travel around the nation talking to people.
For someone who writes about peole living in bubbles as much as he does, one would think that at some point he would figure out that - in fact - he, is the one living in the bubble.
A little travel might assist, in that respect.
1
@Objectivist: I toured the US to sell empty factories as manufacturing abandoned the US during and after Reagan. Watching the same folks fall for Trump gives me deja vu all over again.
5
@Objectivist
What an excellent comment that addresses and categorically refutes the ideas and facts - the very meat of the argument - that Dr. Krugman puts forward here.
Oh wait..
"But Republicans are even further out of touch. Hertel-Fernandez et al note correctly that the Trump tax cut has proved consistently unpopular; they don’t point out that at first Republicans were sure that it would be a big political winner"
This and just about all of the article are irrelevant.
The measuring stick isn't if the policies the Republicans are enacting are popular. It's whether they can get elected. So far the answer has been a resounding yes.
The Republican approach has always been to frighten their base that "the Democrats are coming!!" Stoking fears of taking their guns away, outlawing Christmas, opening the borders, backing if not founding terrorist organizations, taking away Medicare, the list goes on and on. So an angry and frightened base (that mostly gets its news from a few sources closely allied with the right) votes Republican again and again.
4
When we are trying to create a more perfect Union, this is piece of your column is worth repeating, "But this owes a lot to a tilted playing field — they only won the popular vote for president once over that stretch, and can hold the House even when Democrats get a lot more votes." Clearly, this correction should be given a high priority.
Tracing the history and success of the United States, it seems clear to me that the political strength of the Democratic Party is taken from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
In your interview of Nancy Pelosi at the 92Y event, I was impressed with her commitment to campaign finance reform. This is needed and has the potential of making our government more responsive to the needs of Americans.
In U.S. history, some Republicans have reflected on good government and its importance to the long-term interests of the American people.
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” ~ Abraham Lincoln, 19 November 1863, Gettysburg Pennsylvania.
I don't believe he was center right
2
I see the point Dr. Krugman is making, but I don’t think he is 100% correct about it, either. He is right that both parties overestimate the appeal of economic conservatism. But I think he misreads that as evidence that Americans want policies universal healthcare.
The problem with universal healthcare is that it is UNIVERSAL. And that’s how Republicans dissuade the voters. Republican rank-and-file voters, significantly older than Democrats on the whole, love Medicare, Social Security, and other government-managed benefits when it’s for FOR THEMSELVES. The negative sentiments toward any kind of welfare benefit has always been that the “wrong” sorts of people might benefit from it. Historically, that has been “welfare queens” - a mythical class of people, usually implicitly black, who somehow live in luxury off food stamps. Now the popular mythical evil moochers is “the illegal,” who simultaneously steal jobs and collect welfare benefits and vote three times in every election and commit murder and rape on a daily basis. It’s always the fear that “those people” will get welfare benefits that keeps the Republican economic agenda popular with its base. I believe that remains the case today.
5
Economists certainly share a good chunk of the blame. Despite the epic face-plant of the Efficient Market Hypothesis 10 years ago most still mouth the same pieties of small government and free markets (SG/FM) civic religion. We must tread lightly when regulating the finance industry which provides the "best, most accurate prices". We do indeed have a center-right middle class.After 40 years of brainwashing, it swoons and shrieks "SOCIALISTSOCIALISTSOCIALIST" at New Deal Democrats, not realizing whence the midde class came.
2
Here we are the day before open enrollment for the ACA begins. The enrollment period has been cut in half, there is no advertising that I can see, no notices on my phone/email advising me to sign up (I have been on it since 2015, since I am self-employed), and little to no navigator support for new people.
Millions of people who could have health insurance will lose health care for no reason other than Republican spite. Trump and his GOP want Obamacare dead, and we can die with it.
Those in power are really the worst our country has to offer.
3
But wait, I thought we just raised taxes on rich urbanites residing in blue states by substantially limiting state and local income and property tax deductions? So it seems like Trump is actually following the will of the moderate American voter. These moderates also don’t buy into the constant pulling of the race card and identity politics eschewed by the left. They want good jobs, good schools, law and order, and low taxes. That’s the ticket
1
I believe we should make America great again by first renewing the values that made us great. We find ourselves in moral quicksand. All the effort seems wasted. Who we are as nation is on the ballot next week, a chance to embrace our immigrant history and reclaim values rudely kicked to the curb by this President his Congress.
We are better than both and have a historic obligation to defend our principles. Renewal is an affirmation of faith in what got us here.
1
The role of money in fueling both parties cannot be overstated. It drives the GOP’s governing plutocratic agenda, while forcing it to adopt a catnip platform (xenophobia, theocracy) for its (minority) share of the electorate. At the same time it mutes much of whatever progressive projects the Democrats allow themselves to advance.
1
Be careful of hidden recognition of seeming qualities in Trump, even if unintended. It even hints at some possibility of his rehabilitation as a spokesman for the working class. He is not a sheep in wolfs clothing. He is a monster in wolfs clothing. His total focus in life is himself, and he can see little further than his image the mirror. He has to be preened constantly. I reckon he must be one of the most tricky Presidents in history, but I'm prepared to be disillusioned.
1
Much of this editorial assumes that the two political parties and our congressmen and women are good faith players. I think it's clear they mostly are not.
The politicians are mostly careerists and the parties are not so much having trouble understanding what voters want as simply trying to hoodwink them by making them afraid and irrational and then herding them over the cliff.
Why would our elected officials try so hard to harm those who elected them/ Simple, they're getting paid to by the rich whose fortunes continue to grow under these awful regressive pieces of legislation.
As long as our politicians need to gather millions from the rich to get elected, they will continue to act against their constituents best wishes. Subtracting the big money from our politics is our only hope.
The only difference I see between Republicans and Democrats is that the Democrats use the carrot and stick approach while the Republicans have settled on the stick and stick approach.
If the voters really understood what was in their best interest we would long ago have adopted democratic socialism along the scandinavian model. The best of both worlds. Capitalist innovation tempered by progressive taxation — because it's immoral to condemn people to die for ideology.
3
Paul Krugman discovers a report from a field of study overwhelming dominated by left of center academics, and this study reveals the shocking truth that our great democracy is not a centrist-conservative one. This is stunning! No one could have foreseen it.
But wait, there is more. Krugman was also able to divine that the secret to winning elections his side has so far failed to do (except for, you know, every 4 to 8 years for the last 100) is to move to the hard left. Yes. Because the reason conservatives keep winning elections is not that the country is basically centrist; no, the real reason is that, unbeknownst to everyone, the rubes out in middle America were crafty and cunning, masters of deception. Hiding their hatred in dual electoral wins for Clinton and Obama, they bidded their time until a hero could emerge who lead America out of the morass of democracy and into their long-held dream of authoritarian utopia. Then he appeared. At last! A master of strategy and political maneuvering that would stymie the progressives. The political genius of our age, Donald Trump. The unbridled audacity of their scheme boggles the mind!
1
@John C I'm not entirely sure your purpose here. To discount Krugman's article so completely basically says that everything he writes holds no merit and therefore is pointless. This is the tactic the right has used so effectively these past decades and is key to maintaining their power with a certain group of people.
First you take an idea made by a liberal commentator (that really this country isn't center right), twist it to mean that it was always a means to get Trump elected as president (an idea that isn't mentioned in the story), demonstrate how preposterous that idea is (Trump is a master of strategy), and then throw the commentator and the people doing the study out into the garbage by saying anyone who believes them is an idiot.
The right has very effectively played on the fears of Americans for decades. One fear discussed less often is the fear of being ignorant and duped. So much of the verbiage of right wing media plays upon that fear and identifies the consumer of their media as one above that trap. "Listen to us", "Ignore what they say", "They are lying to you.", etc. In this day main stream media is forced to point out lies but it is never personalized - "They are lying to you." which is more effective but crosses the line journalistically and morally. Fox news crosses that line constantly.
I don't know if you were aware in what you were doing but thanks for pointing out a tactic for how we got here.
Had Mr. Krugman only realized this back in the summer of 2016.
Aside:
Back in The Apprentice and Howard Stern interview days I think a lot of people thought that it was an act. It was Trump doing Carol O'Connor doing Archie Bunker. I myself was somewhat fooled, but I didn't much care. Trump and his love life were a fixture of NY Post headlines. Hardly something to pay much attention to. In the early 80s or early 90s a friend of mine wallpapered Trumps lavish apartment somewhere in midtown and kept me apprised of his utterly horrible taste... gold and more gold etc. We laughed. Then the birther stuff. Melania too. What was once funny and trivial became serious.
1
We've known this for a long time; Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks has been saying this for over ten years based on polling data on the major issues that were unbiased by party politics. But you propped up Hillary and fought against Bernie and his policies, if I remember correctly. So now, you are waking up?
The electoral college system of electing a president stands in the way of dems being true to their roots. While in place to protect low population states from being ignored it has now become a vehicle cynically exploited by Trump and GOP.
3
Too bad Mr. Krugman, whom I admire, vehemently supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 over Bernie Sanders, who actually better reflected the positions of most Americans.
1
While I agree that many thought the country was more centrist than it now appears I disagree that republicans believe it. The republicans don't care where Americans are politically. Money and power is all they care about. They literally want to destroy everything that prevents them from getting more money and power.
3
If you poll Americans, and ask them if they "want socialism" many say they don't. If you ask them if they favor public schools, parks, good roads, public transit, clean environments, consumer protections, and most other 'public goods', you find that Americans are strongly in favor of those things. If you ask Americans to "pay higher taxes to support welfare" they overwhelmingly say "NO!". But if you ask if Americans to help those burned out by fires, wiped out by floods or hurricanes, flattened by earthquakes, washed away by typhoons; or those caught in opioid addiction, homeless, or severely ill, then Americans are usually charitable. "Welfare" is frowned upon, but Americans are willing to "lend a helping hand when needed". So the answers depend a lot on how the questions are asked. I think Americans in general are a lot better than the political class, which seems mostly without exception to be narcissistic, greedy, entitled, and amoral. If not corrupt when they enter politics, they end up corrupted in it's proximity.
3
Given the choice between:
1. Trump
2. your dream candidate who can't win nor govern America.
3. a moderate democrat, not your dream candidate, who can both win and govern America.
Please choose the moderate candidate who can both win a national election and govern America effectively.
In the real world in which we actually live,
in life and politics common sense, not wishful thinking, is King.
1
I'm not sure I agree that Democratic politicians and party leadership think we're a center-right country. From where I sit, those folks just wanted a taste of Wall Street money, and were only too happy to turn their collective backs on working people to get it.
This is true of both Clintons as well as Barack Obama. Obama was only too happy to give Wall Street a pass. In public education, Obama totally disrespected teachers' unions and instead embraced the idea of corporate, non-union charters.
The Democratic Party will now either be pulled back to the left where it belongs, or it will deservedly be consigned to the Dustbin of History.
@Vesuviano
I think Obama listened to his Treasury secretary and Fed chairman because, even as he himself has admitted, he was in over his head, as practically any other politician would have been during the 'great recession'.
In reality, many more Americans were more politically attuned to Occupy Wall St. than the politicians and punditry would have us believe, which aligns with arguments made in this Op-ed.
The Overton Window is alive and well - and still pushed to the right.
Krugman starts his essay with a familiar trope,
"What’s driving American politics off a cliff? Racial hatred and the cynicism of politicians willing to exploit it play a central role."
How exactly is this different than the writings of David Duke who blame America's misfortunes on our inability to remain more purely white? The enemy is different, but the intention is the same---to vilify the out-group, in this case ill-defined. Perhaps Republicans. Perhaps only Trump supporters.
Poor Americans are frightened because they often face unexpected bills for health care. It's in the fine print, the telephone book of regulations and caveats that insurance companies provide their clients. In Middle America there is an abiding fear of the gotcha clause that will provide bankruptcy because the proper paperwork wasn't filed.
People who vote against Obamacare often do so because of the complexity. Democrats have never realized that. The MIT economist Jonathan Gruber stated that lack of transparency was a virtue!
Universal health care would force greater honesty in projections for the future. It would make it hard to avoid the realization that medical prices are going up up up.
Democrats can't have that because they want to maintain that illegal immigration imposes no costs. It's only a few thousand immigrants here and a few thousand there.
Meanwhile the poor and the previous working class stand in line in the ER behind large families speaking Spanish.
1
A great contributor to the dissonance between what politicians know (or more importantly don't know) and what the general public wants is the media. With the fragmentation of our news-gathering outlets into self-selecting ghettoes, we no longer have great synthesizing institutions like Time, Newsweek, and the dominant big-three networks whose reach extended to all corners of the country (and much of the world) and served as a balance wheel and check on extremist views. Since then, the media (apart from cold, statistical polling) has largely abandoned reporting on who and what several hundred million Americans are, how they live and what they feel or think, in favor of microscopic, who's-up-who's-down coverage of the bubbleheads inside the Beltway, notably the current Bubblehead-in-chief. The Times story on this disconnect is shocking, not only for what it says about our "representatives" in Washington, but about the failings of a myopic media.
McConnell was right: if they couldn't sell Trump's tax cut to the American people, they should be in another line of work.
They should.
1
I believe it was Ralph Nader who first pressed the Democrats on the issue of campaign finance reform,... to no avail.
"(David Roberts) notes, in regard to the frame-Mueller debacle, that we’re dealing with the “second generation of Fox News conservatives,” who grew up entirely inside the right-wing bubble and don’t understand how people outside that bubble talk, think, and behave." This is something I and had not considered, and it is really frightening. How do you even begin to reach these people who are essentially in a right wing cult?
All the things you pointed out about people really liking Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are true. People really do care about those with pre-existing conditions being able to access affordable health care. People really don't like the tax cut for the wealthy. All these things are true, and yet the Republican base will continue to vote Republican, "come Nineveh, come Tyre".
It's hard to make a man face the facts when his salary depends on ignoring the facts and pleasing his boss.
Any member of Congress knows that what he wants are campaign contributions and more campaign contributions, And he knows that he needs more votes than his opponent in the next election. So the smart member, spends his time in Congress amassing a campaign war chest and hoping to win the next election. That too often means passing legislation to please wealthy donors. If there is such a thing as bipartisanship in Congress, it is pleasing the wealthy donors.
1
"most people want to raise taxes on the rich and maintain social benefits". Well, of course--the non-rich will always be the majority, the rich already pay far and away the most taxes, why not make them pay even more? Democrats live by income-transfer and responsibility-shifting, if the money's going to be spent on them, go for it! Something new here?
@Ronald B. Duke It's proportional. The top 0.1% (owning about 20% of the nation's wealth) and most of the top 10% (owning abut 60% of the nation's wealth) got another income transfer of the nation's wealth under Trump, maybe what they pay on taxes is relatively chump change.
Take a poll that separates likely voters and political donors. Then take a weighted average of the results based on the amounts of money contributed to the campaigns. With this result, we might find current policy positioning and expectations about it more in line with this result.
At that point, the notion of surprise could derive from the difference between the power of money upon candidates and elected officials from the power of the same money on the people. "How come Sheldon Adelson's views don't mean as much to them as they do to me?" asked Chris Christie - never.
1
As someone who grew up in the U.S., but has lived in Sweden for the past 30 years, I would like to reassure everyone that all the fear mongering from the right about "the evils of socialism" is a load of hooey. When I first moved I was aggrevated by the amount of tax I paid, but after a few months the positives became more and more apparent. My kids had free day care with educated professionals. They also had free dental care up to the age of 26. They have the right to student loans to cover living costs and tuition while they attend university. Of course we all have health care at the modest cost of $20 a visit be it a flu shot or colon cancer. And prescription costs have a cap of about $300. Another benefit is the knowledge that my fellow Swedes are taken care of should misfortune or illness strike. Unemployment and disability benefits are substantial and truly help families weather hardship and get back up on their feet. I could go on, but the point is Americans need to lose their fear of taxation and of helping others. Believe me, I've tried it both ways and there is no comparison. If you are a billionaire, well okay then I'm sure you are better off in the U.S. For the rest of you, listen to what someone like Bernie Sanders is saying. He is right.
4
I don’t think both parties err to the right, I think both parties leaders and representatives are getting their pockets stuffed by the insurance lobbyists in the name of campaign contributions. One party a little less than the other.
I hope Elisabeth Warren runs on that anti corruption platform she’s mentioned. She’s the only one that speaks of anti corruption at all.
2
This is so good but I wish had appeared a month ago.
2
Most newspaper publishers are conservative politically, as are local broadcast general managers. Plus, the new generation of reporters and editors are steeped in the false equivalence of false equivalence.
It would help understanding of social and political issues if journalism schools were shut down, and aspiring reporters were told to major in philosophy or economics or English, so that they would develop an internal thought process to help them gain a perspective on current events and not be so utterly dependent upon what politicians say rather than what they actually do.
5
Ultimately, nothing changes without a third party; which, as we already know, is impossible as a result of straightforward Constitutional issues. The amendment process of Article V, the EC and the 2nd Amendment are not the only problems. The millionaire's Senate has destroyed checks and balances.
The most unpleasant Senator of my lifetime is Joe Lieberman. Joe supported war and tax cuts and opposed universal health care, with significant assistance from his heavyweight-lobbyist wife, while still calling himself a Democrat. (And he, um, campaigned for the wrong guy back in 2008.) I say this not for reasons of spite, but to remind everyone that obedient foot-soldiers like Lieberman are the norm, not the exception. The Senate needs to be fundamentally repaired. Equal suffrage between large and small states is a farce.
4
There is a large minority of our population who have virtually no grasp of geography, history, & economics beyond their local concerns. (e.g., polls show that 30% of Americans can't name the vice-prez) They also rarely vote. If you ask specific policy questions, their answers will be vaguely leftish. But for electoral and policy purposes, they don't exist. Their absence is what grants rightwing political power to that minority of whom Prof. K speaks.
9
@Bookmanjb
Some studies have shown that about 25 percent of the population in large American urban areas such as New York are functionally illiterate so it is not too surprising that large portions of the public don't have a good grasp of geography, history, etc.
@Mark I don't know what studies you are looking at. At the National Center for Education Statistics, you can find literacy rates broken down by state and county. As a percentage of the local population, rural illiteracy dwarfs urban.
@Bookmanjb
One source is "The illiteracy Crisis in New York CIty" Feb 2017
There are other sources as well.
No, that's what I once thought too but rural illiteracy is lower than urban illiteracy
Pundits' insistence that America is some manner of right-wing country is based on assessments of who wins, not who votes. In other words, it's all about the voters who actually count. Left-wing principles are by definition the principles of the People. Right-wing principles are by definition favoritism towards an elite minority. There is no such thing as a center-right or far-right nation, only nations that endure temporary right-wing domination. America is structured so that a person in rural North Dakota has one thousand times the voting power of a person in Los Angeles or New York. For this reason, the rural person's voice is a thousand times louder. Politicians listen to this person and ignore the majority because they want the powerful vote, not the weak one. As America's population becomes more and more concentrated into urban areas, the rural areas only become more powerful. America is arguably either a center-left or far-left nation, the line becoming sharper or more blurred from one day to the next. But as far as anyone important is concerned, it's an extreme-right nation. The opinions of the extreme right are statistically significant. The opinions of the mainstream are not.
11
I would add that the voters in states with a population of 10 are heavily propagandized by hate radio, trump TV, flat earth journalism,thousands of right wing think tanks and weaponized social media. That is the only explanation for an approval rating of forty percent for the psychopath in the White House and a refusal to accept affordable, subsidized health care.
@Randy Thompson
Really--- North Dakota voters have 1000 times the voting power of a person in LA or NYC?
The first rule of politics and life is simple common sense.
If the real choice is between a democratic moderate and the likes of Trump, choose the democratic moderate.
If someone on the far left would evoke backlash and reelect Trump, choose the democratic moderate instead.
When a president from the far left is not actually a choice that can win the national election, choose a moderate democrat who can actually defeat Trump.
That is simple common sense that we should have learned from 2016.
Not wishful thankful.
2
look, it is, as Don Corleone said, nothing peersonal: it's just business. power is a product that the donor class wants. it has many uses, not the least of which is an ability to define what is legal which can yield a terrific ROI for them (see the Tax Bill). its COGS is (currently) the cost if acquiring votes. lucky for the developers of political power faster and, social media combined with Citizens United is making manufacturing power faster and more efficient.
6
Absolutely right. People are not centrists. They have beliefs and principles which are not bland center positions. The inside-the-beltway problem is acute. Democratic politicians are so out of touch with their base. I went to a fundraiser at Connecticut senator Chris Murphy's home. It was low key, in his backyard, and most of the attendees were middle-class white couples between 60 to 75 years of age. Senator Blumenthal was also present and I told him that I had consulted a number of Democratic friends and we all wanted the Democratic Party to fight back harder and nastier against Trump. He said well, when they try to do that, people told them they shouldn't. Now I wonder who those people were cousneling caution and timidity? Are the Dems listening to a small wedge of ageing whites who show up to their fundraisers? Yesterday I went for trainting to work work at my local polling place on election day. The majority of my fellow volunteers were white senior citizens. Are these the people telling the politicans on the right and the left what they think? This citizenry that is out of touch with the majority of Americans? Who do politicians actually see before them and what do they hear from these people? Senior citizens are having an outsize effect on our politics because they're the only ones who seem to show up to fundraisers and other political events. I don't mean Trump's rallies, I mean the smaller events most politicians hold.
3
Ageism is alive and well. Perhaps the "aging white people" (sneer!) who show up at political events have a keen sense of civic responsibility and want to offer their time and money to improve society now that they are not chained to the daily grind that prevents their own children from making a comparable contribution. "Aging white people" hold a range of views, from right to the left, like any other demographic group. Rather than contribute to the toxic balkanization of our culture and feed divisions between genders, races and age groups, let's forego simplistic and destructive generalizations....
@Lural
My understanding is the older white people also vote reliably
The fact that Congress has no clue what Americans want is an established truth that everyone should know. Studies have shown that what Americans want has no significant affect on policy. As mentioned in many posts here, policy makers follow the interests of those with enormous power and wealth, not what's in the interests of masses of regular working people. We should all know that. We should also keep in mind how bad and corrupting all of this can be for any society, like ours, that aims for liberty through democratic self-government. It's in the interests of those with power to create a population and government that can't function democratically. This reminds me of what Benjamin Franklin said in a final speech he submitted in the debates on the Constitution. Part of his speech went like this. He said that he didn't know whether the constitution is perfect or not, but it wouldn't really matter if it were perfect. What matters, he explained, is its good administration. He said that if the people became so corrupted that they couldn't administer it properly, then all is lost anyway. As he put it, history often shows that people could become so corrupted that they will "need despotic government," since they will be "incapable of any other." That's sobering, because it is so clearly the path that we are on.
9
@DCW As an outsider, I can only hector about similar problems in my country that I think are relevant. In the case of the Kavanaugh appointment, the USA is looking at years of a stacked Supreme Court. If the Democrats can just get over their "We was robbed" mantra, looking at the future of jobs, unions and civil society is surely more important. If the House of Reps is won, rather than start at Trump, far better for the Democrats to investigate this Kavanaugh. If the judge has lied under oath, or worse, there are rules to put in play. In Australia we are also hoping for a federal commission against corruption; similar problems and very worthwhile.
5
@Hector I think Dems, if they can take both houses of Congress, should finish the nomination process for Judge Garland and add him to the Supreme Court. That way they can check the excesses of a highly politicized right wing court while they work on investigating and impeaching Kavanaugh and Thomas.
1
@Hector This probably has to wait till 2020. Then the Democrats will have a real opportunity to take control of the White House, the House and the Senate. By that time expansion of the courts will have become fully justifiable, and that would be a major task for 2021, as well as starting the process of introducing medicare for all and drastically reducing tuition. The will of the people cannot be forever frustrated.
Mr. Krugman, First let me say I'm a huge fan. But I do think there's a flaw in your argument. The flaw is that many young people and people of color don't vote in the same high numbers as white Republicans (oxymoron?). So while Americans may be more to the left than people who opine politics might imagine, I think VOTERS are actually more to the right.
5
@Dan Your argument is not based on facts. Every poll that has been done of non-voters recently shows their views on economic matters are to the left of those likely voters every mainstream pundit and politician pays more attention to. That makes sense. Voting is skewed by income in the United States - the less you make the less you vote. Non-voters as a group are largely working class people disillusioned by a political system that fails to help them with their problems; they understand that the political system fails to represent them and they have given up on it. When 45% of eligible voters don't regularly vote it magnifies the power of a minority of voters on the right that back the Republican Party, artificially keeping it competitive in national elections. If Democrats were willing to abandon their support for neoliberal austerity for working people and instead adopt a more social democratic program they could easily mobilize a significant percentage of the non-voters, pushing the Republican Party to the brink of irrelevance for a generation. They show no sign of doing this without a major upheaval from below. It's up to us to organize it, or we'll have many more Donald Trumps in our future.
7
@john riehle This is why a winning a Democratic majority in the House could be a Pyrrhic victory, because it won't lead to a clean out of the Brezhnev-like gerontocracy from leadership of the Democratic Party.
People love that the ACA covers requires coverage for preexisting conditions. People hate that the ACA requires them to purchase a policy. This is just one example of many that suggest we are a - how do the pundits put it? - "divided" people, but not in the way the pundits claim. We are center-left when it comes to receiving government goodies, but center-right when it comes to paying for them.
Which means to get elected, politicians of both parties must make promises they cannot keep. For many reasons, the GOP gets away with this election cycle after election cycle; the Dems, not so much.
9
@Marty Are you talking about the billionaires or the regular people? Seems to me that the billionaires, 3 of whom own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population, are the ones looking for the goodies from government with no way to pay for them. In fact, I paid SS taxes and Medicare taxes all my life so what makes you think I've asked for freebies? Sorry, but I think it's the wealthy who are center-right when it comes to paying for all the goodies the Republican led governments have been handing out to them and center-left when they can get goodies handed to them. The biggest welfare program I know of was the bank bailouts in 2007 along with the tax cuts the wealthy just received again. Let's not forget to mention the subsidies oil companies and others get when in return they pay no taxes. In fact welfare checks are going out to corporate farmers during Trump's tariff war. No welfare queens usually live in corner offices and have the title CEO not down on main street where people play by the rules, pay their taxes, and expect to receive the benefits they were promised as a return on those taxes.
15
@Marty
Trends show that with the increasing impact of money on our political system, the donor class (which has always been right-wing and increasingly so over the years) has dragged the political class with it to the right, because without money nowadays, you can't run. Despite the fact that virtually every study in the past 15 years has put the number of liberal and liberal-leaning people in the U.S. at nearly 2/3 (currently about 64%) of the population, the political class's leaning (R and D) has resulted in politics which most people don't like, want, or accept, so they don't vote, allowing the right-ward thrust of the political class to remain. The roughly 28% of the populace which is conservative or conservative-leaning turns out at nearly 100%, because the trending politics DOES support what they want. This is why keeping voter turnout down is important for Rs, because if they can get 100% turnout from their supporters, disenfranchise or disappoint the others to keep overall turnout to no more than 56%, the Rs win. Statistics show that too; if the overall turnout goes over 56%, Ds tend to win, otherwise Rs do. It's cynical, but sadly it works. If we truly wish to have our politics represent what the majority want, we need to vote regardless of whether we like where things are going or not. Only then will national politics begin to reflect where the nation's population has been for at least 30 years.
8
@Wayne Fuller There was a time when we heard quite a bit about "welfare queens" and "crackheads". Now its the "forgotten man" and the "opioid epidemic". If that does't show what our elected officials think of us than I don't know what does.
Older people, who vote, are more conservative.
A lot of people have become disillusioned with politics altogether and don't vote.
Finally, a lot of people vote for the wrong reasons or people, against their own interests.
It doesn't matter how left or right the population at large is, but what the votes are. Even so, it's not the people's votes that count, because it's not direct voting. See the problems?
2
The Democratic leadership is paid to believe that their constituents are center-right because such a belief won't cost their major donors a dime in extras wages or taxes. A relationship in essence, no different than the Koch's and the GOP. That was to be Hillary's mission under the thrilling banner of "incrementalism". It would have been payback for those Goldman Sachs speeches. Instead, the Dems still love to talk about all the warm, fuzzy, won't-cost-a-dime issues like identity politics and immigration. Even the minimum wage is only talked about in hushed tones.
7
"Specifically, both parties believe that the public is to the right of where it really is..."
I don;t think this is correct. Democratic grandees have been trying to outcompete one another on identity politics until a few months ago when polls told them to turn the other way. But the harm had been done - with the unintended consequence of pushing the Republicans to the right.
4
@Kai
It's true that the Dem leadership sometimes baselessly assumes the public is with them on symbolic "identity" issues, but I wouldn't describe this in terms of left vs. right.
In terms of economic issues (taxing unearned wealth, Medicare For All, raising the minimum wage etc.) it's pretty safe to say the public is considerably to the left of the Dems. And much of the Dem leadership sadly seems to believe the general public supports perpetual war and arming regimes like Saudi Arabia (it doesn't.)
This is slowly changing, but it's not because the Dems are suddenly realizing they're to the right of the public. They've known this for a while but they're realizing they can't survive this way anymore - they need to take firm and clear stands that benefit all working people to win elections.
Most importantly, the public is realizing they need to organize and vote to push the Dems to take these stands.
1
Nothing like identity politics "pushed Republicans to the right." It was the convergence of two factors: the Supreme Court ruling of Citizen's United, which protected the right of big money in elections, and the widespread indignation that homosexuals could legally marry. The term "identity politics" became a cover for homopobia mingled with an uneasiness with blacks and browns. Then a black man was elected President, and a bigot soon followed.
Most Americans want protection against disasters which might have a low risk of happening, but a huge impact on your life. It used to be that significant parts of the safety net were provided by companies: health insurance, defined benefit pensions, job security. As that eroded, the government did nothing to replace it.
Most Americans want protection against profiteering and corporate greed. Anti-trust laws used to do that.
These protections weren't the result of the free market, but rather of regulation of the market. The idea that the free market will provide health insurance for the chronically ill or will refrain fromextorting the maximum profit is a joke.
26
Thank you, Professor Krugman. I've been trying to get the message to my own Democrats in North Carolina that it would be a slam dunk to win voters in rural North Carolina on the issue of broadband internet access. The subject is ready-made for Democrats. The upstart GOP that took over NC political control just 10 years ago has fought any form of public involvement in the expansion of broadband. In fact, they passed a law preventing municipalities and counties from helping to expand this increasingly fundamental utility. If you live in an area without broadband internet, you have less access to economic development, healthcare, and property values are depressed and falling. In a twist of irony, the GOP has voted to phase out paper school books in favor of electronic study materials. Not a terrible idea -- assuming you have access to the internet. Dems could take back rural North Carolinians on this one issue. These are voters who remember that it was Democrats were behind the rural electrification program and other public investments that helped to lift North Carolinians, black and white, out of poverty. It's one of the reasons NC stayed Democratic while the states around us had long gone to the GOP. In this election, the GOP has, in fact, focused on the ephemeral, cultural, issues and haven't addressed any substantive policy issues. Broadband internet access is not a complicated issue (unlike education and health care) and it could make a difference.
38
The term Obamacare has been carefully demonised and most people have no idea what it is. They don't know that because of it, many now have health care they wouldn't have. They don't know that's why children can stay on their parents' policies. They don't know that it is why pre existing conditions are covered. The republicans have been very successful in making people hate Obamacare even though they love what's in it.
25
Congressional staffers are most likely just reflecting the wishes of the major donors and not the average constituent.
11
Democrats have not yet decided how to address the wealthy. They want the upscale voters, but a real progressive agenda will require asset taxes, along with very high inheritance taxes. They (we) need to decide how to properly tax the rich to pay for what is really needed to move society forward.
11
@Snookems
"Democrats have not yet decided how to address the wealthy."
really? Hillary and Bill have been talking to the bankers for years, friendly as you please. Wall Street is falling over itself to fund the Democrats. In 2016, HRC spent double the amount Trump did. This year, Democratic war chest is bulging with anonymous contributions from wealthy donors. One can only imagine that those donors might want something in return.
5
@Kai
You are being too cynical. Have you forgotten that in 2012 Obama was willing to negotiate right up to the "fiscal cliff," primarily because he was unwilling to renew the Bush tax cuts for high-income filers? The result was that the effective tax rate on the top 0.1% of filers rose from about 23% in 2010 to 28% in 2015. Do powerful Democratic senators and congressman sometimes wrangle special tax breaks for home-state firms? Sure, but there is still no doubt that Democrats prefer, and when they're in power bring about, a more progressive tax structure.
1
@Kai Trump got most of his media ads for free. Thanks not only to Fox, but all the other broadcast and cable news channels. Adding in all the free air time Trump got makes all of Hillary's expenditures just a drop in the bucket. And as far as the banker donations, I recall a politician a few decades ago commenting about lobbyists, if you can't take their money, drink their liquor, and sleep with their women, then on Monday, vote against them, you don't belong in politics.
I can’t tell you how elated I am to read an opinion piece by such a renowned NYT columnist who understands and can eloquently write about the history of the Republican Party's slow but inexorable capture by the luring but pyrite of American racialized electoral politics.
The present-day Republican Party has elevated the Lee Atwater method of aggressive campaign tactics, such as race baiting, and appealing to racial prejudice to build Republican support in the Southern states and among the “Basket of Deplorables,” into their standard electoral strategy. What was once controversial (like the Willie Horton campaign Ad) is now subdued, and even, in a surreal way, nostalgic.
One undeniable and sad lesson that I take away from this articulate editorial is that, if this once great and enlightened political institution can become so corrupted by its lust for money, power, and its will to survive that it’s willing to crawl into the primordial ooze to align itself with such despicable characters and forces to achieve it goals, then we should not be surprised about the depths to which it will fall.
20
@Harold C.;"such as race baiting, "
The Democratic Party leads in that department. Tighter controls over our southern border? You're a racist and xenophobe.
Concerned about violent crime your urban neighborhood? You're taking part in "dog whistle" politics.
The Democratic Party is second to none when it comes to race baiting.
Without repeating all the fine points written below my words, our country will continue to regress farther away from our democratic principles and rights if many changes aren't made soon. But the fundamental change has to be correcting the situation in Congress. It use to be laws were enacted after both Houses reviewed them. Today bills become laws without bipartisan review, and discussions. Until they start working together, and accepting their responsibilities representing people in their districts, there will be only more and more dissatisfaction and loss of confidence in our politicians, at home and in D.C. And more and more stories like we read below will get even worse.
7
@Me Too But is the US really a democracy? It seem not when California with 40 million people has the same number of senators as Wyoming with half a million.
The 50 Senators that voted to elevate someone who blatantly committed perjury onto the Supreme Court represent 44% of the population.
Perjury undermines our justice system. Allowing a minority of the population to elect a majority in the House, Senate, and a President undermines our Democracy.
35
We need to hammer home the differences in the parties. Many Republicans are running on a platform that they are protecting insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions. We know that is a lie but people believe it. Let’s not let them get away with stealing our accomplishments.
20
Democratic politicians know how far to the left their constituents are but they just ignore them. It's the Democratic politicians who themselves are right of center, along with their donors. Hillary Clinton has condescended to tell Bernie Sanders that single-payer healthcare is "never going to happen." Well, no, not if she has anything to do with it.
12
@Steve
The actual Clinton quote, in context:
"I want you to understand why I am fighting so hard for the Affordable Care Act. I don't want it repealed. I don't want us to be thrown back into a terrible, terrible national debate," Clinton said as Hanna took the stage. "I don't want us to end up in gridlock. People can't wait. People who have health emergencies can't wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass."
I'm very critical of Clinton's stance but she didn't actually say that single-payer healthcare is never going to happen. She seemed to be saying that pushing for a "better" system (presumably single-payer) and opening a new debate would be terrible and could cause the ACA to be repealed, which I strongly disagree with.
1
In this reader's opinion there is one political issue that matters way above all others. That is establishing a policy to halt green house gas accumulation. If we do not ( and the GOP will not) then this planet may commence becoming uninhabitable for humans (perhaps an irreversible process) late in this century. That is why I, much as I have loved my now-adult grandchildren, hope that there are no great-grandchildren. I have litte faith in politicians acting in time to stop that horror!
12
Of course, beyond living in the bubble, the reason that so many of our politicians and their staffs have skewed beliefs about their constituencies is the same reason as so many of our other societal ills--a one dollar one vote system that ensures a government of, for, and by the oligarchs, rather then by the people.
It's very hard to understand the beliefs of the people you are supposed to represent when your campaign funding depends on a small group of very rich people you don't actually represent and who tend to have interests different from your districts'.
I have written many times before that the single biggest legislative reform this country could make would be a banning of corporate/dark money support of campaigns and a very low limit (low three figures) on individual private donations to candidates. Election campaigns should be almost entirely (or entirely) publicly funded, with very strict laws about equivalent media access, as is the case in much more sane nations (which also has the wonderful effect of shortening interminable election cycles).
If we could get that money out of the process, elected representatives might actually be able to spend time debating and legislating, rather than fundraising, and might actually be able to vote the interests of their constituents for a change.
Citizens United and other decisions lead to regulations that are anything but, and allow our politicians to be legally bought. We need it stopped across the board.
38
Well said, @Glenn Ribotsky ! The lack of actual constituent representation in Washington blasphemes the concept of Democracy. USA is far from a Democracy...let's call a spade a spade...USA is straight-up Plutocracy.
Which bubble shall we choose? As long as votes are stratified in importance, in representative government, there will be bubble-blowers. People forget the Founding Fathers emphasized stronger representation for property owners, and diminished voting rights for women, slaves and contract laborers. Elements of the modern Supreme Court want judgements aligned with 'originalist', and 'textualist' interpretation---as they imagined the Fathers meant. Voila, Citizens United. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will be the first to advocate suppression of the working horde. That right there is a far cry from centered political policy. Being more proficient, the right hand proposes cutting the left one right off, reasoning it will never need help like that anyway, and one hand has inherent efficiency. Now big business is in the position of climbing a ladder for investors, hampered by left-behind and diminished consumers. As Lucy told Ricky, 'This is it, Stop...turn right here--Left!'
7
"He didn’t grow up in the conservative hothouse; his very crudity means that he understands that his electoral chances depend not on repeating conservative pieties but on maximum ugliness."
He's exploiting that tendency in Americans too. A lot of what he's doing has nothing to do with governing and everything to do with rabble rousing. Trump knows that there's no better way to foment hatred than using the media because they will capture his words and attitudes on video and rebroadcast it for all to see. He appeals to bullies. He's the kid on the block who will push you into the mud puddle, say he doesn't really dislike you, do it again, and walk away laughing at you. If you get angry he'll just repeat the lie.
However, based upon what I've seen the last 20 years, it's not that all of them don't know what we want. Some of them do and they've decided that they are going to serve their donors. It's easier and more fun. Donors flatter them. Donors invite them over to their estates and feed them. Donors make them feel important. We don't. We expect them to work for our dollars. We expect them to behave like adults. They'd rather say stupid things like this: I'm not a scientist but I think that climate change is a liberal delusion. It's a way of saying that it's too difficult to bother to understand how science works and why it's not a liberal delusion. It's called laziness not to be confused with involuntary unemployment.
21
"Misunderstanding what voters want"??
We're way past that, Paul. Understanding what voters want is easy. Putting that square peg into the round hole of donor-corporate-sanctioned what-passes-for-policy is what is exceedingly difficult. As many have been saying for decades: The corporate Good is not necessarily the public Good. And the public knows it, fueled by increasingly blatant attempts at cheating voters through nationalized gerrymandering strategies (2010 Red Map Strategy is the most egregious), is only making the privatization of our public institutions more obvious. It isn't by accident that any sort of expertise in a field is under attack (the Truth hurts those seeking to hide something). And it isn't by accident that politicians choosing their voters self-selects for extremism in the name of partisan reliability. And it isn't an accident that the ruling majority (the GOP) is also an electoral minority nationally for the last 4 election cycles. That used to be a statistical anomaly before the 1990s. Now, it's virtually a feature.
Our democracy is under attack by the unscrupulous wielding technology, both to subversively influence, and if need be, to eliminate the competition. As if democracy was EVER intended to have an 'end' capped with a permanent 'winner'. What politicians and pundits seem to get wrong is remembering that democracy is about learning how to lose a contest, to return for another day and another election, as much as it is about winning one.
24
@Citixen
What's important to realize, is that the public manifestation of our current political dysfunction--in all it's private media glory and gore-- is largely the result of a fabricated Republican majority. A majority bought by rigged maps and dark money elevating a political fringe of the Paranoid into positions of public power.
And now we taxpayers are going to foot the bill for sending 15,000 troops to the Mexican border for a political stunt. Because MAGA. Once that manufactured fabrication is returned to a more natural reflection of one-man-one-vote, much of our political poison will cease to be incentivized in the hyperpartisanship that used to be reserved for language printed on flyers handed out in parking lots. This IS reversible, if voters insist on it. Social respectability can be insisted upon. Public service can become respectable again. Fact-based, best-practice governance can become a goal again. Trust in accountable institutions run by people with the best of intentions can be re-established, if people take their vote, and its role in a republic, seriously again. We're in a time of reckoning.
1
There is a large difference between what we (voters) want and what we need. There is also a trade off between long term and short term benefits. I want to eat ice cream every day for breakfast, but I know it is not good for me, so last time i had ice cream was 15 years ago. The same goes for universal income, education and healthcare. I want all people to be wealthy and have the best education and health coverage, but simple calculation shows that we can't afford it. All limited resources should be carefully allocated. Some people vote with their hearts, while other with their brains.
1
@Alice, leave out "wealthy" and change "the best" to "good" and we sure can afford it. However, the billionaire class would have to give up their tax benefits. Aye, there's the rub.
15
@Alice Having Medicare for all actually REDUCES cost on taxpayers. And if resources are limited, how were we able to boost the defense budget yet again? Maybe we could end one of the half-dozen or so wars we are involved in. Maybe we could stop subsidizing fossil fuels and big agriculture. It's all about priorities. We are rich enough to provide housing, health care, and food for all of our citizens.
17
@Alice Having Medicare for all actually REDUCES cost on taxpayers. And if resources are limited, how were we able to boost the defense budget yet again? Maybe we could end one of the half-dozen or so wars we are involved in. Maybe we could stop subsidizing fossil fuels and big agriculture. But mostly we could end the use of offshore accounts for billionaires and corporations to avoid paying taxes--welfare for the rich is one thing we definitely do not need.
It's all about priorities. We are rich enough to provide housing, health care, and food for all of our citizens.
2
Another aspect of the mirage of the "center right" is how the right wing noise machine succeeds in controlling the conversation. A huge tax cut for the super rich is peddled as tax "reform" and the media obediently repeats and repeats the right's chosen term.
This happens all the time, and culminates in allowing the far right to pronounce where the "center" shall be for everyone.
"Everyone" should stop letting them make decisions they're not entitled to make.
29
There are two pools of people to look at: the pool of people who have opinions, and the pool of people who vote.
If the people who vote are far to the right of the people who poll but don't vote, it really doesn't matter what the rest want. So the GOP and the Democrats may be more on point. They may just be reacting to the people who will keep them in their jobs.
There is no benefit in serving a public that won't reward or punish you.
Gerrymander marginalizes a lot of people who poll to the center or left of policy. But most of the undermining comes from a failure to just show up, especially in primaries which decide the seat in a safe district.
The divide in our democracy comes in part in how we split up our votes - by state, by gerrymander, by electoral college - which gives more power to how may acres are controlled than how many people. But it is also a direct result of lack of participation, which puts the energized wing nut primary voter in the driver's seat.
14
@Cathy
Agree with you, Cathy.
The Democrats, whatever the justice or virtue of their positions, consciously decided that they will practice what we now call identity politics. That works all right when the people whose identities you favor vote. It's a bust when those people don't vote.
GOP cynicism is a large part of the formula, but the biggest problem is that the Democrats simply didn't seem to care about the issues that motivated many voters and preferred to focus their attention on people whose voting patterns weren't consistent enough to allow them to prevail.
6
I think the whole "Identity Politics" line is another example of the right wing controlling the conversation and the opiners going along. Just because the Democrats champion marginalized groups of American Citizens doesn't mean they are practicing "Identity Politics". It means that they are working for liberty and justice for ALL Americans, INCLUDING working Americans. Hillary Clinton had a detailed plan to assist working Americans. But, the media pretty much ignored that because it was more interested in the circus.
9
@Patricia. Agree that the term "identity politics" is a framing technique used by the right which expresses their fear of losing white/money (U.F.O.) dominance.
1
Politics is like weather, it's always in the extreme, but we try and make it average. Almost never is the temperature of a given day the average for that day. Almost never is the mood of the electorate average. It is always pinballing between extremes. Realizing a deficiency in one area they race to the other end of the spectrum. The office holders really cannot keep up with the vagaries of the electorate, so leadership is impossible
The Congress, all of them, including other political powerful exist in an isolated secure Echo Chamber into which Lobbyists have access and some regular citizens groups representatives, the most insistent of which and most moneyed have access. That Echo Chamber suffers from a television existence in which political leaders watch each other on CSpan as well as watch television pundits and consultants.
I have a proposal to get Congress back to it's mandate of representing ALL Americans, not just the few chosen to get inside the secure quarters and halls of Congress.
I propose a mandate that all Representatives and Senators form as a group according to their state and conduct widespread massive polls among their constituents to determine the majority will of their people on the issues presented to Congress, not dictated by them.
Extensive polling by Representatives and Senators with some form of binding responsibility to vote according to the public will do a few things of significance;
Marginalize the influence of campaign funding by a few wealthy represented by the Lobbyists who present "Needs".
Affirm the true wishes of a democratic majority in society.
Assure that the Constitutionally mandated representation of the will of the people are done.
Rebalance the powers vested in the three branches of the government by demonstrating the true mandate of the people with proven no/yes polling results making that mandate irrefutable by those in government wishing to exceed it.
3
Continuing;
Senators and Congress people are always proclaiming they are doing the will of the people, so there should be no resistance to the idea of massive polling mandating how they vote.
2
Someone here has pointed out that select moneyed special interests use motivational advertising techniques to appeal to single issue voters. That's why we have a Congress that is out of step of a majority of the people on such issues as pre-existing conditions, gun control, climate change and tax cuts for the rich. FEC vs United makes all this possible. Add to that dark money (including foreign) with no accountability. Until this changes voters will be swayed by these well funded single issue appeals rather than their own self-interest.
11
I think what we've learned is that Making America White Again is more important to Republicans than even the most popular policy platform.
Further, we've learned the power of branding. Republicans are perceived as better stewards of the economy and budget deficit, when in fact Democrats are far better. Job creation, GDP growth, and stock market returns are all better under Democrats. But you don't hear them all saying that as part of their stump speeches.
It was Clinton who balanced the budget 1998-2001. Obama who brought the deficit back to below historical average by 2014 as % GDP, after it blew up under Bush.
Democrats have to work on their branding. Hammer home that we are better than our opponents on the issues and have plans to cover more people, bring healthcare costs down, and sensibly administer our borders.
27
@David Doney, We need real education. Americans don't even know what socialism is, they mouth the neo-con lines without understanding what they say.
Dr. Krugman might also add that majorities support Medicare for All, contrary to his assertions in previous columns that it would be a hard sell.
19
@Ann I'm pretty sure he meant politically a hard sell. It obviously would not be a hard sell to the people given the right arguments. However, the politicians selling it would come up against an avalanche of vested interests who have a lot of power.
Congressional aides are a species apart, Republican ones are aliens from another planet.
Of course they don't understand what constituents want. It's for an obvious reason: they reflect what their bosses want to hear not what the people who elect them think.
Most aren't like the young idealistic optimists who swarmed the Capitol after Watergate with the intention of fulfilling America's great promise. More recent generations of Congressional staff, aides and interns are ideological clones of of ubermensch Ayn Rand networking clubs like the Federalist Society, which has been instrumental in the rightwing takeover of the federal courts. They all majored in brown-nosing their way up and Washington is Xanadu for their type.
They come to DC not to foster social change but to strengthen social control to perpetuate privilege and wealth, starting with their own. They're not out to further democracy but to hinder it. All they care about political legitimacy -- that the governed decides who governs -- is getting around it to aggregate and consolidate power, usually on behalf of the winning bidders at the GOP fire sale.
Congress may have no clue what Americans want. But Republicans know exactly what rich and influential billionaires and corporate magnates want.
When your sole purpose is to be Just Like Mitch or Paul, you get real good at saying what the next person up the food chain wants to hear.
Want a scary costume for Halloween? Come as a Republican staffer or aide.
49
@Yuri Asian
You should start writing a political column!!!
Of course, I may be biased, because I agree emphatically with your comment!
@Jarrett
I suspect even more people disagree with most my comments but I appreciate greatly your encouragement. Though my wife might come after you with a meat cleaver for reinforcing my delusions. Krugman is catalytic, always prompts me to comment, like he does so many other readers who contribute articulate and thoughtful comments regularly. Writing from the West Coast, my comments usually show up late and I doubt if many ever see my comments let alone read them. So your complement is truly appreciated. Thank you.
This survey cited in the article is more than a little naive. It assumes that the people are the constituents for republican and democratic aides. Its likely that opinions reflect the positions of campaign donors more likely than the general public. After all, a cynical but accurate reading suggests that this is who Congressmen actually work for. Why else do you think they spend the bulk of their time soliciting campaign contributions. Lack of campaign funds more than public opinion is the most likely determinant of defeat of candidates at election. This skew is no surprise.
3
One factor overlooked in this excellent article by Dr. Krugman is the very real influence that Russia has had on the Republican members of Congress. It's difficult to know exactly how Russian Oligarchs have infected their attitudes about conservatism, their constituents, and our country, but given the amounts donated in support of their campaigns, there's no doubt that Russia has had an effect.
Prof. Ruth May, King Fellow at the University of Dallas, has several articles on the incredible funding received by some influential members of Congress. She lists the nearly $6 million donated to Mtch McConnell and his PAC by several Russian Oligarchs, and details some of the hundreds of $thousands going to other Republican politicians.
Russians play a long game, and destruction of American institutions and legislation has been a goal of Putin for years. I recommend that Prof. Krugman look up Prof. May's work.
18
@Elizabeth Bennett: I was an active participant in Cold War V1. That was when the progressives were asking LBJ how many kids he had killed that day.
Now you want to rally against Russia?
I'm sitting out Cold War V2.0 and having a good laugh in the process.
BTW, don't give away your password to your email account.
Republican vs. Democrat, right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal--these rough oppositions in this good article fail to capture that there are at least three main ways of being Conservative or Liberal, and that these ways can be in conflict, even within the same voter. First, political opposition, Republican vs. Democrat, which should be pretty obvious. Second, religious opposition, such as pro- and anti- abortion, and LBGTQI rights. Third, economic opposition--sort of Friedman's "free market" vs. Keynes' government intervention and regulation. Add to these three oppositions America's original sin of racism and the contradictions can be complicated indeed. Then there are all the red herring lies cast about: such as lies about anthropogenic climate change and its devastating consequences, or the press as "enemy of the people."
Thus, there are religious conservatives who will vote against their own economic self-interest because they consider Democrats to be pro- abortion and gay rights. Alexandra Pelosi's recent film "Outside the Bubble" makes this point vividly. There are also cynical politicians who exploit these various, conflicted voter commitments simply to enrich the already rich--and increasingly both parties are guilty of this, though the Republicans are utterly shameless in this regard. Confusion abounds. We need more clarity and truth--about a lot of things.
7
This column certainly nails it. But it's also what Bernie Sanders has been saying for years. I hope Professor Krugman will bear this fact in mind when Bernie declares his candidacy for 2020.
7
@Bob Chisholm There are plenty of Democrats in their mid-thirties, forties and fifties who would be suitable candidates for president. Bernie has some good ideas but we need fresh voices.
11
Donors, not Americans are being measured, and they're being measured well. Big donors support tax cuts.
14
Paul, I really like your last sentence. I think part of the problem with your analysis is that it depends on people understanding what the issues really are, and its pretty clear that during Obamas time they did not. The huffing and puffing about getting rid of Obamacare was coming from the electorate as well as politicians, both mislead by Fox news. I think the trick is to get people something (e.g. pre-existing conditions) so they will really notice when it is taken away. If the Dems recover a bit, they should try to pass things that people can comprehend immediately, maybe infrastructure for all those blue collar people and middle class tax cuts and reduced drug prices. Reforming voter suppression and gerrymandering and recreational marijuana may be important long term, but not as helpful to Dems as pre-existing conditions.
17
And yet again, we hear that lots of people are in favor of stuff they don’t have to pay for. When people are prepared to really grow the tax base, at all levels, we can have theses wondrous benefits they want. The Scandinavians come up a lot. They do have higher top tax rates but what seems to be overlooked is they have higher tax rates at the lower brackets as well and don’t have nearly half the population paying nothing.
3
@Tim Kulhanek: They all pay the Value Added Tax. Americans are fixated on income tax rates but neglect the fact that VAT is almost as important a revenue raiser as income taxes.
10
Scandinavian countries don't allow companies to underpay their employees, so everyone makes reasonably good money, even people who work at McDonalds. If a lot of people in the U.S. don't earn enough to pay federal income tax, it's because we allow low wages.
26
@Tim Kulhanek
What free stuff? Most welfare dollars are spent on children. Half the budget goes to the Pentagon. Corporate welfare -- subsidies, tax breaks, direct payments, free money from the Fed for banks, protected monopolies and markets -- is harder to estimate because they're expenditures buried in department budgets but the agricultural subsidies alone are staggering.
"Free stuff" is a loaded word for tunnel vision. Those who use it don't want to see how successful businesses are successful because of massive government intervention, infrastructure which includes a federal banking system, courts of laws to enforce contracts and agreements, even basic literacy for consumers to read ads and buy products. America is a public buffet that only a select few are invited to eat at. The rich and powerful get their free lunch that we pay for but we're welfare chiselers if we gatecrash their party?
Cure for tunnel vision is easy. Just walk out of it and open your eyes.
10
Just for old time's sake and to make sure that what I knew as truth I listened to Ronald Reagan's speech at Philadelphia Mississippi. After all the Trump and GOP hate mongering I wanted to assure myself that my memory wasn't deceiving me and Ronald Reagan was maybe not the divider but the uniter the media is presenting.
Here it is in black and white the great communicator with all the dog whistles and all the hate the GOP could muster. Thirty eight years later Canada is freer, saner and more optimistic and has a higher standard of living without the hate that eats away at your vital organs.
My memory has not failed me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=450DA4AZG6U
18
@Memphrie et Moi: You also have what, 3.5% of the population being Black? Many of those Trump supporters would be envious of that demographic.
In terms of Reagan, he was spot on about the welfare queen. Well, anyway we had a welfare prince who lived next door to us in Detroit. At the beginning of the month he offered to sell his and his mother's food stamps. Near the end of the month he would ask for money for food because his "mother is hungry". Between which there was plenty of partying going on. Spot on as they say.
the nolstalgiac airbrushing of Reagan is just that. RR is the same guy who called ketchup a vegetable, rationalizing and accepting the state of underprivileged. And the same guy who began employing the strategy of appointing cabinet members who did not like the purpose of their departments. I vividly recall my horror at the naming of James Watt as Sec of the Interior! Better manners than Trump but brain just as corrupted...
1
Irbarile: Sorry Irbarile. Reagan was spot on about the welfare state in the cities and the Soviet Union, especially its occupation of Eastern Europe.
I have first hand experiences with both.
Progressives went batty when Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an evil empire. Again, right as rain.
Thank you for clearing some this up Mr. Krugman. I often wondered why an individual would vote for, higher health care premiums ,increasing the national debt, abolishing medicare and social security and decreasing taxes for the wealthy.
Fire all of those congressional staffers.
7
The professor nailed what is plain as day on ground level. Ordinary folks want social benefits mandated at the national level by a progressive government. It is harder and harder to get by for the average Joe and Jane, who would wholeheartedly acquiesce to more socialistic programs abscent gerrymandering and blatant lies and the racist dog whistles that mark our increasingly surreal campaigns while the wealth gap continues ballooning to obscene levels
18
@the doctor
***Ordinary folks want social benefits mandated at the national level by a progressive government***
You nailed it. Fund it by taxing the super-rich and unearned wealth (not wage labor.)
Serious question: remove all nonwhite citizens from analysis. How center-right do we look as a nation, now?
1
@karp, I think the analysis remains the same. A majority of Republicans support protections for preexisting conditions, as well as protections for Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. A majority of NRA members support universal background checks. A majority of Republicans support gay marriage. A majority of Republicans support allowing Medicare to negotiate directly for drug prices.
8
@karp
You would be surprised. We would be further to the left. Vast majorities of non-whites are highly influenced by religion and cultural conservatism. This is changing, but ever so solely.
@karp So white people are the problem you're saying? Whites have only voted for a Democrats in a few elections over the last 40 years, but this analysis is for the U.S. as a whole.
The false and erroneous assumptions each party has of the other is a major problem. Sitting in their silos and trenches lobbing verbal hand grenades at each other, living in a fact free universe and cherry picking their news sources that feed their pre conceived opinions pretty much sums it up.
4
You know, this column reminds me of how stunned I was to see GWB win reelection in 2004 with the Iraq debacle fully exposed.
I thought, at the time, that was the madness of the U.S. electorate demonstrating its limits.
Then came Donald Trump.
22
@Alan R Brock-The GOP has been working overtime to disenfranchise voters. Several documentaries detail what got GWB into office both times. Unfortunately these tactics have continued largely unabated.
See: Hacking Democracy
Stealing America, Vote by Vote
Also:
How to Rig an Election
https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election
Can U.S. Elections Really Be Stolen? Yes.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NxXKr2hKCz0
How Much Faith Do You Have in the Vote Counting Process?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY6FCsVWGlM"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-scraps-touch-screen-voting-machines-as-election-for-governor-looms/2017/09/08
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions
@Alan R Brock: You can fool enough of the people enough of the time.
Part of the problem stems from many states (including NY) having closed primary systems, in which only partisan voters can participate. Closed primaries lead to ideological polarization, because to win the nomination a candidate must appeal to their most committed, and often most extreme base of voters. Open primaries that included independent and third-party registered voters would make the candidates have to appeal to a wider range of viewpoints in order to get the nomination, which would result in candidates being more aware of what the majority of their constituents (not just the most rabid fringe) actually want.
12
Is isn't what the voters want, it is what the money wants. The messaging is just altered to fit... Code words like "choice", "Law and order", "states rights" (when convenient), "protecting from overreach" (when not) simply reflect what the money ultimately wants. It is the ore that is left when you strip away the ugly slag hypocrisy.
20
@Dave Allan: "State's rights" is just shorthand for unequal protection of laws over arbitrary patchwork areas to me.
"there’s a shared inside-the-Beltway delusion: that America is a conservative, or at most center-right nation, a view that isn’t grounded in reality." Politicians need to get out of the Beltway and visit the real America, they might be shocked at what they would learn.
13
@Jacquie-Yep. I'm shocked that the UN recently visited southern states and described abject poverty....
@Jacquie:
They do. And then they go to fundraisers to hear what the donors want.
@Jacquie On the contrary, I think it’s America that has an unrealistic self-image.
"That is, they grew up inside the apparatus of movement conservatism, and really imagine that everyone except a few leftist losers shares their ideology. They don’t even realize that their party’s success has been based on racial antagonism,.."
You might be right there.
When my family and I moved out of our near east side Detroit neighborhood there were no white liberals living there at the time. Only white working class folks learning how to be Republicans.
All the white liberals had moved on to safer areas long before that. Some had even become firebrands from Ann Arbor.
If I called out the details of "racial antagonism" that we experienced in our old neighborhood I would probably be censored for being inflammatory.
Not sure if Krugman ever lived in such a neighborhood. Maybe, but I doubt it.
4
Elisabeth Warren, isn't she running on an anti-corruption platform?
2
I agree that the politicos assume a more conservative electorate than actually exists. But when it comes to action, I'm not sure that it matters much. A recent study---sorry I can't give a link---found that congressional action didn't correlate at all with public opinion polls, but correlated quite closely with the desires of the 1%
19
@Pam, good comment. The 2017 GOP tax bill was unpopular with the public from the start, but GOP senators were warned that their donor base wanted it passed--or else! They were facing massive defunding in the midterms from donors, so that was the reason it had to pass. GOP leaders thought they could make it popular with the base, but its only constituency remains the donors.
8
Trouble is certain Republican idioms just become accepted. For one that there is an immigrant “problem” when immigrants, people, children, are the solution to many problems. Or that single payer health care is “radical” when almost all other first world countries have it to their advantage.
Or that to move away from fossil fuels would disadvantage the US. Or that government is the problem. The list goes on. These assumptions start the conversation at the wrong place. Challenge them or we’ve just abandoned the field beforehand.
29
Krugman is right when he says millions Fox News conservatives,” grew up entirely inside the right-wing bubble and don’t understand how people outside that bubble think. But the opposite is true. Progressives like Krugman grew up in their own bubble and are hopelessly out of tuned with the electorate...even more so than the GOP. His analysis doesn't explain the fact that Republicans continue to win. The GOP has turned a looming demographic disaster into legislative majorities so unbreakable, so impregnable, that none of the outcomes are in doubt until after the 2020 census. In the past 6 years the Dems have lost the Presidency, both House of Congress, the Supreme Court, the majority of state legislatures, Governorships, & most important local offices. In 24 states, the Democrats have almost no political influence at all. Republicans control a record 68 percent of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers in the nation. The GOP holds more total seats than they have since 1920, well over 4,100 of the 7,383. They've created super majorities for conservative policies in otherwise blue & purple states. Gerrymandering & so called voter suppression doesn't explain all of this. The Dems have lost so often, so consistently, that they can't be blamed for seeing any victory as a turning point. But the pundits need to dial back the hyperbole a tad. They're acting like we can turn Mississippi blue if we run more liberal candidates. This is demonstrably false if you look at the facts.
7
@Bill Brown, on the contrary, GOP majorities after the 2010 census can be explained by gerrymandering and voter suppression. Even though Republicans control the House, House Democrats consistently represent more voters. Even though Republican presidential candidates consistently lose the popular vote, they win the electoral college. The same is true of GOP-dominated legislatures in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan--Democrats represent more voters.
The GOP employs a very conscious strategy to hold back the demographic tide through making sure that some voters don't count. The system is truly rigged, and it's up to voters to make our country more democratic.
11
@SandraH. - "Even though Republican presidential candidates consistently lose the popular vote, they win the electoral college."
Exactly. I found it an interesting exercise to look at the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Kavanaugh hearings through the lens of the Electoral College. Without combining the duplicated states represented, the tally was Democrats 120; Republicans 102. SCOTUS would look different today if the EC weighed heavily across the board.
2
@Bill Brown
So, apparently you don't understand how gerrymandering creates a PERMANENT disenfranchisement. And how purging voters creates a temporary one (until the election is over).
Moreover, the Dems actually haven't lost consistently where those tactics have not been used in many voting districts. Without these two 'tools of dis-enfranchisement' we would actually have a country made greater.
Thanks, Prof. Krugman. What I want to know from small business owners is what discarded federal regulation has unleashed your business to new growth and profits? Even if it's a the abolition of a time-sucking rule, I'd like to know. I think small business and big business love to pose that they're suffering under onerous regs that are keeping them from making millions or some amount, when in fact, they're just whiners.
maybe off topic, but i wonder if it's not all just in the heads of these 'job creators.'
9
@newyorkerva Telegraph to people risking capital that you are going to make the process more difficult and confiscate more of that capital -- That capital will be shifted into protective low risk scenarios rather than deployed. What follows is predictable.
1
@todd:
For businesses, every regulation is cost only and no benefits; and for everyone else, the regulations are all benefit and no costs.
3
@newyorkerva
IMO, business, in and of itself, is not something to be valued. It's the benefits to society that specific business provides.
5
Maybe the Democrats should have called the PPACA the
Pre-Existing Conditions Protection and Insurance Subsidies Act - PECOPINS! "Protect My Pre-Existing Conditions" sounds like a mouthful of a slogan.
4
Don't Republican politicians think everyone in America is a "movement conservative" because EVERYONE THEY KNOW PERSONALLY is a movement conservative?
And if Democratic politicians still think its the 1990s and they have to appeal to center-right voters, that would explain a lot of the accusations against them as being "bought and paid for" and "basically no different than Republicans".
But if this is all true, then where, oh where, do the Democrats go to get the money to fund their election campaigns?
Obama supposedly did it with masses of small contributions, and Sanders also.
But can the party as a whole really dump its rich donor class? Or (the impossible dream?) could the rich donors actually be brought around to supporting a more populist agenda?
5
@Bryan - Bingo. How many times on any forum have you heard a conservative say "I don't know anyone who . . . "?
Social Security has been in effect for more than 8 decades; Medicare and Medicaid for more than a half-century. George W. Bush signed Part D into law! You’re living in a past that never was.
4
This bubble theory really helps to explain someone like Chuck Grassley, who can't comprehend that women would spontaneously erupt in protest of Brett Kavanaugh's extreme right-wing tendencies not because they had been paid by George Soros, a shameful conspiracy theory for a Senator to promote, but because Kavanaugh's positions are so out of touch with women's lives. Ditto for Fox News telecasters on the night Barack Obama was elected. Their disbelief was palpable. This newspaper could help burst the bubble by adding some columnists from the deep-blue left. How about a voice for organized labor to counter Friedman's center-right views? Or a progressive cleric to counter Ross Douthat's voice of the anti-abortion minority?
18
@Julie: Ross Douthat represents the Roman Catholic Church here. Perhaps he needs to be balanced by an atheistic pundit, just as the Roman Catholic Supreme Court needs a lesson in what an "establishment of religion" is.
Fox news is a cancer. As long as they poison the narrative and divide us things will not change. There is nothing wrong with holding conservative views. However, demonizing the other side as they do on a regular basis is very dangerous indeed.
18
@PhilipK Calling someone a "cancer" is not demonizing them?
1st, the big money donors set our political norms, as they keep candidates support in order to get more campaign donations. That’s why h/c for all that’s still deemed left wing here has been centrist abroad, supported by all parties for generations.
The more corporate profits, tax breaks, and weak regulations congress allows as a centrist norm, the more money is available for campaign donations to cooperative candidates. A vicious cycle. Then an uphill battle to change policy.
2nd, include in this our media companies. They don’t want reform---they make big profits from the high priced campaign ads that flood our voters for extremely prolonged campaign seasons. Notice the absence of any columnist discussion of campaign finance reform, which majorities of citizens want, but which would reduce media profits.
The same countries with affordable health care for all, use more public funding for elections and limit private donations. Crucially, they also ban the privately paid campaign ads that are our highest expense.
So these countries actually try to limit the effects of elite special interests in their political discussion. Here, that’s almost anti American. We give them the megaphone, while our columnists lament the effects, but don’t trace the causes.
When will Krugman, centrist liberal—(non right wing extremist)--- ever include these underlying factors in his columns, that profess moral outrage to our distorted politics, but limit solutions?
10
The sad and sorry truth is yes most Americans want the good things for themselves and their “tribe”, but the others that might look or act a little differently not so much. A true liberal see’s everyone as a part of their tribe and thus wants everyone to share in the bounty of the country.
I fear this concept is simply lost upon both the first generation Fox watchers and certainly the second generation. What Fox has done is make conservatives even more deeply tribal than they already were.
10
Wow, Paul. I suggest you give some consideration to having naivete and a blindspot. It is quite erroneous to actually ascribe to politicians - in both parties, but certainly more so in the GOP - the altruism and honesty you'd like to see in them. Take off the rose-tinted glasses and remind yourself of Upton Sinclair's trenchant observation: "It is difficult for a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Substitute campaign donations for salary in the Sinclair quote and you have the operating ethic of most every politician: they are craven and mercenary, responsive to their campaign donors' aims and demands, rarely the public good. And what the average donor wants is politically to the right of what the public wants. It's quite simple. Look at it more realistically. It's not cynicism. It's fact.
12
Republican voters want the government to keep its hands off their Medicare while they disagree with Medicare for all. Medicare would be more efficient if younger people were part of it. Taxes would replace insurance at a lower cost. And it would cover pre-existing conditions as Ted Cruz has promised he would protect. It doesn't add up.
13
I wonder if the parties' perceptions of where their voters' interests lie has much to do with how people really vote. The Republican Party has been recruiting its base for decades with "issues" that are not economic. Those people will be voting next week to cut SS and Medicare and eliminate protections for preexisting medical conditions because they are Republicans, not because of what they want. The Party can ignore the interests of its voters because it has them locked up. What the Democratic Party thinks its voters want is irrelevant since they cannot manage to articulate a coherent program. Right now, they're just running in circles waving their arms in the air yelling "heath care", and we'll see if that works.
3
Even in our Indivisible group - that is, people who see themselves as resisting the anti-democratic policies of Trump and the GOP - I am discouraged that too many of them don't know local or state issues, don't go to candidate forums or local town halls held by our stellar Members of Congress, and don't take an active part in our Indivisible or other local political work. As if ranting on FB or texting to your like-minded friends will make anything better.
I'd love to know who pollsters survey because there is an astonishing ignorance and apathy out there, across the political spectrum. My impression is that few Americans can identify conservative or liberal pieties.
5
I think Republicans actually are aware their views are not embraced by the majority. That is why they keep trying to suppress the vote.
Democrats try to get votes by adopting Republican positions - when what they really need to do is simply register more voters.
20
@PJF Both Democrat and Republican politicians know this, I'm fairly sure. Why do you think the Republicons fight all the time to make voting as difficult and arcane as possible?
How well do you think Oregon-style vote-by-mail would go down for adoption in the states where the Republicons have a choke hold?
7
Most Americans know we need much MORE than just coverage for 'pre existing' conditions, and subsidies for lower income people. We need subsidies for the entire middle class, which dozens of other capitalist democracies have had for their citizens for generations.
We need 'subsidies' for ALL---but with adequate and fair tax rates to pay for it. Ask citizens in dozens of countries if they'd trade lower taxes for having their health care as a major profit center for big insurance co's. Or if they'd ok their taxes going to subsidizing insurance profits---which then go to subsidize politicians' campaigns to keep the for -profit laws. It's all connected.
We have the world's most expensive and profitable medical system. Likely esteemed media columnists, reporters etc can well afford their premiums, co pays and deductibles for insurance their jobs guarantee them.
Most media wants to stay in the center of what's called the liberal side in our politics, by not going too far to advocate for the truly affordable health care that most of the modern world guarantees their citizens.
Sure the Republicans are so out of touch, and corporate connected that they make the Democrats and their media supporters look like liberal angels by contrast. But that covers up the stark fact that We the People aren't getting what we need and deserve, by standards of modern democracy.
We hope the Rs don't hurt us too much, and are grateful for what the Dems can salvage. What a scam on democracy
14
@Meredith
Great comment.
1
@Julie Carter
Correct. But they were the party the Capitalists, so nothing new here.
The new development is that the Uber-Rich have now captured the Democratic party , including its leadership
For how this works read
In Liberal San Francisco, Tech Leaders Brawl Over Tax Proposal to Aid Homeless
NY Times 2018/10/19
"Jack Dorsey, chief executive of Twitter and Square, is among the technology executives who have been fiercely opposed to a Nov. 6 ballot measure that would impose a new tax on companies."
I looked up Jack Dorsey's campaign contributions
Democrats 100%
Republicans 0%
3
@Woof
That's one side of the story. Marc Benioff, the Salesforce billionaire, is the leading proponent of raising taxes on corporate behemoths headquartered in San Francisco to address the rampant homelessness of America's last stop on the mainland. Mr. Benioff is also a 100% blue donor. The Twitter guys are closer to the Travis Kalanick school of cowboy techies than they are to the noblesse oblige of Buffett/Gates/Steyer, etc. Jack Dorsey didn't invent Twitter as he claims. He was hired as a low level coder by tech entrepreneur Evan Williams for Twitter's corporate predecessor, Odio, becoming CEO of Obvious Corporation which bought out Odio. He was subsequently fired for not having management chops and later regained his position with behind-the-scenes board intrigue. He went onto to ape Steve Jobs, replete with black turtlenecks and disdain from the tech cognoscenti, and rewrote Twitter's foundation myth around himself.
Dorsey could care less that tech discombobulated San Francisco and he doesn't want to pay higher corporate taxes to address homelessness. For him, wealth is a private benefit that comes with no public obligations besides whatever whims he might have. His one saving grace is that he's a blue donor.
He's may be like Steve Jobs at his Machiavellian worst, but he's no Marc Benioff or Bill Gates.
If I compare US politics going back to the early ‘80s with other first-world countries, then using the term center-right does indeed seem delusional. The word "center" has no business being there.
2
@Francis The other first-world countries are on the whole catching up fast.
Citizens United is the game changer. Democrats cannot move too far to the left or they will undermine their corporate supporters and oligarchic supporters.
And the Democratic leadership has also succumbed to neoliberalism which includes globalism, which would all be fine except for the tone deafness of the existence of a very large group that aren't greedy or bigoted that have been slowly squeezed out of a good and decent life. The working class. Which particularly includes the white working class who haven't even been able to benefit in any real way with from the Democratic efforts to bring equality to minority groups. Somehow the bulwark of the Democratic party, the working class, particularly white working class, has been ignored.
7
@HT, I disagree that the white working class has been ignored. I think the ACA was designed to help every American, including the white working class, and I think the 2016 Democratic platform to make state colleges tuition-free and lower the age for Medicare eligibility was designed with middle-class families in mind.
We badly need things like prison reform and immigration reform, but it would be a mistake for white voters to think they're not benefiting from healthcare and higher education reform. Most importantly, Democrats need to make the case on jobs. New manufacturing technologies are going to hurt workers more than outsourcing ever has, and we need to prepare Americans for this shift. I think we all have a hundred definitions of what a globalist or neoliberal is--these have become slogans, not useful terms. We need to use our tax code to encourage companies to stay in this country, and we need a SCOTUS that supports the rights of workers to organize. We need something like the partnerships between German syndicates and German businesses. Above all, we need financial support and intensive training for communities in transition, where particular kinds of jobs are unlikely to return.
4
@SandraH.
Truly excellent comment. The public uproar over Republican attempts to take away existing healthcare from millions of Americans (a.k.a. numerous Congressional votes to repeal the ACA) made it plain that white voters do realize they are benefitting from healthcare reform.
The concern for the jobs of the future that you explore and how to prepare for them are looming issues for all of this society: employers and employees and investors alike; regardless of race, creed or color.
Your call for action is right on:
"We need to use our tax code to encourage companies to stay in this country, and we need a SCOTUS that supports the rights of workers to organize. We need something like the partnerships between German syndicates and German businesses. Above all, we need financial support and intensive training for communities in transition, where particular kinds of jobs are unlikely to return."
We need to return to the original meaning of 'The American Dream' as explained in this quote from the Smithsonian.com website:
'"The American Dream” has always been about the prospect of success, but 100 years ago, the phrase meant the opposite of what it does now. The original “American Dream” was not a dream of individual wealth; it was a dream of equality, justice and democracy for the nation.'
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/behold-america-american-dream-slogan-book-sarah-churchwell-
It's worse than what Krugman is telling us. Republicans are no longer conservatives, they serve donors and use the donations to con voters with propaganda. Donors are mostly corporate and right wing ideologues like the Koch family. The remains of conservatism show up in their choice of wedge issues like anti LGBT and anti abortion. Also, they claim victimhood to cover up their contempt for the poor and sick.
Democrats call themselves Centrist - what is the meaning of Centrism when Republicans keep moving right at top speed with Democrats following? Democrats are Republicans with Civility and a Safety net. Establishment Democrats also serve Donors and propagandize voters but they have a great virtue: they accept Climate Change as a fact. It is a crucial virtue! Time is running out.
The only old-fashioned politicians that are about voters are the Progressives. A New New Deal using the tools FDR used to empower labor and using progressive taxation to prevent the accumulation of huge piles of money and prosecute and punish corruption could bring back the can-do confidence and ingenuity that we used to have. We got 70 years of prosperity out of the New Deal and we got the benefit of all the talent that was wasted due to lack of opportunity.
8
Does anyone remember the Moral Majority? Not so much. A few people remember Gingrich, but maybe more for his adulterous hypocrisy than the MM. Like all GOP claims and attempts to blind the blind, the MM was a fake that they were willing to be by constant repetition and bombast. I have to agree about the enabling by the news media. Have you noticed how much of the communications outlets, printed and electronic and other than Fox, are owned by Republican/Conservative/Evangelical owners? Need I say more? William Ashcroft famously said that the R/C/E needed to keep "them" barefoot and pregnant. Just like in their quest for a conservative, partisan Supreme Court, the R/C/E axis has been laser focused on fulfilling Ashcroft's wish. That is how they have won. But, they never saw Social Media coming. As much as they are trying their best to demonize Google, Apple, Twitter, Pinterest and even Amazon, it isn't working. That is because there REALLY is a lot more truth on the web than they want to admit. Just about any 2 year old can check out the reality of their lies with just a few key presses and swipes. But now, beware the R/C/E moves against technology, it is not for your or the nation's best interest. It is only for theirs that they want to monetize and choke the internet. The electronic version of "barefoot and pregnant".
4
I’m glad that you mentioned Fox News. In this country, where all things are driven by money, and where Fox News has the highest ratings, meaning more money, aren’t they the main stream media now? I would really like a reasonable guest on Fox to tell Sean Hannity that he is exactly that—this phony parade of playing the poor truth-teller to power is such an absolute sham.
12
@Michael Judge
Fox has the highest ratings for cable news. If you add up CBS, CNN,ABC, NBC, there are more viewers than Fox has. And Fox network affiliates mostly report local news.
Sean Hannity is a political commentator, not a news man. He is the equivalent of Krugman, who is also not a newsman. Hannity has a larger audience, and a more diverse audience than Krugman.
@Michael Judge Forget Fox News. Really. How many people watch news of any sort on TV? Answer: Fox 2.3 million; MSNBC 1.7 million; CNN 0.9 million. In a country of 325 million people.
Having suspected that what the American public wants has been obscured by Republican propaganda, I am delighted to read this analysis.
6
We have to remember the purpose of the Left/Right divide is to keep the bottom from going at the top with pitchforks.
9
You say that Democrats fear they will be to the left of voters. But, the assumption is that the "voters" are representative of Americans. It may be more accurate to say that given the various voter suppression techniques we have seen deployed, "Democrats are stuck trying to win elections with a rightward skewed electorate."
9
Polling on a host of issues show most US citizens are much farther left on issues than both parties understand. For example, Medicare for Alll rises a ove 50% support, as does taxing the rich, tailing back foriegn wars and militarism in favor of infrastructure and money out of politics. The problem is our elected leaders handlers, the corporate elite of the military industrial complex, big pharma, the financial industry, etc, all have both parties in its moneyed grip. Therefore, they answer to their funders in their bubble, and average working citizens, poor and middle class, have no voice in this supposed democracy. It's fairly plain to see, so I am always amazed to see the media, whi h exists in the same bubble, act so surprised to discover what is and has been readily apparent for decades now.
15
@Munda Squire
It is important to understand that polling questions do not generally give an accurate read on complex issues, and there is frequent bias in the way the questions are asked and the variety of responses available.
When people are asked if they think Medicare for all is desirable, they do not mean they would prefer Medicare to their present employer provided health insurance, they mean it would be good for people who don't already have health insurance.
This is similar to the reported support of Obamacare. Very few of the people who love Obamacare actually have Obamacare policies, and they think it is the same as their employer provided health insurance, which it is not. There are people who have Obamacare and don't want it eliminated, but they buy it because it is better than nothing, not because it is good.
@ebmem as a senior citizen who has NEVER had employer-provided health insurance, and paid huge premiums as an individual without group membership, I found Obamacare in New York City a great savings. Now on Medicare, even better. I wish for Medicare for all, why not?
2
The basic and growing problem is that the Party's have gotten too much power and it has reached the point where we are governed by non-elected party bosses.
5
@conrad, on the contrary, so-called party bosses are pretty much a thing of the past. There are no Boss Tweeds, no politician who can call the shots. The party bosses for the GOP are the donors whose lobbyists meet in closed door sessions to write the tax and ACA repeal bills. Most of the congressmen never saw those bills until an hour or two before the floor vote.
3
Many years ago there was a survey in which they asked people if they supported government programs. The survey conductors didn't mention particular programs but described them such as "a program that provides poor women and their children with nutritious food" which is SNAP. Overwhelmingly, people supported all of these programs, even those who identified as Republican. The problem is the moment that you slap a name on the program everybody thinks it's some horrible government plan. Just like people hate Obamacare but somehow love the ACA.
12
@Jennifer
Republicans support giving nutritious food for poor women and their children. When you ask if they support SNAP, the problem is that chips, carbonated sweet sodas, etc. are not nutritious foods. Trading food stamps for cash to buy cigarettes and beer is an abuse of taxpayer money. Giving food stamps to an unemployed college graduate living in his prosperous parents home is an abuse of taxpayer money. Giving food stamps to someone who is working off-the-books and earning so much money they would be ineligible if they accurately reported it on their welfare application is offensive to their next door neighbor.
Safety net spending starts out sounding like a worthwhile endeavor. It quickly morphs into an entitlement to be abused.
You do not have to be a Republican to object to some government spending that is wasteful.
If the federal government were effective in administering its programs, the programs themselves would not evoke derision from people familiar with them.
Yes to nutritious food for poor women and their children, no to food stamps for illegal aliens.
Yes to accessible health care for those with pre-existing conditions. No to Obamacare, even if you call it ACA. ACA does not provide accessible or affordable health care to those with pre-existing conditions.
When Krugman reads a survey that says providing healthcare to those who have pre-existing conditions is popular, he concludes that Dems are right. He is oblivious to the fact
After Reagan & his "Reagan Democrats," the Clintons & others who founded the DLC decided that Republicans, though in the minority, brought out a larger proportion of their supporters to vote because of their money advantage. So Bill Clinton began to solicit corporations, PACs, & Wall Street for big donations. To placate the corps, he had to abandon the traditional Keynesian values of Democrats from FDR through LBJ which build the American middle class & trust that liberals will vote for them as the lesser of 2 evils. First, the DLC threw the working class's trade unions (& their priceless apprentice system) under the bus. Then Welfare became Workfare. This went on until Clinton reversed FDR's primary protection against another economic crash, the part of the Glass-Steagall Act that prevented single institutions to be combinations of commercial banks, investment banks, & insurance companies with his signing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act. Today's "establishment" Democrats have given up on all of the still-popular values of the party from FDR through LBJ. Gone are full support for reproductive rights, effective gun control, public education through college, single-payer health insurance, a fair, graduated income tax, equal protection of the rights of ALL Americans & residents, a clean renewable environment, a livable minimum wage or base salary to all from part of the GDP, & dozens of other progressive policies (still polling high among voters). The center right is an illusion.
14
@Beartooth, I think you're turning history on its head. While I agree that Bill Clinton moved the Democratic Party too far to the right, I find several of your claims nonsensical. When did the Democratic Party abandon the union movement, reproductive rights for all, public education trough college, a fair, graduated income tax, single-payer healthcare, clean renewable energy, or a livable minimum wage?
Did Paul Krugman actually criticize the Democrats? Quelle horreur! But in this column, he errs in two respects:
1) By his referral to "racial hared," he stereotypes vast swathes of the American electorate, while ignoring the complexity of their complaints, and the precariousness of their position. Such stigmatizing is nothing new for PK. He has repeatedly show us his class hatred—for working-class whites—in his writings here.
2) The country is center-left ONLY on economic issues, which include health care. But it is decidedly center-right on cultural issues, which are, in fact, mostly about group identity.
I do wish Krugman would stick to economic issues, where he seems less informed by ideology and class bias, and more by real knowledge of the subject.
3
@Ron Cohen - Older white men and rich or nostalgic younger men may be center right socially, but younger people, women and minorities are center left or far left and moving lefter. Just one example--60% of American women (Republicans included) support unconditional abortion rights. 63% of young Americans do (men and women both). (Pew Research, October 2018). Young people are also 17% less likely than older people to have any religious affiliation. (Pew, June 2018).
Also, be fair--PK has criticized Democrats plenty. 'Our King Can Do No Wrong' is more of a Republican approach to politics.
7
@Ron Cohen Vast swathes of the American electorate ARE racist. We didn't know how bad it was until Trump got elected. He emboldened our friends and family members. We didn't know they felt the way they did about social issues until he opened the closet door and they came screaming out. The election of 2016 was won due to racial issues and had nothing to do with the economy. White working class non-college voters will always vote against their own self-interests so long as black and brown people don't get a share of the pie or are considered equal. Don't say Republicans aren't racist---if you support the Ku Klux Klan and vote for them, is your defense you like their outfits? If you support a racist political party with a racist ideology, what does that make you?
@Ron Cohen, when did Paul Krugman show his supposed class hatred for working-class whites? He's championed them in this column for many years.
There is a significant portion of the electorate that is probably left out of this calculus. People born between 1980 and 2000, the children of tech, are going to be driving this beast more and more. Hopefully, where they fall in this election will give pause to some of the machinations emanating from their ugly elders.
3
To back debbie doyle's comment with numbers:
In 2012, according to the Sunlight Foundation, more than a quarter of all disclosed political donations came from just 31,385 people, or about 0.01 percent of the U.S. population.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/opinion/campaign-finance-political-donors.html
4
When the ACA first passed, polls showed about a third of the people who opposed it did so because it didn't go far enough--healthcare was STILL too expensive, too complicated, not universal.
Guess what? It's still too expensive, too complicated, not universal.
My daughter turned 26 this month, goes off our insurance tomorrow. Trying to figure out her options has been a nightmare. She's talked with TWO "navigators" and still doesn't have solid answers on a couple of important issues. The complexity is infuriating.
My wife and I lose our COBRA coverage next year. At $1,800 a month, it turns out to be a bargain. We're slightly above 400% of poverty (for which I'm thankful), which means we don't qualify for a subsidy. We're looking at coverage via healthcare.gov of $2,200 a month for a bronze policy with a $13,500 deductible, around $3,000 a month for a silver policy, and $3,900 a month for a gold policy.
I work at home; if not for my 87-year-old mom being here, we might seriously consider moving overseas. We might do it anyway.
12
You are too charitable to the Republicans. They know that their policies are at odds with what the majority wants; that's why they don't run on their policies. It's also why gerrymandering and voter suppression is key to their strategy. They know that the only way the can remain in power is to make the playing more and more tilted in their favor. Is that undemocratic? You bet. They do not want democracy, they want power and control.
20
In my opinion, most Republican congress-people don't care at all what their constituents want, or what their aides think constituents want. Except for their rich, big-donor constituents. My congressman, for instance, doesn't even bother holding phony scripted voter town halls anymore. He gets his money from corporate donors and corporate-owner-donors, and in return he does whatever they want.
10
Politicians (and pundits) get America wrong.
Well, yes, in the eyes of a someone who has never run for any elected office - nor studied political science
The policies for common good are not properly articulated by either party. There are people right to the center and left to the center and combined they form the middle class who can be persuaded to vote either way because they are typically independent. These people of right to the center and left to the center move across the center line based on the events of the day, state of the economy and foreign affairs. So, it is hard to say people are right to the center or left to the center. The Democratic Party did not make the case that party matters and that should be weighed in to select a candidate. A divided government is far better than a divided country. That should be the slogan for Democrats.
There is no center-right delusion. Swing voters prefer candidates with strong plans. Obama had a plan to do something about healthcare. McCain had nothing. Obama won. Trump had a plan to do something about illegal immigration and trade agreements. Hillary had nothing. If she had something, then she certainly didn't do a good job of communicating it. It’s not enough for politicians to tell voters what they believe in or to point out all the flaws with their opponents. For politicians to win, they need a solid plan and they need to sell that plan to the people.
2
@Mark she did. It was just always drowned in her unpopularity and emails....
4
@Mark, I think Hillary Clinton was too much of a policy wonk and not enough of a politician. She had very detailed plans, but she tried to run on specifics like tuition-free public colleges and raising the minimum wage . Trump had no specific plan, but he ran on emotions (build a wall, lock her up, etc.)
I don't think the plans matter much, judging from the last presidential election.
2
@SandraH. I think she was too much of a loser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yev6Hi4LDFY
Of course repeal of ACA will ruin much more than coverage for pre-existing conditions;
Lifetime limits would be reimposed.
Charging the 50-65 age group 10 times more.
Children over age 19 tossed. In ACA they can stay to 26.
No expanded Medicaid
No exchanges with subsidies.
OK, lots not to like about how ACA is structured, but everyone seems to like all these major items.
Problem; There is no solution to the right of ACA that can retain any of these good virtues.
The only way to improve the ACA is to go to the left; Public option, or Medicare for all.
14
How could they not realize that attempts to remove the protection for preexisting conditions would be a sore point? It is because they are in their own bubble. They have wonderful insurance, they have a great pension, and they are not even bound by the laws that they pass.
6
What Democrats, and particularly liberals, miss is that while Americans want a workable healthcare framework that subsidizes access to either insurance or directly-financed healthcare provision, they’re not enamored of what Democrats devised to serve that purpose and DEFINITELY unhappy about the way they rammed it in 2009-2010 – inaugurating this latest period of to-the-death ideological faction and vitriol that has so divided us and that froze our politics solid 2011-2017. Until Trump was elected and helped an undivided Republican Congress to start getting things done again.
You don’t LIKE what undivided Republican government is doing with that mandate? Well, win an election for a change. You have a chance this time to freeze our politics again for two years, although, yet again, it’s starting to look dicey, which is causing Times pundits to question the meaning of life and the foundations of existence.
But it’s entertaining to see Dr. Krugman take up the establishment party line and make this election about only healthcare, when Democrats have so much ELSE to answer for that indeed has maintained America as a center-right nation. Let’s start with a relativist perspective on American culture that dismisses its validity in the desire to open our borders to all comers, in numbers that can’t help but damage or even destroy that culture – it’s quite clear that you don’t have anything LIKE a majority of Americans on your side on THAT issue. Then, there’s the emphasis …
2
… on class warfare that has consumed the left in this latest generational conflagration since the 1960s -- not to manageably evolve us into a less racist and a more objectively just one (which we indeed have clearly become), but to patently divorce talent, risk and effort from the traditional rewards of those qualities in an effort to find the taxes required to FUND your visions of social leveling. And there’s the overriding argument on the left that all social challenges can be addressed by more rules and intrusive government, regardless of the toll they exact on individualism and individual rights. There are many others, including gibbering environmental excess, and a relativist view to foreign affairs EXCEPT when they clash with your insufferable Kumbaya blindness to our need to actually INTERACT effectively with the world … and on and on.
It’s easy to question the clear truth of our center-rightness by saying “well … I don’t believe it”. Far easier than simply accepting what is clear and moderating Democratic agendas and messages to become more compelling to Americans as they ARE, and on ALL the issues that divide us, not just healthcare.
But best of luck.
1
@Richard Luettgen class warfare seems to better describe a hand full of oligarchs that want a quick, endless return on their wealth at the expense of their community or their children's future (climate change, clean water/air, our environment).
8
@Richard Luettgen your ability to write such clean sentences implies too much intelligence for you to believe the contents of your statements. Social Security, Medicare and much of the social safety net in our society are there to in part, to save capitalism from extinction. And yes, healthcare is a right for all, not a profit tool for a few.
11
The Pew Research Center routinely polls Americans to ask what their important political issues are. 70% of Americans identify the affordability of health care as a “very big problem” – and that includes majorities of both Republicans and Democrats. Overwhelming majorities in both parties also want continued support of Medicare and Medicaid. Mitch McConnell’s idea to cut these programs to finance tax cuts is an extreme ideological position that has very little popular support.
When asked, “Is it the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage?” 80% of Democrats and 28% of Republicans say yes. Even among self-identified conservative Republicans who disagree with this statement, over 60% support Medicare and Medicaid.
Interestingly, only 42% of Americans identify illegal immigration as a very big problem. However, the issue has a pronounced partisan skew. 67% of Republicans say it’s a big problem but only 23% of Democrats. Ergo Trump’s relentless focus on this issue appears to be motivated by his personal agenda and activating his political base, not because it’s a problem of genuine national concern.
7
Voters want something for nothing. Of course.
But this is not news, opinion, or fancy science. It's human nature.
Everyone's desires can not be provided for free. To get elected most politicians make promises they can't keep. But by not fulfilling them they are not guilty of being out of touch with voters inherent desires. It's just that this thing called reality gets in the way.
3
@Pono, yet promises to donors are consistently kept. Somehow we can afford a $1.6 trillion tax cut for the wealthy. Strange.
But I guess that's reality, right?
2
Looks like democrats do not understand why voters shy away from them. Unless we introspect, we will never understand why Gore/Kerry and HRC lost.
We basically stigmatized and abandoned ordinary folks in red state.
Democrats were not interested in solving the issues faced by working class people of America, may be they felt that the issues are unsolvable. They along with Republicans exported jobs to India and China to raise their GDP and standard of living. Democrats just abandoned their base to rot.
To make things worse, they made ordinary people feel like bigots. Same sex marriage, transgender bathroom usage were the main issues in 2004 and 2016 election for Democrats. These issues are quaint to ordinary folks. Democrats like Gavin Newsome made mockery out of traditional marriage. Whoever does not believe in unrestrained abortion access is shunned by Democratic Party.
Politics should be driven by the love for ordinary folks, not any pity or disdain. There should be no litmus test for social agenda.
It is very easy to make voters vote against their own interest with money and media. This has been happening since the days of Reagan when auto worker voted like chicken voting for the colonel.
I see that many Democrats privately say that let these red staters lose their social security and Obamacare. So much for the deplorable.
Let us resolve that Democratic Party will strive to bring red stated to our fold. They were the core of our constituents.
7
@M Alem
Fox News made same sex marriage and transgender bathrooms the main issue in 2004 and 2016, not Democrats.
And HRC and Gore won their elections while losing the electoral college. Furthermore, Gore even would have won the electoral college had the Florida overvotes been counted--won by 20,000 votes. So you may want to question whether your positions on issues are actually as popular as you believe them to be.
5
@M Alem I agree democracts were won over to the globalism arguments of big business republicans and many communities have been and continue to be destroyed by off shoring of their local companies. Perhaps an easy destroying of a local town should not be so easy. Also be careful ignoring the lives of the "other" (women, people of color, LGBT, etc.) who somehow do not warrant dignity and respect of the regular folks. Your "love of ordinary folk" sounds dangerously close to "love of ordinary volk" in 30s Germany.
4
@M Alem I th8n’ you grossly underestimate the power of smears and fears. John Kerry was Swift boated to hide or obscure Bush’s Texas Air Service and to try to demean his heroism. Hillary has been the target of smear campaigns for decades. Trumpies still chant “lock hr up” , no evidence required. Willy Horton, birtherism, fear of those who are different panics too many .
1
It is a mainstream center position that people with pre-existing conditions should be able to get affordable health care. That is not a core element of Obamacare, although Democrats sold it on the fear that everyone who was perfectly satisfied with their health insurance was only one insurance cancellation away from being uninsured if they got sick. It was a fraudulent position then and it is fraudulent today to represent that keeping Obamacare alive is the only/best way of providing security.
The narrative that a popular plurality for president reflects the will of the people is fake news. Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 with 43% of the popular vote and Trump won with 46%.
His myth that if you add up all of the votes received for Democrat House members and compare them to the votes received by Republicans that Democrats have more than 50% of the populace. Urban voters are closer geographically to polling places and have higher voter turnout than rural and exurban areas. Voter turnout of Republicans is low in deep blue areas where their candidate has zero probability of winning and vice versa for Democrats in red areas. With voter turnout is less 50% of eligible voters, adding up cast votes is meaningless.
Mr. Krugman is intentionally undermining the legitimacy of American democracy for purely partisan reasons and feeding divisiveness by representing that Republicans are either evil or stupid, which destroys any possibility of reasoned debate.
2
@ebmem
"Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 with 43% of the popular vote and Trump won with 46%. "
But B. Clinton at least got the most votes, more than either Bush or the little fellow from Plano.
In Trump's case he got 3 million fewer votes than HC, a whopping deficit.
So, fake equivalence there, yes?
But I agree; Reform or replace the Electoral College.
4
@ebmem This characterization of the ACA tries to confound its several aspects. Coverage of those with preexisting conditions is guaranteed. Subsidies are available for people who can’t afford insurance, and companies are covered by the requirement that everyone have insurance.
In 1992, Ross Perrot got 19%, distorting the totals. In 2016 third party candidates in total only got about 2%. Hillary Clinton got 50% of the vote, 3 million more than trump.
Krugman simply relates the well-known fact that through gerrymandering Republicans have been able to win more congressional seats than they would based on the popular vote.
Anyone who supports trump has no business accusing anyone else of “intentionally undermining the legitimacy of American democracy for purely partisan reasons and feeding divisiveness.”
4
@ebmem "reasonable debate" begins with all Americans have a right to healthcare, clean air/water, and decent education.
3
Harsh, but accurate. Trump has simply lowered the pitch of the dog whistle down to the level of pundits' hearing.
Someday, Mr. Krugman, someday, you will apologize for your treatment of Bernie Sanders and the rest of us who think Americans want, deserve, and can afford single payer health care and free college tuition at State schools.
All it would take is taxing the uber-rich fairly and cutting our insane defense spending
20
@Oh Please
The phrase "All it would take" reveals heartbreaking naivete. Do you even understand who holds the reins in this country, whether a Democrat or Republican sits in the White House --- or in Congress? Do you understand why defense spending --- essentially government transfer payments of our taxes to the corporations that sustain the military --- is so tightly locked in and a part of our infrastructure? And has been, ever since World War II swept us out of the Depression? We never really hammered our swords into ploughshares. Especially not with the Cold War to keep that spending nice and high, and the economy ticking while people basked in the afterglow.
Go right ahead and try to tax the uber rich "fairly" and cut our defense spending. In your vivid imagination, the nation would become so healthy and peaceful and balmy.
2
There is a simpler explanation for this seeming inconsistency. Perhaps both parties, especially the Republicans, stand to the right of the electorate, and their judgments about voters are merely a reflection of their own opinions, not the opinions of voters. Perhaps attributing right-wing or conservative opinions to voters is simply a pretext for the rightist or conservative biases of politicians and pundits. Most likely it will remain this way until voters demand accountability from their representatives.
5
This is actually old political science: the public is to the left of the elites on economics, but to the right on culture. Prof. Krugman correctly analyzes half this problem. But there are two halves.
13
@Mike Livingston
Not sure about the "culture" argument, especially in terms of religious issues. 1 in 5 Americans is non-religious but virtually none of our elected officials are.
This particular example would suggest that the public is far, far to the "left" of "elites" in terms of religious belief. But it's pretty hard to map "culture" on a left-right spectrum.
The majority of the nation supports progressive policy positions such as Medicare For All, but it doesn't matter what the people think or want or need because our collective voices have been silenced for the last 35+ years. Both parties exist to serve the interests of corporations and the very rich and unless there is Revolution, every aspect of poor and working class lives will continue to be commodified until death.
28
Where Americans stand is constantly shifting and changing. It depends on circumstances like the health of the economy, etc. Sometimes America leans left and sometimes it leans right. Most of the time Americans are in the center. This is why there are more independents than Republicans or Democrats.
3
This is one of the clearest statements of what I and most adults in my family believe. We, however, live in SW Ohio which is a red hotbed of Trumpers and radical Republicans. Without exposure to the wider world, most of us who live here would believe that only what Republicans and Trump stand for is what matters. My social circle is quite narrow as I have found it impossible to mix, mingle, and trade small talk with those who worship Trump and Fox. Women that I have been friends with for more than a decade are so immersed in the Trump Fan Club that I have no areas of common interest any longer with them. It is sad indeed. So, I prize my friends with whom I can speak about my feelings, beliefs, and frustrations and they have told me that they feel the same. The folks whose beliefs you describe Mr. Krugman in your article are out here. But in some areas of America we are isolated indeed and getting lonesome.
22
@Meg
Your feelings of isolation in a sea of red MAGA hats strikes a chord in me. I have many kinfolk and longtime friends who support Trump fervently and are therefore now lost to me as "real and true" confidants. The levels on which I now deal with all those Trumpites are superficial and valueless. Who knew that a man I never met could bust up such once-strong bonds?
Just yesterday I had occasion to visit with some first cousins whom I hadn't seen in a while. The day was pleasant, and our ties are undeniable, but my thoughts kept returning to questions of how these otherwise wonderful people can support a cruel, careless, lying, and unhinged leader. And being admonished by NYT columnists and commenters that we should use such times to develop "dialog" with those who vote differently doesn't help. I've tried it. They are as entrenched in their beliefs as I am in mine.
What, short of revolution, can bridge this divide? I don't know.
Vote in six days.
8
@Meg is difficult and painful for us where family constantly drink fox news' poisonous propaganda.
I don't believe Republicans are out of touch at all. Through multi-pronged master manipulation including FOX-style newstainment propaganda, long term efforts at district gerrymandering and voter suppression, through outright lies and double-speak, they have convinced millions to vote against their own self-interest and well-being. While they appear to despise their victim-constituents, Republicans are able to victimize them exactly because they are in touch with them.
10
"Specifically, both parties believe that the public is to the right of where it really is."
My analysis is "follow the money." Thanks to Citizens United and our campaign finance laws, what the American people want hardly matters anymore--even though we do actually agree on many issues.
Politicians in both parties think the winning game is all about bringing in the most money. The stars of each party are not the ones offering the best legislation to solve our growing problems. It is those who raise the most outside money to run campaigns.
And the media love the big money-advertise your way to winning formula, because those annoying campaign ads, with little substance but a lot of trashing of the opponent, bring in a lot of revenue to the media.
And where do politicians get that money? The easy way is big donors who have an agenda and are willing to pay a lot to politicians to get it accomplished. A clear reason why big lobbying groups such as the realtors' association and Wall Street give tons of money to both parties.
So, psychologically, I think one dynamic is that since business and money interests are largely moderate to right-wing, politicians rationalize that progressive and reform legislation is not "what the people want." When it is.
85% of Americans want a major overhaul of our campaign finance system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/us/politics/poll-shows-americans-favor-overhaul-of-campaign-financing.html
What are the odds politicians will do it?
15
@PB Can I recommend this more then once! Follow the money
5
@Chigirl
It's writ large on the wall of my classroom...right next to the clock.
Krugman is on to something with this column, he just forgot to look in the mirror.
He fails, or is unwilling, to admit that he is one of the leading pundits who overestimate the center-right leanings of the American public. He was in thrall to the center right positions of Hillary and Obama. He denigrated the basically mainstream ideas of Bernie Sanders as "too far left" for the American public. Single payer healthcare and basically free higher education in state schools are now recognized by most as pretty standard successful themes. Krugman just missed the boat because of his blind spots.
16
@Jack Robinson
Maybe he just disagreed with Bernie.
Anyway I wouldn't describe Obama's positions as center-right. This is America, not Europe.
2
@Jack Robinson
And why is your comment relevant? Are you suggesting that because of such alleged bias the current article has no merit? As far as I can tell, nowhere does Mr Krugman claim he was right or wrong about any of this. He is commenting on the findings of others. Yet your comment is specifically directed toward denigrating him, not the article itself. I find this offensive.
3
@Jack Robinson
Bravo, Mr. Robinson. The proof of what you say is in the NYT archives of Professor Krugman's op-eds. I'm a big fan of Krugman but he does have his blind spots. He backed Hilary till the very day she lost the 2016 election. Quite a few public figures predicted Trump's victory. They were not blind about Hilary, the professor was.
4
Joe and Mary Sixpack are not politicians' constituency. Nor are Middle Class Max and Marge. Their constituency are the billionaires and corporate donors and they certainly know what those guys want.
11
If you try to encapsulate the difference between republicans and democrats it comes down to this simple distinction: Democrats are for good government; Republicans are for no government. Democrats want to improve government; Republicans want to defund and dismantle it. Michael Lewis’ new book “The Fifth Risk” documents the case for departments of the government that are nearly invisible yet invaluable for their management of the incredible array of risks we face. Unless Democrats make the case for them - sell their value to citizens - they are vulnerable. If Republicans have their way these bulwarks of our way of life will disappear after which, come the consequences, those same Republicans will say “Who knew?” , and declare their innocence. No one will be innocent.
14
@Michael Chapman SOME Democrats want to improve government. Many are just centrist Republicans in drag.
@Michael Chapman Excellent strawman
1
Krugman writes, "So what are the effects of this delusion of America as a center-right nation? It has clearly inhibited Democrats from taking bold policy positions, out of fear that they’ll be too far left for voters..." I gather then that it was Krugman's shared delusion that made him promote Clinton and trash Sanders during the 2016 presidential campaign.
8
Nightmarish Neoliberalism, Krugman!
Violent extremism aside, nothing that I have ever experienced in my life leads me to the conclusion that American society has been damaged beyond repair.
But if the salve doesn’t come quickly, that’s going to change.
3
My Dear Paul,
if the electorate is so very liberal as you say, why does the right wing GOP currently control the WH, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court,
etc., etc.
you need to do a lot of explaining
1
@David
Dear David,
He did. Please read again.(hint: paragraph 5).
2
True. Remember what was said about FDR: the last time the Democrats nominated a socialist for President they elected him four times!
Just look at the success of Bernie Sanders. Also proves most Americans aren't anti-Semitic.
I do believe in the general election Bernie would have defeated Trump; he would have carried all the States Hillary did plus Michigan (he won the primary), Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania- that's the ballgame.
7
@Lance W. Here's the thing... I agree that Bernie beats The Donald BUT Bernie is not a total package bottom line we need better candidates, we need to overturn CU and get rid of gerrymandering and get rid of the electoral college and the power of the states like Wyoming to hold us hostage ....
5
@Lance W.
If you take away the labels, your right Bernie would be leading us now. What is so wrong to have health care for all , a decent place to work, unpolluted water, the ability to sue when corporation's sell us products that they know will kill us. Think of Volkswagen. Flint Michigan bad water. No access to birth control,
What is so wrong to be treated like a human being who is entailed to respect. I am so tired of being tired listening to the same arguments of hate . it is 2018 and we still act as if we are in the backward middle ages. Who cares if Trump has mental issues as long as he doest have the chance to put children into cages. We are all so tired of the status quo. Let's just go and vote for representative who are like Bernie on November 6 and bring this terrible sadness to an end..
4
What is the Trump? It's the end of the world as we know it. The right wing, trickle down, propaganda driven power and money grab by the rich ( because, make no mistake, its about the money, honey) has been stretched out over forty years, and now its getting pretty thin (like a chiclet -remember chiclets?- stretched to the moon is getting thin). As we used to say in the seventies when the "I Found It!" mass movement fundamentalist publicity push was getting started, the further you spread it, the thinner it gets. But nothing disgusts like excess, and the more that the masters of the universe get what they want, the more it occurs to the more intelligent of their functionaries, or anyone who is paying attention, really, that this is and always was only about shipping more money to the rich, who had gotten powerful enough to buy more power, to get more money, to buy more power.... They have lost pretty much everyone but the truly hardcore, and cannot win elections unless they cheat. But even their cheating is known and expected now. Everybody knows the emperor has no clothes --though the faithful choose to see them still, their numbers are falling, so forget about those guys. The republican party is going to need a new paradigm going forward, to appeal to a real majority, and it cannot be based upon further comforting the already too-comfortable.
5
I think what we are seeing here is what happens when the lies wear out, when they don't work anymore. Old lies are replaced by newer ones and an increasing desperation.
3
Too much attention is devoted to imaginative and ingenious analyses of Trump. A week or two ago here in THE TIMES one of your commentators got it half right: he's a landlord right out of the nineteenth century melodrama. The other half is equally simple: in NYC terms, he's an Outer Boro, stand-pat, put-up-the-fences, NIMBY conservative. Simple; not really.
[Note: before the wholesale destruction of what Manhattan once was, with its tight ethnic and class enclaves, what with massive "urban renewal" and "gentrification", what was true of the Outer Boros into the 1970's/early 80', was once true of Manhattan, as well.]
1
What hasn't been adequately covered or revealed is the emotional underpinnings of the right wing to sway Americans to their viewpoint. Most Republicans I know, when asked what they really want, will invariably describe Democratic objectives. It doesn't matter when I point this out to them because their perceptions of Democrats are quite nasty. To them Democrats are weak and indecisive, lavishing hard-earned tax dollars on foreigners and lazy people, afraid to do what is necessary when necessary, wanting to create a Kumbaya world where you can't be real, willing to sacrifice our national health to serve some international bidding, and are beholden to liberal elites who have an agenda which mostly defies reason.
It has taken a lot of time and effort to achieve this perception but through defining events that demonstrate these ideas and incessant repetition of these slights, the right wing has tapped into Americans' resentment which is illogical and wholly emotional. Resentment was the key and it is shown in the joy some of our fellow citizens reveal when "liberals" are pained by this president's actions. You can't fight resentment head on, can't show it to be false, because it is emotional and ingrained and becomes an attack on their identity. All that can be done is to point it out whenever it comes up.
Democrats also need to be clearer in their messaging and be aware that they are not fighting on a level ground. Also something needs to be done about right wing media.
6
@Lukas Good comment. Fox has been the media outlet for Republicans since its inception. Even the name Fox is a gloss. The station functions like a pack of hounds chasing after and identifying Liberals to hate. It gives its viewers something to hunt, something they may even meet, a fellow American who is the cause of all that is wrong with their country. Equipped with a description of the enemy, they have an answer and nobody can talk them out of it.
Well, what we get wrong is equality. Without equality, then democracy is really an illusion: too few with too much influence over US.
Until we face the issues of taxation and benefits, we continue down the destructive path. What good is luxuries and decadence if they come at the price of poverty? We're either in this together or we'll continue to fight like mad dogs (and you can certainly see who's winning that fight).
No, economics, standard of living, quality of life, equality, tax policy: that's America's political desert and spiritual cemetery.
2
@ttrumbo do you feel that those who have wealth have taken it from those who don’t?
1
Republicans have owned the majority in Congress for the past 16 out of 20 years and have stolen two presidential elections in that time. Meanwhile Democrats as the ones out of power have been branded as radicals for defending what the majority really want, a safety net and the leveling of gross income inequality. Republicans have also allowed the rich to control the discussion shielded by Citizen United . That Democrats are the only ones protecting social security, Medicare and Medicaid does not sink in because republican voters assume that these things so much a part of our culture can not be touched. They'd rather fight over a few immigrants rather than acknowledge the real threat to them.
Democrats should not stop fighting for a socially responsible nation even as they are smeared by right wing ideologues. It is tempting to think that Democrats should just let our social protections disappear as desired by Mitch McConnell and his ilk and this may still happen. But perhaps it is the only way that republicans will wake up to what is happening to them. But the fight to get it restored would be truly horrifying and the cause for deep misery.
6
I get depressed when I read the NY Times. All of my life up until the last two years I've been a Democrat. I've hoped that reason would prevail.
Last year my aunt died of cancer. She was relatively poor. During the last 6 months of her life my cousins spent what seemed every moment of their lives preventing Medicare from evicting her from her nursing home which would have led to a sooner death. That drama is played out again and again in homes across Middle America.
But liberals seem to have lost touch. Obamacare is a Rube Goldberg device that ordinary Americans don't understand. Perhaps it has incentives designed to make it work better, but if the people don't understand it that is a defect. (Yet Jonathan Gruber regarded the lack of transparency a political advantage.)
A universal health care system would force us to look at costs more realistically. I believe the consideration of projected costs into the future would illustrate that we need to educate more doctors and restrict population growth.
Perhaps I am wrong, but Obamacare provides unnecessary complexity which makes it impossible to determine the real costs of health care to society as a whole. And to communicate those statistics in a meaningful way to Americans we trust to vote.
There is a fear among the poor that the migrant carivan will take away what health care they still have. Many of America's poor wait in line in the ER behind large families speaking Spanish.
That explains the rise of Trump.
1
@Jake Wagner
Jake, if it was not for the democrats, your aunt would not even have had Medicare. MCConnel wants to drastically amend social security, Medicare and medical benefits. Many American citizens do not realize that undocumented immigrants are not entitled to medical benefits unless it is for an emergency, then every individual can receive emergency assistance citizen or not. However, if their children are citizens they, are entitled. What is wrong speaking another language Jake? My grandfather came to the US in 1901 from Mexico. My people have been here for over 100 years. Caucasians need to realize that just because one is Hispanic does not mean you are a recent immigrant. My ancestors were in the southwest 175 years before the English landed at Plymouth Rock. Think about that, we were all immigrants at one time or another. I speak fluent Spanish and Italian, so what does that mean?
7
@Jake Wagner it sounds like rules for Medicare was not working for you. But you didn't communicate fully what happened. Your comments are thus confusing. And Immigrants "taking away" our healthcare is a republican lie.
1
Do Americans actually know what they want? No. Largely because all they are presented with are menus with Red and Blue covers that offer an assortment of items to choose from, but they aren't really interested in the offerings largely because the menu was chosen by the funders of the parties and the campaigns.
Trump at least appears to listen to We-the-People hence he is popular with a good sized segment of the population by reflecting what he perceives are the grievances of the people, at least the conservative side of the population.
I suggested many times that Hillary should have played "Oprah" to Trump's "Apprentice" by actually doing something on the macro scale that she did when she ran for Senate - listen to people, ordinary people, just plain citizens, and learn.
Americans don't have a clue as to what they really want, they only have two unappealing menus filled with stuff that somebody tells them they want and warns them that the other side's menu is deadly poison.
Americans are ignored in favor of those who fund the parties and campaigns neither of which actually care about anyone but themselves.
2
@George N. Wells much of what you say rings true for me. But our society is doing very dangerous, hurtful things, tax cuts to the rich, threats of cuts to Medicare and Social Security. We need a non-republican gov. immediately.
1
So the substance of this article is that people want free stuff.
Big surprise.
However : There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Totally misses the point. Two senators per state = rural power.
That was the compromise made to form The Union.
People who are educated go to be where other educated people live - the "Coastal Elites".
That's the majority but it to the only degree it matters is in the House until the browning demographic overtakes everything.
1
Dems may well win the policy war when they stop insisting on losing the culture war. Bring some intellectual diversity to newsrooms and Hollywood, denounce not only the language of Antifa and BLM but also of HuffPo and Vox, stop comparing your friends and neighbors with a tincture of conservative values to Mussolini. From an actual center-right person who has voted Democrat in the past.
3
@Ian, regarding BLM, I'm white, but I'm against the killing of black people for being black. There are a few people who have problems with that stance, i.e., the disingenuous "all lives matter" crowd, who could just as well shout "all freedom matters" as a response to abolitionists. But I believe most people in America believe everyone, no matter what skin color, should have the same rights, that police officers shouldn't be able to gun people down, unless they represent a threat to people's safety, but skin color couldn't be counted as a reason.
As far as Antifa, if being anti-fascist offends you, in WW II we had a whole army of Antifa fighting in Europe and the Pacific. I can't imagine life for our country if the Axis powers had won.
If you support genocide and fascism, who can we compare you to?
I agree. Democrats are cowed by the delusion that America is a center-right country. Otherwise how to explain their reluctance to take credit for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and now--the ACA. Heaven forbid they should be labeled out-of-touch lefties or a socialist mob--hell bent on delivering affordable healthcare and retirement income to an unwitting and helpless electorate. The nerve.
2
"congressional aides grossly misperceive the views of their bosses' constituents"
Constituents views about DEMOCRACY are also likely to be very different from their representatives. In 2002, John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse wrote the book Stealth Democracy 2002. Their research found that "Americans don't want to have to see democracy in practice, nor do they want to be involved in politics. If American citizens had their way, political decisions would be made by unselfish decision-makers, lessening the need for monitoring government."
The problem is NO human (or algorithm) is "unselfish" (or unbiased)—the best we can get is people who are committed to serve the public good by engaging with "the public" (requires public participation) so our representatives know what is in the public good.
If we want to keep democracy going another 200+ years, we need to work through the messiness of democracy together and know that in some cases democracy requires difficult compromises (and too many unintended consequences) and continual improvement of our imperfect nation will always be needed.
2
Lewis Carroll pointed out well over a century ago that it was extremely important to study Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. I had not fully understood this curriculum until now.
4
Perhaps it's time to change our Constitution to make our government more parliamentarian. It's frustrating to go year after year with nationwide Democratic majorities for President and for the House and Senate -- but watch Republicans control the House and Senate because of our system.
The Electoral College, the two Senators per state principle -- all good ideas for an agrarian society trying to build national unity among a less educated populace. But perhaps those things are an anachronism that inhibits real democracy in the 21st century.
4
So, how is it that Republican politicians can live within a bubble where their biases do not jibe with the needs of their constituents, and these Republicans still win elections? Do voters like their looks? Or do voters root for party members like they root for local teams, with irreversible partisanship? Maybe the need for someone to hate is so ingrained in us, we vote for someone who's good at giving us someone to hate. Or are we like the sheep in Animal Farm who are easily led and bleat "Four legs good. Two legs bad"? Well, whatever it is, it's absurd. Why'd someone vote against his own self interest? Makes you wonder, don't it?
2
It’s amazing that this is the first time a piece like this has appeared. I live in the bluest part of a blue state, but when I tour by bicycle through red rural parts of neighboring Wisconsin and Iowa, the conversations I have with people at grocery stores and taverns leads me to believe that most people are actually pretty left wing. When you remove the fear of the “other”.
5
This is a 'feel good' piece for those of us who still hope that the country is not changing into a fascist, authoritarian nation. But here are the reasons why coming up with a more left-center message is not enough.
1. Fox News 24/7 right wing propaganda machine.
2. Incompetent, feckless Democratic messaging.
3. Anger and hate drive voters to the polls; medicare for all does not.
4. The Electoral College, which amplifies the voting clout of the rural, isolated and ignorant.
Add these to your recipe, Dr. Krugman, and perhaps we can live in a kinder, more tolerant society once again.
2
Paul, Thank you for saying this out loud. One item you left out: the power of donors.
According to research by Michael Barber that found "senators’ preferences reflect the preferences of the average donor better than any other group. Senators from both parties are slightly more ideologically extreme than the average co-partisan in their state and those who voted for them in 2012. Finally, senators’ preferences diverge dramatically from the preference of the average voter in their state. The degree of divergence is nearly as large as if voters were randomly assigned to a senator. These results show that in the case of the Senate, there is a dearth of congruence between constituents and senators—unless these constituents are those who write checks and attend fund-raisers". It is time to repeal Citizens United. This is our only hope to compel candidates and elected officials to listen to voters, rather than donors.
2
I disagree that there's a delusion to the right. Today's political scene is a result of an amplified tribalism across society. Whether we like to admit it or not - humans are skewed or predestined toward tribal behavior. If you don't accept that due to people's dependency on their tribe in the distant past meant survival; then you may not accept that we remain "set-up" or unconsciously receptive to tribalism today. You may instead may agree with Krugman or his protracted "social science" claim. The tribalism amplification or the increase in political polarization is not a beneficial thing for our country, or us. Election losses that used to be treated as "our candidate lost but we'll be back next election" is now viewed as "this is a catastrophe and the sky is falling" . The media is probably more responsible than any one entity for this loss of "good conduct".
1
Whether or not they know what voters want, Republicans have shown that they are committed to ignoring it, if it involves raising taxes or getting in the way of anyone's ability to make as much money as they can, society be damned.
They are betting that people will understand that if you are willing to throw some people under the bus, the others can do quite nicely. Investors don't make money by investing in society's under performers. If the economic elites all stick together and say, we'd like to help you, but we have more important things to do with our money, people start to believe it.
5
''Specifically, both parties believe that the public is to the right of where it really is.'' - which is why true Progressive/Liberal candidates are winning special elections and primaries. (against very entrenched incumbents)
No longer is a Liberal deemed a dirty word.
These candidates are reflecting the polls that have any Progressive policy wildly popular (even among republicans) Things like Single Payer health care, a living wage, human rights and even peace.
THIS is what the voters have been hunger for. (especially that 100,000,000 that usually sit on the sidelines)
Finally America will look in the mirror and realize that it is a Progressive country bordering on Socialist.
3
Back when Obama was president, Democrats had a choice.
They could have pushed for universal health care in the US, which is simple and easy to understand. That would have required a discussion of costs, perhaps an increase in taxes, perhaps an increase in the number of doctors trained.
Instead, Democrats pushed for what Krugman himself has described as a Rube Goldberg device, a complicated system of various levels of insurances, and a mandate that would force healthy individuals to buy insurance from insurance companies.
Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist was partly responsible for designing Obamacare. Wikipedia describes a controversial video in which
"Gruber said the bill was deliberately written "in a tortured way" to disguise the fact that it creates a system by which "healthy people pay in and sick people get money". He said this obfuscation was needed due to "the stupidity of the American voter" in ensuring the bill's passage. Gruber said the bill's inherent "lack of transparency is a huge political advantage" in selling it."
The result is that ordinary Americans, the plumbers and police officers and car salesmen, don't understand Obamacare and cannot make rational decisions about it.
Jonathan Gruber, and perhaps intellectuals in general, hold up such ordinary Americans for ridicule in essay after essay in the NY Times. Yes, they use complete sentences and refrain from coarse language.
But their essays are as filled with hatred as the writings of David Duke.
6
A gullible populace allows apparatchik propagandists to implant beliefs, fears, and so-called thoughts as their own. Until the pocket-picking comes too close to home, and then, maybe, they catch on.
Trump's strangle-hold on political discourse today is choking off the life blood of America: our ability to work together in dealing with important issues that affect our lives and the world we live in.
Virtually everything he does (policies and ideas, tweets, rallies, off-the-cuff remarks, daily lies and misstatements, informal press conferences) sows fear and distrust that appeals to our darker angels and rips our nation apart. He revels in the chaos he creates. He is the worst President in U.S, history. If the past 22+ months is any predictor, the next 26 months will be even worse regardless of who wins the midterms. He is, without doubt, an existential threat to our Democracy, national security and sanity. He is our president and he is our curse.
5
@Ed Greenhill
The overwhelming majority of Americans have more in common with what they want from immigration law than where they differ.
Common agreement:
Children brought to the country as children and raised as Americans should have permanent legal status as long as they are law abiding and not an excess drain on public resources.
Illegal aliens working off-the-books or using identity theft should be prosecuted for identity theft and tax evasion, as well as for fraudulently receiving benefits for their American born children based on their fraudulent applications, the same as American citizens.
Economic migrants are not eligible for asylum or refugee status. People given refugee status because of natural disasters should go home to fix their countries when conditions have returned to normal for their home country. Americans pumped billions of dollars into Haiti to rebuild had the refugees in Haiti promptly returned to Haiti, perhaps some of that money would have been used for rebuilding rather than allowing corrupt NGOs to enrich themselves in collusion with corrupt American and Haitian government actors. Perhaps if US media had not suppressed the reporting of Haitian refugees protesting at Hillary rallies asking what her husband did with the money, corruption would have been reduced.
Democrats prefer to act as if sending the refugees home represents humanitarian cruelty. For a situation they created.
1
So the majority of voters are fine with racism but otherwise they want a socialist state?
I was shopping for a dehumidifier the other night, and I imagined Rush Limbaugh's folksy, blustery voice in my ear exhorting me to "buy the CONSERVATIVE dehumidifier! Not the LIBRUL (sic) one! Libruls (sic) are the cause of every single problem in the world, today! Librul'ism is a disease! Libruls and their dehumidifiers can't be reasoned with, they must be DEFEATED!" Of course, there is no such thing as a liberal or conservative dehumidifier, only good ones and bad ones.
Is it possible that for certain issues, people (deep down) simply want what they think is the best solution, not based on some rigid-until-it's-not general philosophy (like conservatism on free trade)? Is everyone who despises Trump a radical left wing America-hating socialist? Is everyone who expresses reservations about the federal government's ability to solve the problems of humanity an automatic Trump-loving tea-party dittohead?
This thing is snowballing. People who grew up not knowing what a liberal or conservative even meant are now rabidly identifying themselves as such (usually conservative, though not always . . . and in my small sample size, they often still don't know what they mean.
Don't just reject liberal/conservative extremism. Unless you just coincidentally agree with every position one of those philosophies (currently) holds, reject the labels!
@allaboard32
Your comment reflects that you have been brainwashed into believing there is no commonality between the objectives of conservatives and progressives. [Progressives have appropriated the term "liberal". In its classical sense, liberals are advocates of individual liberty, free markets and property rights, the foundations of capitalism. Progressives are believers in government control of the means of production and the benevolent redistribution of wealth.]
The reality is that both sides have the same objectives but differ in the ways the objectives are likely to be achieved.
You count yourself as a progressive, despite the fact that you do not comprehend what it means. You look down on your friends who identify as conservatives, assuming they are too ignorant to understand what it means.
You do not even recognize the irony in your opinion of Trump's position on free trade. Trump is not an ideologue, he is a pragmatist. Trump and Republicans in general think international free trade is optimal. But trade agreements are never free trade, they always contain some preference. So Trump wants to renegotiate. Democrats, in general, favor trade agreements that favor certain crony groups, like unionized workers and favored industries. Everyone likes trade agreements, as long as their vested interests get a little edge.
You apparently are reading Trump's position on trade as hypocritical. In fact, it is the result more of a non-rigid flexibility.
@ebmem
Did you actually read my post? I do not identify as a progressive. I no longer identify as a conservative, either.(position by position, a slight majority of my views are probably still what’s called conservative, but it’s hard to tell). I don’t look down on any of my friends, liberal or conservative.
I DO look down on Rush Limbaugh, I’ll confess to that.
My whole point is that I REJECT the categorization (and by extension, demonization) of broad political groups.
I’m an engineer by trade. I don’t look for conservative or liberal solutions to problems; just ones that work. If I’m the only one, so be it. I suspect I’m not.
Actually, most Americans are probably with or maybe slightly to the left the Democrats on economic issues, but to their right on cultural/social issues. Why is that so hard for NYT and liberals to understand? Because liberals can't be happy unless they are dictating how strangers live in their personal lives, dictating who they live near or with, what they think?
4
@me I find the irony very rich, and very sad in your comments. Substitute 'liberals' for 'conservatives...'. Which party wants to utterly dictate the personal, reproductive choices women make in their lives, decide who can marry whom, make sweeping decisions about less than straightforward gender identities and essentially relegate anyone who does not conform to the sidelines?? Republicans have screamed about 'identity politics' embraced by the Democrats, but they are simply the opposite (and fear mongering, intrusive, misogynist, xenophobic) side of the same coin.
4
Unfortunately repubs have shown that they simply do NOT care what their voters want. They want power and will hold on to it at any cost, all the whole boldly lying to their constituency. The voters think they are republican because they always have been or grew up that was and don't look beyond the ads and rhetoric to actually see how their rep is voting. They all want to protect pre-existing conditions and every ad confirms they will but the votes speak the truth. The don't care that the mainstream is moderate and actually more liberal than they think. They are NOT representing their constituency at all
@klrad
Evangelical Christians were reliable Democrat voters until they were evicted by the Democrats over abortion. White working class voters were reliably Democrat voters until Hillary announced she was putting all coal miners out of work and manufacturing workers who relied on low electricity costs realized they were going to be flushed out of their jobs too. It was stunningly heartbreaking to Democrats to discover that if you introduced policies that injured core supporters who had always blindly voted Democrat that they were smart enough to switch to Republican.
Hillary, for all of her credentials, as well as Democrats, are oblivious to the reality of what voters want. They thought they could single out coal miners, who are a tiny constituency and that the rest of blue collar workers would not see through to the consequences of the Democrat war on fossil fuels.
It was Democrats who had been abandoned by Democrats who put Trump over the top, who joined with the majority of voters with a college degree to elect Trump.
Hillary was left with a majority of voters who lack a high school diploma along with various single issue aggrieved groups.
Republicans want people with pre-existing condition to have access to quality health care. Obamacare, with its huge wealth transfers to big medicine, is the worst possible solution. Had John McCain voted in favor of repealing Obamacare, Republicans would have begun to mend the damage inflicted by Democrats.
Could some email this Op-Ed to Mr. Bruni? Thank you!
I, a (formerly) 4x4 voting democrat left the party because I just no longer believed what I was being told. My father, also a lifelong Dem, raised me to only read right leaning publications so I always had both sides of the issues at hand.
What was the little snowball for me? One little internet video. Just a medical video of an actual (10 week) abortion. I was always told it was "just a fetus", "a mass of cells", and "hardly recognizable as human". I wont describe it in detail, but it was enough to push me (right) into the middle.
After that, Identity politics finished me off. Calling %40 of the country literal Nazis and the rest of the non left a bunch of istaphobic-phobo-phobes is just something that should not have been done. How are the two sides to come together after being made out to be the most vile human scum ever?
4
@Paul says that " Calling %40 of the country literal Nazis and the rest of the non left a bunch of istaphobic-phobo-phobes is just something that should not have been done."
And, as far as I know, no one has done so. A Google search on "40% of country nazi" cannot find anyone who has done so. A Google search on "istaphobic-phobo-phobes" comes up with absolutely zero hits.
Please, Paul, tell us who has said these things, so that we can heap upon that person the shame that s/he so richly deserves.
2
@Dan Styer
LOL.
One thing I have not seen mentioned about Bush's push to privatize Social Security is how fortunate it was for the Republicans that they failed, since the great recession was right around the corner.
8
@Charles
It is unfortunate for you that you never actually read the proposals. They would have increased the progressivity of the system to benefit those at the bottom of the income level at the expense of those at the top. No one who was 55 at the time would have been affected, so the great recession that lasted 15 months would not have reduced anyone's Social Security benefit.
The Bush proposal would have increased the maximum salary subject to payroll taxes so that it would increase revenues. It would increase basic benefits, for everyone below the 75th income percentile, and decrease the benefits for those above the 75th percentile even though they were the only ones who were paying more in payroll taxes. In exchange, they would be allowed to divert a proportion of their contributions into a segregated account.
Since everyone below the 75th percentile would get bigger benefits and the people above the 75th percentile would pay more and get less, the question you should be asking is why did the Democrats object.
The changes would have also rebalanced the funding to prevent the 20% across the board benefit cuts that will occur in 2034 unless the system is fixed.
U.S. was Right-of-Center when her working class enjoyed “middle-class” wages and the ‘Welfare Society’. Even Richard Nixon supported the ‘Single Payer System’ of health care! But ironically this success made them “conservative” --- and vote for their own extinction over a period of three decades. Hence the Bernie Sanders-Trump challenges in 2016! While Sanders was accommodated within the Democratic Party, Trump’s hostile take-over of the GOP ended it for good. Trump, the Billionaire Populist failed his voters on Health Care and Taxes. In a way, that was good for American democracy. Had he fulfilled his promises, “National Socialism” would have proved its fidelity to the ‘middle class’ and become a fixture in the US political scene. In Europe, where populists are Left-of-Center, the danger to democracy is greater.
It is vital that the progressive-liberal intellectuals support ‘Medicare For All’ and a change in tax-spending priorities. This is not a tactical move against Trumpism; it is to free the “middle class” of the shackles GOP put on them --- with Trump’s help.
4
@T. Ramakrishnan
Nixon was not a conservative. He imposed wage and price controls. He was re-elected in a landslide, with McGovern getting a plurality only in DC and Massachusetts.
It was not related to anything except that McGovern was campaigning exclusively on an anti Viet Nam war platform, and Nixon declared an end to the war a month before the election. This is similar to Obama announcing a delay in the implementation of Obamacare in 2012, that he had defeated terrorism, and declaring DACA before the election. Pick items that the polls say are important, and change your position or lie.
Americans are currently right-of-center. Republican voters want people with pre-existing conditions to have access to quality healthcare something Obamacare does not offer.
Sanders was not accommodated by the Democrats, they did everything possible to prevent him from getting the nomination.
1
@ebmem
Compared to today’s Libertarian conservatives, pragmatic Nixon was indeed a liberal! Also, the political climate then permitted him then to approach Ted Kennedy with a proposal for a ‘Single Payer System’ (Medicare For All). Polls do support your contention that “Republican voters want people with pre-existing conditions to have access to quality healthcare”. But GOP has not proposed or produced any such legislation while it holds the White House and both houses of Congress.
Hillary Clinton won the ‘policy-based’ campaign against Bernie Sanders’, but incorporated most of his agenda into her Platform. Sanders too worked whole heartedly for her --- unlike the GOP elders who boycotted the ‘Convention’ and the presidential campaign, till President Trump embraced the Establishment’s negative positions on health care, infrastructure and tax relief to the super-Rich.
This article articulates the old trap that has confounded Democrats and liberals for decades. Americans conceptually want fair treatment of all citizens and equal rights but...they don't want to pay higher taxes and they don't want schools and neighborhoods being populated with poor people threatening their secure havens. This was what drove the school busing controversy in Boston in the 70s and multiple controversies about putting low income housing in middle class neighborhoods. Republicans have successfully exploited the need for personal security. They paint Democrats as weak on crime and threatening to the culture they have known. Those who hope for a change in societal priorities are indulging in wishful thinking in spite of survey results to the contrary. Republicans and especially Donald Trump know that FEAR TRUMPS ideals.
1
@Steve
The classical definition of "liberal" is someone who believes in individual rights, the rule of law and property rights. Democrats are no longer liberals, and Republicans are more closely aligned with liberal values.
Democrats are better described as people who think the government should control the means of production, redistribute wealth and do not trust voters to make rational decisions.
You can tell from the comments which are Democrats posting, because they consistently highlight the ignorance and stupidity of Republican voters, and make wild generalizations of the evilness or stupidity of Republican voters because Republicans hold an overwhelming majority of elected offices in the country.
Ironically, the public schools in the South are integrated, and the public schools in Boston and NYC are not, despite the fact that they could be integrated by moving a few attendance zone lines while in the South we built schools in locations to facilitate integration.
In 2009, 95% of Americans were satisfied with their health insurance and their access to health care. Democrats promoted their Obamacare proposal based on the unsubstantiated fear mongering that everyone was one insurance cancellation away from being uninsurable. In the 2009 summer recess, Democrats held town halls and were shocked when their constituents, Democrat and Republican, did not want the proposed provisions. They voted for it any way and lost the House by not listening to the voters.
Republicans can't run on their policies, which are entirely about enriching wealthy donors and corporations at the expense of everyone else. As they exclusively represent the rich, Republicans have nothing to offer 99% of voters, and no ideas beyond cutting taxes for the wealthy, eliminating programs that benefit the non-wealthy, and breaking down impediments to constituents' greed. They must therefore campaign on division, fear, hatred, bigotry, and lies. Their approach has been to use an extensive propaganda apparatus to develop a loyal "base" large enough to consistently win elections without the need for other voters. And also to disenfranchise those other voters through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and perhaps the assistance of friends in Russia.
Democrats SHOULD be able to campaign successfully by first exposing the Republican agenda for what it is, and then by offering a superior alternative, a system that benefits and provides opportunity for everyone, not just the wealthy. Although a few people like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich are doing that, Democratic politicians and candidates seem terrified of speaking out. Democrats largely sit in silence as Republicans attack and dictate the form and content of political discourse.
I would guess campaign finance is the reason for Democratic timorousness. They're beholden to wealthy donors, many of whom also "invest" in Republicans. They would not want to offend those donors, who are quite happy with the status quo.
8
@Ted
Eighty percent of individuals who file income tax returns are getting a tax cut. Big corporate taxpayers like Walmart are giving one third of their tax cut to workers, one third to stockholders [including municipal pension funds] and one third in reduced prices to consumers. Republicans do not do a good job of explaining the benefits of their policy, because Republican voters are smart enough and well educated enough to understand intended consequences that flow from policy directions.
Democrat voters have been brainwashed, so there is little point in attempting to explain complexity to them. They respond only to 30 second sound bites that inflame them.
Next time Forbes comes out with their richest Americans list, check out the top 100 or 200 names for party affiliation. The top 0.1% are 90% dark money Democrat donors. Democrats collect ten times the amount of dark money as Republicans, which they use to produce 30 seconds emotional propaganda that keep their base of emotional uneducated voters fired up.
The top 0.1% wants illegal aliens to work for low wages in jobs that they would have to pay more to get Americans to do. This does not apply only to farm workers and workers in meatpacking plants. It also applies to "skilled" H-1B workers who are cheaper than the American IT workers being laid off to make way for Indian outsourcing companies.
The Democrats are the party of dark money.
Unfortunately, millions of American 'swing' voters seem to forget what they stand for about 2 out of every 3 times that they vote.
People can be convinced at the last minute by TV advertising and Farcebook news, and that is a core problem that will probably only get worse.
Speech is sacrosanct in our country and cannot be regulated. However, political actions once in office could be. What if backsliding on a specific policy promise, such as protecting pre-existing conditions, was a felony?
That may be going to far, but perhaps all candidates for Congress should be made to answer a standardized survey that asks very specifically where they stand on a dozen key issues. Then at least there would be some reference from which to hold them to account.
6
@Eric
When Obama and Hillary were debating in 2008 for the Democrat nomination, Obama pledged that his universal health insurance would not have an individual mandate and Hillary said hers would, because it wouldn't work otherwise. How was Obama held to account.
They both contended they were opposed to same sex marriage. The same time Obama was elected president, California voted an amendment to their constitution that marriage was defined as between a man and a woman. Within four years, Democrats had fabricated a right for same sex marriage despite the positions of Obama and Hillary as well as being against the will of voters in California, of all places, hardly a hotbed of conservatism.
Trump's campaign promises were to roll back the regulatory overreach of Obama, cut taxes, renegotiate trade agreements, abolish Obamacare, exit the Paris Accord, appoint conservative justices to SCOTUS, enforce immigration laws as written.
Although he has not achieved all of his campaign promises in less than two years, it's not because he has abandoned those promises, although it may take a full eight years to get there. Swing voters in 2016 got what they requested.
Obama broke every one of his campaign promises made in 2008. Swing voters in 2008 and 2012 did not get what they were promised. Even hard core Democrats switched to Republican in 2016.
A lot of Republican candidates are telling their constituents that they favor requiring insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions. Of course none of them can explain how they are going to do it. I have a message for them - you can't cover preexisting conditions unless there is also some form of a healthcare mandate.
5
@W.A. Spitzer You cannot cover pre-existing conditions under Obamacare affordably, because people can wait until they are sick before enrolling in Obamacare. Even before the Republicans eliminated the individual mandate, the IRS did not have the power to collect it.
There are multiple other ways of covering pre-existing conditions other than charging healthy people insurance premiums that are five times the actuarial value of their expected health care costs or make them pay a penalty.
The message for you is that only simpletons believe there is only a single way to solve a complex problem.
Even if Americans are, generally, further on the left side of the spectrum than expected, it wouldn't necessarily avail Democratic congresspeople to align themselves as such: they are, for the most part, well to do Americans who will incur the brute of the economic deceleration induced by socializing industries. Inherent in our constitution are limitations set on the majority/working class; furthermore, congress works incrementally--considerate of human nature and restricted by judicial precedents, both of which serve and protect classic liberalism.
Candidates and pundits alike need to spend more time talking to ordinary voters of all political viewpoints. Get away from the Acela corridor and talk to people.
3
It is of course a standard reply for the right to answer "this is not what America is" whenever facing a liberal proposal (from health care to public transport). The hidden message is "if you're not conservative, you're not a true American". And as every American wants to be a true American, many buy it. What is more surprising is indeed that even supposedly educated pundits have fallen for the same trap.
5
This is what I have been feeling, more and more. We are living with minority government that is much more conservative than the public.
11
@MN
Republicans are in the majority. Democrats are in the minority. Math is hard.
Those who have to file W2 forms and/or who earn less than 300k should vote for the Dems. Maybe the fascination with guns, abortion or race prevent them from doing so. They really need to focus on the low salaries paid to average workers in the US, who cannot afford more than bare necessities, decent health care, a home of their own or a secure retirement.
In addition, many of the under 50 year olds have college debt that crushes them. These people really need to vote out ALL of the GOP representatives on Nov 6.
23
I totally agree that America is more liberal than the pundits and politicians think. But here's the problem: Americans don't vote in great enough numbers to conflate "Americans" with "voters". That is to say comparing voters and Americans may be comparing apples and oranges.
I happen to believe that if the entire electorate voted or had equal access to the polls, we would have a much more left leaning government. But what we have is a concerted effort by Republicans to keep more left-leaning people from the polls and an election system that makes it much more difficult for working people to vote. If a minimum wage worker has to wait in line for hours to vote and a rich suburban person can vote in 5 minutes, you are going to get a skewed result. Until we make it uniformly easy to vote and most Americans exercise their right to vote, we won't know where "Americans" stand.
That being said, the real "inside-the- Beltway delusion" is that most Americans are even paying enough attention to politics to make informed decisions. I'm afraid that the truth is most Americans don't even know who is running for office let alone who their representatives are.
42
@SC
Democrat voters tend to be less educated than Republican voters and also lower income. They tend to have lower voter turnout as a consequence. Democrats like to pretend that Republicans suppress voting rights to fire up their uneducated supporters which tends to make them somewhat more motivated to vote. They are using the Tom Sawyer ploy that makes it so desirable to whitewash the fence that workers are willing to pay to do so.
The consequence is that minority turnout in red states is far higher than in blue states. Minority turnout in Massachusetts is the lowest in the country. As a Republican, I think it's great that there is high minority turnout in red states, and yet Republicans still get elected. It puts the lie to the Democrat narrative, but still results in majority rule.
What is amusing about your comment is that if your last paragraph is true, and most Americans don't know or care about their elected government or policy issues, what possible difference does it make whether they vote or don't vote? If you made a law that coerced them into voting, they'd just have to flip a coin or select the candidates who had the largest number of dark money commercials.
What disturbs the minority party [and Democrats are in the minority currently in federal elected offices and permanently in the minority in state governments] is that they believe they are in the majority.
@ebmem
If all this is true, why do Republicans need to cheat? All of us are members of our democracy. Let your fellow Americans vote!
(I wasn't recommending coercing people to vote, simply stating a fact. Right now, engaged people are trying to vote and being prevented from doing so by Republicans, some of whom are running in the very contests they are suppressing the vote in: Kansas and Georgia).
The only problem is, voters think they're to the right of where they are too.
That is to say, large numbers of voters assume that Republicans reflect their policy preferences and that it's safe to vote for them without fear that you're going to lose your Social Security or your Medicare. And large numbers of voters assume that Democrats are to the left of where they actually are, and favor, for example, open borders or mass confiscation of guns when they actually don't.
This is before you get to the large numbers of voters who don't understand their own views, or don't understand how the slogans in which terms they think about politics reflect the actual concrete things in their life about which they otherwise have an opinion. The backlash against Dubya that you describe is an example. Tons of Southerners and Westerners who 90% of the time considered themselves rugged individualists and believed that the government was too big, suddenly discovered that this meant taking away *their* welfare and not just some fictional black welfare queen's, and all of a sudden, they discovered that they weren't in favor of that after all. But it didn't last; by the time of the next election they were back to voting Republican or, at best, staying home.
As another blogger once noted, America is full of people who literally can not connect the experience of sitting around the kitchen table trying to pay the bills with the earnest man on the television set talking about paying the bills.
12
@CP
Democrats defunded Medicare to the tune of $0.8 trillion. They defunded SCHIP for sick children and Medicaid for urban and rural hospitals that served a high proportion of Medicaid participants to shift funds to pay for young, childless able bodied adults who didn't need it.
The Bush privatization plan for Social Security increased payments to low and middle workers and reduced payments to wealthy workers while increasing taxes on the wealthy.
The Paul Ryan Medicare proposed reform shifted benefits to the poor at the expense of lower benefits to the rich.
The Democrat do-nothing plan for Social Security means there will be 20% across the board cuts to old age and disability payments in 2034.
People who like the safety net of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are better off voting Republican. The uneducated favor Democrats.
Sure thing hon.
What's not to understand about the polling on the ACA? People like the coverage but not the premiums. Insurance is too expensive. Full stop. What people want is to have top-notch healthcare available to them at a low-price when they need it, and they don't want to pay a dime for it, through premiums or taxes or otherwise, until they need it. So you can't legislate/regulate healthcare based on what people want because what people want is irrational. It can't exist.
7
@Rupert Today, we have a health care system focused on the duration of life not the quality of life. We offer people what appear to be easy solutions to health care challenges instead of promoting life style changes as a first option. We have tough decisions and neither side is addressing them.
1
@Rupert
Universal single-payer health coverage works well and efficiently in all civilized countries. Ask any Canadian. Physicians for a National Health Plan (I am a member) has information to educate anyone on the subject. www.pnhp.org
2
But we CAN afford it. The cost of our folly in Iraq alone would have covered the price of health insurance for all. But I agree that it’s a hard sell when corporate interests rule our policies.
2
The only thing we are deluded about is some of the people going into politics.
Politicians are now businesses endlessly seeking venture capital in the form of donors. Many of them really don't care deeply about anything except getting re-elected and staying in business.
The word "convictions" went out with dial-up Internet, if not before. Politicians would rather be judged on their fundraising agenda than on their ability to get anything done while in office.
No one seems drawn into politics anymore as a calling, but rather as a crass moneymaking scheme. And, as we've seen lately with expensive trips and fancy dining room furniture, some don't even try and hide anything.
Getting money out of politics would be the best thing that could happen in this country.
14
The great center-right delusion is perhaps the greatest creation of the magnificently effective Republican agitprop apparatus.
15
It has already been proven that what the people want does not matter. It is what the donors want that matters. The study by the two Princeton people showed this to be true. It is the reason for the huge inequality in this country.
The Supreme court has ruined the commonwealth with their decisions. Two lines need to be inserted into the Constitution - Corporations are not people and money is not speech. These two items would go a long way to righting the ship of state.
55
@baldski
If Citizens United was silenced by the FEC, why was OFA, Media Matters, moveon.org and all of the Soros funded organizations that are organized under the exact same IRS rules as Citizens United not also silenced?
Although unions are not organized under the same IRS category as Citizens United, they are subject to the same limitations on political activities as 501(c)(4) organizations.
Democrats collect 90% of dark money. That is why income inequality grew under Obama and why it will diminish under Trump policy. The reason why establishment Republicans like the Bush family, McCain, Flake, Murkowski, Collins threw their support behind Hillary in 2016 is because they control the other 10% of the dark money, and Trump is disrupting the status quo of big money.
Democrat commoners were unsuccessful in selecting their anti-establishment anti status quo choice because the Democrat establishment is more authoritarian than that of the Republicans. The Republican establishment never comprehended the threat Trump posed to the status quo until it was too late. They threw their support to Hillary, but the wisdom of the voters defeated them.
@baldski Amen, amen!! Wouldn't it be loverly.
If the American public mandated that candidates ran on their policy positions, the Democratic Party would win hands down. A majority of the electorate do want affordable healthcare with logical protections like guarantees against insurance companies discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions. The majority of the electorate believe that women should have the right to make all their own healthcare decisions, including the right to decide to access safe and legal abortions. The majority of the electorate believe strongly in civil and voting rights for all. One party choses to run on fear of the other, hate for those who seek a better life and appeals that their followers are somehow under attack. Let's not paint this as a strategy used outside of Republican circles. So it's aspirational hope and trust vs. demonization of all and anyone who disagrees with your views. Easy choice.
11
@Dennis W: So why don't all, or at least most, American voters choose the Democrats?
@RM Great question! I think it has to do with the loosening of rules for dollars in politics in the U.S. and the fact that we treat these decisions almost like making brand choices for consumer goods. The intellectual analysis of voting has been degraded in the U.S. to the detriment of the choices we make. More simply put....'The dumbing down of the process'.
Hardly so given the current political reality. If it were only true!
I think there is also a relevant difference between the opinion of the public as a whole and of those who actually vote, and a difference in salience between various sides.
For example, my fellow millennials tend to be left wing but very unlikely to vote, compared to older people who are much further right.
And in the gun debate for example, it has a far higher importance for the pro-gun side, who are often single issue voters and likely to actually go vote, than for the gun control side.
So the preference expressed by political choices may differ from that expressed by Americans as a whole. For example in Colorado it is very easy to vote (so suppression should not be an issue), yet in the blue-leaning 6th congressional district our Republican Representative keeps handily defeating Democratic challengers, often contrary to the polls if I am not mistaken. His platforms focus on specific policies and he wins because the voters of Aurora support those policies.
5
In some Koch expose (Dark Money?) the man himself admitted that being less than 1% of the vote made it hard to win elections fairly, so they had to be secretive about their activities. Divide us from each other and they can conquer. Keep us at each other's throats, stoking fear, hatred, partisan squabbles, and the 99% will never be able to vote their joint interests.
Look at the Board of Directors of most liberal or conservative news organizations and you will find corporations, the very same 1% that need to lie to us in order to get our vote.
As Noam Chomsky said, you either need guns or lies to control the people. Divide and conquer works great to accomplish the latter.
5
How most Americans actually vote has little to do with where they are on the issues, or on the political spectrum. They vote for the candidates that they can relate to personally, the ones who impress them as real and authentic. They will vote for a Republican or a Democrat, but unfortunately Republicans have done a better job fielding candidates who seem authentic. And authenticity shouldn't be confused with honesty. All Trump supporters know he is a liar and morally bankrupt, but he doesn't really present himself as anything different. Despicable as he, Trump comes across as authentic.
6
Pardon my ignorance here: Are not both Social Security and Medicare "paid in benefits" funded by employees and the companies that employ them? Isn't the only role of the government the administration of the benefits?
So, isn't the Republican pledge to cut these benefits really an attempt to support Corporate America by lowering their contributions?
22
"Geometry is not concern with the relation of ideas involved in it to objects of experience, but only with the logical connection of those ideas among themselves" Einstein
Today´s World is Einstein´s Geometry.
We critice, we judge, we believe we know all.
Sometimes, we resemble dead Pharohs in ancient Egypt. The first step to mummification was to scoop out their brain through the nostrils with an iron bar. In contrast, the heart (and most other internal organs), was either elaborately wrapped and replaced in the body or carefully stored in canopic jars near the body. As we are told in the Book of the Dead, ancient Egyptians considered essencial that the body be preserved and all the important organs be retained so that in afterife the body would be in a suitable condition for ressurection when the soul returned to it. Dead Pharaohs were prepared for their next life with everything but a brain.
The good thing about having a brain is .......to use it.
Grey (gray) matters.
1
@Pedro Macedo
Could your remarks here indicate that, in a previous life, Donald Trump was a Pharoh in ancient Egypt?
2
The folly of pre election opinion polls is shockingly re-visited by what happened in November, 2016, resulting in President Trump.
Of course it could happen again, and that is why I am posting this fear.
My worst case scenario is my Democrats fail again.
Do not take media reassurances as anything more than complacency if not over confidence.
I shouldn't need to waste time re the obvious reality that Democrats
do have the nation's sentiment re healthcare, but I sense voters do not like much of anything else about our party.
Let us not be too shocked if it hits the fan again in a few days.
I hope I will soon regret expressing my fear.
As Stokely Carmichael witfully said circa 1968/whenever:
The South can be anything south of the Canadian border.
6
i'd like to see an easier to understand version of where people stand on these issues individually. i think just publishing polling data would be helpful. i think we too often deal in anecdotal evidence and stories and two sides to the issue. maybe just simple % who support coverage for pre-existing conditions
% who believe in climate change % who repealing an estate tax, pick your issue. i think if it were clearer how much/little support there was it might make the 2 (equal) sides argument less persuasive.
2
So, this what a "deep state" argument from the left sounds like? But for an Inside-the-Beltway conspiratorial consensus among Democratic and Republican operatives and media pundits, we'd recognize we have be a much more left-of-center country and have much more liberal-progressive legislation. When Mr. Krugman says notion that America is a center-right country is "a view that isn't grounded in reality," what does he call the democratically-elected Republican Senate, House and president? Aren't those real?
1
You may want to consider that trump lost the popular vote, decisively. In a normal democracy, he'd be a humorous footnote not the president of the most important country in the world. By the same token, Republicans in the Senate only represent about 40% of the population. In the House, it's - at best - a 50-50 deal. Then there's the gerrymandering. Not to mention the fact that Republicans consistently push legislation, such country club tax cuts and gutting healthcare, that the polls strongly suggest are unpopular. This is not democracy in the strict sense of the word, to say the least.
29
The culture wars and tribal affinity are powerful agents.
The work of Kahneman and Tversky show that people are strongly tethered to their inherent biases, despite being given new and consistent evidence to the contrary.
This is not just a problem for Republicans, but because they live in a bubble where they don't even attempt to access new and contradictory information, Republican supporters are far more intractable.
4
I've never understood the turn to the right that the Democratic Party made some years ago. You only need to look at what is being done in large cities to see that people are willing to pay taxes in return for needed services. And people want those services.
Maybe it's the fact that large donors, who are a major source of money for both parties, tend to be conservative and push conservative agendas. After all, they grew rich under the current set of conditions. Why would they want things to change?
Perhaps politicians would be more responsive to the public if they were not indebted to wealthy donors. Maybe now is the time to begin funding all political campaigns with public funds.
12
Democrats turned right because that was where the electorate was. Large numbers of blue collar whites spent a generation voting the likes of Nixon and Reagan in in landslide elections, while Democrats running on old school liberal themes about bread-and-butter issues and social solidarity got creamed. After a while, the party realized the old stuff wasn't working, and went right.
The Obama era proved that there's now a market again for more liberalism, both social and economic, so things are moving back in that direction (Medicare For All is turning into a litmus test, something unthinkable even a few years ago; people are openly calling themselves "socialists;" etc).
1
Part of what feeds this, I think, is the model we use to envision our politics. The media and much of the public accepts the model of a linear, left-to-right continuum, with Democrats on the left, Republicans on the right, and independent voters somewhere in between The problem with that model is and always has been that there are, in fact, independent voters who fall well to the left of Noam Chomsky, and other independent voters who are far to the right of the Koch brothers. But more importantly, if you can manage to pry people loose from their tribal affinities, most voters hold a a hodgepodge of positions -- more conservative on this issue, more liberal on that issue -- and hence are outside the ability of the widely accepted linear model to explain or represent.
4
The bond market is also more left than Congressional staffers and CNN. The bond market would rather tax the rich than incur another trillion in deficits from giving the rich a tax cut.
Tax cuts for corporations and billionaires increase interest rates for federal borrowing while spending from actual tax collection does not.
The yield on the 10 year note rose to the highest point in seven years earlier this month. You can bet money that the Trump deficit will drive interest rates higher as the Fed tightens and tax revenue collection declines.
The bond market is left of center in its belief that you should not give billionaires tax cuts.
Higher rates on the national debt underline that the bond market does not like uncertainty, insanity, nor pathological liars.
9
I guess it would also hurt Krugman, the content of whose opinion here I general agree with, to admit that Bernie Sanders has clearly shown over and over and over and over (multiply by a billion) what Krugman has stated here as a big surprise to many people. (Krugman supported HRC, especially in contrast to Sanders.) But along with Krugman, it's so frustrating to read, hear and see how these center-right views are not generally held, then coming across as if it's such a big surprise--things that have been in Sanders' and his supporters' speeches and credentialed polls for the longest time. One latest poll even showed results that a slim but sure majority of Republicans support Medicare for all. (Just do the searches yourselves.) Of course, results showed an overwhelming majority of Democrats favored this humane policy. Yet the frustration over the surprised people, let alone the distorted view that Krugman bemoans, persists.
3
"But Republicans are even further out of touch."
Yet they are in complete control of the federal government. Let's not lose sight of this.
2
The great body of American citizens have a pragmatic tilt rather than an ideological one. We are a nation that solves problems, that built railroads across the mountains and the plains, that helped Europe out of the deep mess of two world wars (before getting in some messes of our own making). We have not lost faith in our ability to solve problems but the Republicans, like McConnell and company, have lost faith in their ability to sell practicality. Instead, they sell division and endless mud fights.
How many people are held in ideological prison cells, unable to consider on merit? My guess would be somewhere around 30%. Even in my ancestral state of Texas, where most voters would identify themselves as moderate to hard conservatives, when presented with specific proposals many people would choose solutions over partisan argument. Texas gave the nation LBJ, a champion of civil rights and Medicare.
We are at present victims of a political culture and induced tribal loyalties that wants us to hate each other, 24/7. When we hate, they win. Fox Noise and the radio squawkers like Limbaugh get rich from keeping the population pumped up, fearful and angry.
Republicans know that fear is a stronger motivator than hope. Yet, when the problems are left unresolved, left hanging, they will require, in perhaps dire circumstances, that they be addressed. At that point, those who have resisted for decades will be swept away. Ideology disappears when the threat is breaking down your door
5
@Doug Terry
That's right, they keep showing their base the next shiny thing, while looting the tax payer. Now I wouldn't care if they looted their own uneducated base, but I happen to be educated, and can see, how they are shifting vast sums of wealth, to themselves, while giving corporations and the rich more power and control over public policy. They allow them to pollute the air, water, and lands, because they don't have to live in the pollution.
3
@James Young
Indeed, America's mega-rich have given many indications that they will leave this country if conditions become too harsh. They have private jet aircraft at the ready and many currently have houses in many foreign locations. Take note, also, that we can always conjure up a roaring economy by polluting and going light on laws and regulations, but the long term cost will be very high, even killing off the very prosperity the rich seek for themselves.
Donor money is located further to the right than are the voters. This may not be coincidence.
That same money shapes the efforts of Congressional staff, and of the employers of those pundits.
11
Yes, Paul "The Great Center-Right Delusion" is what you, your fellow Op-Ed columnists, and The Times fell into in endorsing Hillary Clinton who bought into the delusion by ignoring the Bernie Sander's progressive wing of the party and choosing a center-right running mate in Tim Kaine. We have now moved from delusion into nightmare due to both The Times' editorial page delusion and Sec. Clinton's. Despite all the excuses from Russian hacking to James Comey, this was an election for the Democrats to lose and they did. Yes, "pundits get America wrong." And now America has gone so far wrong that we can only hope and pray that next week they'll wake up and end the disaster the delusion has wrought. #NeverAgain.
6
@Paul Wortman
Get over the Bernie Sanders bit, we all know what happened, beating a dead horse won't help.....
2
Paul ignores the role of the bonkers billionaire brainwashing machine that defines reality for GOP supporters. And gets their supine vassals elected to Congress regardless of who they are.
4
Businesses also are sponsoring the hate ads from trump and the gop. They are the trump fascist party’s strongest supporters. Peter theil, a german born trump backer is one. Businesses blackmailed the gop into giving them huge tax cuts and creating ever bigger tax loopholes so they can avoid taxes altogether or pay little in taxes. Trump needed no invitation to cut taxes. He has committed outright tax fraud amounting to tens of millions. The true extent of his massive fraud and avoidance is hidden in his undisclosed taxes. Businesses must be doing the same. There is another angle to trump’s racism and hatred directed at immigrants. Many of the low skilled immigrants eventually set up their own businesses and take away profits from wealthy white farmers. Skilled immigrants are a bigger threat. They invent new technologies disrupting markets and the white ceos and large shareholders at big companies risk losing billions. So the farmers and businesses want to block immigrants. The uneducated white worker wants to work less and charge more for his or her services.Other low paid white workers are unqualified and jealous of Immigrants and their success. The latter are willing to work harder, are better qualified and sometimes work for lower pay. Hence the hatred and racism from businesses, farmers and the uneducated white workers supporting the gop
It's not that politicians don't know what voters want. It's that they don't care all that much. They care what their wealthy donors want.
Voters can be manipulated into voting against their own best interests by moneyed interests and the propaganda those interests can buy. Easy as stealin' candy from a toddler on Halloween.
7
Every weekend I knock on doors and ask voters if they are going to vote, what issues are driving them to the polls and sometimes they tell me who they are going to vote for, which I record in my data sheets for our local Dems in New Hampshire.
Then I open up my NYT or watch PBS New Hour and hear pundits drawing conclusions from the latest polls.
All I can say is what I hear about how voters think from the polls bears little or no relationship to what my unscientific polling tells me every week.
Of course, I learned about methodology in college, and my polling has none, or very little which would make it publishable.
But sometimes, as they say in medicine, a single well studied case study tells you more than a study of a thousand patients you do not know.
However the pollsters are doing their jobs, my worm's eye view tells me they are failing miserably.
Allowing for the differences between NH and Kansas and (Heaven help us) Mississippi, the folks I speak with every weekend are no friends to immigrants, think taxes are too high, don't like government but like Medicare and believe Social Security is an insurance program they've earned, not an entitlement, resent giving money to undeserving poor but don't mind spending on the military, and they think Trump is a sick joke.
Go find all that in a poll.
5
@Claudia Social Security IS an earned benefit.
Two points come to mind.
First, as to the ACA and pre-ex conditions. I would say the public at large supports ACA but disagree strongly with the provision that punishes those who do not have insurance. Call it a tax or penalty, it goes against the grain of people to have the government tell them they have to buy something with their own money. Seems like a clear point and I don't understand why talking heads don't see it.
Second, the two parties are to the right of the populace not because of reading the polls or people's sentiments correctly They, most especially the Republicans, do not care what people are in favor of or want. They are doing what they deem as important to stay in power and keep their privileges. The Democrats less so as their approach is to get more voters with inclusion so they have t o entice them.The Republicans decided to achieve theirs with division, voter suppression, gerrymandering and dirt tricks.
3
@wfisher1 -- But the fact of the matter is they don't have to buy insurance. They can opt not to, and the tax/penalty in most cases will be less than the cost of insurance. So that tax/penalty is really just a means to help defray the costs of treating them if and when they eventually need medical care.
4
@wfisher1
While I would agree that punishing someone for NOT having insurance isn't the correct way to go. But that was the only way to get everyone to participate, mainly because, that's how insurance works.
Everyone would have to have insurance in order for it to work as with all insurance, some people benefit right away, and some don't, but that's why it's called insurance, you may not need it now, but you have for when you do need it.
So it's always been about who's going to pay. Insurers what the money but not the headaches of millions of sick people because they haven't had access to healthcare. So since it's always been about who will pay, and it will always be the consumer, the only way to control healthcare costs, is to have a single payer system, where drug prices are negotiated controlled, in Europe, for example, Harvoni the Hep-C drug, doesn't cost $1,000 a pill. and how will that be paid for, there could be a couple of ways. One would be a federal sales tax, or, and added payroll tax but the money would have to be ear marked for healthcare only because those we elect can't be trusted with vast sums of money, the first thing the GOP wants to do is give our tax money to the rich.
Well maybe, but the arguments need to be made the proper way. Most Americans have never been to Denmark. They have never experienced that society but they instinctively know it's very different from ours. So, saying why can't we have what the Danes have is at best, too abstract. Add in a layer of Republican lying about long waits to see the doctor and the battle is lost.
The other needle that's difficult to thread is that many Americans are neither liberals nor conservatives. Add in a layer of Republican lying that suggests anyone who doesn't vote Republican is an extreme leftist, and you fail to address people who want Trump in prison but at the same time, don't put a high priority on LGBT restrooms.
1
Talk about out of touch....
Krugman still doesn't realize that Democratic politicians and pundits "misread" the public because they themselves are "center-right" and abhor the liberal positions they're sometimes obliged to run on.
Take Chuck Schumer, post-election 2008, arguing for the carried interest loop-hole (gotta help those job-creators!). Or Nancy Pelosi announcing, under Bush, that she wouldn't consider "recalculating" inflation to lower COLAs as a "cut" (microwave ovens are cheaper than they used to be, so it's only fair to cut benefits!). Or more recently, that she'll institute "pay as you", to ensure nothing of value can get through the House.
Get this: the Democratic party establishment doesn't care what the public wants any more than the Republicans do.
And, according to Krugman, saying so makes me a scoundrel. So much for the over-flexible "conscience of a liberal".
8
The problem with this piece and other analyses referred to by Krugman here is that they seem to ignore one major and obvious fact: to the corporate oligarchy that essentially controls the government and molds the media, what the people really want doesn't matter. That is, it is not an issue of finding out what the people want, it's telling them what they want. Of course most people want affordable and non-restrictive health care, in fact polls show a majority of votes favor a singe payer system. Most people also believe that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes It doesn't matter, the smoke and mirrors of propagandist media deflect attention to the bogeymen of immigrants and other minorities and the dangers posed by the "elitists" (i.e., liberals and democrats), under the banner of freedom. The real goal of our current system is to ensure continued tax cuts for corporations and the ultra rich, so that then these barons can decry the deficit created and promulgate the policy of "austerity," pushing the poor into an even deeper hole. Note that democracy is never touted as a goal, for obvious reasons. It is antithetical to the goals of a properly running profit-driven power structure.
3
President Pinocchio is indeed a user of ugliness. His lies and demeaning remarks will forever be remembered in history as a reason to vote. He did not fool all of the people just lots of his voters.
Do not be a lazy apathetic non-voter PLEASE. Vote! Together we are very important.
3
'Twas ever thus. A Princeton study from 2014 showed that a bill's passage is influenced only by what rich people want. The opinion of the people at large is uncorrelated with a bill's success or failure. You can read the article at https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
2
Frankly, what is Center Right in reality, if anything? Equally, so, what is a conservative? I'm talking about policy that would effect all Americans, not social issues that are aimed at particular groups or issues. For example, are they "free traders." Fiscal conservatives? I don't see that they have any policy other than lining the pockets of the wealthy, who have basically put them in office to do just that.
You have to be tone deaf to think that middle class people supported a tax cut for corporations and the wealthy (not that these are two distinct groups, since they are one and the same). Representatives do not know what their constituents want, but they know for sure what their benefactors want. The wealthy direct most of the policy, and it has nothing to do with the constituent needs. If it ever does, it is by coincidence, only.
The uninformed are left out of any serious discussion about policy in reality, and are manipulated through social issues touching upon their biases. It is so much easier, even if it is becoming so much more ugly.
We do not have an educated populace, and our educational system is in tatters. We have a Supreme Court that now reflects the corporate world more than it does America at large. We have a Congress that is out of touch, and a President who is a corrupt autocrat. We went wrong years ago, and have never righted ourselves after Kennedy's assassination. The country is a load of bigoted greedy people and not much more than that.
4
I seem to recall a pundit who thought that this country wanted a centrist Democrat who would maintain the status quo. One who would not take 'crazy' progressive positions, 'cause ...too crazy. The politician who was pilloried or marginalized by many voices at the NY Times was Bernie Sanders and the pundit who cheerleaded his marginalization was you. For shame.
1
@JoOregon
As I recall, the reason Bernie was “pilloried and marginalized” was because he was completely unable to explain in any way how his policy proposals would actually work.
Remember, even during a friendly interview with the N.Y. Daily News he couldn’t answer ANY questions about his own signature policies. How exactly were we supposed to take him seriously after that.
@James Constantino my understanding is that the kinds of policies Bernie was proposing were big ticket items that would require establishing new spending priorities. Obviously no one with any sense could think that would just happen without major upheaval. However, one of the most important functions of the President is to be a leader. One who proposes policy that the people actually want and who will then fight for them. If they are not realistic, at least the issue will have been considered and championed. And Bernie's track record shows he would be an exceptional leader FOR THE PEOPLE, not the party.
1
FYI: In Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn (R) is running ads that do mention the recent corporate tax cut as a positive for the people of TN.
1
Excellent column! Aren't most Democratic politicians rich people who went to the "right" schools? They're naturally conservative, whereas most Republicans are reactionary rather than conservative. -- I write as a Democrat.
If people are more afraid of gay married terrorists than living their old age without Social Security and Medicare, they get what they deserve.
5
@David
Yes, but their children and grandchildren deserve better.
The right's elected officials only know what their corporate donors/paymasters tell them to know. The left is more of a mix. But still with a lot of corporate money to answer to.
1
There is no "left" or "right".
There is only class warfare, and the wedge issues invented by the rich to make the poor fight among themselves.
2
Dr. Krugman, white Americans may well be much farther left than their representatives believe. But they've shown through their votes for the past forty years, that they're quite willing to give up affordable health care, affordable higher education, job retraining programs, and protections for Medicare and Social Security, if they just get one thing -- to be considered the "real" Americans, superior to the rest of us.
Now if white voters were assured that only they would get these protections and opportunities, Democrats would have controlled all three branches of government for the past forty years.
Since Reagan, Republican voters have had countless opportunities to vote for candidates who would work to secure the middle class, and to expand opportunities for their families. They chose not to. Why? Because the dog whistle meant so much more to them. Because as long as they're told that this country is only for them, and the rest of us have no right to be here, this is all they want.
Oh sure, the Republican message was a bit more subtle in Reagan's time. But his voters clearly understood what he was telling them. The common thread from him, through Bush I, Newt Gingrich, Bush II, and now Trump, is the belief in white supremacy.
Republican voters are willing to trade away everything this great country has created, as long as Republicans kowtow to their racist beliefs. This is all they want. This is all they've ever wanted.
4
This, by the way, has been one of Noam Chomsky's 'radical ' theses for decades.
1
"I’d say that this goes even more for professional G.O.P. politicos, who are all apparatchiks. That is, they grew up inside the apparatus of movement conservatism, and really imagine that everyone except a few leftist losers shares their ideology. They don’t even realize that their party’s success has been based on racial antagonism, that most people want to raise taxes on the rich and maintain social benefits."
This reminds me of a piece I recently read where Max Boot is recanting his Republican party membership saying he had NO IDEA they could be so racist https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/10/destroy-the-republican-party-max-boot-calls-for-a-clean-start/
1
Americans do not have any reference points to historical facts...ie. how “fighting communism” shaped policies in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala and how those policies carried out by The School of the America’s created the catastrophic human tragedy we now see today..Things just do
not happen suddenly..they take decades to finally reach a point of no return..I could continue citing so many more examples-climate change..the Middle East crisis (Yemen, Palestinian, Iraq............etc......but it all is rather boring ....
4
Through his provocative and crazy tweets,Trump has dominated the major media coverage of politics and ideology.He's got those in the center and the left on the defensive...."how can he say that...it's outrageous" etc.etc.Where are the Democrats?When the media showcases them,it is to comment on Trump rather than to promote their own positions.Several years ago Elizabeth Warren,in response to Paul Ryan's proposals to cut Social Security,said she was in favor of increasing benefits.She changed the debate and got the attention of the media.Lyndon Johnson , early in his career, put out the story that his opponent may have been intimate with a pig.Guess what the media covered?His opponent was put on the defensive and lost.Trump isn't really doing anything new,just more egregious and dangerous.If Democrats don't counter him on the same turf,they and this nation will continue to be governed by the policies of the 24% of the population that voted for him.
2
Social science is not "opinion?" This is the same political "science" that predicted Hillary Clinton had a 92% of becoming president. "Radical cynicism" is not just towards politicians, but also media and academia.
2
@Jonas
Social science is not a science either!
1
Speaking of being out of touch, Mr. Krugman could not have better illustrated why liberals continue to flail electorally even though they offer bread and butter programs which are superior to the GOP’s. He writes:
“…as I used to joke, (George W. Bush) ran as the enemy of gay married terrorists.”
But this joke only works because it parodies the left’s impulse to contravene every norm and limit. Liberals and Democrats are seen as agents of permissiveness, social entropy and chaos. That is enough to override many Americans’ desire to vote for the better deal. The last Democrat who understood this and used it effectively was Bill Clinton.
Offer a better tax program or better way to pay for college? Great. But along with that you get, “Don’t judge out of wedlock births!,” “Religion is the enemy of progress!,” “Every personal choice is okay!,” etc.
Citizens subsist on more than bread alone. Politics is more than just a morally neutral menu of policy choices. Americans need to believe that their nation is more than just a nice place to work and shop.
When are Democrats going to rediscover that?
2
Let's face it, without Fox News, the GOP would have no haven for their lies. Murdoch is killing our democracy all to line his pocket.
2
Well first Paul, you need to include yourself in the group that has misread what voters want. Shilling for Hilary shows how out of touch you are, and how far you drifted from your own proclaimed liberalism. But better late than never.
But both parties haven't "misread" the voters - they've cynically ignored them in favor of chasing after the same donor class for decades. Sure the Dems preach a more liberal agenda, but what to they actually DELIVER? The middle and working class is still continuing to lose their share of the wealth generated by the economy.
While international trade IS a necessity, the deals worked out favor Corporate America and the investor class, while the working and middle class foot the bill. This is why Trump won, and it's staggering that you and all the other "experts" continue to miss this.
People want to feel economically secure. Losing a job that paid a living wage and had benefits and a pension, and now having to work in an "At will" job, less than 40 hours so benefits don't have to be paid, and wondering whether to pay the electric bill or renew their prescription has traumatized many Americans. Meanwhile, both parties remain oblivious. For all his horrible shortcomings - which many knew before they voted for him - Trump's "virtue" was that he was NOT a Rep or Dem.
Sorry Paul, Bernie had the right message, but you didn't listen. "It's the economy, stupid".
My husband and I cancel each other out at the voting booth. He votes straight Republican (at 90 he is suddenly turning bigoted and doesn't approve of gays or minorities, but he loves and depends on his Medicare and Social Security). I vote straight Democratic and am glad to live now in a purple state (NH) so my vote counts. As to the ACA, I think most people like it. It was Obamacare they hated! Wonder why?!
1
The Republican Party is owned and operated by extreme right wing corporatists who have financed the corruption of our entire political system. Center-right politics in the United States is dead.
The Republican Party is now slashing taxes and reversing every single step of social progress ever made in this country including the destruction of Social Security and Medicare. They are backed by a powerful propaganda machine called Fox News/Breitbart/Sinclair. The GOP was even happy to have proven Russian interference in our electoral process on their behalf.
Ryan and McConnell and their pals are nothing but the paid stooges of their mega-rich bosses. We are witnessing the results of the Roberts majority Supreme Court decision that opened he sluice gates of the dark corporate billions that flow into the political system to corrupt our electoral process. The ignorant lying racist Donald Trump is the revolting symptom of a broken democracy.
The Republican Party is no longer about fiscal conservatism, it is about one-party corporate fascism.
American voters including minorities and Millennials must rise up and take back our government by voting out the anti-democratic and shameless Republican Congress. The 2018 elections are the most critical in modern US history. Get out the vote!!
3
I think part of the problem is that Americans freak out over labelling, often because they are just plain ignorant and uneducated and don't think very deeply about ANYTHING. Yes, they really like parts of the ACA, but they don't like "Obamacare". Many don't understand that they are one and the same, sadly.
They hear anything Bernie Sanders, encounter the term "socialist", and their minds immediately slam shut, and they don't even get as far as what he is actually saying.
Democrats need to come up with new labelling and slogans (such as "Make America AMERICA Again") and put good, solid pro-people policies beneath them.
1
Public Notice to All Journalists and Democrat Sore Losers:
Our Presidents are NOT elected by popular vote.
They never have been.
3
Wow, what a thoughtful and well researched non-sequitor. Please, do go on
@Tuco
You need to include a link to the Constitution and one to a 7th grade civics book.
1
Ah, but it's not what the voters think, it's what the donors think. A study Princeton did a few years ago showed that, by far, legislation favors the wishes of the wealthy, not "voters." So in a way, maybe the pundits and politicians are correct--they're talking to the people who "matter," and that ain't voters. (Or propagandizing to get voters to vote against their own interests.)
There would be an even greater disparity if we considered the opinions of citizens who are eligible to vote, but don't get to because they'd likely vote for the Democrats.
7
I'm not sure you are right about how ready voters are for the left wing manifesto. Today's left has a hard time separating economic issues (where they may be as ready as you suggest) from cultural issues (where I don't think they are).
You are absolutely right, however, about today's GOP being a far-right party whose worst instincts are reinforced by the right wing media echo chamber. Wherever you locate the electorate, they are at least somewhat to the left of the nativists and know-nothings that have taken over the Republican party. Between the "base" and some gerrymandered districts they can make the numbers work for now, but their time will be up eventually.
1
“What the authors of the piece show is that congressional aides grossly misperceive the views of their bosses’ constituents; this is true in both parties, but more so of Republicans.”
Politicians are paid by their corporate donors to provide services to them and not to their constituents. Politicians aides are there to provide a smokescreen that their boss is working for their constituents. Wealthy donors control both parties. When 85% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans want Medicare for All and the parties do not embrace it something is clearly wrong. The same for numbers issues. Get money out of politics.
6
There are different compartments to Americans' "right" and "left" leanings. Most Americans are "left" in that they want to benefit from social programs like Social Security and Medicare. But many Americans (especially many, if not most, white Americans) are "right" in that they don't want the benefits of those social programs extended to "other" people. They want those benefits to be privileges for some, not rights for all. Or, another way of saying it: they are against the idea of a society based on democracy and equality for all. This exclusivity is what Republican candidates have promised to their voters for decades, either in coded language or overtly. It's the message behind "make America great again."
6
The desire of many Americans for the benefits of progress (medical care, better public services, equality of opportunity) is outweighed by their fear and hatred of minorities, new social ideas, and the future in general. These fears and hatreds are stronger than their self interest, their love for their children, and whatever hope they might have for their children’s future. The GOP and its owners, the 1%, utilize the hate and fear to sustain their own position. Too bad for the rest of us.
2
@Carol I'm sorry but you are sorely misinformed.
Every abuse of power anticipated and debated in 1787 at the constitutional convention and documented in the Madison Papers has come to pass with a vengeance. And worse. Perhaps it is time to resume the conversation begun in Philadelphia. They had an abundance of insight into human political behavior, but only limited historical evidence: ancient history, the English parliament, and 5-10 years of governmental experiments in the 13 independent colonies. We have 229 years of experience, and _perhaps_ might design a more robust representative system. The system we've got is clearly failing: we've had two Republican presidents neither whom received a majority of votes, a gerrymandered congress that operates without regard for what most voters want, and a non-proportional representative senate that has confirmed a sequence of totally out-of-tune justices.
1
Dear pundits and DC staff. The silent majority just wants our elected officials to shut up, stop hitting each other over the head, and take a look at the polls already.
- The same set of gun regulations most people want are still what most people want - and that doesn't include banning guns.
- The same set of restrictions and permissions for abortion that most people want haven't changed - and that's not zero abortion and that's not unlimited, up-until-birth abortion. Improving access to birth control and health care for new mothers and their children would help. Our record is awful compared to nations we like to think are like us.
- Obama was right and the Republican fears were well-placed - people want more help with health insurance for themselves and others than employers and for-profit systems provide
- “If we can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work,” declared Mitch McConnell.
Please do. Ryan boasting about a secretary's $1.50 a week windfall was all the proof we need. Your tax plan is for the rich, and for shareholders, whether US or foreign, and we'll pay for your boosted deficits.
- Do something constructive about carbon emissions. As in - reducing them. The Clean Power Plan was a state-friendly, non-federal-centric attempt but it had the wrong President's name on it. OK, GOP, come up with something different, but deal with reality - not donor's preference.
8
It seems to be true that progressive candidates in the 2018 midterms have figured this out and are no longer shy about talking about what most Americans want. And it seems to be going well for them. Clearly, the moderate approach has done nothing for Democrats in recent memory.
2
A writer moving to the US from Finland was shocked at our culture with it's lack of a good educational system, our dysfunctional health care "system" and other deficiencies.
She said that coming to the USA was like going back in time and she added Americans have no idea how easy it would be to have decent education, health care, retirement, etc. The European social democracies figure this out long ago - we "only" have to copy one of them.
That Finn is Anu Partanen and her book is The Nordic Theory of Everything.
We know why we can't have decent lives: the GOP doesn't want us to have it.
15
@russ
How many American soldiers are buried in Europe?
1
@russ when Bush tried to bring Western-style democracy to Iraq, the left objected vociferously, insisting that its culture has the inviolate right to its own path of development, no matter how dysfunctional it apppeared to outsiders. So how is imposing Nordic cultural mores onto American society different? I visited Nordic countries, Norway, Iceland and Sweden many times, and while they have many wonderful qualities, they are culturally very different from the big, sprawling, chaotic and diverse USA. In fact, as these countries grow more diverse thanks to the influx of Muslim refugees, their social support systems fray. Trying to enforce the “Nordic theory of everything” onto the US will backfire as spectacularly as Bush’s democracy plans for Iraq and Syria.
2
People may not be center right on specific issues but they are in their general political outlook. Pundits underestimate the significance of the underlying narrative in voters’ choices, and so ask wrong questions. Protection for preexisting conditions is popular but how popular is socialism? What about political correctness? Many Americans are in favor of DACA but change the question to open borders and see the favorite numbers dwindle. Democrats don’t understand that cultural issues are more potent than bread-and-butter concerns because they connect to eoplr’s sense of identity and belonging.
3
I did not think that much about the original Opinion piece until Dr. Krugman suggested it was research, not opinion. Well, it may technically be based on research, but I think the editors got it right by presenting it as an Opinion piece.
When one collects (essentially) biased data, like polling voters on what are usually complex policy questions, it is not that difficult to guess what will happen. That a huge group of the top professionals do not have a good sense of the underlying data (the poll results) implies at least one of the following -
1) they are dangerously negligent at their jobs
2) they are thoroughly corrupt and unresponsive to voters
3) they are responding to the researchers strategically
4) they do not think the underlying voter poll results have very much validity or value to policy makers
Of these four, the one that is most likely to consistently apply is the fourth. Why would Democrats guess closer? Because polls like these are good talking points for them politically and the more popular stance is likely closer to their (publicly stated) policy positions. This doesn't mean that Democratic staffers truly believe such polls reflect the people's priorities or represent sound policy guidance any more than Republicans.
Governing by polls would (has?) invite disaster. We could rarely sustain a war or make risky long-term investments. I would much rather my representatives completely ignore polls than blindly follow them.
2
@Alan, we could rarely sustain a war? That sounds like a good thing to me. Think back on the debacle of Vietnam.
@Assisi
Yes I agree we have often erred on over-sustaining, and the initiation and management of the Vietnam was a unmitigated disaster.
War, unfortunately, is a strategic situation, and when other countries (or non-state criminal groups) doubt we will fight a war much past the fireworks display of an opening air attack, we will end up with a lot of very bold bad actors in the world. This in turn means we will be dragged in to many more wars and the total human suffering will likely be far higher (though, again, Vietnam was hideous on this metric as well). Deterrence is an important factor - and deterrence is often missing in the "easy" data decision-makers and pundits have available.
@Alan
Politicians should pay attention to what people want - and not just the noisy few who get into their offices - and polls are how you figure that out. They're not some odd thing, it's just asking a bunch of people a question, and trying to make sure you ask a representative sample - not all college educated, not all black, not all Jewish, not all men.
Someone who can clearly frame the medicare for all position in the no brainer logic it deserves is what we need. The Trump base is working against their own interest and don't even know it. Credit to Fox and the far right for continually putting these dim bulbs to sleep. In times of great peril, like right now, America has always been fortunate to have insightful heroes appear.
My eyes are straining to see them in the crowd.
4
Part of the problem is semantic. "Left" has often been thought of in negative ways, going back to the association with Latin "sinistra." "Liberal" has been demeaned in the US since the Reagan era (recall George H,W. Bush's use of the "L" word.) In the Presidential debate, Bill Clinton answered, "That dog wont hunt any more," while promoting the word progressive. If Democrats framed their campaigns about a choice between progress and regression, and the difference between liberalism and illiberaisml, the electorate might better understand its own political leanings and interests.
4
@Alan J. Shaw
Correction "illiberalism."
And while the "dog won't hunt anymore," it still howls, and does it howl, every day and night from the Howler-in-Chief.
1
P.K. sometimes you come up with some pretty original ideas and this is one of them. Now, you refer to the switch of southern voters’ from Democrat to Republican that took place because of the Democrat’s push for rights for blacks With your views in mind here, I would also take the party identification changes back to the Presidency of Abe Lincoln, who was a Republican but promulgated on the whole a progressive liberal bent - one more closely identified with the Democrats today. A twisting and turning of the two parties’ politics has taken place over the intervening period since Lincoln, with a flip in outlook vis-a-vis one another having taken place since then. Some still cite that the Republicans are the “party of Lincoln”, true enough, but they don’t mention, albeit with a complete reversal of political identities.
1
The problem with all these endless political debates, right left and imaginary center, is that most, ie. <50% of Americans don't vote. That plus gerrymandering, the electoral college and that the voting age is heavily skewed towards baby boomers and geezers. The later groups lean right, particularly if they are rural, white, under educated, and in the lower rung of the economic ladder. A more democratic society (there are many in Europe) might consider making Sunday the voting day, allowing voting by mail (only some states do) or even trying to overturn the undemocratic electoral college, a system instituted in a society that sanctioned slavery and wanted to insure its survival.
2
The opinion here by Dr. Krugman and the findings by Hertel-Fernandez, Mildenberger and Stokes confirm what I have suspected: that politicians are out of touch with their electorate, that this disconnect is far greater for Republicans than Democrats, and that lobbyists and donors have more input than the general population.
The current system makes this possible, and it needs changing. This change can start by electing agents of change Nov. 6, in this case Democrats. That is the short term answer. The longer term is to pressure politicians, especially at the state level to enact changes.
Here are some changes that should make government more responsive to the will of the majority.
--- States should abolish the 'winner take all" awarding of delegates in the Electoral College and replace it with proportion delegate allocation.
--- Create bipartisan redistricting commissions to draw district lines with the goal of minimizing political and racial gerrymandering. This works well in several states.
--- Increase voter participation by making voter registration automatic, increasing polling centers, mandating time to vote, and eliminating barriers.
Most of these reforms can be accomplished at the state level, but may require federal oversight. All parties that support representative democracy should be able to support these ideas.
I know, I am a optimist. But so be it.
18
@M. Pippin
Always be an optimist - they get things done. Cynicism is just the lazy way of announcing you won't ever succeed, so why try?
1
@Details
Thanks. I like to think of myself as an optimistic realist. All these ideas are doable. Take care.
Health care and insurance are so complicated that it is relatively easy to say anything and get away with it. The Republicans will protect coverage of pre-existing conditions. What they will not do is control pricing of such coverage. In other words, they will pass a law saying that car manufacturers must provide a seat belt option. What they won't do, and don't make clear is that they will allow them to charge any amount, even $100,000 for that option.
7
I would imagine that most Americans, like most people in developed countries, like their economic/socio-economics policies centre-left, with a minority to hard right or hard left, and their socio/cultural policies ditto. The problem of the Democrats is that they embraced Reaganomics in the belief that they wouldn't win elections otherwise, did not tilt to the centre left in economics after 2008. To compensate and maintain their reformist image, they went far to the left of most people on boutique preoccupations like transgender rights which, relevant as they are within the context of protecting very small minorities, can't be the torch that lights the path of nations.
5
It's too bad that politicians, commentators, and citizens who comment (like us) don't recognize objective opinion surveys as good sources for what the public really wants. Pew Research Center, for one, is pretty good. I'm sure people will assert that almost any source you name is biased, yet if it consistently publishes results of random surveys and demonstrates that it includes people across the political, social, racial, and economic spectra, it should be trusted.
But then again, politicians don't want facts to get in the way of their sales pitches.
7
Thank you, Mr. Krugman. Good piece. But--
--do not underestimate the "culture wars." These are extremely real--and may have an outside influence on our upcoming election.
I am an evangelical Christian. I go to a conservative evangelical church. And--
--I tell you honestly: many people I know in my church and elsewhere--
--have a deep-down horror of abortion. You could not exaggerate this. Both men and women.
Mrs. Clinton, it was all but declared (back in '16) would personally visited maternity wings all over this fair land--
--and "pull these unborn babies to pieces." This I was told by a respectable man two months younger than I am.
The whole gender question. Including gay marriage--transsexual people, gender-modified people--all these things have people confused--alarmed--upset. Their attitude is: where, as a country, are we going? Where are we headed to? Will we like it when we get there?
All these questions I personally find troubling and perplexing. Though I detest mantras. Slogans--especially when uttered by huge mobs in a loud voice. Truly. I do.
But they ARE--questions. That agitate a great many people. No lie. They do. Though, having said all this--
--I plan to vote the straight Democratic ticket--
--for the foreseeable future.
Thanks again. Fine piece.
17
@Susan Fitzwater
"Horror", "confused-alarmed-upset", and "troubling and perplexing", whether feelings among religious people or anyone else, all could be better dealt with if people received and patiently evaluated information from multiple sources. Once someone has decided that, for example, abortion is always "wrong" and gender identity is "deviant" instead of just different from one's own perspective, it is unlikely he or she will be open to having "questions" answered.
I am glad you will vote for Democrats, because they, at least try to be open to the questions many people share with you and to different points of view. They try not, as the G.O.P. now does on behalf of Trump, to exploit ignorance, fear, and hate.
5
@Susan Fitzwater
Yeah, I know what you mean. The cultural aspects are hard to work with - it is a part of their core beliefs as a person, and to reject a piece of it brings it all into question - I live with someone who did it, and it was NOT easy, even though he'd been questioning for years.
It's not only saying abortion is wrong, gay is wrong, etc. - it's that this is part of your religion and your cultural identity, so to change that means rejection by friends and family, not to mention having to reevaluate your entire world. It's not easy.
1
@Chris
It would be a sin to question religious leaders, and information from other multiple sources is obviously fake news. This is not an easily resolved issue.
According to polls generally on many issues, it's true the country is not "center-right." But according to elections results for Congress and the Presidency over the last forty years, it is. The difference is that (1) election results are determined by people who vote, while polling results are not, and (2) people who don't vote do not give money to politicians.
1
What opportunities do "average" Americans have to communicate with their Congressmen and Senators? Emails get an auto reply. Phone calls if answered, get only to phone staffers.
Our Congressional representative holds "electronic town halls"; which she uses to answer questions sent in, way in advance, however the web app only allows for one simple question.
If you send email to a member of Congress that does not represent you, you get a reply that basically states, "you are not a constituent, please contact your Representative or Senator."
I gave up trying to communicate my input years ago.
Due to contentious in person town hall meetings they are increasingly avoided by members of Congress.
15
@OSS Architect
OK, if you didn't know - the emails and phone calls are paid a LOT of attention. They can change votes, change the path taken.
But yes, they get hundreds of thousands and no, the senator or representative doesn't read them all. What they do get are summaries from their staff, and that is indeed what is important. If they get enough heat, they change their vote. I remember one bill in particular - votes lined up, not even close, President was going to sign it, I and a great many others strongly opposed it, wrote in to say so - and it failed.
Misses the point. People don't vote for candidates on the basis of issues, or if they do, it only matters a little.
Of more importance is whether candidates give people comfort. And people get comfort by someone telling them that they are OK, that their problems are caused by enemies (both Republicans and Democrats do this), and by making them feel a part of something larger.
Republicans do this better than Democrats do. Republicans run on a message of church, home, country. Simple. Comforting. Consistent. Powerful.
Democrats run on a message of what exactly? Better health care? Taxing the rich? People know that it is a long distance between their candidate advocating a certain position and that position ever being enacted into law.
It isn't positions on issues that matters. Instead, it is how candidates make people feel.
6
I don’t think this is quite right. Republican policies such as lower taxes and law and order are genuinely popular. This popularity lets Republicans get away with running lower-quality candidates and running lazy and offensive campaigns. I'm not ignoring the racially charged messaging, but that is only part of the appeal of the Republican party.
I think that the Republicans really botched their latest tax cut because it didn’t cut taxes enough on lower-income voters. People generally don’t mind the rich getting a tax cut if they also get theirs. Didn’t happen this time. Trump’s 10% tax cut idea shows that he understands this.
2
@DALE1102
The problem with Trump's 10% cut for the middle is that this is a mid-term talking point that will not see the light of day after the polls close.
5
Unfortunately, we will never see the Democrats pursue a genuinely progressive agenda, much less offer "bold measures". Republicans are exponentially worse. Democrats politicians sometimes talk tough, if the polling will supports it, but they will never take risks that might cost them something even more valuable than the votes of their constituents: money. They know they cannot retain the power and benefits of elected office without the money needed to run their next campaign, and the ones thereafter. So they will do whatever it takes, even defying their own consciences, to get and go along with those whose support is indispensable to keeping their jobs and advancing their political careers: their corporate donors, plutocrats and other check-writers.
Until the Constitution is amended to get money out of politics entirely, including by making all federal elections purely publicly financed, the corrupting power of money will continue to reward the few at the expense of the many, whose voices are rarely a part of any political debate.
However, the saddest part of this unseemly business--because it really is a business operating in the halls of Congress and the White House--is that We the People, who empowered the gutless Democrats and venal Republicans sitting there, will likely do nothing to rock their boat. We will blithely go out next week and give them yet another term in office to do nothing to benefit anyone--except their campaign donors of course.
9
I wish there were a thoughtful conservative party around. They could fight for small business entrepreneurs and break up unfair monopolies. They could protect public safety from polluters, ensuring the government faces imminent threats to life. They could safeguard inalienable rights through dedicated police reform, downsize ICE, and stop government interference in LGBT lives. They could protect religious liberty by standing up for non-Christians and their fundamental right to be left alone in safety. They could fight to maintain the balance of individual freedom by tamping down on runaway security measures and staying steadfast about proven, research-backed national security methods, such as early education and poverty reduction that bring down crime rates.
Instead, we have this racist rat's nest. Maybe someday our conservative friends will come back to us with their heads on right.
15
I was delighted to read that Mitch McConnell may be considering another line of work. I think he should try coal mining.
8
Americans are singularly loathe to acknowledge many truths. Our American identity, 'the home of the free and the brave', must have a past that justifies the identity. So, when we tire of being confronted with problems, we look to our mythical past. Like a tired parent who cannot for the moment do the hard work of raising a family, we fail to do even the basic task of voting. This abdication gives the cacophony from the right an over-representation that delivered the electoral college victory to Trump. So, I am sympathetic with the mis-impression of the politicians and pundits.
This silent majority needs to speak in unison about its disgust for the abusive 1% and its commitment to restoring a government for the 99%. Until that happens, the myth of the Great Center-Right will stand in for the true majority.
4
Paul wrote: "a fear fed by journalists who keep insisting that the public wants centrists who are somewhere between the parties."
As NP of Santa Rosa just wrote, and as Michael Moore has been saying for a long while, and as Bernie says and proved, the American public favors sensible programs that improve the quality of life.
Unfortunately the right wing has been pushing propaganda for decades with the purpose of creating a smokescreen to allow the 1% to collect the majority of wealth. 2017 was apparently the best year ever for increasing wealth at the top. The hundreds of millions spent on politics has paid off in billions; even trillions.
Lewis Powell laid this all out in his 1971 Memo to his friend in the Chamber of Commerce. The Memo should be required reading in every school in the country.
12
I disagree with the opinion piece by Hertel-Fernandez, Mildenberger, and Stokes that politicians don't know what their constituency wants. I believe that politicians know what people want, but those people do not pay the bills and help the politicians get reelected through large donations. Politicians have long learned that they can ignore their constituents. Something, which is not discussed much, is the socioeconomic class of politicians. These are individuals who, for the most part, need not worry about their healthcare, their family finances, which college their children are going to, public education, and many other matters.
47
I'd have a lot more respect for this analysis if it compared staffers' views with the views of their party's primary voters in their districts.
Staffers' job is to get their boss reelected. Thus, for 95% knowing what the majority of their primary voters want is all that counts.
2
I couldn't disagree more with the argument that congressional aides misperceive constituents' views on policies. They know exactly what they want. It's a willful indifference to their constituents' needs and desires, fueled by the money taken from Super Pacs, corporations and wealthy individuals, that creates the dissonance. The wealthy force their agendas on the officeholder, who is beholden to them, and by extension the American people, and propaganda is the tool by which officeholders manipulate their constituents into thinking that what's good for the wealthy is good for them. Corporations and the wealthy know they can't jail American citizens for having differing views, so they've engaged in a long-running, massive propaganda campaign that has manipulated people into voting against their own best interests. As long as the American people condone this servile relationship, politicians will say anything on behalf of their monied masters in order to maintain their own grip on power.
14
We, the American people, pay the congressional members exorbitant salaries, pensions and excellent health care for life. Yet, they do nothing for us. They represent themselves. If this was a corporation they would be terminated immediately.
17
I think this article misses the point entirely. There may be some politicians and pundits who don't realize that the people actually support liberal policies like Social Security and Medicare but I think the vast majority understand that the policies we get are really paid for by wealthy, elite donors. This is why we get an unpopular tax cut which mainly went to the rich. It is also why we got the Heritage Foundation's ACA with no public option.
The media isn't owned by the people, it is owned by massive corporations. The media narrative is carefully crafted to only represent the corporate view. There are very few voices with a genuine progressive viewpoint (including yourself.) Even NPR has rightward tilt I can't tell you the number of times there has been a political discussion on NPR whereby the panel is mostly right-wing and the progressive voice is someone who really cannot represent that viewpoint effectively - it is shocking when you realize it.
It is no wonder that people might despair, both politicians and the media don't represent their fundamental values but it was ever thus. The "people" are not the ones in power. Our only hope is to vote Democratic and push them to be as progressive as practicable.
20
@NP Few media voices promoting the regressive viewpoint? Since when? Studies show only a very very small minority of the media are right-wing. Some organisations even have Far Left majorities and few have significant numbers of right-wingers. Outside the likes of Fox you largely do not hear (or read) conservative views, except in attack pieces proclaiming those who hold such are bigoted, unjust etc.
@Andrew Mason You are overlooking radio as part of the media.
My comment on opinion piece by Hertel-Fernandez, Mildenberger, and Stokes
Congress Has No Clue What Americans Want
To get elected you need money.
Hence
Congress Has Every Clue What Campaign Donors Want
To get to Congress you need to please your donors. The richer, the more power you can acquire
Charles E Schumer, Top Contributors
Campaign Committee Fundraising, 1989 - 2018
Goldman Sachs
Citigroup Inc
Paul, Weiss et al
JPMorgan Chase & Co
Credit Suisse Group
The Democratic Party, once the party of working Americans, is now is being led by a professional politician financed by Wall Street
=====
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary/charles-schumer?cid=N00001093&cycle=CAREER&type=I
9
@Woof
And Republicans are getting their donations from the Kochs, the Mercers, the Ulines, the Hobby Lobby people, the Princes, DeVoses, Mnuchins, Wilbur Ross, etc. Not a worker supporter among them.
8
It appears that we are undergoing a slow motion 'reverse revolution' in which our government is overthrowing the people rather than the other way around. We are now governed by a cadre of corrupt minions in service of a powerful oligarchy. They use creative legal fictions like "money is speech", "corporations are people", "freedom to choose healthcare options" we can't afford, and tax cuts for us that largely benefit their patrons rather than us.
It's all lies and misdirection. We outnumber them. The truth can set us free, if we listen.
85
What’s driving American politics off a cliff? Money and fear. Money has completely corrupted our political system, both in terms of elections and in terms of access to lawmakers. And money fuels the growth of trolls on the Internet, as social media companies don't wish to cut into their profits to honestly address the problem. Money also corrupts our media because it encourages emotionally driven stories over sober date - the former gets better viewership and readership.
And, of course, we're witnessing just how much fear plays into our politics. There's nothing new about this, of course, but the methods by which such fears are stoked (i.e., the Internet) are new and frightening.
Here are a few idealistic suggestions to get American politics off the cliff's ledge:
1) Repeal "Citizens United," and pass comprehensive campaign finances laws. Get dark money out of politics, and have equal public funding for elections.
2) Pass stricter regulations about lobbying.
2) Establish laws that limit gerrymandering.
3) Regulate companies like Facebook and Twitter as common carriers, rather than "media" companies.
4) Eliminate anonymous accounts on platforms like Twitter. Verify user accounts, as Facebook is doing to weed out Russian bots.
And here's a wish - congresspeople should break bread together with an equal number of people from the opposite party at least once every two weeks. Start a conversation; treat people like people.
32
This is about the public view on issues. People vote for candidates, if they vote. And if they learn about candidates, it is mostly based on TV ads. So Republican candidates say they want to protect pre-existing conditions, and the ads don't say that they didn't, and can'd.
Follow the money.
5
It’s NOT delusion, at least on this point. They CHOOSE to believe what they are PAID to believe. From their DONORS. MEDICARE for ALL in 2020. VOTE DEMOCRATIC, next WEEK.
Period.
20
@Phyliss Dalmatian Will do - hopefully you will be willing to pay for my vote by funding my Medicare.
@yDLR
Yes. Much better investment than yet more Tax Cuts for millionaires. Seriously.
4
The system's broken. It may have been fine for the original thirteen states, some slave owning.
But who can explain why if either party wins 49% they have no power in government?
Or why Montana and Wyoming have the same power in the Senate as California and New York.
Why a majority of voters can chose one candidate, and the other wins all the marbles.
And a victory in a Supreme Court nomination is seen as something that will affect the countries laws for decades?
Are Corporations really people. Is money is speech? Separation of church and state? Here's looking at you Christian Coalition.
Voter suppression. Drawing of Congressional districts by partisan Governors?
U.S. citizens vote on a Tuesday? No national holiday for Voting Day?
Students spending less time in civics class than in gym class?The list goes on and on. But in 1787....?
114
@cwc
To add to your great list:
Why do politicians and supreme court justices, unlike mere mortals, get to go on forever and ever ... making public policy for a fast changing society.
With technology moving at this speed, can we afford leaders whose learning curve can't keep pace?
To historically interpret the ll amendment: the only guns guaranteed by it are the ramrods and blunderbusses of the period ... not today's mass murder weapons ...
In a secular state, why swear on the Bible and not on the Constitution?
27
@cwc, what you are proposing is a parliamentary system of government. There is a great deal of merit in this alternative system and it works well in many countries. But it just so happens our current constitution does not specify this form of government.
It is certainly possible to amend our constitution to replace our system system with the one you are proposing. In fact, the founding fathers put in place specific mechanisms to allow this to happen. But until it happens, we are going to simply have to do the best with what we have.
2
@cwc-The system is also broken because our votes are the only effective way we have to weigh in on the government that exerts its power over us. And the GOP has done every nasty thing possible to subvert, suppress, and nullify even that.
We have grudgingly admit McConnell was correct when he said:
" If we can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work. "
as evidenced by the fact so many GOP'ers are retiring - after giving themselves tax cuts - rather than go home to ever face the voters again.
But wait, there's more - this is really just more evidence of the GOP'er con game fooling some of the voters all the time, pretending culture wars, or deficit reduction, or Obamacare repeal/replace, or, or, or, when it's really just a crowd of old-fashioned grifters waiting for their day to pounce. That day came gradually with the gerrymandering following 2010, the 2010 Citizens United decision, and the McConnell's determination to make Obama a 1 term prez.
McConnell and gang were disappointed they had to wait for 2016, but knew going in that if Koch Bros. Inc., Sheldon Adelson, the Mercers, the Russians, Franklin Graham, and Robert Jeffress could drag any GOP'er across the finish line, the 2018 Senate math would favor them with only having to defend 9 Senate seats - 2016 was their golden chance with 2018 looking almost as good.
Agreeing with the excellent article cited, we say it is of a piece with studies showing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce isn't representing its members, instead siding with A.L.E.C.:
https://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/04/13075/top-gop-pollster-chamber-commerce-lobbyists-poll-shows-your-members-support
and similar data the NRA doesn't represent its members.
16
A lot of Americans don't seem to know what they want from government, but they just about always know what they don't want others to get.
24
The right wing media, highlighted by the Murdoch empire, is very organized and funded by extremely deep pockets. Just follow the money. Over a long period of time they have created some very successful memes, one being that this country is somehow center right. Even more pernicious and foolishly unchallenged is the ludicrous fantasy of the liberal mainstream media, easily shredded by any critical analysis.
Take away the nearly blood-Red super majority in the Senate of the former Confederacy, and we would be left with a healthy iberal majority supported by a citizenry that polling shows to be supportive of progressive ideas on most issues.
11
Maybe in the East and on the West Coast your thesis would hold. But, in the vast reaches of the Plains,, agricultural mid-West and the true West, you would be mistaken.
This is why the fact that by 2040 30% of the population will be represented by 70% of the Senate is so disturbing.
8
Based on the election results though people also seem to vote to the Right of their true opinions. So aides and pundits may not be as wrong, because to them it doesn't matter what people think, but how they vote ...
4
There is much truth to what Dr. Krugman points out in this article, however, there is also the influence of major campaign donors on both parties that pulls them to the right while the needs and wishes of the electorate are ignored. The ultimate destruction of the Republican party will occur when they are so successful in implementing the wishes of their far right donors (destruction of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and ACA) that the voters they require to remain in office abandon them. This point may have already been reached, as many members of today's Republican party no longer bear any resemblance to those of the past. Democrats are no better off - if the party leaders fail to address the needs of their electorate they too will face a populist revolt.
Time for change - one person, one vote. Get the money out of politics.
10
Follow the money. More than anything else the interests of big donors determine which policies a party pursues (both Democrats and Republicans).
Parties and donors know that they can often pull supporters rightward with red meat like wars, racism and other cultural issues. It certainly helps Republicans to have a major TV “news” network, right wing radio and the ridiculous cacophony of downstream sources which seem to breed like rabbits.
And no, mainstream media is in no way a leftist counterweight here. The further right your views are from reality, the more it may seem that way. Hence, Republicans have repeated it for so long that it is unquestioned. That’s truly “sad.”
I hope for the sake of our democracy and our planet that both parties have stretched the political spectrum so far to the right that we will have a pull back toward reason, toward a closer approximation of actual voter preferences.
As many others have said, a truly progressive and intelligent TV network to counter Fox may be needed before that happens. One that doesn’t have to lend any credence to the irrational and unsubstantiated proposals from the far right.
5
This isn't original by me but it bears repeating. "The American people are aspirationally conservative but operationally liberal."
6
@JoeHolland
Yep, California girl her whole life. I am a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Which is not saying I hate taxes, oh contraire. I don't mind taxes for education, roads, fire and police safety, feeding people, health care, etc. Seems that if EVERYONE paid then we would all benefit. That includes corporations.
I always say to libertarians and republicans that want lower or no taxes - well, are you going to pave the road in front of your house? And what happens if the next-door neighbor won't pave their portion? Will you pay the lowest bidder to put the fire out when your house is up in flames? What about freeways? Who will build and maintain those?
And along those lines, I worked in medicine my entire life. The illusion is that we each pay our own way, the reality is that for every employer that won't pay a working wage, or offer health benefits, we pay for those individuals health care when they or their family get sick and default. Thanks a lot Walmart.
16
Republican politicians and strategists understand what the majority of Americans want, but they don't care. They're all in for the interests of their super-rich donors.
They've been lying to voters for decades about their policies. The issues they've used to get votes--anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-"socialism", anti-immigration--are things they don't really care about. All they want is power and money.
41
Representatives seem to think that only people who support their views are constituents. In reality, all the people in their district are constituents, all their views should be heard.
It would help if the GOP valued honesty and fact-checked their messages before they go out. Even for SUPER PACS. ESPECIALLY for super pacs.
No one's ever going to bother fact-checking the Liar in Chief...there's not enough time to keep up with his hot air.
6
Dr. Krugman rightly reminds us of how GHW Bush ran against Willie Horton, but it's also good remember how Bush and his supporters manufactured a "controversy" over the Pledge of Allegiance, an ancestor of today's manufactured controversies. The biases of Washington's version of the British "chattering classes" has a fair amount in common with the British version and its Continental analogues except that in Washington what might be called the "logical left" isn't entirely unrepresented. As to the incorrect perceptions of Congressional aides, they're only incorrect if you assume that the aides do and want to consider the opinions of Americans in general. They don't and, certainly in the case of the Republicans, don't want to. The opinions of white men weigh much more strongly in their balances than those of others. The Republicans know it. That's why they try so hard to keep others from voting. The Democrats don't recognize their own racism and sexism, which is sad and scary but not surprising.
4
is it surprising that in a country that has decimated unions and other working class organizations, and that freely, openly and routinely sells access to politicians to the corporations and well off, that the views of the general population are distorted and unheard?
74
@alan-If those in power only have to pretend to listen and pretend to care and then can ignore everyone but the wealthiest citizens and corporations...?
I think there's also a lot of black and white thinking. I won, therefore I represent my voters. No, you won, now you represent everyone in your district, not just the ones that voted for you. I won, therefore I'm right. No, you won an election. Elections don't decide right and wrong. I won, now I get to rewrite everything. No, you won, now you get to build on what over 200 years of other, possibly smarter, Americans have built.
218
@Odo Klem. Well said. Well understood. Elections aren’t about power, we should all understand. They’re about who we, the people, grant authority.
I would only add that many of those who have preceded us were not just possibly smarter, they were probably smarter.
19
@Odo Klem
Democracy means the majority rules, does not mean they are right. If not for the Bill of Rights, the majority would run roughshod over the minority.
1
@rjon
I'd also add that The Constitution took several years of heated debate to agree on and then came many amendments to patch omissions and errors.
"I won" does not give the so-called president the authority or right to change the Constitution and attempts to do so should be seen for what they are, challenges to the very foundations of the principles this country was founded upon.
VOTE THE LIARS OUT OF OFFICE ON NOV 6
1
The biggest mistake that Democrats made, dating back to the Reagan era, was to pretend to be more conservative than they are and -- more specifically -- to disavow their own beliefs.
In successive elections, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis passively allowed the Republicans to "tar" them as liberals, and rather than defend themselves, they allowed the GOP to frame the national dialogue, and drag our policy debates far to the right.
The nation and the world would be a much different place if either man had instead been more forthright and proudly defended (and explained) the goals of liberalism, had catalogued the positive, tangible, concrete benefits of liberal democracy -- freedom of speech, social equality and educational opportunities, clean air and water, the social safety net, etc.
Forty years of running away from what we should be proud of has left Democrats diminished and perpetually on the defensive, and contributed in no small part to the mess we're in today. If you act ashamed of what you believe in, how can you persuade other people to support you?
If I were Nancy Pelosi, I would deliver a ringing, lofty proud-to-be-a-liberal speech today and going forward would politely but firmly tell Trump & Friends to stuff it... Let the chips fall where they may.
169
@Joe S.
She did just that on the Stephen Colbert show last night to thunderous applause from the audience.
30
@Joe S. Well said and I completely agree. One point I would make though is Pelosi and Schumer need to leave. They have not defended liberalism and let the Right turn the word into an attack. They, as much as anyone, have allowed the Republicans to take and keep the public stage as they either don't have the energy to combat them or the political will and savvy to appeal to the mass of the people. They are both long term political animals who raise a great deal of money from major donors. Then they pass it around to cement their power positions. Really not much different than the Republicans. New blood in the Democrat party will do wonders for liberalism and the Country.
15
@wfisher1
The republicans will tar anybody who is effective in blocking their agenda. If Pelosi were ineffective they would have ignored her. New blood is not necessarily better blood.
17
A minor correction: Trump understands that his survival depends on delivering -both- maximum ugliness -and- traditional conservative goals of dismantling the social safety net. Which makes his tenure self-limiting due to the popularity of those social programs. But the tilted playing field means that Trump's dual agenda will hang on longer than it otherwise could. And that lag in our electoral feedback mechanism drives us into an unstable tug-of-war, passing and then reacting against major legislation on all fronts.
I've become convinced that structural change which promotes the diversification of policy ideas and party platforms is necessary. Then rationalization of the media landscape will tend to follow. It's no panacea, but the ranked choice voting and proportional representation touted by groups like FairVote.org might begin to repair our dysfunctional politics. And meanwhile, supporting inependant and third-party candidates. Real competition for votes on each side of the basic left-right divide should begin to hold our politicians to a higher standard, and even maybe reintegrate our culture a bit.
3
When your country's been hijacked and its elections rigged by right-wing radicals for a few decades, it's easy to get the mistaken impression that America is conservative.
Most people are liberal, but it's the critical mass of Confederate white spite which the Grand Old Plantation party masterfully exploits to transmogrify the country into a Republican Shangri La of Grand One Percenters blindly supported by a sea of White Spiters thanks to the successful 50-year Southern Strategy.
George Washington, in his Farewell Address, worried that political parties could "allow cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men" to rise to power and subvert democracy"...see Mitch McConnell, Brian Kemp, Kris Kobach, Donald Trump, Bush-Cheney and the entire GOP.
Political scientists Steven Miller and Nicholas Davis wrote a research paper titled "White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy" that concludes that when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit non-whites, they abandon their commitment to democracy.
They found that white people who did not want to have immigrants or people of different races living next door to them were more likely to be supportive of authoritarianism.
Their paper quotes white supremacist leader Richard Spencer, who in a 2013 speech said: "We need an ethno-state so that our (white) people can ‘come home again’… We must give up the false dreams of equality and democracy."
D for democracy; R for right-wing fascism.
Nov 6 2018
371
@Socrates I always agree with everything you say, but I live in Texas and it really scares me to death.
20
@Socrates Richard Spencer and his followers should realize that the white, dictatorial, oligarchic, corrupt, pseudo-Christian, gay-bashing, free-press-hating nirvana they yearn for is waiting for them in Russia. I'm sure Trump has connections who can ease the migration for them. What are they waiting for?
43
@John B-Worth pointing out that Richard Spencer is an entitled trust fund baby. Has he ever held a real job? Worked a day in his life? Why so hateful when everything's been handed to him? When will his followers and enablers realize that following him puts their families and livelihoods at risk.
2
Fear is really the difference... the lack of time and sophistication required to wade through each side's arguments leaves the voting populace vulnerable to fear-based appeals... At base, I've always figured I'm a Democrat because they don't try to win that way, but I wonder if maybe they have to...
4
@Ken Rogers
They already are. Both parties are now firmly based on fear. Many independent thinkers (non-partisan) see it clearly. I do. I know many others who see it that way too. And we're not in an echo chamber - I'm talking about non-partisans from a bunch of different backgrounds who read and watch different things. What *we* fear is "fear itself" - the fact that the "wing nuts", as we refer to the frothing hyper-partisans, are so full of fear and fury, we could end up in a Latin American death spiral of "far left" vs. "far right".
1
It appears to me that the real hope we have for a return to American unity and solidarity is when a majority of Republicans recognize they are on a slippery slope toward a form of fascism with Trump. I am impressed with the number of prominent Republicans that are calling for Republican voters to vote Democratic "this time." Trump is missing the obvious that he is wooing the same base and forgetting that he was basically elected by those voting "against Hillary'" not for him. Next time there will be no Hillary.
5
"They don’t even realize that their party’s success has been based on racial antagonism, that most people want to raise taxes on the rich and maintain social benefits."
I wish I could agree, but I have seen nothing to indicate that this painfully evident reality is not fully appreciated. I'm afraid you're just so intrigued by the possibility that some interesting academic explanation exists that you are doubting the simpler, and uglier explanation, i.e., that all know that the party is pursuing a callous and destructive strategy, but some are just better at the doe-in-the-woods routine.
1
You may be giving Republican politicians more credit that they deserve. I'm not sure they are at all interested in representing any kind of majority opinion. Their current hold on the three branches of government has been largely based on exploiting weaknesses in our democratic republic arrangement. In the courts, they stonewalled Obama era appointees, then opened the spigots for Trump despite his obvious lack of a majority (let alone a plurality) at the polls. They are over-represented in the senate because of odd population distribution (mostly in the mid and upper west, and unforeseen by the founding fathers) that has resulted in a disproportionate number of states with more senators than congressman. They have held the House mostly thanks to high tech gerrymandering, enabled by computer generated models no one could have dreamed of 200 years ago. Add to that the way they have used social media to bolster all kinds of claims that are unsupported by fact. You don't do that when you believe most people will agree with your policies. These are not the actions of a party trying to build and represent a majority. These are the actions of a party trying to retain their grip on power and have their way regardless of voter opinion.
17
If, as Dr. Krugman says, Americans are further left that the major parties think they are, why then do the rightwingers control all of the federal government? Either Dr. Krugman is wrong or the Republicans used unscrupulous means to gain political control of the country. Personally, I choose the latter explanation. The Democrats need to beef up their propaganda machine if they even have one. They are far outmanned in that department.
4
Why should rich people get even another solitary penny of tax relief? What have they done to demonstrate a use or a need for this?
I number among my nodding acquaintances one billionaire (real estate and shopping centers) and at least six millionaires (law and medicine primarily).
These five men and two women will tell you that on an any given day they have hardly a clue as to what their net worth will be on the very next day.
Their money is primarily kept in real estate and the stock market, so how could they?
Up a couple of hundred thousand dollars one day, down by half-a-million the next.
Really not a bad way to live, when you consider the tens of millions of Americans who live their lives with virtually nothing. and still will after Trump’s bogus promises of tax relief are just a distant memory.
I say let’s make a law that says all people with net worths over five or ten million dollars who don’t really know on January 1 how much money they will be worth on January 10 don’t ever get another tax cut.
And while we’re at this, let’s make the law permanent. How much could this hurt them?
The question before us at the moment is how can we provide some meaningful help to the millions of Americans who presently have nothing?
This, of course, is precisely the question that Trump and the Republicans have absolutely no intention of asking now or ever.
90
@A. Stanton-The tax system has been thoroughly gamed by the rich to benefit the rich. So in effect these folks aren't even paying their fair share--but get to live elevated lives.
1
What if "they"--both major political parties--actually DO know where Americans are on that spectrum, but willfully don't care?
What if America's political parties gaze longingly upon the Chinese government's innovation, tricking citizens into oppressing themselves using the Internet, and surmise that they can give us what political parties want, not what we want?
What then?
10
"Specifically, both parties believe that the public is to the right of where it really is."
Maybe both parties' DONORS are to the right of where the public is.
100
Do you want more benefits? Yes!
Do you think nuts should have guns? No!
Should we protect your water and air quality? Yes!
Do executives make too much? Yes!
It would be very difficult for the result to be any other. Voters in a poll do not have to create a coherent and consistent system of laws, make trade offs, and weigh the risks of perverse incentives, damage from corruption and other unintended consequences.
What would be news would be if polls were not to the left of government's "working assumptions".
7
The right-wing bubble is funded and preserved by dark money from (among others) the Koch brothers.
Why these insanely rich people want to destroy the lives and livelihoods of others I cannot comprehend. Why they invest in poisoning the earth is beyond me.
But they spend hundreds of millions every year to destroy democracy and the Republicans answer to them like lemmings, taking us all over a cliff.
312
@democritic
Because they care only about protecting their own interests. They don't worry about money, voting rights, clean air and water, justice, etc. because they already have those.
28
@Pat Yes, one party (the one that overtly claims the mantle of religiosity) is all about oneself, the other is about all of us. Alas, we appear to be a very selfish country.
17
@democritic
There is one economic fact that can not be accepted by some politicians, and that is simply the better the poor do economically the better everyone else does (except the wealthiest).
2
It seems like the Republicans' ability to drum up fear always seems to work in their advantage, as opposed to a genuine policy discussion. Fear the immigrants, fear Obamacare, fear regulations that protect workers and the environment...fear really sells! Also, they are masters at exploiting fear of anything to do with taxes. All they have to say is "The Democrats want to raise your taxes..." and that is a winner.
The baser the conversation is kept, the more devoid of actual intelligent content, the better they feel about their chances to win elections.
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@Srose This approach has been working all too well for the GOP since Nixon.
6
A fertile deal proposer he
Each an impossibility,
Details not his bit
Vagueness his fit,
All magical rope tricks to be.
He has a very low IQ
And reasoning just cannot do,
Lacks a brain, lacks a heart,
And because he’s not smart
Starts trade wars, at long last we rue.
Our Caesar is seizing the day,
To make his bad news go away,
Wants to fill every column
With chimeras solemn,
Coming true? Of hope, not a ray
17
And what voters say they want is often only what they imagine they want, which changes with the direction of the wind. Ambassador Kennedy supposedly said he would sell candidate JFK like laundry detergent. How is it that he understood that dynamic decades ago while Hillary's people thought earnest statements and policy papers posted online would turn the trick? Machiavellianism is carrying the day, but the Dems fall into a swoon if anyone suggests they should do it. We can quibble about the political spectrum all we want, but the key to electoral success is psychological and rhetorical.
2
It's not that congressmen don't understand or misinterpret what the voters want, it's that they don't care. They vote and work for an extremely small group of donors and the donors don't care about the country or the planet they only care about lining their pockets.
Publicly fund all elections, down the the school board. Eliminate all PACS - no money from anyone other than what is publicly funded.
If you do this then miraculously you will see politicians actually doing the policies that people want. Until you do this the polices will reflect the oligarchy that is running this country
782
Very well said!
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@Clio I agree. This one change would go a long way to fix government dysfunction and corruption.
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@debbie doyle The Bush/Bush/Trump appointed Supreme Court will never allow that to happen, as was evidenced by the Citizens United decision.
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You are right, Dr. K., Americans mostly hold views to the left of where pundits and pols perceive them to be. One recent presidential candidate agreed with your current assessment and campaigned accordingly, only to be vilified by so-called moderates as too extreme. I'm looking at you, Dr. K.
4
@mancuroc Dr. K didn't "vilify" Sanders at all- he did criticize him for being inadequate on concrete details on getting his proposals enacted. valid criticism.
4
The people I know who voted for Corrupt Donnie understand the point of this piece and that understanding is what was behind their votes for Corrupt Donnie. It is what was behind the Tea Party and its targeting of Republicans more than Democrats. It is also why "both sides do it" gets traction and why some thoughtful adults seriously consider socialism.
America is and always has been progressive.
Now Dr. K needs to connect the dots between this disconnect and its root cause: excessive income and wealth inequality.
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I wish I could agree, but there's a big difference between what many Americans want for themselves (lots of services, low taxes, expansive rights) and what they want for everyone else (no services, high taxes, sharply curtailed rights). Ask them what they think they should have, and they sound pretty reasonable, if economically uninformed. Ask what they think other people should have, and they . . . vote for Donald Trump.
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@Fred
That's the definition if a republican and a libertarian. Democrats have compassion.smd are willing to share.
MRIs have found that the Right makes decisions based on fear - their amygdalas are in high gear. Couple that with growing up religious - accepting authority on faith and no critical thinking - and you get Trump.
26
@Fred thank you, Fred. This is on the mark.
10
@Al "Couple that with growing up religious - accepting authority on faith and no critical thinking - and you get Trump."
Yes, and per Deepak Chopra, "God gave us spirituality, the devil gave us religion". Now, religion in the form of Evangelicals, has supported Trump's excesses. The Robert Jeffrees of the world have to define God for their followers. His followers believe Robert has a direct line to God for guidance.
2
“...maximum ugliness.” That is how America, Dr. Krugman, lists to the right of center. Think on it: fifty-plus years ago, after LBJ signed the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts, America, resentful and confused (and, perhaps, genuinely conflicted), lurched to the right. No greater proof is needed now—nor was it then—by the shift of white Democrats, especially in the South, to become, like Strom Thurmond (1948), Dixiecrats.
It was a vitally important moment for the Republican Party. It seized upon racial animosity as the perfect wedge—the quintessential historical and topical culture war, the third rail of race, to throw off its status as a (demographically) minority party and to seize and hold power. It will never change; what GOP candidate for president, since 1968 (excepting the cipher, Gerald Ford, who was undone by his pardon of Richard Nixon), has not seeded his campaign staff and campaign trail and party platform with red meat dog-whistles? The examples are too plentiful to enumerate here.
But Donald Trump is sui generis. He took George Wallace’s racism (“segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”) and appealed to the same racial divisions that plowed the furrows for Ronald Reagan: affirmative action; entitlements; social programs for the downtrodden. Nixon and Reagan and the Bushes “genteelly” hid behind the rancor; Trump encourages and enlists the hordes of hate.
He knows it’s ugly. But ugly is as ugly does. Ask McConnell and Ryan.
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@Soxared, '04, '07, '13, ‘18 So it seems like racism blinds GOP voters to the fact that the GOP is not doing anything substantive or helpful for them? This could explain why Trump voters vote against their own economic interest.
16
Very interesting. I would not rule out the possibility that they are aware that America is further to the left. The story they present, the answers to the survey they give are perhaps part of the lies they tell to secure their tenuous position.
4
"Trump has an advantage. He didn’t grow up in the conservative hothouse" Sorry, but no.
Trump grew up in a right-wing and even racist household; his dad marched with the KKK. Trump's clique (the people who he talks to on his unsecured cellphone) is far to the right of American politics. Trump lived inside the right-wing bubble long before it grew to its current FoxNewsian dimensions.
Trump's main advantage is his overwhelming willingness to tell lies to people who want to hear the lies. And other Republicans are taking note and imitating him.
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The reason the Republicans think that eliminating government-sponsored healthcare is that many of them are there specifically because they ran campaigns to "repeal Obamacare" and won with that.
New Republican congressmen wanted new destined-to-fail "repeal Obamacare" votes simply because they hand't had a chance to establish that red.
It doesn't make any difference that their voter base was basically trained to think anything that that-black-guy Obama did was evil, and that all liberalism was evil, and even if it wasn't it was just too much fun making liberals livid over something. That is all why the "ACA" polls better than "Obamacare."
At what point would you expect them to lose this delusion? In fact if would be more surprising if they did.
7
I’m beginning to wonder if transforming climatic realities may adjust our cherished beliefs about the value of democracy. Those realities may herald the emergence of a praetorian regime dictating the allocation of rights to survival. Or we might be lucky to have a technocracy where all get some and none get all. Regardless, though I’ll vote next Tuesday, I’m wondering if our politics is becoming detached from realities and events will overtake all of us. A paradigm shift where Earth abides and survives but we are changed. I worry for my descendants.
8
Americans who want to repeal the ACA largely want to replace it with Medicare for all.
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@Chris Martin False, sir. They want private insurance companies to continue lining all of their pockets.
2
@Chris Martin I don't lthink Medicare for all is what Mitch McConnell has in mind when he says they will repeal the ACA.
It's so hard for Democrats to win as the Republican party and its allies excel at turning the convernsation towards social issues and away from economic ones. Thus many people vote based on their prejudices rather than what should be most important to them -----their economic and physical well being.
2
@HEH-" I don't think Medicare for all is what Mitch McConnell has in mind when he says they will repeal the ACA."
Especially when he has baldly and unabashedly stated he will be decreasing the funding of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
per LA Times- " McConnell identified “entitlements” — that’s Washington code for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — as “the real drivers of the debt” and called for them to be adjusted “to the demographics of the future.”"
"Keeping in mind that much of the spending on Social Security and Medicare is covered by payroll taxes or premiums, it’s clear that the real driver of the deficit is Republican fiscal policy and its relentless payouts to the wealthy."
1
Inhibited Democrats......hmmm, like a certain Nobel Prize-winning op-ed writer who consistently bashed Bernie Sanders (OK, not technically a Democrat) for advocating policies that are already in place in most OECD countries? I'm a huge fan, Dr. K, but you were also out of step politically on this.
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@Kris I'm with Dr. K on this. Bernie is all talk, and has done nothing but talk in his political career. I can't imagine him running a fast food franchise, let alone the United States. Of course Donald has done a miserable, sick job himself. So shout on Bernie.
33
@Kris
Anybody who can develop the kind of messiah complex that Bernie clearly did during that election is not going to be a good leader. You're the reason we have trump as president. But instead of realizing that you were misled, mostly by Russian hackers you continue to blame others. Voting isn't about picking your personal favorite it's about doing what's best for your country. Move your mind around to that and we won't have any more trumps.
20
@Kris The New York Daily News interview with Bernie Sanders in April 2016 showed conclusively that he was all hat and no maple syrup.
No "bashing" was needed.
8
I think the propaganda bubble breeding that second Fox-Conservatives generation is more a symptom than the disease. The fact is that the path to become a member of Congress has been reversed:
It is not anymore about building a political proposal that may result appealing to a constituency, and then seeking economic support to campaign for it and reach that constituency. The game has long ago become finding a platform that appeals to the donors, and then building an artificial supportive constituency through propaganda and social engineering (I cannot think of other term to define practices such as identifying, targeting and artificially aggregating single-issue constituencies as diverse and opposed as Evangelical Fundamentalists, conservative Catholics, Ayn Rand Libertarians and Ethnic Nationalists).
Get the money to create an artificial constituency molded to the interests and prejudices of the money sources, rather than to reach the natural, actually existing one. Build the base on your policies, using exclusively marketing techniques and parting from the conclusions (‘we will find and rationalize the premises later, as needed’), rather than the policies on your base, through rational study, discussion and persuasion. As simple as that.
What I mean is that it is only logical that their proposals have little to do with the actual opinions of the electorate, as the latter is not their target anymore.
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@Luis Cabo. Brilliantly written. I have not seen a fresh new construct of what ails our system in a long while. Thank you.
17
Krugman's intent is clearly an attempt of reverse-engineered psyching the Republican, with hilarious effects.
First he hails an op-ed i've red, as social science. It's not. It's political science with an appalling research methodology no scientist would ever take, that is imposing a "large-scale survey" on a small-scale entity such a congressonal district, (more on that later), that is to say a New York congressional district opinion is not different from one in Nashville, in Burlington, or Tallahassee That is not true.
Krugman, not satisfied, built on this that Republicans are skewed into their own bubbles, and that America is not on the right.
Contrary to opinion, presidential election was the best approximation of congressional district ( think about State as districts ) which voted in fact overwhelmingly for Republicans.
He confused popular opinion ( the large-scale survey) with district opinion ( congressional district),as typical for those who are still thinking mrs. Rodham Clinton won the election because she won the popular vote. That is not how it works. Move on.
Finally he ashames the other article by citing the backlash on health care against Bush II, which proves voters are not silenced, and electees are not living in a bubble for their mandates.
That's what happens when you try to justify a complex subject, like health care, through an hatchet-job, like popular polls.
3
@Alex p Negative, sir. interesting spin but the gerrymandered districts still show popular vote was for non-republicans. the minority can only hoodwink the majority with voter suppression and gerrymandering for so long.
14
@Kipa Cathez
the minority can only hoodwink the majority with voter suppression and gerrymandering for so long.
that being the case explain why Dems didn't win last presidential election? When you have a majority the gerrymandering is useless. Take New York and divide it along the most wild gerrymandering lines you can imagine, and you'll have still a Dems victory.
See, that's the problems with the gerrymandering issue, inflating its argument on media ( and we are talking of about max 10 district according to nytimes article) didn't correspond to any majority of votes on the field.
@Alex p
Wow! I applaud the effort, but you are a lying piece of garbage.
1
Democrats need to listen to Joe Biden. He has the pulse of middle America. Fear is strong. A reassuring voice of experience is badly needed.
6
@M Davis
Indeed, Joe does understand that "fear is strong". Remember his "They're going to put you all back in chains" speech?
1
The Republicans have their "alternative facts"--humans are not causing climate change; tax cuts solve every problem, especially keeping the government broke so that it can't afford social programs; fear always Trumps compassion so find some "other" to blame from racist dog whistles like African-American killers such as Willie Horton to a "barbarians at the gate" "invasion" of women and children seeking refuge here as "rapists," "criminals," "MS-13 gang members," and even "ISIS terrorists;" ending abortion as a way of getting Christian conservatives' votes. Democrats have "the audacity of hope" mired in establishment pro-Wall Street policies from the Clinton era and are only now finally embracing Obamacare and talking about making it universal; finally challenging the N.R.A. Republican-backed gun lobby; and, with the Pittsburgh gun massacre, also adding a pro-immigration, "embrace the other" immigration policy that will once again welcome those fleeing for their lives as many of our parents (including mine) did. We've had the negative change election of 2016; let's hope that next Tuesday America will vote for the positive change based on tolerance and human dignity and reject the divisive politics of fear and hate.
6
I have news for the Dems. The only reason, the ONLY reason, I vote for them this cycle us because Trump and the GOP are so gawd awful. I have no faith the liberals who are running won't be turned into GOP lite by the Democrat's power players.
I don't know where this all goes but I want to believe at some point congress will start to dance with us who brought them.
48
@Let the Dog Drive Thank you for not letting the perfect ruin the good in this time of crisis.
please keep hammering on the effects of FOX news.... there is nothing more dangerous to our country than murdoch's propaganda machine.
524
@coale johnson..FOX news is definitely a propaganda machine but so is MSNBC. The only difference is that their propaganda is completely opposite of each other but both are equally dangerous.
@Aaron Adams
No.
37
@Aaron Adams
Tell me what conspiracy theory has MSNBC made up to scare it's viewers?
58
Re: "It has clearly inhibited Democrats from taking bold policy positions, out of fear that they’ll be too far left for voters – a fear fed by journalists who keep insisting that the public wants centrists who are somewhere between the parties."
Perhaps there should be a bit of mea culpa here. Remember the outrage against Sanders?
41
Dr. Krugman’s criticism of Mr. Sanders was always reasoned and, in my opinion, right on the nose. Mr. Sanders’ overall economic goals may have been appealing, but his specific policy proposals ranged mostly from empty to absurd. Dr. Krugman did little more than calling him on some of his most outlandish and blatantly wrong premises, when they obviously contradicted objective facts (for example on projected growth and other economic figures, which were not less outlandish than Mr. Trump’s).
I am European and lived in the EU until well into my 30s. I wholeheartedly agree with most of Mr. Sanders’ general ideas, as do virtually all mainstream European politicians. All classic major European parties, Socialist or Conservative, agree on issues such as the need for publicly-funded universal healthcare systems, appropriate minimum wage, unions and worker rights, strict financial, electoral and environmental regulation…
Thus, the candidates I’ve known all my life in Europe are not judged on those basic principles, but on their exact policy proposals to put them into practice. In my opinion, Mr. Sanders does not pass the test in that regard. Not even close. I just find him big on principles and with a heart in the right place, but small on actual ability, knowledge and substance; and without the latter those principles become just demagoguery and wishful thinking. That's the problem his critics had with him, not some conspiracy by the establishment against the people's champion.
16
@Luis Cabo
I think you are incorrect on this. Krugman's criticism of Sanders on growth were guilt by association. An economist who supported Sanders made those projections, not Sanders himself.
What's more, I tend to disagree with Krugman's orthodox criticism of the heterodox methodology of the pro-Sanders projections.
See http://www.rweconomics.com/Deficit.htm
and
http://www.rweconomics.com/Sanders1.htm
6
@Luis Cabo I think you may have missed the point. If all major western European politicians agree on basic premises about issues such as healthcare, then of course you look to the very specific proposals to put them into practice. But when you have a country where, three years ago, not a single major political figure except Sanders called for a Medicare-for-all system, then it is fair to judge on that basis. When basic inequality was mentioned by almost no politicians, then Sanders' bringing that issue to the fore matters a lot more than specific proposals about the Internal Revenue Code. When almost no one even mentioned the existence of class in America, except "the middle class," then Sanders, as a politician, not a sociologist, did this country a great service. I don't think Krugman has ever acknowledged any of this.
8
I would frame things a bit differently. As Gunnar Myrdal pointed out in the 1940s, Americans are basically conservative, but the things they want to conserve are fundamentally liberal. Wanting to preserve Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as essential elements of the social safety net seems to me to stem from basically conservative instincts. These “liberal” programs are part of the social contract that binds Americans together. Politicians who call themselves Conservatives are actually phony conservatives who don’t want to conserve anything. They want to shred the social safety net in the name of some mythical Ayn Randish ideal.
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@Joe Alexander
Today's Republicans are not "conservative," they do the bidding of their right-wing extremist patrons who care only about protecting their own interests.
The term "conservative" with its connotations of practical, cautious trustworthiness, has not accurately described the GOP for many years.
187
@Pat Conservative; cautious, fearful, closed, self-centered, greedy, authoritarian, opposed to changes and therefore skeptical of science and suspicious of the arts, especially modern arts, religious, dogmatic, fundamental, lacking empathy, self-righteous...... but definitely not trustworthy.
34
@Joe Alexander
It's not quite true that those on the right "don't want to conserve anything." The're totally committed to conserving their own power, privilege and possessions. And calling them "phony" is 100% accurate.
19
I've worked for a member of Congress. It was back in the early 90s when Bill Clinton won. The aides know what voters want and need. They hear from them all the time. It's the members who, most often, live on a different plane of existence and several classes higher, with no personal experience of what life in the trenches is like.
Back then, Clinton jolted everyone with the choices he made with his secret advisor, adopting the very policies Ronald Reagan couldn't pass, making a deal with Newt and redeeming himself with voters in the process called triangulation.
As for the Republicans? Just look at Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell. Think their aides led them astray or relayed donor orders?
What a preposterous bit of social science! You'd think Krugman sees through all that after two years of Trump!
---
Neoliberalism and Triangulation in the words of Clinton's Aides
https://www.rimaregas.com/2017/09/04/triangulation-when-neoliberalism-is-at-its-most-dangerous-to-voters-updated-dem-politics-on-blog42/
8
Three examples from the past week in which, CLEARLY, neither member nor candidate was led astray by aides:
1. Senate candidate Kirsten Sinema saying she wouldn't have voted against Kavanaugh
2. Senator Joe Donnelly, yesterday, saying he's not opposed to ending birthright citizenship
3. Senator Jon Tester saying Senator Elizabeth Warren's DNA test doesn't pass the test
Tester, Donnelly, McCaskill, Heitkamp, and Manchin, voted with Republicans on the first bill considered in 2017 to roll back clean water regulations for coal mining companies. Does anyone really think either aides or voters want coal ash with their drinks and bath water?
How about McCaskill telling groups of white female constituents she'll vote with Trump, at the beginning of 2017 and calling Black Lives Matter terrorists? Think her Black constituents appreciated that?
Come On!
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking
https://www.rimaregas.com/2018/08/07/greed-malfeasance-never-sleep-blog42s-things-trump-did-while-you-werent-looking-august-december-2018/
60
@Rima Regas
Revisiting the scope of birthright citizenship should not be a litmus test. No other advanced country offers it nearly as broadly as the U.S. does and for very good reason - given today's technologies and the openness of liberal societies, it could threaten the basis for liberal society and, in particular, the modern welfare state.
4
tew
We have a history to look back on. We've always been a nation of immigrants. What you wrote simply isn't true.
The vast majority of immigrants pay into the system. As Krugman's written many times, those immigrants actually don't get to benefit from the system they've paid into because of their status - contrary to what your news sources and the president keep telling you.
We actually need more immigrants to fill positions that are sorely needed, especially in the area of elder care, for example. Ask any farmer in the South, West, and middle of the country how Trump's immigration policies have affected work on their farms.
Are these people a threat to you or me? No!
The fundamental issue, however, is that this is baked into the constitution and as Paul Ryan pointed out yesterday, not even Trump can make an executive decision to make it go away. BTW, Ryan isn't the only Republican who publicly disagreed with Trump on birthright yesterday.
You can't amend the constitution from the Oval Office.
14
Fig 13 in the link to polling data shows that
A majority of *republicans* support the main point of Obamacare !!
given this, one has to conclude that Obama and the Dems are and were totally inept in the PR dept; there is no other possible conclusion
where dear G-d is our L Atwater ?
https://www.kff.org/health-costs/poll-finding/kaiser-health-tracking-poll-late-summer-2018-the-election-pre-existing-conditions-and-surprises-on-medical-bills/
3
" [ T's ] very crudity means that he understands that his electoral chances depend not on repeating conservative pieties but on maximum ugliness."
We MUST de-fang the executive branch by flipping the Congress.
Vote as though your Country depends upon YOU!
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