Too many Americans want everything (monetarily) for nothing. At the gym yesterday, I saw a block of TV programming "American Greed" back to back with "Shark Tank". Also see multi-million dollar settlements for injuries, magic weight loss pills. I don't know how these traits became so distinctly part of our culture.
So it's not a stretch for the consumers of these fantasies to believe Trump will create a rich, glorious, white America without any of the necessary work. No education, no credit, no skills, no problem! MAGA!
82
A con artist's favorite victim is the guy who refuses to admit he's been conned.
102
Can't believe there's still room at the commentary inn, but anyway, we seem to be reliving the age of the robber barons. One of you(se) op-ed folks needs to print the famous " Let Us Prey" steel engraving by Thomas Nast. Then all should write a column to illustrate the illustration. That's where we are.
It is truly remarkable that one of the least lovable presidents, LBJ, did through his long congressional career the most for those poor states and folks through rural electrification and other programs, and as president the most for old folks with Medicare.
It also is pitiful and pitiable that our president is promoting policies that undo so much and that congressional Republicans are so fearful of riling the 35-40% alias Trump supporters by voting in the funding and laws that will help them. To continue supporting laws and programs that will keep the poor down and out is sooo 19th century.
69
The problem with Trump's promises to his supporters is that it requires a time machine, the non-existence of automation and (as Roy Moore touched upon), a repeal of all but the first 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Trump's language and the language of conservatism in general is almost exclusively retrograde... "Take the country BACK AGAIN," "the Grand OLD Party," "the good OLD days," "make America great AGAIN," etc., etc.
And their fantasy of returning to past circumstances is inseparable from excluding people Trump and his ilk consider "undeserving." In Trumpland, why should LGBTQ employees have rights equal to those of their straight counterparts? Why should men be held accountable for their actions towards women? Why shouldn't Confederates, Nazis and the KKK enjoy the same level of respect from our nation's leaders as those who protest them?
It was so much easier for Trumpland when they worked with people who looked like them, worshipped like them, voted like them and laughed at the same jokes; before women started saying "no" and equal protection was taken so literally.
It's such a simpler message than imagining that the perhaps manufacturing jobs and coal mining can no longer support middle class lifestyles in any significant number. And what red-blooded "real" American wants to hear that they must compete with women and minorities as equals and that their "religious freedom" is not a blank check? They'd rather the country burn.
105
Paul Krugman hits it out of the ball park again. Our political divide basically is about the" rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer." That is leading to a Fascist Nation led by the likes of Donald Trump whose main concern is himself, his wealth, and a few cronies like him. Trump has all the makings of a modern day Mussolini. Absent is a focus on truth and the "Common Good" prevelant in the history of the American presidency.
47
"Things have been falling apart on multiple fronts since the 1970s:"
African "Americans" might tell you America has been falling apart for 350 years. Like MLK for example.
15
It's hard to fix stupid. If rational persuasion doesn't work, the solution in economically depressed areas may be some sort of mandatory federal program that can impose the changes needed regardless of the GOP and its destructive anti-tax, anti-government nonsense.
14
I have nothing for these people ( these bitter, "white working class" in mostly rural areas) Suck it up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and quit looking for a handout. After all, that is the wisdom bequeathed to poor people of color for decades
83
Nothing is wrong with Trumpland: Trump is in the process of shagging Trumpland, just like all the other presidents. The difference in this case is that the Trumpies are all jumping up and down with glee while he's doing so. (And so, as a Democrat, am I.)
19
don't forget: the mainly left behind regions are ALSO notorious for terrible nutrition and extreme forms of superstition (that old time religion).
which came first, the chicken or the egg?
20
"And when it comes to national politics, let’s face it: Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment."
This is the part that confounds me. I cannot grasp how or why these voters continually vote for those who openly threaten and abuse them.
Let's not forget what DJT himself called them.
In speaking of his supporters, he actually said, "I love the poorly educated." While the country had a collective hissy fit worthy of a four-year-old over the deplorable comment (consistently taken out of context; it was quite clear her comment was limited to those who actually do measurably deplorable things, and they do), this was allowed to slide by with little commentary. And yet, it remains his only honest comment in three gruesome years of politicking.
The answer to the divide is buried in the middle of this article...it's all about education. As a nation, if we cannot even help people understand simple economics or which policies help and hurt them, we've failed. We have.
39
"And when it comes to national politics, let’s face it: Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment."
Some (encouraging) signs there may be some change going on in Trumpland:
"State Partisanship Shifts Toward Democratic Party in 2017" - Feb. 1, 2018, Gallup Study
http://news.gallup.com/poll/226556/state-partisanship-shifts-toward-demo...
"Five states shifted from a Republican status to a competitive one between 2016 and 2017: Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Five other states moved from a competitive status to a Democratic one: Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia. No states moved from competitive to Republican, or from Democratic to competitive."
"The 2017 political map, thus, most closely resembles those seen in 2011 through 2014, the middle years of Barack Obama's presidency. ...In Obama's last two years in office -- including 2016, when Donald Trump was elected as his successor -- more states had a Republican rather than a Democratic allegiance."
20
The simple facts are this:
One needs health in order to benefit from education. Vast need for excellence in K-12 education can't work without access to health care.
Vocationalization of education is self-destructive. Efforts compensate for inadequate high school education by linking with existing businesses traps young adults in occupation-centered skills that don't transfer to new industries—don't attract new industry to regions.
The Trumpland poor need reliable access to health care and excellence of schools that attracts talented college students into a career in K-12 education.
That's the magic potion for regional convergences.
.
17
Jobs are not the whole story. I visited my relatives in northwest Minnesota last summer - an area that has a very robust manufacturing base - Marvin Windows, Polaris, Arctic Cat, Digi-Key - all of which employ thousands of workers. They need so many workers that they bus them in from 50 miles away. Yet this area went 65% for Trump. Despite all the manufacturing going on it is also a major farming area. Though very few actually farm anymore most families have their roots in farming and still have the old homestead in their families. They are still in the mindset of a rural community. And they are rural - you drive hours between towns thru green fields. They went for Trump because they bought into the spiel of right wing entertainers that Clinton is totally corrupt - and ignore the fact that umpteen Republican committee investigations proved beyond a doubt that she is NOT. They just "don't like her" and would rather have a proven ignorant, lying, misogynistic racist con-man bigot than "that woman" as president. Simple, even if dumb in the long run.
73
the gop has done a very good job of creating voters who are dumb enough to vote for someone like trump and who keep the gop in power. i have heard that the population density of many of these states is lower now than it was during the westward expansion. i think its just a question of waiting for these people to die out and then letting that part of the country go fallow.
19
"Voting against their economic interests" has become the meme describing rural population. There is nothing condescending in that, just the perfect reflection of their reality. Yet they are digging in in their opposition to liberal policies and are getting exactly the opposite they think they deserve. Now they are wiling to trade 1000-2000 coal mining jobs for the loss of 3000 farm jobs.
Rural Americans trying to get ahead of other rural Americans. Ins't that a perfect irony of their predicament? And their silly naiveté? Educated urban population and their high tech industries will fare much better in any potential trade war.
14
What's the matter with Trumpland? "What's the Matter with Kansas?" is what's the matter with many states, and a very large segment of the population. Social fears (racial, religious, guns, abortion, class) trump economic fears and economic interest. The Karl Roves of the world know this very well, and act on it. The Democratic Party, not so much.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned his fellow Democrats four decades ago that the GOP had the high ground on all the hot-button issues. What did the Democrats do? Cowered in DLC-centrism and caved for the bucks in deregulation and neoliberalism. Stealth Rockefeller Republicans? Very much, particularly in financial and economic matters (but, importantly, also in foreign policy, criminal justice and safety net matters). Small-d democrats? Not so much. Paid for it bigtime this past election.
Asking the question "What's the Matter with Kansas?" is part of the problem, too, as it's easily portrayed (and manipulated) as smug liberal elitism. This is a fatal characteristic of the mainstream neoliberal Democratic Party apparatchiks who have controlled the party since 1974.
There was a saying in Appalachia during the Great Depression: "There's nothing dumber than a poor Republican." Actually, there is one thing: a Democratic Party that can't seem to counteract that phenomenon in any substantive positive way.
Will the Democratic Party take the American Experiment for another limo ride in 2020?
4
Mr. Krugman, you are part of the problem. There are two sides to every story. I've never seen you write something positive about Trump or the Republicans. You are constantly negative. Even when Trump was elected, you predicted the stock market with crash. It actually went up. Can we perhaps have a little bit more of "fair and balanced"?
3
Wrong; Trumpland is our (progressive) land. The 2nd industrial revolution just played out. Planes, telephones, automobiles along with electrification provided most of its productivity increases just prior to the Arabs raising oil price in the 70's, and the 2nd industrial revolution just simply could not provide much more productivity since.
But now the 3rd industrial revolution is mobilizing beginning with "Amazoned," 5G wireless, wind, solar, all bridged by fracked NG. They said you can't wire HVDC wind east and no net metered rooftop solar, and China tried to steal 5G from Qualcom but "life finds a way." GE announced Utility battery systems for sell that cost effectively stores wind to peak shave, and soon for distributed grid batteries to allow rooftop solar, and then to displace "peakers" not to mention cars and semi's along the way, all provide massive productivity increases even in Trumpland.
Fuel cells - These Utility batteries are often what they call flow batteries where there is a flow of saltwater (electrolyte) through fuel cell.
I am still foolish to think that citizens who have were to help those who do not. And legislation was to be created to help all citizens. What good is a country where a small number of people have more money than they need, and do not care to spread it around, and more people need money in the form of jobs, and do not have that. Until all citizens are veste din the interests of their country, it continues to experience dysfunction, ambivalence, an us versus them attitude. All behaviors that do not help but hinder. A country is as strong as its strongest but weak as its weakest. America has a lot of weak.
6
Duke University History Department Professor Nancy MacClean has written “Democracy in Chains,” well-researched and very readable, which underlines Professor Krugman’s points on the role of money (Koch brothers, etc.) in the current disastrous situation.
7
How far is this headline from "Basket of Deplorables?" As the leading left economic writer, Krugman has great insight but builds no bridges.
3
And the Folks in Trumpland insist on being poorly educated. They insist on denying science. They insist on no/low taxes and starve their public educational system. These folks are terrified of educated "elites" and will willingly stay ignorant. Please remind me why I have to care?
24
Even red states have blue voters. Not all people in the Trumpland are voting against their best interests.
What is scary are the blue state educated voters who are beginning to weaken in the face of the Trump's barrage of strong man marketing. Many are thinking that maybe the US was wimpy letting China get away with stealing intellectual property, dumping steel, keeping the yen low. Maybe the problems of industrial America can be solved by isolating our economy to bring manufacturing back because look at the booming job market.
The reality is that these middle America states had a high point for a few decades following WWII. The big boost in higher productivity and huge federal investments in infrastructure from the FDR days all contributed to a golden age for these states. Now, they are sliding back as growth in productivity slows and next to nothing in federal investment.
So, if anyone is getting squishy on Trump, realize he isn't doing anything to bring back the golden age of US economic power, when we were innovating and investing our way out of the depression with the help of war spending. He is actually doing everything he can to shrink the golden goose that is the Federal Government that in the past encouraged prosperity with a steady flow of cash into the hands of the middle class.
Don't be fooled by this administration. The people around Trump are too lazy to make their money honestly.
146
The problem in Trump land is twofold. First, some genius decided that it was a good idea to offshore a large portion of US manufacturing, and the people left jobless were told that they needed to upgrade their educational and skill levels. Some did But this is easier said than done - there are only so many engineers and designers needed in any field, and some people are simply not capable. The other problem is just ignorance. These people's sense of victimization provides them with an identity and with an opportunity to blame their ills on someone else, i.e. minorities and foreigners. Hence Trump becomes their imagined savior. But frankly a lot of us are tired of the never ending rationalizations as to why any of these people continually vote against their self interests by electing people like Trump. The truth is that if they are gullible enough to believe anything that comes out of Donald Trumps mouth, then they deserve to be in the situation they are in.
151
In an attempt to support those who voted for trump, first they have to be willing to believe "it" can be different.
Today, the divide is too wide and with Citizens United pouring special interest money into the system and Hannity screaming daily, it fills the space and mind where reason can no longer fit or be heard.
When governors purposefully refused Medicaid expansion - those needing care turned to state public systems. Those with little had to pay for those with less. Not expanding Medicaid was a strategic maneuver that paid off because it pitted people against each other; making villains of those who were poor and/or un/under employed.
Today's GOP's behavior sets the precedent that when you are the party in power, you pass laws that you want, not the laws that your nation needs. The precedent of simply overturning or negating the pervious administrations laws and international deals will become the norm.
No citizen will trust their congress. No nation will trust the USA. And it will take an entire generation to right our currently foul system.
I am a voter and I am heart broken.
15
I have no real substantive response to the daunting, disparate facts that Mississippi, Kansas and Oklahoma, at least, have gone backwards in the last thirty years, and chosen that strategy. The mention of Hoschschild by Amanda is relevant and useful but what she found was that people didn't know what they didn't know. They believed the political class that told them Washington hated them when it didn't, and they believed the politicians who said that cutting taxes would be great for jobs, when it wasn't.
We have manipulative, dishonest political leaders, like McConnell and Ryan, whose only interest in pleasing wealthy donors and retaining power. They are more than willing to teach their constituents a flawed reality for their own benefit.
Why would a major US Senator, McConnell, advocate that his state reject benefits that would lift the quality of life for its citizens and be able to sleep at night? Why would governors like Jindal and Brownback represent that cutting taxes and all relevant services like health and education? Because they simply don't care except for themselves, and they don't depend on any of those services. The cynicism and self-interest is palpable and people can not see it because they actually believe their elected leaders are there to help. Hearts are made to be broken and they will be.
13
Perhaps we need a new "Land Grant" program to build high-quality universities in poor parts of the country. With a more educated populace, these areas could attract modern industry and generate a better quality of life for their residents. The USA boomed with the results of the Land Grant Universities and the GI bill. The country would greatly benefit from free public higher education now.
4
I believe we should address the income disparities in metropolitan regions that leave many homeless and where those working in education, service industries, and other low pay jobs do not earn enough to support themselves and their families.
10
"Indeed, before World War II the world’s richest, most productive nation was also a nation with millions of dirt-poor farmers, many of whom didn’t even have electricity or indoor plumbing. But until the 1970s those disparities were rapidly narrowing."
===
The explanation is very simple, Mr. Krugman. The 1970s was when the Democratic Party discovered the Third Way (Neoliberalism) and started their worship of Wall Street and their cozy relationship with the mega-corporations. Once we had two parties of the rich, what else could follow but soaring inequality?
6
This just makes the entire problem sound insoluble. The next generations need to do some accounting math and elect people that can make a difference. And the sound like it will not happen.
1
Perhaps a more appropriate question is how to help Trumpland. Liberal economists and pundits from the coasts seem to show little interest aside from sniping from the side - but they all cheered NAFTA and the massive outsourcing that led to its impoverishment. What is needed is another New Deal, one that is blind to special pleading from interest groups.
3
It was not Nafta that created the outsourcing, that was going to happen anyways. Corporations always had been looking for places to make goods for the US that required the cheapest labor and raw material.
Nafta didn't make corporations flee to china and other impoverished countries where a worker could be paid 25 cents a day.
Throw in automation (the leading cause of job loss in the US) and the jobs that could be done more cheaply either elsewhere or by machines were loss.
The big problem is that instead of educating workers to possible new jobs, states cut back on education.
Right now retail stores are shutting down, they can't compete with the internet sales. Those people will lose their jobs and the ease of buying online will get better. All for more profit.
14
Maybe the solution is not exporting jobs that do not require PhDs?
3
Good article. Important transition from blue collar to service industries (1950s) transformed nature of work. Educated east coast liberals were first to get onboard the train. The "Base" arrived at the station too late. An educated class sponsored a dispora seeded by the eastern Ivy League graduates to found Silicon Valley (circa. 1960s) that is home base for Stanford University. The emergence of the knowledge economy and concentration of academic elites that spawned great private enterprises were 'juiced' by taxpayer funding.
Although inheritor's of wealth would likely still stand-out in the top 400 listing of America's wealthy, we have seen a class of technology elites that rose to the top of the list - Gates, Bezos, et. al., and names many don't recognize, unless you studied computer science and mathematics.
The underling story to this article is that government financed the economic transition from smoke stack manufacturing to services and higher-value technology industries - good thing.
Although Trump's inner circle and GOP Congress - and some Democrats, see red when the government intervenes though fiscal policy, no one put their hand up in decades past when the U.S. funded - directly and indirectly - much of the private enterprise we now classify as Information and Communitication Technology: R&D Funding = new jobs
In other words, U.S. federal and state government provided the grease that lubricated the great transformation from smoke stacks to computer chips
2
Thanks for highlighting that Nimbyism is a big factor in unaffordable housing costs on the coasts. I would love it if Krugman would write a column on how restrictive zoning and delay in getting infill projects started due to endless neighborhood review and resistance drives up housing costs and hurts the young and middle and lower income people in coastal and near coastal cities like mine. Maybe folks who are so protective of the status quo in their neighborhoods might consider how their children will ever afford to live there.
3
Tracy, fortunately Krugman has written such a column in the past. In addition, one of the economists he cites in this article, Ed Glaeser, has written a number of good papers on this topic.
1
There's nothing new here. The changing geography of job opportunities is what brought so many immigrants to America for over two centuries.
There are always people who are left behind, either because they don't want to move, or can't move. We definitely need to address the problems of those who are left behind. And, similar to the New Deal era, no one knows yet what to do. Yet we must do something, which means we need to try things that may fail, and welcome new ideas and experimentation, just as the New Dealers did back in the 1930s. Unfortunately, only one part of the country is desperate enough to try something new. The other part is doing well, and therefore is resisting any change, especially a trade war, or restrictions on immigration.
3
Clearly corporations will not
Do this; that is against the fiduciary responsibility they have to their equity stakeholders.
So if it is not Capitalism, the. We will have to turn to....?
1
Perhaps it would be best (overall minimize suffering) if Trumpland, being incorrigibly and passionately wrongheaded, just starved itself to death.
The quality of stupidity is not strained. It droppeth as torrential rain from heaven upon the place beneath. Evolution has left many of us utterly vulnerable to this plague.
7
Prof. Krugman’s GDP statistics provide support for more recent economic history in our country. For a comprehensive understanding of the global evolution of inequality I would suggest the work of Walter Scheidel - “Violence and the History of Inequality From the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century” . In particular, four historical phenomena are correlated with advances and declines in economic inequalities: war (global proportions); state collapse (rot from within); catastrophe (plague, famine); revolution. Each of these has produced very limited relief from the inexorable march of economic inequality. Indeed, Prof. Krugman indirectly refers to total mobilization during WWII as the most recent event that reduced inequality in our country. (Effects of the war shortages persisted until the early 70s.) The “Four Horsemen” noted above all resulted in temporary labor shortages and led to economic benefit for previously suppressed classes. The popular remedies- reform, economic development, education- have not gained much traction. I reproduce here a quote from Shakespeare (King Lear) that is included in Scheidel’s book, “So distribution should undo excess And each man have enough”.
2
I point to the post WWII years when the top tax bracket was taxed at 90%
7
Trumpland’s policies tend to hurt its walking dead supporters the hardest but its denizens can’t or won’t read NYT or WAPO to comprehend their plight. As long as the orange Russian puppet keeps shoveling out Soma to the deplorables they will continue to believe that we are “winning”.
6
With respect, the building of more and more "luxury housing" that remains unoccupied, affects soaring housing costs a great deal more than Nimbyism. The fact that there is little or no urban planning is another probable cause. Planning should take account of "Not in anyone's back yard". The soaring cost of housing has more to do with ever larger profits demanded by the developers, than urban dweller's desire for sky, air and sunlight.
The fundamental problem is our bought political system.
4
Not to the developers: they are selling these to international oligarchs looking for ways to park their money elsewhere.
5
Any talk by Democrats, direct or indirect, about 'slavery reparations' (ie collective guilt) can only guarantee a GOP majority fueled by anger and resentment.
9
The only thing missing from this Opinion Piece is mention of the harsh criminal punishment meted out to African Americans using crack cocaine, as opposed to the caring treatment center approach given to white addicts.
9
The problem is that Trump supporters are uneducated, ignorant and lack basic critical thinking skills. The key is education, which they'll never get because they keep voting for Republicans. It's a viscous cycle.
13
Gee-whiz! All the states where the people are falling behind, getting poorer and suffering more are RED. That’s what’s the matter with Trumpland. It suffers most from the disease that afflicts US all, the Republican Party.
22
The idiocy of voting for Trump because of his racism, homophobia and xenophobia is very hard to understand. But there it is. Ask Trump voters and that is what is making them pull the GOP lever. It certainly isn't going to be economics going forward. Trump fans the flames of the politics of hate. It is not what we value in the United States, but he gives cover to the worst elements in our society.
16
A simple answer to your headline query: TRUMP !
3
In fairness to Donald. ...and it hurts me to say this.....he is going to be punched by a recession, like every President does in our designed boom and bust economic model.
But unlike the others who were mature, he'll blame CNN and/or the New York Times
6
The CBO has shown that thanks to Obama's way of rebuilding the economy after the Great Recession, the economy would continue to steadily grow (= between 1 and 2% a year, on average) for at least a decade.
All that Trump has to do to prolong that period even more, is to build on those evidence-based measures.
Instead, he's doing the exact opposite: instead of cutting the deficit he's doubling it, instead of reinforcing healthcare he's undermining it, instead of passing well-designed tax cuts to stimulate wage growth he passes tax cuts for the wealthiest with no strings attached at all, and instead of keeping and building on important trade agreements, he's destroying them and replacing them with trade wars.
And then we're not even talking yet about his refusal to actively transition to clean energy whereas those are among the rare sectors of US industry where growth is still possible.
So first of all there's no reason to believe that recessions happen automatically, and secondly Trump is doing everything he can to destroy the current, solid economic growth.
Third, let's not forget that he promised a 4% economic boom, rather than a recession ...
18
Trump's people are not very smart. They have a limited world view and lack empathy.
16
Better question: Who cares?
8
From Wikipedia, "The first law of holes, or the law of holes, is an adage which states that "if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging"."
Yeah, the second law of holes is something like...when you do stop digging, you're still in the hole.
The republican party and their voters have been digging a hole for the country since Nixon, and the entire nation has now fallen in. And they are still digging, and digging harder than ever. Education is the way out of the hole, but republicans really hate education because it generally involves the truth, which they hate even more than education. Really. It's not just Trump who hates the truth. The deplorables love Trump because he hates the truth as much as they do.
So...where does that leave the rest of us? We need to do two things. First, we need countable paper ballots for every election. It is my belief that Trump did not actually win the election...it was stolen by republicans manipulating the vote count.
Once we have paper ballots for every election, we then need to vote out ALL REPUBLICANS.
18
It seems to me that this is exactly what Hillary Clinton said in her recent visit to India, and for which she got into so much trouble. The fact that the thriving regions voted largely for her, and the struggling regions voted for Mr. Trump, may be difficult to hear, but it happens to be true. Is the "trouble" Mr. Krugman rhetorically asks about really that the truth about the economy is not allowed to be spoken because it offends certain people? Ironic that the party in power is that one whose leaders rail against "political correctness."
3
Come on, Paul...that's pretty lazy analysis from a mind like yours. Americans making $50,000 or less voted for Clinton, not Trump. The real issue is racial resentment. An increasing amount of white Americans think they are the victims of anti-white discrimination, and they think the government prioritizes handouts to people of color over them. They think white communities are facing rising crime, mostly from black and brown criminals (especially immigrants), even though crime has significantly declined over the past 30 years. They believe these things in their gut, even if it isn't happening in their own neighborhoods, and they trust their gut over the corporate/mainstream media because they know one black person who's on welfare or they remember that one time an undocumented migrant shot someone when he should've been deported. They see those things as proving their deeply held suspicions that black folks won't help themselves and immigrants always commit more crimes -- when it's really that they fear losing white hegemony in their neighborhoods, in government, and in the economy.
12
We know liberals love big government and higher taxes. Perhaps Paul should spend his time analyzing the gdp and low unemployment rate.
1
Well, he already did. And if you'd have done so too, you'd have noticed that the capitalist developed countries with higher taxes also have a higher GDP and less unemployment (and better healthcare).
Why?
The more you pay taxes, the more you are engaged in your own government, so the more it becomes difficult for the wealthy few to take it over and use it only to serve their own interests ... ?
18
The more you pay taxes, the more you are engaged in your own government - that's a good one! i have to remember that.
these great coastal areas, mentioned by PK, have absolutely disastrous separation between rich and poor. Think NYC, LA, SF, etc.
I'm fine with higher taxes if it means well-educated kids, smooth roads, a stable power grid, solid police and fire departments, etc.
I'm not okay with our taxes, no matter how high or low they are, being spent on weekly golf vacations, high-class travel, incompetent government officials, wasteful military parades, etc.
Therein lies the difference.
22
What is now "Trumpland" also bitterly opposed the New Deal as a socialist plot--even after several years of brutal economic depression. Same old story.
8
This is what happens when one tenth of one percent of the population, own 90 percent of the wealth. Until we remove Republicans from power there is little hope we can change things.
14
The problem is Trump’s con of helping the “left behind” who prospered in a different industrial age of manufacturing and fossil fuel energy jobs. Trump thinks cutting off the rest of the world from our economy, making the US a zero-automation manufacturing country again and pushing coal and oil – just like it was 60 years ago, will make everything right. And people say, “yeah, then things could be like they were back then; I could work with my hands with a high school education, raise a family and retire just fine.” The truth is completely different. People don’t want to hear that that era is over, because it means they have to change the qualifications, their lifestyle, and re-educate. It’s so much EASIER to let the government (Trump) fix everything for them. Then Fox News whips it all up, telling them the LEFT has it in for them; it’s all just a plot. They stay angry, stuck and all for Trump no matter what he does.
12
Facts, education, expertise represent being a "know-it-all" to the Trump voter. "Know-it-alls" get in the way of white male entitlement that promises an easy path to being comfortable along with like buddies. The "buddies" undercut any "other" that might legitimately access a smidgen of power, authority, money or benefit, even if these benefits on a downward elevator. Trump reinforces benefit without merit and a disdain of merit even when it some tangible outcome is required. Perverse. We are all being dragged toward becoming a Kansas or Oklahoma.
3
"soaring housing costs, thanks in large part to Nimbyism, are a real and growing problem"
Facts, please?
Not to deny the reality of Nimbyism in successful cities like San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, but I think there may be another force at work here.
I think it's possible that most cities in this country are not attracting enough people because they're boring, they’re ugly, they have insufficient or even nonexistent public transportation, they can't attract interesting jobs or they can't attract ANY jobs, they are car-centric and unwalkable, and they have few or no cultural attractions.
Also because they are prejudiced against gay people, trans people, people of the wrong religion, people of no religion, people of the wrong color, intellectuals, and people of an open-minded political and cultural outlook.
Here’s how to fix the problem of homelessness in exciting, welcoming cities: make all the boring, narrow-minded cities more exciting and welcoming!
1
Sadly, the willfully ignorant have, as Mr. Krugman noted, chosen their further demise by electing Trump. He is for the wealthy and the wealthy alone.
What is needed is public wealth. When I cross the river into Canada what is seen is clean well attended spaces, people who do not fear bankruptcy from medical debt, infrastructure far better than ours, and an investment in education that provides the pool of workers for a 21st century economy.
This can be achieved through higher taxes and a seriously progressive tax system. Americans buy into the short sighted concept that reducing all taxes and getting eleven more dollars in their pay checks will make their financial situation better. If only they would understand how much further ahead they would be financially by forgoing that paltry sum and demanding healthcare, infrastructure, education, and other social necessities. All of which would be paid for by a fair but progressive income tax.
Our American masters (those who benefit from the insidious Citizens United ruling the conservative supreme court gave us as is mentioned above by Mr. Krugman,) have brainwashed those without power so that they believe and vote the values of the ruling class.
I hope that someday Americans will demand what other countries have. Before that happens, we will see more inequality and worse social tensions.
11
The key question now is not how to get the red states to stop acting against their interest, the key question is - How can we stop them from dragging the rest of America into the sewer with them?
If Kansas wants to cut regulations to the point that people die on amusement park rides and to cut taxes to the point the schools don't function, let them!
The rest of the country should not follow in a race to the bottom.
13
Quoting from the article; " let’s face it: Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment".
It has to come down to education.
Education now, and for the future.
11
When working and lower class individuals vote Republican it is always an act of voting against their own self-interests. They do this because of the manipulation and lies used by the GOP to convince them otherwise. This is how power relations work, but only if those seeking power are driven only by self-concern.
This fall we all need to vote out the Republicans in Congress who are self-serving and replace them with people who vow to get money out of politics and change the laws so that people like McConnell are put in jail if they obstruct the necessary work of Congress and of the President. We need a new Congress this November!
8
This sounds like Karma. I'm angry because now they're making decisions that will impoverish the successful states.
5
By referring to the overwhelming majority of country's area with the pejorative word "Trumpland", which there can be little doubt is intended as an insult, it becomes next to impossible to take the rest of this column seriously. I did not vote for Mr. Trump, but I have family members who did. Those people have been called either "clinging to their guns and religion" or "deplorable" by the last two Democrat presidential nominees. Crickets from their fellow party members condemning those remarks, when those remarks were as bigoted as the remarks that have come out of Mr. Trump's mouth. In addition, as someone with socialist leanings, Mr. Krugman world view seems to be from a purely economic lens. The contempt of the left for Christianity and traditional moral values (which obviously Mr. Trump does not possess) prevail in the Democratic party.
Insulting people does not make them like you, as we have seen over the last ten years.
1
I don't think you can equate calling Trump supporters "deplorable" with Trump calling the racists and fascists marching in Charlottesville "fine people." You, sir, need to ask yourself, never mind your relatives, why do you find that acceptable?
The term "Good German" came into the lexicon not to describe the NAZI's, but those who did nothing because, well, they weren't the targets of the NAZI's. That is the best that can be said of your relatives.
As for the values of Christianity, you have to read the Bible, then we can have that discussion. Mass murder seemed to have been quite acceptable throughout the history of Christianity. And then there's the patriarchy and attendant misogyny. Yeah, give me that old time religion - no thanks.
8
I have loads of family that are Trumpers. They despise me, their own flesh and blood, because of my "condescending" correction of half-baked, ill-informed ideas of how the world works. So I've stopped talking, and now they despise me for leaving the family. I can't win and I'm done trying. Ditto the rest of Trumpland.
These folks refused to keep up, stay current, learn new skills, remain relevant and are now suffering the consequences. There are many many good paying jobs, in manufacturing(!) that they're unqualified for because they don't put in the work to better themselves and communities. I've decided that since reason is a lost cause, training and advanced skill education is a lost cause, and these people are able to turn their backs on their own families, that isolation is the only solution. Maybe loneliness will cause them to reevaluate their circumstances. I, for one, no longer care. I believe in helping those who will help themselves.
15
I agree wholeheartedly. Just drown them in a blue wave in all future elections.
5
A sad truth in many of these areas is something I call 'looking at what you think your neighbor has and you don't' syndrome.
The keeping up with the Jones effect.
Many Trump voters, sadly, won't demand that their state governments adopt programs that will help them because they don't want their neighbor to enjoy a piece of the action.
So one is left with a situation that neither one strives and then they get mad when they aren't moving.
Many of these state's lawmakers flaunt this selfishness all the while using laws they implement to make sure they themselves fill their pockets.
And we the people let them get away with it.
2
I was going to post this as a response to another post, but in hopes that someone might read it and think about it, here it is on its own.
Father Coughlin has been mentioned in these Comments. As someone who grew up in Boston, a city in which Coughlin had enormous influence, I have to say much of analysis here is very superficial. It was my parents' generation that lived through this, to be clear, but I came to know many Jews who remember the anti-semitism of the time, which Coughlin stoked. Then there were the James Michael Curley's of the era, who ran their patronage machines and didn't exactly oppose Coughlin but rather rode the same populism.
Anyone who read "The Best and the Brightest" should know that Coughlin was not an outlier.
The stemming of the fascist tide that Coughlin was a part of had more to do with the alignment of forces in the run-up to WW2 than the wisdom of the populace.
And for clarity, the New Deal, in order to get votes in Congress, had to have racist restrictions built into it. I recommend "When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America," a book by Ira Katznelson which documents some of this.
So, what's the matter with Trumpland? It's called fascism, Mr. Krugman. And as Frank Zappa once satirized, it can happen here.
9
I wish someone can prove me wrong, but my impression of Trumpland is that as long as Trump, Fox News, talk radio, the NRA, etc., disparage the people that Trumpsters dislike, they are satisfied. If the economic policies that come with it hurt them, they will accept it.
19
Trump voters picked a known crook and a swindler, someone who made his money at the expense of other people and of the government, too. Even Mitt Romney made an impassioned speech regarding Trump being unacceptable as a presidential candidate, all to no avail. He is now being investigated for everything short of serial murder. So what does it take to bring "America" together again- another World War? Hopefully the sagging economy will hit enough pocketbooks and the probe into his finances will bring an end to this madness FIRST, since common sense and decency has somehow failed us. And who is running the show over at Fox News anyway? Do they realize the harm they are causing by misrepresenting what is really going on?
I hope they lose so many sponsors that they start doing a responsible job- even if it's conservatism in general that they wish to favor. There's a right way to do it while not ignoring the legitimacy of the other half of the country.
6
Paul, if - as a profession - you all are going to be as steadfastly uncurious as to what's actually going on down at the atomic level, so be it
A good astrologer probably makes more money - and gets as least as much presidential attention - as an astronomer, looking at the same stars
To wit - if your conjecture held any sort of economic water (e.g. fresh, salt, back,...) there'd be something unique about its scale of observation
But - here's the thing
I can take your column - virtually unchanged - and apply it to a state
How about New Jersey, for instance
From Clifton to Camden to Cape May - might be different countries, not just different states
By county, looks like America...One color to the East and West - another in the center
Except that blue and red are reversed
By county, only 4 of the 21 counties had margins - in either direction - of less than about ten percent
In 11 of 21 counties, the margin - in either direction - was larger than about twenty percent
But let's dig even deeper
NJ has about 1/30 of the US's population
Newark and Jersey City each have about 1/30 of NJ's population
As close as Minneapolis and St Paul - and about the same number of people
All sorts of tax incentives to build Newark
Jersey City - relatively mostly private sector
And - till about a year ago - Trumpland was winning there
But - game Krugman ;=)
At highest magnification - People's Republic of Hoboken spawned a multi-B$ entity doing war with Amazon
(jet.com)
Go figure
The first two thirds of this article are great. The problem is that Krugman fails to make the promised link between the prosperity disparity and the question posed in the headline.
Why do these regions vote AGAINST their own self-interest? He doesn't say, just says "we have to acknowledge the role of self-destructive politics".
Um, no we don't have to stop there. We can ask ourselves why these self-destructive political views arise?
Krugman's basically saying, "Those regions get stupider and stupider because the people in them are stupid"--which is logic he explicitly refutes with his reference to William Julius Wilson.
That makes no sense. He should be asking himself WHY these regions choose to "stay stupid". Maybe it's because the "smart policies" he promotes aren't actually all that smart.
Maybe people want actual jobs, and not handouts. And maybe these "smart policies" aren't that great at creating them.
After all, we haven't been able to eradicate the prosperity disparity even in the relatively rich Northeast.
Maybe there is more work to be done....
There are other population demographics to consider. For example, parts of the Hill Country are becoming more liberal as both virtual workers and retired middle to upper middle class workers move out to rural areas. For the first time since the early 90s, our county has fielded both a strong Democratic party organization and candidates. We are driving policies that lead to better schools, Internet access, and health care into these rural areas, and addressing concerns around water use and alternative energy. As work becomes more de-centralized, rural areas provide a strong draw - lower land and house prices, lower cost of living, stronger bonds with neighbors. You don't create a blue wave by concentrating all of your resources in cities, you create one by seeding the countryside with great ideas.
5
His base needs education to deal with their problems but they have been convinced that they don't need education to be loved by their GOP party or Trump. It is a spiraling problem that will keep on getting worse.
3
Contrary to the impression Professor Krugman's article creates, Trumpland states have, *for many generations*, benefitted from net fiscal inflows from the rest of the US. Projects like TVA, and dam-building in Western states, explicitly aimed at economic development. Much of New Orleans would probably be permanently flooded were it not for Army Corps of Engineers projects and continuing efforts. Farm subsidies support Southern, Midwestern, and Western regions. The Intracoastal Waterway supports commerce in the Southeast. Military facilities and personnel have been relocated from Northeastern states to Southern regions.
In general, this has amounted to a massive, long-term subsidy – by bluer, more liberal regions – of fiercely, avowedly "independent" Trumpland regions. And they don't even say "thank you".
7
Actually they blame us
3
I have just read “ The Great Leveler Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century” by Walter Scheidel, which states that what is going on is merely a repetition of an endless theme in human history. The theme is based in human DNA and concludes in catastrophe, then to start the cycle again. Not a very uplifting thought.
Perhaps the ability of humans to transcend physical limits (money is an abstract, after all) will result in a tolerable physical existence for the 99.9% and an abstract realm for the 0.1% to exercise their egos. Assuming a catastrophe during the transition is avoided. Have a nice day!
The average American, regardless of party or geography, simply needs more ability to increase their individual sphere of influence, both economically and politically. As the access to resources and political influence of the individual in society erodes, the entire concept of the American dream erodes with it. End the positive feedback loop of usury and exoitation that the richest of the rich are using to create singularities of wealth and influence around themselves. Don't transfer the wealth it's self. Transfer the ability to generate wealth and gain influence back to the individual where it belongs, and you will solve all of our problems.
it's going to be hard to get a judge to rule that the state legislature is not operating in the best interests of the citizens of the state. but not impossible.
the mounting evidence shows that people in some states lack the equal opportunity, due process and the equal protection of the laws when compared with the people of other, richer states.
Courts have ordered states to raise taxes. It's not unheard of.
The problem is the (mostly left wing) coastal elites, who control an encreasingly vast majority of all the big money floating around out there, are moving all of their skilled production to the big metro areas while moving unskilled production overseas, leaving rural America to suffer.
This leads to the (mostly correct) assumption that the coastal elites don't care about rural America. This viewpoint is backed by the condescension towards rural subcultures that is ubiquitous in American pop culture in both the news and entertainment industries.
When the urban left stops looking at the rural right with disdain and disgust, and starts seeing them as actual human beings again, the entire concept of "Trumpland" will be obsolete, because rural conservatives won't have anything to be upset about anymore.
The average American, regardless of party or geography, simply needs more ability to increase their individual sphere of influence, both economically and politically. As the access to resources and political influence of the individual in society erodes, the entire concept of the American dream erodes with it.
End the positive feedback loop of usury and exoitation that the richest of the rich are using to create singularities of wealth and influence around themselves. Don't transfer the wealth it's self. Transfer the ability to generate wealth and gain influence back to the individual where it belongs, and you will solve all of our problems.
1
"This leads to the (mostly correct) assumption that the coastal elites don't care about rural America."....Yes. They are interested in pursuing the best economic policy and that does not include relocating to an area in the country where recruiting a skilled work force is difficult because of the historically poor schools, where parks and recreation are minimized, and state funding of infrastructure is poor or not existent. They are not moving to Kansas.
6
Chris, you have it all backwards.
It is simply capitalism that concentrates the resources in urban areas, not "lefty conspiracy". Keep voting conservative and you will get more of that, including global capitalism. Had rural America voted liberal last four decades, thay would be far ahead today.
This is the irony of wanting unregulated capitalism. It went where the wealth and knowledge is, to urban and liberal areas. Simple as that!
You got your guns and anti-abortion movement. Why aren't you happy? Isn't that exactly what you voted for???
6
The Wall Street Journal in the past couple of days reported that the 12 Midwestern states (they didn't specify what all 12 are) has 180,000 more jobs than there are unemployed people. Iowa, the focus of the article, has an unemployment rate of 2.9%. There are many places where employers can't find workers, and are even willing to train them (one company owner even said he prefers to train his workers.) The problem doesn't seem to be so much a lack of work or opportunity, as much as the fact that people don't want to live where these jobs are -- mostly small towns. I suspect it's not the employment opportunities, as much as the cultural opportunities that are limited. (Cultural opportunities of all kinds, from NASCAR and Wrestlemania to modern art galleries and dance.)
4
Economic disparities are in lockstep with education disparities, law enforcement disparities and resulting disparities in per capita GDP.
Our nation is being dragged around by the nose by NRA - Trump states. States with sanctuary cities do much better for all citizens than states that run candidates like Roy Moore.
2
Economic disparity is nothing new, as teachers who are currently striking have been telling us. However, I moved from SC to CT in 1983 and tripled my income as a mental health counselor within 4 years. I also improved the quality of my work, due in part to the better system of continuing education in Ct at that time.
I returned to SC three years ago. Though its population has grown far more than Ct's over the years, SC remains behind in large part because it refuses to invest in infrastructure and education. That would raise taxes, which people refuse to do. I pay less than 1/10 real estate taxes in SC compared to CT for a home of equivalent value.
Poor states will remain poor as long as people refuse to fund necessities like schools and roads.
16
Krugman is correct. The lack of a broadly educated public is the well-spring of poverty. There is however a cause for the disruption of education. The Republican party beginning with the Reagan administration began to unravel funding and unions. Reagan asked his supporters to believe in his programs to cut bloated bureaucracies by "Starving the beast." Reagan believed, wrongly and tragically, that cutting taxes and would end the expansion of bureaucracies and save money.
The harsh reality is that the tax cuts undermined social and educational institutions. The tax cuts left little for administration and maintaining of existing schools while expansion of educational services and benefits for teachers were routinely diminished. Now we are seeing revolts in Oklahoma and Kentucky with more states to follow. Instead of making bureaucracies more efficient we destroyed the institutions and the public that the bureaus serve.
The largest damage has been done to students who are deprived of good teachers and decent schools, adequate books, good libraries and now the economies of the states that bought into Reagan's and the Republican.
Trump Land is unraveling because finally there is real understanding of what happens when we dismantle Democracy and democratic institutions. Starving bureaucracies out of existence is not path to prosperity, employment and a well educated public. It is a path to economic failure and social unrest.
8
Another commenter says Krugman touches all to briefly on America's main problem, economic disparity as the rich get richer, dominating our economy and politics.
The question is why does this famous economist and conscience of a liberal "touch all to briefly on this main problem that has so many ripple effects?
The international GINI Index ranks the US behind many countries in economic equality. This should be a constant focus of our pundits as it directly contradicts the traditional American credo of upward mobility and opportunity. And leads to polarized, divisive politics, and then the election of Trump, with his corrupt associates.
Other democracies don't turn their elections over to corporate donors that direct politics and limit policy in their favor. They've had health care for all for generations.
We have to depend on author Jane Mayer to expose the dark money underlying US lawmaking. The NY Times mostly ignores this, even as its columnists lament the effects. But they don't trace the cause and the need for campaign finance reform that most Americans want. What are the pundits afraid of?
Could it be that our media conglomerates get huge profits from our privatized political financing---from the high fees for campaign ads that swamp our voters?
7
From up here in Canada, it looks as though most of your country’s problems stem in large part from your founding mythologies, cultural assumptions and history.
The Second Amendment is huge. You’re stuck with a seemingly intractable problem with gun violence unprecedented in the world because a portion of your population believes that their inalienable right o bear arms is of sacred importance.
Your heavy emphasis on Freedom, Freedom, Freedom. It gets in the way of very sensible public policies which are proven to address income inequality and inequality of opportunity. Many Americans think any government support is - gasp - Socialism!
Aversion to taxes. Americans seem to have a knee jerk reaction to Taxes that perhaps stems from your foundational raison d’être of throwing off the tyranny of the King’s Taxes. Maybe it’s more complicated than that but you do really give the impression that you see no good in taxes at all. Many non-Americans realize taxes are the cost of civil society. They’re well worth it.
Until or unless you change these very basic assumptions in your culture you will be stuck on the path you’re on.
You also have to understand that the world doesn’t aspire to have American culture. You might learn something from the world in fact.
23
I agree. Rugged individualism stands in the way of the notion that people are entitled to government services. More sense of larger community needed to strengthen bonds against politicians who want to take away benefits you deserve.
9
Most of the problems stem from the fact that the political and economic power of the individual in society has been continually eroded in out society by lack of feedback against the corrupting influences of economic and political manipulation by moneyed special interests.
As these moneyed special interests gain more and more influence in our economy and our politics, they use that influence to generate more wealth and gain more political influence. This creates a positive feedback loop that erodes the political and economic influence of the individual, creating the civil unrest and sense of hopelessness we are increasingly seeing in our society.
Unfortunately the freedoms given to us as citizens by the Constitution have been little help, because we have been conditioned over generations to play lip service to those freedoms, while neglecting the responsibilities of free citizens to use those freedoms as tools in the defense of our individual soverignty. We have the freedom of speech but we don't have a culture of using those freedoms to discuss and debate the issues respectfully as fellow statesmen. We have the right to be armed but we expect the police to do all the work of protecting our neighborhoods while we complain about the job they do.
Simply put, the problem is we are not complacent and passive enough as a culture to make good sheep like the rest of the world, but we have become too lazy and negligent of our civil responsibilities to make good citizens these days.
And those who live happily in Canada should realize that with a huge border to defend and a minimal population they have for years been getting a free ride thanks to the U.S. military. Now I love Canada, and it has much to offer, but let's at least acknowledge that having the U.S. as a neighbor has been a major economic benefit.
1
"Trumpland is... voting for its own impoverishment." The problem with wealth inequality is not its economic effect, but its political one. The wealthy buy the media and the message, which ends up supporting... the wealthy. Everyone from the Koch Brothers to Vlad Putin is now encouraging our 'Heartland' to listen to its worst instincts, and to blame the coastal 'elite' for the results. Got a problem? Nothing a little more God, Guns, and Guts won't solve. I believe in globalization, but it was always going to (unfairly) yield winners and losers in America. Tax the winners to help the losers through that transition: in the end, we're one country. Failing that, observe what is happening, as the backlash yields its bitter fruit.
7
Somehow Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and others have convinced so many people in the heartland to vote against their own interests with lies and half-truths. they condemn Nancy Pelosi for voting for programs that help the lower tiers of the economic ladder while they praise conservative politicians who vote against them every day.
How can people remain that gullible?
9
At some point, do the grown ups in this country say fine, if the spiteful children in the Mississippis, Oklahomas, and Kansas of our country do not want to participate, then fine. We should have an opt in policy, whereby states may opt into civilization, pay taxes and reap the benefits of civilized society. If they opt out, they can pave their own roads, and pump their own water, and police their own pollution. Why does the South even have electricity? Because civilized states pay for them to have it.
9
In the words of the Rolling Stones "Ah, come on, sister Morphine, you better make up my bed 'Cause you know and I know in the morning I'll be dead"
Trump supporters have made their bed. Despair is a terrible aspect of the human condition, when the only thing you have left is the false hope from a con-man, the false security of the gun culture or the escape of drugs. Do Republicans ever ask themselves where are their policies leading us...tax cuts for the rich, decreasing funding for education, low paying jobs, anti-immigration, destroying the environment, cutting back on social programs including health care....a polarized, sicker and dumber country. Great for winning elections for a while, but then what? These policies can only lead to the destruction of our great democracy and being led by a dictator for life.
8
The link provided here seems to define political polarization by the distance between policy ideals of both parties.
In that case, I don't see why political polarization would be a problem per se, in a democracy - quite on the contrary: politics is about taking decisions concerning the future, without having any scientific studies that allow us to perfectly predict the outcome. In that case, the main difference between the various political options available, is a philosophical difference.
The best way to know what scientific studies have already proven and what not, and the best way to compare different philosophical options and make a well-informed choice, is to have as many of those options debated as possible.
So in theory, the more each party defends different philosophies, the richer the public debate should be, and the more our democracy should be thriving.
In reality, however, today only one party still develops evidence-based policies, whereas the GOP has invested for two decades now in a propaganda machine that is constantly spreading fake news about the state of the union, the philosophies defended by Democrats and liberals, and the available options.
In THAT case, political polarization indeed is bad for the country, because without facts as common ground, and without cultivating respect for other philosophies as main value, no real debate can take place.
And in that case those who spread the lies are simply undermining the nation, rather than MAGA ...
2
I have run out of sympathy for what's been named 'flyover country.' Especially when they want jobs in coal that aren't there anymore. Do you like capitalism? Great! It's economic freedom, with a dark side: when something's not desired anymore, the market for it collapses. Period.
My father worked with a printing press. He loved it, but then computers became a thing and he was automated out of a job. He moved on to work somewhere else, and didn't cry about it. He got retrained, and became a manager for a shipping company.
16
What Republican leadership is forgetting is that while Kansas and Oklahoma are red states, the suburbs (especially Kansas City/Omaha) have some quiet, wealthy people who have always been moderate Republicans (The Eisenhower Effect). The Kansas ones watched the Kochs/Brownback take over without saying much because, well, Koch/Brownback were Republicans.
But there is apparently a tipping point and some Republicans have reached it. For Kansas City suburbs, it's education; school cutbacks in suburban KS mean Harvard/Stanford raise an eyebrow at your standards - and maybe not set up days each year to visit your public high schools anymore. That's unacceptable to these Republicans; and their own kids are always going to take precedence over the Republican Party.
So while many progressives are insisting Democrats overly cater to the Trumpland-voting white male who still supports Trump, perhaps the Democrats instead need to pay attention to the quiet activism of upper middle class/affluent white Trumpland suburban women who are finally saying "Wait a minute. This is not right." They may not become Democrats, but might they vote Democratic? Yes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/sam-brownback-kansas-budget-overri...
...Sykes, who was among the moderate Republican lawmakers to vote to override Mr. Brownback’s veto, said she thought she had no choice but to push for a change. "Email after email after email I get from constituents, say, ‘Please, let’s stop this experiment.'"
7
Or maybe, the republican "upper middle class affluent tRumpland suburban women" should pay attention to what the democrats HAVE BEEN saying all along. I for one (and as many on this thread have stated) am sick of catering to them. I don't care a bit anymore. The red states can just stew in the mess they've made.
2
Just reading through this column reminds me of some of Professor Krugman's International Trade posts relating to clustering of firms in small regions that wind up providing significant advantages to other firms both up and down the chain. If you need a part, there is someone who can make it.
Seems that firms also benefit from intra US regional concentrations of well educated workers. I would hope this observation, if true, would convince policy makers that funding government services like education is more investment in the local economy than wasted expenditure.
Perhaps, to take this a step further, this would be an impetus to stop relying on local property taxes to fund education and move to a broader income tax approach with a redistribution at the state (and maybe federal) level so children who are unlucky in the sense that their school district is underfunded, may begin to benefit from a funding boost provided by those more able to pay.
This may start to aid, in the long term certainly, a reconvergence of per capita incomes regionally across the country.
6
"These days almost everyone has the (justified) sense that America is coming apart at the seams."
The fact is that America has always been coming apart at the seams, things have never been perfect. America was at its own collective throat during the Vietnam War, during the civil rights era, during Watergate, during the oil shortages, the run-away inflation of the late 1970s, during the Reagan years, it is the curse of the American people that we believe our own propaganda and feel that we deserve to live the American dream as though it were a contract given to us at birth. This manifest destiny leads to frustration, even though in reality the average American probably lives better, with more amusements and almost inexhaustible supply of food, then just about any King who ever lived prior to the 20th century. In other areas of the world, not raised to believe in worldly perfection most appreciate the simple things in life and have less of a striving for the unattainable and a more shared goal in the success of their countries. king of the mountain has always been the goal of most Americans, whatever the mountain might be. It's America's curse, to be a people blessed with so much, and appreciative of so little.
8
"Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment" — a version of this should be a campaign slogan for democrats in the heartland.
4
Isn't it interesting that the increase in inequality coincided almost completely with the gutting of the graduated income tax. We were all for sharing the wealth after the Great Depression and WWII. Then we bought into the idea that "greed" is good and changed our tax laws. Bad ideas.
12
". . .conservative efforts to downsize government will hurt people all across America, but it will disproportionately hurt the very regions that put the G.O.P. in power."
The question is, have they no sense of history? Their beliefs and voting patterns continuously undermine the ground they stand on. Rationalizing acceptance of diminishing returns? For those of us that don't prey upon their good nature with empty promises, they remain a mystery.
4
What Paul Krugman does that so few columnists anywhere do, is to identify the consequences of policies. This is what newspapers and media should do, but rarely do.
8
Where did all these people come from? Their parents or grandparents, some great or great great migrated there. They came from places like Italy, Sweden or Ireland, many experienced hatred. But they first moved to the US for a better life and then went searching for better still, some wanted to farm or ranch others wanted a job. So they moved to places like Flint to work for Ford or Kansas and elsewhere to farm, they were not Native Americans. They travelled great distances under conditions that most of us who consider turning off our phone during takeoff a great inconvenience would probably not be able to endure. This mostly happened in the last hundred or so years, 4 or 5 generations. So it's time to move again, sell and gather up what you have, move to greener pastures. Is it scary? You betcha, but you will have to do it, grandpa did it with far less and you know he's a family legend.
7
It's hard to muster much sympathy, or to figure out how to help, when the people in question do everything possible to alienate others. The gun thing alone is reason enough to avoid moving to such places, and people who won't move their families there won't move their businesses. Add in a tendency to kill their own schools and social services, and culture that favors uniformity over difference, and it's hard to see how such places can ever grow again.
Not at all unlike the inner cities in the 80s, in short. Maybe the hinterland will be gentrified in a similar way, at least the cities and towns. But gentrification doesn't really help the locals. If the residents of Trump country want something better, they'll have to think differently.
11
Mr. Krugman is correct that the driving force in America's increasing separation into two warring camps is driven by fear, especially economic fear. But he glosses over the Democrats role in it. Yes, the Republicans have been at the forefront, as they always are, of fighting against the working and middle class, whose prosperity is seen as a drain on the "rightful" wealth of their 1% masters, but when Bill Clinton forged his Third Way philosophy, capping it with the sell out of the Dems base with NAFTA, the working and middle class were summarily abandoned. And from the ranks of these forgotten and ignored that Trump culled his margin of victory. Ironically, the Democrats could've thwarted Trump by nominating Sanders who fully understands what's really driving Americans apart: economic fear due to dwindling opportunity.
If the Democrats want to return to power, they had better heed Mr. Sanders' message. All other forms of equality flow from equality of economic opportunity for all. Set aside, for now, disputes about gender, race, guns, immigration, and focus on spreading prosperity to everyone, and win back the power which in turn enables the chance to fight against these other injustices. This is a difficult, perhaps impossible, pill for some to swallow, but it's the necessary medicine to cure Trumpitis.
"It's the economy, stupid!"
In other words, ignore misogyny and racism, like Senator Sanders did? No, thank you. I, for one, believe doing so would destroy the very soul of American progressivism. In any case, it wasn't economic issues that got Mr. Trump elected. The studies all tell us that Trump's voters, who were relatively well off, were principally motivated by racial resentment. Yes, 12% of Sanders voters did vote for Trump whose campaign was transparently racist and misogynist.
Kingfish52 wrote:
"... If the Democrats want to return to power, they had better heed Mr. Sanders' message. All other forms of equality flow from equality of economic opportunity for all. Set aside, for now, disputes about gender, race, guns, immigration, and focus on spreading prosperity to everyone, and win back the power which in turn enables the chance to fight against these other injustices. This is a difficult, perhaps impossible, pill for some to swallow, but it's the necessary medicine to cure Trumpitis.
'It's the economy, stupid!' "
1
As an person of color I can't help but feel that along race plays as big a role as economics does in understanding what's happening in Trumpland. Many of these voters vote against policies that would actually help them simply to because those policies would also likely help people who the deem unworthy of help, namely minorities and immigrants.
The Jim Crow South had no problem with federal largesse as long as local politicians could control the distribution or resources such that it largely excluded black people. (see: https://www.amazon.com/When-Affirmative-Action-White-Twentieth-Century/d...
While these practices persist today it's much more difficult to pull of at scale and with such blatantly racist practices as before.
Trumps White working class supporters, with whom the media is so enthralled, are literally cutting off their noses to spite their faces
13
I think that the divide actually is based on our changing country and the exploitation of perceptions of the average by the wealthy. These changes have resulted in several different categories of Americans, but two categories are in conflict most of the time. I think that the problems stem from conflict between people with the perception that they are losing privilege and power versus people with the perception that they are gaining power and privilege. The ultra-wealthy always have privilege and power, so they are using the perceptions to maintain the conflict in which they thrive.
2
Well, I agree that ignorance is what is wrong with Trumpland. Sadly, when I see an American flag now, I cringe, because it has come to represent the exact opposite of what I thought it did. Vlad must be so proud.
8
It's too bad, but wealthy Trumps supporters say, ah yes and poor Trump supports are not reading the" New York Times", so unaware that income inequality will continue.
2
Back in the 1930s, people in today's "red" states voted for FDR and the New Deal. And their generation also heard the voices of conspiracy theorists, racists and alarmists like Father Coughlin. Guess they knew better than to vote against their interests.
2
What no one seems willing to admit is the following: if the parts of the country that need government assistance the most won't take it (for all of the reasons outlined in Krugman's editorial), then we know what we have to do. We're simply unwilling to admit it. Like a bad seed that should be eliminated from the gene pool, this country must hack off its bad tail to save the rest of the beast from the infection. If you keep voting against your own interests, scapegoating other races, and refusing offers of help, exactly what would you like the rest of us to do? Let's be honest here. It's all we have left.
7
Yes but government is the problem, remember? All government does is put a drag on the economy, right? Tell us, Paul, how this is not true, because it has been our operating philosophy increasingly since Reagan - or since Adam Smith, actually. Tell us, Paul, how this is wrong. Tell us how government could help. Tell us how suffocation of government is not in our best interests. Because, right now, America is overcome with antigovernmentalism. This is the dominant philosophy in the era of republicanism. So please explain why this is wrong.
so many of the comments suggest those who voted for Trump are ignorant, uninformed, downtrodden or greedy. While this narrative may be comforting to those of us who are horrified by having him as President it does not account for the many intelligent, educated people who I know to be generous with their time and money who support him. I find it hard to understand how such people can support someone I find despicable but I doubt debasing them to resolve my conflict is a constructive solution.
4
What's with all the "baffled" and "confused" commenters who don't understand why the voters from economically underperforming areas went for Trump? When one thing doesn't work you try something different. The Obama era was not good for them so they revolted. Wake up.
They reached the wrong conclusions because of self-imposed ignorance... instead of voting for Trump, the solution to their problems would have been facilitated by voting out their Republican governors and legislators...
6
Reader/Commenter Above,
You missed half the boat. Many of Trump’s policies negatively impact those who voted for him.
As Chris Rock put it (and I'm paraphrasing), "There's nothing more a (white man) with a Nickel hates more than a (black man) with a Dime".
The white man would vote to shoot himself in the foot with a 20 gauge every 2 years if he thought it would also hurt the black man.
This is the main reason so many white working class people vote against their own economic interests. That and they've been brainwashed into thinking that being poor is due to a 'character flaw' (often it is, but usually not), not because in reality it's how unrestrained capitalism works.
For the past 50 years exploiting these issues to get elected has been the bread and butter tactic in the GOP's playbook.
7
I too am sick of voting for the well-being of Trumpers who will change their religion to suit Trump. I am a liberal with my own healthcare and retirement, I might vote Trump next time to make it hurt Trumpers more so just maybe they will learn a lesson.
2
Just look at how much states pay their elementary and high school teachers. Those that pay well do well. Those that don't like Arizona, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Kansas do not.
Republicans are terrified of educated voters, their so called elites. They thrive on ignorance as that's the only way the party survives. Thus their base; uneducated ignorant white men and cynical unpatriotic rich people.
It's going to get worse, not better, in those states unless they are voted out which is very unlikely. Bottom line? You get what you vote for. I have zero sympathy for these adults but a lot for their unfortunate children who face an uncertain future at best.
8
The author has failed to mention anything about religion. Interestingly, all those poor states of the Trumpland are also very religious. Religion doesn't need science or education, quite opposite.
9
Mistakes of their own making. Failed red state social economic policies that they refuse to address. And instead of fixing their issues caused by a completely asinine worldview, they want to drag the rest of down with them. The supreme irony is that the well-educated, highly-productive (thus, more affluent) costal city dwellers are by and large democrats thus turning the whole Ayn Rand maker-taker stupidity squarely on it's head...something way too complicated for a lot of red-state knuckle-draggers to even comprehend. Does this make me an elitist? Maybe. But the truth is the self-reliant are the progressives and those complaining about economic policy (and the world in general) not treating them fairly are the trumpists. All of this while they support policies and politicians that absolutely guarantee that their situation will never improve and, in fact, continue to get worse. I have no sympathy.
5
When adjunct faculty, who barely make minimum wage, are declared “elitist” then you know something is wrong with the use of that term.
1
And that's the good news!
2
As someone down here in a Blue enclave in Trumpland South, I have to tell all of you elsewhere that you don't get it.
Trump won Mississippi with 678,457 votes to Clinton's 462,001. The breakdown goes the same as it does anywhere else: There were blue precincts in places that resemble an urban city, and in "the black belt" that is majority African American population, and the other rural and suburban areas went Red. Breaking it down further, it mirrors the rest of the country in factors like education and household income... the poor who do vote tend to vote for Democrats, but the poor tend not to vote... and a big thing you miss is that in a rural area, who is "poor" becomes a different thing, comparatively, in local terms relative to that specific place. Trump voters aren't voting against their interests, you don't understand who Trump voters are or their interests. An income that would be on the absolute bottom in Manhattan or Mass. is "rural rich," and those people will vote to punish the people down the road who live in third world poverty out of resentment. That's the dynamic down here... and you never tell a Southerner they're relatively poor if they don't say that about themselves... they'll shoot you.
https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/mississippi
Look into each county by income, education, etc.
https://www.npr.org/2016/11/07/501073935/mississippi-2016-presidential-a...
3
How long and why are we going to be talking about the Trumplanders and taking them seriously when they don't take themselves and their problems seriously?
5
"And when it comes to national politics, let’s face it: Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment."
Thanks to the electoral college, these brain-drained regions get an inproportional voting weight, and drag every region down with them.
The fix is to get them off of the Fox news, this fox has been feeding them lies for too long.
6
"Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment." I will never understand why this continues!
2
All they care about is reversing roe v wade. Everything else pales by comparison.
4
It seems one simple fact shows it is not the lack of income that is the source of disaffection amongst voters, but the distribution of that income. The U.S. produces 25% of World GDP - with less than 5% of world income. Only tiny countries with vast mineral wealth do better. So, we have not "exported jobs". NAFTA is not the problem. A gigantic disparity in the way that GDP is divided is at fault. The question is why, and i think the answer is propaganda. The very wealthy have, over decades, built a propaganda machine to tout and legitimize "libertarian" values, and denigrate and demean government and government regulation. And probably regulation has become more complex and onerous than it need be, allowing the propagandists to score points. The acrylamide-in-coffee is a perfect example; the same stuff is in potato chips, and your grilled T-bone. Somehow that 25% number has to be raised above the noise, and the presumed innate "fairness" of the extant wealth distribution challenged. I have no idea how to correct it - it may be simply regulation (that ugly word again) to guarantee transparency. But we cannot begin to look for a solution until there is some agreement on where the problem lies. And the propaganda machine has been increasingly successful in making us look in all the wrong places.
1
Libertarianism is fine if you don’t mind killing off the unsuccessful.
I've just come back from California and people at a dinner party in Los Angeles were discussing this very topic. Nearly all the Californians -- highly educated, well-off, with expensive homes -- basically said "Good, that's what these people deserve" when they contemplated Trumplandians voting for their own impoverishment.
It's hard for us on the Coasts who are constantly maligned for being in our bubbles to feel otherwise. If Trump voters abhor governmental policies that might help their communities with their poverty, poor educational outlooks, decreasing life expectancy, why should we liberals in L.A. or NYC keep knocking our heads against the wall trying to help them?
It's just too bad that the representation in the U.S. Senate and gerrymandering in the U.S. House and the vagaries of the Electoral College system versus the popular vote give them a chance to outvote the majority so much of the time.
In California, people talked of a "soft secession." Maybe we need to peacefully agree to divide into a Red America and a Blue America the way the former Czechoslovakia divided peacefully into two separate nations.
15
As always, thank you, Professor Krugman, and well put. I realize this would be somewhat impractical for you to replicate, but I have had the most extraordinary experience. Work and family force me to give up my daily reading of the Times for a week. And I had no time for television or even a thought of politics, the economy, etc. I was cut off from the greater world for seven days. After the crunch was over, I picked up a copy of the Times and read that days news out of Washington and Mar-a-Largo. I was stunned. It felt like I had landed on a foreign planet. How could our country have come to this? With daily conditioning, I had become desensitized. But when I turned back to the state of the government after a week, I saw the most ridiculous things, the most absurd things, and in some cases the horrifying things. This is not the country it once was.
10
What everybody talks around is that no political party, and most Americans, do not understand that free market capitalism did drive reduction of income inequality because it had to. There were not technologies that could eliminate reasonably well-paid workers. At present, free market capitalism will destroy us, as it embraces the technologies that destroy jobs, and meaningful work. It would be a painful transition to make our economic system be for the people, but it will be far more painful if we do not re-create the economy to be one, where people matter. (Schumacher's economics were about doing that, long before it was on middle America's radar.) Our best minds are deafeningly silent as we devolve into techno-feudalism. Fear and hatred paralyze and separate us. We cling to the rules of the past, which now mislead us into tyranny.
1
Gee Mr. Krugman when I think of those "coastal" success stories I wonder if the "success" has anything to do with whoever's been selling out our country's manufacturing base to the highest bidder for shot term gain and long term disaster. The rope we are being hung with, and you will be hung with is manufactured in China, not in coastal enclaves where intelligent drones count the money going out through the port, but lack any economic education to warn them of what will come of this long term. Capitalism requires capital, What is our cumulative trade deficit with China since 1980 Mr. Krugman?Why do we borrow from China to support your social programs that are unsupportable over time? Despite your myopic attempt to set Americans against each other for some perceived inane partisan political gain, a rich man and a poor man in a sinking ship are in exactly the same place.
The real way to rectify this is with progressive taxation.
It levels out income disparity, and allows for adequate investment in Education, Health Care, Public Transportation, Tax Breaks for low-income workers, etc.
This in turn gives citizens a real opportunity to pull themselves out of the vicious cycles of poverty, and enjoy more stability as contributing, tax-paying citizens long-term.
People are only staying in Mississippi because they have zero opportunity to improve their standards of living. If you offer them life lines, you'd be surprised at how many would take them.
4
this isn't really happening..... are all in the middle of a kurt vonnegut novel....
2
The Republicans are eating their young. Are the young aware, or will the self basting continue?
5
Recognition is coming belatedly in my red state. Suddenly, as the Chinese impose tariffs on pork soy and other agricultural products, and the steel and aluminum tariffs take effext, the members of the agricultural and manufacturing economy here begins to understand what they actually voted for.
4
Wishful thinking.
They'll find a way to blame Obama!
They live in a completely alternate universe. For proof I offer all the red-state Republican ads on TV right now where they are running against Hillary! There is no hope for these people. None.
1
There is defect in Democracy that it is flaunted as a virtue: Majority rules! If the majority is ignorant and easily swayed by propaganda then the demagogues and the rich will rule.
1
I am part of the 'brain drain' to the coast from my southern hometown. I have no empathy for my brethren who wallow there, hoping some sort of job will fall out of the sky.
These podunks choose to mire down in economic decay, opioids, and resentment politics. They only thing they do is complain and blame scapegoats for their situation. If you aspire to better, you are uppity.
Oh, but they want coal jobs BACK so they can make $8 per hour and die a painful black-lung death. Not jobs with futures that provide benefits and disposable income - just the same road to poverty and grave jobs they enjoy.
These are people who refuse to help themselves and instead choose to fester in resentment while they collect unemployment, medicare, and disability.
Yes, I just described the trump 'base'.
12
These regions do vote against their own interests time and again, which shows the power of fear and seething anger at the "other," which is all too readily exploited by Republican politicians and their favored media, like Fox.
If you watch Fox for any length of time, you are told time and again of scary black people and marauding immigrants and transgender folks invading your daughter's bathroom and someone coming for your precious guns.
The folks in red state America sit cowering in fear and anger at these stories which run non-stop. The irony is a group of millionaires on Sixth Avenue are telling the people in red states to stay scared and poor. Then, after a day of scare-mongering, they head over to one of Manhattan's expensive steak houses.
16
Spot on, Mr. Krugman. We are the Dis-Yoonited States of Ameri$a. I remember seeing blatant poverty in the very early 1960s driving across country from the West Coast to the East Coast, where my parents had scientific meetings to attend. Near Richmond, people were living in conditions of disrepair.
Somehow, I had assumed, in my naivete that once we had progressives in the White House that we would not retrench back to an earlier period, AKA The Great Depression.
I was wrong. I had forgotten how tribal we humans are. We prefer to associate with those we consider most like us -- whatever that is.
We care less about those -- much less -- about those we consider different from us. Not as rich, not as thin, nor as nice a house, not as great a job.
We prefer to put a blinder on -- so we don't see those who have a less well-paying job, live in a smaller house -- not to mention those who don't have a job or a livable apartment.
1
Trumpland in a weird counter-evolutionary way takes pride in being left behind. Being a deplorable is their red bade of courage.
The ones "left behind" are left behind by design, because many have escaped Trumpland in the way many have done in the past, by going to University. College opens a whole new way of thinking, in many ways it is an evolutionary leap. The best of Trumpland moves on in this way and keeps on moving on. There are plenty of refugees from Trumpland living in NYC, their moving on has led to here, and here is the city of excitement, inspiration, the city where you rub shoulders with the best from everywhere. The left behinds develops way to cope, scapegoats are always in vogue for those whose windows have closed. They cling to the past, and pretend their more pristine way of life is purer than those who live and work in the big multi-cultural cities. In Trumpland one day is much like the last, much like the next. In Trumpland you see the same people everyday, digest and redigest the same conversation over and over, eat at the same diners for breakfast. The routine of life flows along very calmly, leading to an almost soul-killing boredom.
Far from Trumpland, in the big cities new ways of thinking, and new experiences create new possibilities. Possibilities create all the differences and divides between the two opposing nations. One stuck in the past, one embracing the future.
12
Something else I don't understand - in all these states losing jobs, why aren't they (their legislator) going after the solar panel industry? They could create factory jobs as well as installation jobs - and save their residents money as a side effect. Instead, we seem to have ceded solar production to China. Such shortsightedness.
9
I agree with the commenters who bring up the possibility that Trump did not really win the electoral vote. If we get suspicious results in 2018, affected candidates and voters must insist on recounts by hand (where paper ballots exist) with members of both parties present. We must not be afraid to be called sore losers. One of the most depressing things about the voting integrity movement is that it depends on recounts actually occurring. However, there is huge pressure on presidential candidates to accept the initial results. Actually, it would be great to go back to hand counting during the initial vote. Fraud would still be possible and errors would doubtless be more likely, but honest errors would go both ways, and we'd have a better chance of catching fraud. Also, with hand-counting, there'd have to be a huge number of corrupt people for widespread subtle fraud to succeed.
3
While i understand the futility of voicing an opinion in opposition to Mr. Krugman, he is the "Ellsworth Monkton Toohey" of our era. A man so established in wrong headed dogma of the socialist, collectivist paradigm that it will not get an honest reading here on the discussion board of a paper that would give an airing to such a man!
The disparity of rich and poor, is not really the problem, it is the disparity of the rich to escape the consequences of bad behavior, by means of the power of money and the ability of corruption that that power affords them to manipulate those who profess to represent the people of a great nation! I do not envy the supper rich, they have challenges you and i could never imagine and would be crushed by were we to suddenly be in their shoes. I resent that the rich are connected and can by the policies that they desire, escape the just punishment of the crimes they commit, punish those beneath them by hiring those who are more desperate whom ever they are, legal or illegal to save pennies, fire people whom have vested years of their life building a firm foundation for their future and have it torn asunder by importing cheap desperate slave labor from the third world, then telling us that it's good for the nation! I would simple like a return to our creed, 'equality before the law'.
"Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment." Mr. Krugman delivers a fairly objective statement. Most democrats, and those outside Trumpland, would agree that this is self-evident. However, because we Democrats know the answer (in this case) we think that means something. No, it doesn’t mean much, and it means even less than what we think. Nimbyism was mentioned in the article. However, there’s something else going on: maybe it’s LEIMBY – liberal enlightenment (only) in my backyard. Us democrats think we hold the monopoly on seeing the problem clearly. And we love love love shouting it, as if Trumpland can hear us. And ask ourselves: Why can’t they hear us?
Because they have been driven to paralyzing fear by the right-wing mega-phones blasting non-stop negativity within a right-wing echo chamber. For them, It is so deafening that they cannot hear anything else.
4
I think something else has been overlooked by the flyover states. You are not likely to have a seaport in the middle of the prairie states. And like Trump they live in the 19th century. Hanging on to old technologies like coal and oil are not going to bring prosperity. Then siding with the party that sides with the 1 percent is just the last nail in the coffin. They need to grow up and start living in the 21st century.
4
This all makes sense except the NIMBYism claim. That is wrong. With the onslaught of high tech workers in the growing cities, the only affordable housing is the housing that's already on the ground. Upzoning to higher density accommodates more, young, high paid white tech workers, who can pay more for shiny new housing, but it scrapes and replaces the only affordable housing available near city centers. The demand side overwhelms any downward price pressure that you might see from expanding supply. Please pay attention here!!!
As Krugman says the areas that are the hardest hit are the areas that keep voting for the own destruction. The republican party has for 50 years used quasi morality issues to divide the Nation and they have done so because the industrialists and bosses want America just the way it is.
Or maybe, they would also like to see the prosperous regions of the Country in the same shape as OK and Kansas. Then they can keep all the wealth.
As long as t rump voters keep voting for restricting abortion instead of restricting the corruption of the republican party this shall continue.
Citizens do seem to be revolting against this trend, though.
4
What I thought was most telling about Donald Trump was the fact that people who knew him best, New Yorkers and New Jersey voters, soundly voted for his opponent.
10
Krugman has it all backwards
What is the matter with what he calls “Trumpland” was the matter before Trump came along. He did not make it Trumpland; they made it Trumpland by voting for Trump.
The real question is why it took so long for someone like Trump to come along. The Demos have cared about his poepke for many years, as evidenced by things like Hillary and Obama telling coal miners they intended to ruin their jobs.
1
@dick west:
Neither Clinton nor Obama every said any such thing. Coal mining as a profession was killed decades ago by automation in the coal industry itself.
2
What's the Matter With Krugland?
For starters, Krugman is historically challenged. Anyone bothering to actually study American history will notice that we have been coming apart at the seams since 1776. During all of our crises, there have been rich and poor, winners and losers, dirt farmers and robber barons. There have always been old men huddled in cramped apartments on the Upper West Side envying those who weekend in the Hamptons.
What's the Matter With Krugland?
Krugman is also geographically challenged. Not unusual when economists try to make sense of the real world. Real geographers love maps. For example, the County-by-County 2016 election map. The C-b-C demonstrated emphatically that Krugman's world ends at the city limits of the Blue Archipelago. Krugman's so-called analyses miss the mark because he doesn't understand the fundamental drivers of American life. He asks the wrong questions and gets the wrong answer.
So, What's the Matter With Krugland?
Krugman.
1
@Albert Edmud:
Do we vote by counties or acreage? In that case, Alaska chooses every national election. Or do we vote by people? The current electoral college is an archaic hodge-podge that vastly overweights the vote of rural states.
Some areas of coastal cities have more people in a single block than most of of those rural counties.
Us vs. Them. It's always Us vs. Them. But let's face it, the Them is also Us. We are not all that different. And when the "Them" vote, they may elect someone that the "Us" doesn't like. And we all have to live with that.
Undoubtedly some areas that voted for Trump have been suffering economically. Unfortunately for them, they voted for a guy who is & will make their situation worse.
1
It is no coincidence that the teachers marches are being held in Republican controlled states. They have gutted their education funding. Teachers are holding fundraisers just to get supplies and holding multiple jobs. All while the Republicans they voted for continue to hand out massive subsidies to energy companies and Walmart. If they were to reduce these subsidies by 2% they could adequately fund their schools. If they reduced it by 4% they could build storm shelters at all their schools. But they're Republicans so that will never happen. If the electorate gets uppity we'll make voting harder, remind them that it's the Mexicans fault and keep transferring Americans wealth to the 1%.
11
The Republican mantra has been anti-tax and anti-government spending for almost 40 years. Many of us have been puzzled by the voters determination to vote against their best economic interests. In Kansas, OK and KY people are finally beginning to see what Republican government has wrought. If the Republicans ran strictly on their economic policies they would lose all the time, and they know it. So instead they gin up cultural issues as distractions, cheat by gerrymandering state and federal legislative districts, and have their own propagandizing TV network. Trump is just the logical conclusion of the last 40 years, and it is no wonder that he took over the Republican party. What he is, they are. Just like the students at Trump University and the buyers of Trump Steaks or the guests at Trump hotels the citizens of Trumpland will eventually learn that their pockets have been picked. How long this takes and the damage wrought in the meantime is anybody's guess.
5
At least those with poor judgement are being penalized for it. I suspect that The american steel industry will be singing a different tune when they have to downsize because this windfall they are apparently expecting fails to appear due to a collapsing economy.
2
Americans who vote in their state for less support of education and medical care, will be protected by Saint Donald, the Truthful, if they have faith in all of Saint Trump's promises.
4
Paul talks about Trumplanders declining Medicaid, against their own self interests. Dr. McCabe’s article today in the WAPO talks about the same thing in Virginia, where she ran for state senate and was vilified by Trump for taking DNC donations. Medicaid, and other Government programs like the New Deal of the thirties have shown to improve conditions in ways that are hard to predict. The other aid, under Trump’s control is education. What is Ms. DeVos doing about revving up the education machine…nothing! She is trying to privatize education, a move that favors the wealthy, not the Trumplanders. Why is there a brain drain in these areas, because the young ones flee to a better future, and that means education. For those that succeeded, I imagine that their political views are probably far more liberal than their Trumpland parents. Somebody should study that. Paul’s right: industry, jobs, and co-located education go hand in hand. Wealth grows exponentially with time. I know, I work and live in Silicon Valley where that model works very well. When there are missing pieces in that machine, wealth declines exponentially with time. Then the blame game starts…the brown people are taking our jobs, build the wall. In Silicon Valley we have very diverse peoples, in fact whites are nearly a minority, yet there are no serious racial issues. It’s not about race, it’s about prosperity, and policies that can be employed to improve the economics in Trumpland.
3
Trump is not the only myopic materialist of his generation. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, McMansions, Hummer stretch limos, and "I'm a VIP" all celebrate ostentatious and rapacious materialism. All the while the social contract was demeaned as ignorant and self service was favored over social responsibility. Leveraged Buyouts dismantled the structured principle that Corporations served people and replaced it with labor monopsony, Capital over people and Citizens united doublespeak. These are all principles that were fought over in WW2 and the civil war, and while we are able to defeat them, they are never eliminated completely. To paraphrase Santayana, those who fail to educate themselves and learn history are destined to repeat it for themselves.
Cold day outside here in my bright red state, so I'm here for my dose of thoughtful wisdom, to include comments.
It’s not a straightforward economic or educational assessment that’s needed. It’s a grasp of the package deal of fears and angers that Trump personifies, very often found complete in an individual who supports him: Government that isn’t effective, abortion, homosexuality, denigration of Christian standards, weaker military, thugs on city streets, loss of freedom in land use, threats to gun ownership, the welfare state for the undeserving, disrespect of traditional family values, complex and elitist language that isn’t the way normal people talk, etc., etc. Trying to chip off a part, in this case to puzzle out why so many vote against their own economic benefits, misses this. For the base, give ground on any of those items, you threaten the whole package, and they will toast you in a primary. At the individual level, I live with these people: They are so often good to a fault, and often agree with a far more liberal view, just not in public. We have a great deal of caring and love to deliver to change it.
1
The switcheroo that Reagan and the trickle-down Republicans pulled off in the 1980s - casting themselves as the bully/hero to the people, the underdogs, while stripping away protections that had been put in place decades earlier by New Deal Democrats set the scene for a Trump presidency. The local population loves to think that they are on the right team - especially a fighting team, even if they are fighting to bring down their own support system. Jack and the hunters will feed and protect them and provide the fun on the island. Ralph and Piggy want to make up rules and prepare for the long haul. Boring! So they choose Jack’s team, even though they have indications that the whole thing will go terribly wrong. Now they dance faster and faster around the fire that will soon burn everything down, while the rest of us look on in horror. We can only hope that the adults arrive in time to save us from our self-destructive nature.
2
Politics is now functionnally the art of manipulating masses of people to vote for something which is against their interests and in the interests of the politicians doing the manipulating and their "clients" who pay a lot of money to achieve their goals.
Considering that 50% of the electors are functional illiterates (can't really understand a simple newspaper article), the temptation is great.
This manipulation involves lying systematically about the effect of policies, voters suppression and a number of system "hacks", like gerrymandering for example.
The problem is there.
2
From here in Trumpland we have lots of voters who have been fooled not once, not twice, but over and over and still feel no shame. We also have lots of single issue voters who will happily vote themselves into poverty if they can keep their guns and/or impose their contorted definition of "right to life" on the rest of us.
4
Say what you will about Unions - their corruption, self-dealing, enforced-unity, etc. -- but they, not government programs, were the driving forces of income growth and, through that growth, educational attainment in post-WWII America. The corrupt collaboration (and corrupting influence) of the union's partnership with the GOP (the Nixon law and order partnership joined to the Southern-State Right to Work partnerships) killed both unions and progress for middle and lower class America. Wake up America, join a labor organization and recognize that progress is about joint action and having the collective power to demand what is your's; the fruits of your labor in your pocket not somebody else's already overflowing bank account.
To ask relevant questions does not mean one is a Trump sympathizer. Could the problem on Main Street possibly have something to do with Wall Street? Could be that greedy CEOs outsourced jobs in response to deregulation? Could it be that the same CEOs interpreted "tax cuts" -- intended to be plowed back into R and D -- as license to play the market and buy other businesses? Or line their own pockets with outrageous salaries and bonuses? Could it be that NAFTA was actually a fool's mission to begin with? Did the Democrats get caught asleep at the wheel on these problems, slow to respond while obsessing on out-moded economic models that maybe don't quite fit the moment? (either Reaganomics-lite or FDR-era WPA models)? Did frustration with "deaf Democrats" rise to such heights that people were willing to tolerate truly egregious persons if the policies sounded right? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I wonder if they are being asked. Simplistic answers ("they're all just deplorable and ignorant") don't seem to be getting us anywhere.
1
Trump admirers and the rest of us cannot mix easily. Take this analogy. Let’s say a worker asks to be hired for only 3 $/hr.; the Trump admirer will gladly agree, thinking he has gotten a great deal. If he meets another Trump admirer who brags about his deal paying only 2 $/hr., he will rue his 3 $/hr. deal as being not such a good deal after all.
If a liberal is approached by the same worker, he will say that $3/hr. is not fair wage, and insist on paying at least $7/hr. When another liberal comes over and says he paid the worker the minimum wage of $9/hr., he will rue his $7/hr. deal, by thinking he should have paid the minimum wage also!!
Trump admirers go gaga over Trump because of the “deals” he makes. It does not matter to them that the deals are unfair. They just admire the deal, and feel no guilt. Thus trying to inject morals and ethics into a Trump admirer is futile.
1
The Trump voters are on a sugar high. They know how much we liberals hate Trump and they are laughing at us. Sadly, we will have the last laugh. Trump is not going to do anything to benefit them.
4
Clinton had it right, but couldn't seem to articulate it in a compelling way.
"You're world is changing. The world you grew up in is not coming back.
"You need to think about your children. Do you want them to compete with the rest of the world on the price of labor?
"Do you want manufacturing jobs to come back to America because our wages are lower than China's or India's?"
"If you don't want to be the cheapest, then you need to be the smartest.
"There is only way way up, and that's through education.
"We need the best education system in the world and it needs to be right here, in your state, as well as everywhere else in America.
"Rigorous curricula. Accountability. Free higher education. Funding for research. An appreciation of science. Everything we need to make America compete on quality, not on cheap labor".
8
Right message, wrong messenger. And the dems refuse to learn from their humongous blunder. For example...for all the progressive legislative good that Chuck and Nancy have done, it's time for them to step aside. They are the quintessential wrong messengers...
1
Agreed. Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer, for all their positives, are not inspiring - and that's a frightening weakness. Democrats will be fighting a ruthless opponent in November and will need to inspire their voters.
Remarkable that I would be writing about this very same thing, looking up Moretti's work yesterday and this morning writing about the Commonwealth survey on health care before I read your column. Interesting.
3
Here in Los Angeles (one of the wealthier areas of the United States) blue collar jobs are being replaced with technology, and people are being forced out of their homes because of soaring rents. I have seen so many makeshift tents in every part of Los Angeles. Nobody is addressing the concern, though, that automation is taking away jobs. Those self driving cars will kill another group of workers. Cashiers are being replaced by self-checkout stands. Do it yourself blood tests can replace nurses now. And forget about factories---all will be replaced with robots. Technology is the main culprit for job loss, NOT jobs going overseas. And computers can now create poetry and music that's as good as Shakespeare and Mahler, so there goes another career to technology. Is anyone addressing these concerns? I fear that the top 1% will continue to reap the benefits of technological advances and the rest of us will be out on the streets in those tents.
6
I haven’t read all 800 comments, but of those I have, no one raises the point that the large disparity of incomes meant relatively lower wages for rural areas in the mid-20th century. Cheaper labor along with improved transportation made them attractive places to locate a factory, despite being far from the mostly urban markets. As a result, the income gap narrowed, removing the economic incentive of rural manufacturing. The globalization of industry in the 21st century enabled this same dynamic to replay in a bigger arena -- to the detriment of rural American workers and benefit of the nascent middle classes in the new manufacturing nations. Trumplanders get this, while those who were not victims of the dynamic tend to ignore it. The problem is a by-product of unfettered capitalism, specifically the cruel churn it produces in its labor markets, which are measured in human lives.
6
Trumplanders DO NOT get this, or they would not have voted for the GOP - the party of unfettered capitalism, the anti-labor party, the party of outsourcing, the party of union-bashing, the party of abolishing the minimum wage and overtime laws, the party of oligarchs and billionaires, the party of deregulation, the party of the bosses, the party of the 1% - for the last 50 years. They DO NOT get it. That is the problem with middle America.
3
And the the Republicans take no social responsibility for the economic outcomes that they have driven. They find in easier to blame China and immigrants...
2
Yes and continue to ship in illegals and refugees to work in those lower income rural areas. It inevitably creates animosity towards the newcomers from the locals.
1
The US is reaching a point where the US gov'ts shoveling all economic growth into the wealthiest's pockets and the gutting of gov't involvement in important functions such as health care, education and infrastructure repair is having tangible bad effects that can only get worse. CNBC daily trumpet the ridiculously unfair Trump corporate tax cuts as manna from heaven. As the middle class shrinks and becomes more and more resentful the demagogues will continue to sell the idea of "big gov't" as the cause of their ills.
11
Bravo, Mr. Krugman, this is a discussion that should be held every day, rather than the circuses that flow through our public discourse. Kentucky a state that voted in a Republican Governor and Legislature has seen black lung benefits cut, teachers on a state wide strike, Medicaid ,which insures a great proportion of it's citizens , cut, but I guarantee that the voters of Kentucky, like Kansas , which is in a fiscal black hole thanks to Republicans and Oklahoma , and West Virginia , will keep voting Republican. There is a mix of myth, masculinity and faux patriotism that keeps the Republican party in office harming those who vote for them. I have frankly lost sympathy for the citizens of these states, but then I see the teachers working two jobs, the homeschooled kids unable to compete, the classrooms with too many students, and the industrial and mine accidents, and then I go back to hoping for some enlightenment for these areas.
16
Perhaps unwittingly, Krugman answers his own question with his statement that, ".... until the 1970s those disparities were rapidly narrowing." Even in the face of blatant and rampant social ills and evils, America was becoming more equitably prosperous. What happened? The answer is complicated and involves some highly controversial and polarizing elements, but distills to the list of ills that afflict us today. The foremost of those is that almost all of us who have an opinion also have sacred tenents that simply are not up for discussion.
More mechanically and mundanely, the economic (and therefore the social) problems of this country are largely the product of modern economic analysis. Economists look at aggregates, but we don't have an aggregate problem. We have a disparity problem. Economists work with an extremely limited set of tools, taxes and spending and interest rates, so how to achieve Scandinavian-type equality, which is based first on shared social values which are only secondarily reflected in government programs, is beyond the comprehension of economists.
The biggest favor we could do ourselves is to stop listening to economists about the economy and start listening to sociologists, psychologists, and social anthropologists. Oh, and start listening to each other.
6
Perhaps it's time for coastal America to re-colonize heartland America. High tech can do just as well surrounded by Iowa corn fields as it presently does in the exurbs of silicon valley. Virtual presence technologies allow remote teams to contribute as if they were located at corporate headquarters.
5
I definitely agree that it's not simply a structural cycle. I went to Michigan State University for a graduate degree. Whereas many states will allow you to become a resident and gain in-state tuition after a year, in Michigan, if you moved to the state for an education, you will always pay the much higher out-of-state tuition, no matter how long you are there as a student. After gaining a pretty decent education at MSU or U of M, why would anyone want to stay in the state to invest in its future? How could anyone pass up a higher paying job elsewhere after paying so much? After my education, I came back to Ohio. Near-sighted policies by state administrators like those of Michigan keep economically under performing states from moving in the right direction.
4
China, Immigrants, Mexico, Minorities, Trade etc... these are the predominant headline scapegoats of our national conversation for the past several years, and false but easy excuses for people blame our economic disparities and woes on.
This didn't happen by accident. All of these deflections are driven by lobbyists, corporations, and big money interest to deflect attention away from themselves as they pillage and control DC and the general public. This is exactly the circus sideshow they wanted to deflect attention away from themselves. It's an age old Oligarchic or Autocratic tactic; blame problems at home on some contrived and fictitious external tormentor, not the powers that be. Plus, never actually address those tormentors; keep them around so you can always use them as the deflection and scapegoat.
Meanwhile, the spineless and inept Democrats dare not utter a word and dare not stand up to big pharma, big insurance, powerful monied interests in DC, and dare not stand up for the middle class, small business, and working Americans in general, and here we are.
7
The U.S. Census Bureau now publishes an annual poverty report titled the Supplemental Poverty Measure that takes regional cost of living into account. The report is changing perceptions about which states are poor and which are affluent. The most recent report shows that 14.7 percent of Americans live below poverty level. Despite its large economy, California is by far the poorest state with 23.8% of its residents subsisting below poverty level. New York ranks as the seventh poorest state with 16.0 percent of its residents below poverty level. Coastal states are well represented among the 10 poorest states:
1. California: 20.4%
2. Florida: 18.8%
3. Louisiana: 18.8%
4 Arizona: 17.8%
5. Mississippi; 16.9%
6. Georgia: 16.1%
7. New York: 16.0%
8. New Mexico: 15.7%
9. New Jersey: 15.3%
10. Kentucky: 15.0%
The numbers are from Appendix Table A-5 (Number and Percentage of People in Poverty by State), page 27 of the Census Bureau’s 2016 Supplemental Poverty Report.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo...
4
Thank you for clarifying what should seem obvious. The cost of living in California and Florida has forced so many into homelessness. The heartland does fall into some of the top 10 slots of most impoverished residents but does not dominate.
To focus on economics as the prime issue that created trumpland is to miss the systematic absorption of the media by large conservative leaning corporations that began in the '70s. You'll never again see footage like that broadcast about the Vietnam Nam war, the race riots, the shootings by National Guards at Kent State of American students. Standing Rock indigenous people were recent government targets but little of how they were treated made headline news.
These same moguls who grabbed the media have worked to denigrate education. Keep America stupid and addicted to "reality" TV is surely their motto as a means to manipulate the poorly educated who lack critical thinking skills as well as poor reading skills.
It's taken them nearly 50y to achieve the goal of owning America and bending us to their wills. Trump is their opening shot across the bows of Freedom and the trumpians are blithely and ignorantly colluding.
Only the oligarchs will benefit and the rest of us can go eat (dirt) cake ala Marie Antoinette.
1
At one point I had hoped that if we could turn our collective attention to what the Koch despots are doing to the country that maybe could come together to crush a truly terrible threat. Now I fear that Trump voters will do anything to defend the Koch empire as well.
10
Thanks for this very astute piece, Paul. The really troubling thing to me is: how much more radical will these left-behind people become as Trumpism makes their lives worse, not better? I can easily see them embracing full-on fascism.
9
A real set of national programs to expand opportunity to all regions would be something that increased the number of educated workers and the flow of ideas to these regions, something like free college for all and the construction or reconstruction of our public universities.
The programs you talk about, medicaid expansion and probably Obamacare are just another round of slight expansions of the means tested bargain basement welfare state favored by the Democratic establishment.
That under the table racism began immediately after LBJ signed the Civil Rights legislation and it was--and still is--far broader than Reagan and than the South. Gerrymandering and voter suppression are the current Republican Party's clearest uses of institutional racism. I know, I know, no one is a racist. But, just like George Wallace and Orval Faubus, neither of whom were racists, Republicans know exactly how most white people will vote.
4
“Trumpland” doesn’t like “free stuff” and so federal aid is the soft discrimination of patronization. They also want the Right to Work (For Less) and have obtained it. They are staunchly opposed to safety equipment and favor shielding employers from liability for negligence. They’re even against potable water. Democracy is about people enacting their policies and values. Trumpland has succeeded. Yay.
13
"People vote for the government they deserve." comes to mind.
2
The stats published by WAPO after the election show that the average income of a Trump supporter was $72K while the average for the other side was $50K or less. If that is true, all whining and gnashing of teeth about the poor, bedraggled whites in between the coasts falls on its face and points to other reasons for their support of Trump: racism, jingoism, white nationalism, hatred of liberals even when they're working for the wingnuts' benefit, irrational hatred of the Federal government, shameless propaganda of lies and conspiracy theories of the right wing media, Russian meddling - the list goes on. However, having enumarated all this, I and many other observers don't believe that Trump would've won had it not been for James Comey's announcement two weeks before the election about renewing the email probe. That action turned Hillary's favorable ratings among the electorate upside down.
13
The problem seems to be that the Republicans have created an unstable system with perverse incentives. Demagogues have appeal to people who are angry and afraid. So the the Republican demagogues have every incentive to make their voters angrier and more fearful. Hence, they exploit peoples prejudice and concoct mean-spirited policies to ship jobs overseas and take away everyone's health care. This will continue until we stop rewarding them for being nasty.
5
What I have never understood:
Why nowhere in current discourse (with the exception of Professor Krugman's articles), is a simple non-defensive argument made FOR taxation.
We have always lived in groups of individuals that help each other to survive. Contributing to the common good by paying taxes is a sensible way of doing this. It provides us with roads, a justice system, financial protection for the elderly, national defense, and so many other things we take for granted like safety when we fly - or eat.
The left needs to stop apologizing for taxation and find a simple explanation of why taxes provide for the common good, and then make sure it is repeated.
Currently we don't hear even the simplest articulation of this basic idea. But if heard often enough, maybe the message would get through, at least to some.
9
Yes, the divide will only get worse. But Republicans and demagogues get to blame it on immigrants and minorities and, ultimately, Democrats. It's a winning formula: you steal from the poor and give to the rich, and then get more votes for it.
It comes down to racism and xenophobia. And the only solution is more immigration and more diversity. Trump knows that and that's why he's so set to build the wall.
5
The only thing the Republicans have done well is to demonize the Democrats and their programs. I guess the Republican donors don't care about the rest of us because they have a lot of stuff and aren't interested in sharing the wealth. At some point the dog-eat-dog mentality will cause the Republican supporters to turn on their masters. I would.
2
One can only hope, and that day can't come soon enough. Storm the castle! :-)
I disagree mightily with the phrase that these regions/people have been "left behind." The correct phrase is, "Have refused to move forward." Their continued support of any and all things Republican, or "conservative," is the root cause of their self-induced predicament. They will continue to vote Republican and then cry and whine that they're forgotten. I am out of sympathy for their victimhood.
19
The Roseanne lie that "Trump talked about jobs" has taken hold even in more thoughtful debate. Hillary talked about jobs, too, but she talked about the jobs of today and tomorrow, and too many voters only wanted to hear that
a fixer could bring back the jobs of yesterday.
It makes me both sad and mad that so many Americans fell for the snake oil salesman, but what with our decades-long emphasis on cutting taxes rather than improving universally available public education, I am not surprised that our voters can not make a well-reasoned decision.
America, I'm going to miss you when you're gone.
14
One of the biggest elements in the demise of civility & sensible thoughts on public policy was the destruction of the "Fairness Doctrine" and the overturning of the "Red Lion" decision. These rules had required actual balance in news reporting. It was their demise that allowed the rise of Fox News, the source from which a whopping 40 percent of the entire population gets their news (or at least what they think is news).
As other commenters note, effective democracy depends on an informed electorate. The destruction of the Fairness Doctrine & Red Lion opened the door for propaganda and manipulation on a mass scale, funded by a handful of mega-rich individuals and corporate interests. In overturning these decisions, the claim was made that the old restrictions were not needed because there would be so much choice and diversity in cable programming. Obviously, a massive miscalculation.
13
It would be interesting to see state-by-state inequality figures. In so many ways, the last thirty years feels like a reversion to mean for many areas of the country. If we examine the old Confederacy right before the Civil War--and during, for that matter--we see an intensely unequal society lorded over by an extractive aristocracy, jealously guarding their commodity-based economy and using racism as a goad to keep their lower classes in line. The South lagged the North in many ways, but it made very comfortable living for that small aristocracy of planters. Even as the war raged, selfish, small-minded economic policies were pushed by the planter class, disastrously (if predictably) undercutting the slave-state war effort. Notable among these policies: vigorous resistance to anything like a progressive income tax, one of which was instituted without much difficulty in the North.
I'd submit that culture, not geography, is truly destiny.
7
A few decades ago, Eden Prairie MN was considered a successful exurb. When the mayor was asked about its success, she responded about making it a nice place to live.
I wonder what happened to Eden Prairie after Best Buy moved its headquarters to Richfield.
I do know that I moved to Minnesota twice because it was a nice place to live. The gap was a six-year stay in Europe and three in Southeast PA.
2
Where is Trumpland? He won 30 states and if you look at the county map, most counties by an overwhelming margin (AP - 2626 counties to 487).
Are all of these places Trumpland? Did Education blossom under Obama? No.
Education is critical to success and becoming more so. But, the federal approach hasn't worked. No Child Left Behind was just a bad idea (I could not believe people supported that ridiculous bill) nor did Race to the Top. It doesn't even look like Head Start, which intuitively seems smart, works. We really need to free up our schools to see what are the better approaches and share it online. Guess what? To do that, some children will get left behind (they already do) and it will be a very uneven race to the top. We do not live in Finland, with a small homogenous group of people, where one size can fit all. Our advantages and the things we do best come from competition and when the federal govt tries to control too much that should be handled locally, it doesn't work out too well. This isn't an argument for states rights or that the federal gov't shouldn't do a lot of things it does (many of which are probably unconstitutional, but it isn't going to change).
Wash. D.C. receives a lot of federal aid and spends a lot on education. All the federal gov't should do with education is monitor and enforce that states are not treating some groups or areas preferentially, encourage the exchange of information, but leave them greater freedom educationally.
Of course, you’re suggesting that we accelerate and encourage the process of cleaving America into winners and losers. And, guess what, rural America is going to lose that educational survival of the fittest you advocate. You don’t have anything that could attract the best and the brightest to teach there, even if you could match the salaries of the wealthy coasts — which rural America resolutely will not. (I’m a teacher, and I know this very personally).
The only countries where rural poor receive decent educations are ones where the financial model of educational is totally socialist (check out Germany’s for an idea of what I mean.)
Literally, no actual school system on earth supports your idea. And a few brief minutes spent thinking about what incentivizes excellent educators to teach will show you why your idea is unlikely to work in the future.
If it helps, though, US schools ARE measurable better than they were in 1986, when a Nation at Risk was published. Graduation rates are up — and wayyyy up for black and Hispanic students. College acceptances and graduations are way up. Women are succeeding as never before. The curricula are more rigorous.
The reason you don’t THINK or FEEL that improvement is because the needs of modern society have grown even faster than school improvement. And because of the ceaseless, grinding message that our schools are failing at everything, always
4
I was born and raised in Detroit. I am now 69 years old and have lived in Seattle these past 42 years. I love Seattle for its scenic beauty, lively arts scene, recreational opportunities and highly educated population. I don't like that it has become insufferably expensive unless you are an Amabot or Microsoftie.
Would I like to leave Seattle, not really but would seriously consider doing so for economic opportunity. I have considered returning to Michigan, currently in the grip of Trumpland. Michigan has many beautiful scenic areas, great fishing and endless lakes. It has been devastated by the collapse of its traditional industries. On a recent exploratory trip, however, in spite being very affordable to live there especially in comparison to Seattle it was discouraging. Their school system has declined significantly no thanks in part to Betsy Devos. Their infrastructure is crumbling, everywhere. I was struck by the feeling of many locals that they felt abandoned but were expecting someone else (trump) to do something about it.
I would have considered relocating there had there been any evidence of efforts to attract new businesses, an investment in infrastructure and schools. People in Michigan and like minded states can sit around waiting for Trump to make America great again and return their previous industries and jobs. The rest of us know it is not going to happen.
33
Sad about Michigan, but no surprise. Move north of Seattle, much more affordable up here!
Mari, sadly not affordable enough.
Thank you, Dr. Krugman, for the insightful article. I will add that part of the Trumpland anger was that a Black man, smarter than them was in the White House. Driving through Trumpland, I saw many bumper stickers which read "Make the White House White Again." Racism plays a big part of their anger, including their anger at not having jobs.
When my family arrived from Cuba in 1962, we were brought by Catholic Charities to a small farming community in eastern Washington. My parents immediately realized that there was very little work or opportunity there. We moved to the large city of Seattle and prospered! Wasn't easy but my parents knew that a farming community was a dead end.
I cannot understand why these folks in poor southern states not move?! And why they continue to vote against their own interests! This won't change until the federal government does a better job in funding education. Education is key, to learning how to think critically, the result is a better government that actually works for you and more sound economic opportunities.
23
The main matter with ''Trumpland'' is that it isn't a ''Producing (manufacturing) Land'' anymore.
America has become the Main ''Consuming'' Country of the World with the ''Greatest'' Service Industry servicing US Rich - and until it doesn't change ''Trumpland'' will stay with US.
4
What I would really like to see, Mr. Krugman, are ideas on how to reverse this trend. Understanding the problem is important, but what can we do, as Americans, as voters, to make lasting change? What policies would you recommend that Congress, and the executive branch, take. This is a long term problem which will require smart, long term solutions including political and economic change.
6
Richard, good points. I'd like to propose several steps to start the process.
First, reverse Citizens United and related SCOTUS decisions including the nonsense that corporations are people, eliminate partisan gerrymandering, and strengthen campaign finance regulations.
Next, fund substantial infrastructure investments in every congressional district, do this in perpetuity as needed, and do projects most beneficial and desired by each locality.
Upgrade education and training opportunities, again in every district.
And lastly, provide universal, cost effective healthcare by whatever mechanisms we can agree on.
How do we make these investments? We can do deficit spending where the investments will pay for themselves over time. But we should mostly go where the money is. Start by reversing the recent unconscionable tax cuts beginning at the highest wealth/income levels and working our way down. Add additional taxes as needed and as part of an overall fair taxation system. Public goods aren't free, but the stronger, the healthier, and the more competitive our society is, the better off everyone will be.
16
Step one: Remove every single politician that promotes the lie of supply-side and trickle-down economics. Then at least a semi-intelligent conversation can start.
6
If a presidential candidate had come out of a rural county in the South, Midwest, or Mountain West and had a poor reputation in his home town regarding telling the truth and paying his bills, I believe that people in more urban parts of the country would listen to them. When a candidate came out of an urban center with miniscule support among his neighbors because of his sketchy personal and public history but such warnings are largely ignored in rural America, who then is the "elitist".
19
The 1970's were the last decade of the short-lived "Affluent Society". What changed everything? Looks like it was an unshakeable faith in the dogma of "supply-side" economics. Laffer and tax cuts for the rich from 1980 and forevermore. When Reagan spoke of "morning in America", he was looking in the wrong direction. It was actually sunset.
28
Oh, and by the way, here's a bit of data that trump supporters need to face up to.
True, there was an era when growth averaged 4%. Population was rising 1.5%, the average family had 1 car per household, people took their laundry to the laundromat, you did your dishes after dinner, and the average house had a black and white TV.
Now the average licensed driver has 1.13 cars (there are 250 million registered vehicles, and 220 million licensed drivers). The average household has several flat screen TVs, you put your dishes in the dishwasher, and you take the laundry to the basement.
So where's growth going to come from?
Well, we have 4 million births a year and 2.7 million deaths.
There is that, but we also have 3.7 million a year hitting age 65.
So 70% of our population growth is in the 65 and up age bracket.
Without immigration, we stagnate.
Good luck, trump fans.
30
I'm a big fan of Professor Krugman's, and I think this article is important and thought provoking, as most of the professor's columns are. However, I think the larger question that arises from this analysis is, "Why do people from these depressed and stagnant regions continuously vote against their own self interests"? I'm forever baffled that so many people latch on to cultural and grievance issues, and they can't see through the rhetoric that is actually holding back progress. Why can't the Democrats articulate their policies better because those policies will benefit the people in the worst circumstances?
31
"Why do people from these depressed and stagnant regions continuously vote against their own self interests"?"...Getting facts and thinking is hard work; following your emotions is easy.
17
Since Nixon, the GOP has worked hard to get votes by pushing inflammatory issues related to racism, religion, abortion, and any other issue that gets people distracted from their true economic situation. The GOP agenda remains the destruction of government programs, especially those that help lower income people. Instead of giving trillions of dollars to the rich, the GOP could have invested in the improvement of opportunity in areas that are falling behind. But no, their real constituency is the rich and making the world safe for businesses to do whatever they like. Trump claims to "love the poorly educated," but has no intention of actually helping them.
9
Some of this is explained by the report by Katherine Cramer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, whose study, published by the University of Chicago Press, "The Politics of Resentment," is discussed here:
https://www.thirteen.org/openmind/government/the-politics-of-resentment/...
A niece took a K-12 teaching job in a small town west of Charlotte, NC, in the 1990s, but left after a year when faced with resistance from parents who felt education was either unnecessary or useless. It was a cultural thing and really difficult and unrewarding to deal with.
3
As noted, a lack of education makes for a work force ill-equipped to handle modern jobs. Yet the cuts to education continues in the red states. Starting pay for teachers is in the $30K range. Raises rarely happen. Supplies are cut, so teachers end up paying for those, too.
That’s the problem.
26
"i love the uneducated " donald trump
"The truth is that doing something about America’s growing regional divide would be hard even with smart policies. The divide will only get worse under the policies we’re actually likely to get." Exactly!
Never mind that divided we fall as a nation, when the name of the game is not democracy (government of, by, and for the people) but redistributing the wealth ever upward to the already rich (of, by, and for the rich and powerful).
So ironically, the worse the lagging regions get, the more likely the angry, displaced citizenry is to vote right-wing against their own self-interests and for authoritarians championing fear, hatred for scapegoated groups, and hyper-repression, oppression, and control.
This is the old working-class authoritarianism explanation proposed by political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset decades ago. Lipset also argued that a thriving middle class is essential for a democratic society.
Lipset's working-class authoritarianism explanation has been modified recently, with the argument that working-class authoritarianism-right-wing politics is based less on a social class divide than on an educational divide—esp. for the 2016 election. Clinton won voters with a college degree; Trump won voters without a college degree, esp. in states with the lowest levels of education.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/11/18/educational-rift-in-201...
Don't expect the GOP to concern itself with rising inequality or education--or democracy.
17
The problem I see is that even in areas that do a great job of educating their children, they (the children) must go away to get good jobs, and this exodus over time is destroying the very communities that are often providing the highly skilled work force root stock to the bigger successful cities. Massachusetts is a good example of this. Here in Boston the tach economy and economy in general is booming along with our 185 colleges and universities attracting the best talent from all over the world. But, travel to Western Massachusetts just 100 miles away, and it is like a different country. Yet, the K-12 school system in all of Massachusetts including Western Massachusetts is excellent with most of the Western Massachusetts students going on to college. The problem is that once they go off to Boston and get their Harvard degree they do not move back home to Pittsfield, MA. There is no way for most of them to pursue their vocations back home. These areas are being starved by the brain and talent drain of the loss of their better and best talent for their future, and this has been going on since the 1970s. In a way Boston is harvesting Western Massachusetts at the expense of Western Massachusetts, and this scenario is playing out all over America.
19
I am currently working for a company in California, all online. Are there jobs that can be done in the boondocks, thanks to the internet? The company I work for has people located in India and China working for them. Why not Pittsfield?
2
Why did coal mines appear in West Virginia? Because coal miners were there and started digging? No, because the coal was there and the miners moved to some rather inhospitable spots to be employed in the mines. They moved to where the jobs were. Now their descendants want the coal mines to come back to where they live, but it doesn't work that way. If you want to work you have to do what your great-grandfather did - move to where the jobs are, whether they are in the mines or the tech industry. Sitting in your dying county and voting for Trump to drop a long-gone job in your backyard is an exercise in futility and stupidity that has blighted us all.
5
Why not Pittsfield? Probably because Pittsfield voters have supported Republican tax scolds for decades. Tax scolds who spent nothing on infrastructure and broadband. Tax scolds reigning over regions with a faltering grid and blaming the librul blue states for it.
"While these structural factors are surely the main story, however, I think we have to acknowledge the role of self-destructive politics."
I think this observation gets to the heart of the matter.
The people who vote in Trumpland regularly vote against their own interests as Thomas Frank noted in his book "What's the Matter with Kansas" in 2004.
And, in my opinion, although this problem has existed for sometime, it was and is politicians like Newt Gringrich, the "Darth Vader" of American politics, who learned how to wield the politics of personal destruction to the advantage of conservatives.
In effect, conservative voters were convinced that focusing on solving social and cultural issues (abortion, gender equality, et al) to their satisfaction would ultimately resolve their personal economic problems by getting god on their side.
It is possible that voters in Trumpland feel guilty about their personal lives and see self-flagellation at the ballot box as a way to absolve themselves of their sins?
7
Recent polling indicates that over half of GOP voters agree with the statement that colleges and universities are a negative force in America. Do you really think that the areas of the country that are largely populated by poorer, less educated people are going to be improved when they dislike and mistrust higher education? I don’t. If you think that the GI Bill was a big part of America’s postwar success and contributed immensely to the rise of our Middle Class, how can you be optimistic about the future of the antieducation parts of the country?
20
The conundrum for states like Oklahoma and Kansas is that education is that while the only route to prosperity but it is also liberating and liberalizing ("things that you're liable to read in the Bible, it ain't necessarily so"). Students will learn that the Earth is four and a half billion years old and that man evolved from other forms; that climate change is a demonstrable scientific fact and not a hoax; that trade wars are not easy to win; etc.
They have a choice between succeeding in the 21st century and maintaining a 19th century world view and so far they are choosing the latter.
18
Maybe a political party that helped those left behind economically to feel less anxious about the changes in the economy and the outlook for employment might help voters participate more in 21st century occupations. The Democrats have not done much about this, and the GOP is actively opposed to what they claim is government interfering in the market.
Bonnie - If we assume your scenario is true it certainly shows that voting Republican would make the workers worse off. Yet they do it every time. There is no new party to help those who feel left behind because there is no magic formula to make them whole overnight. It takes hard work and shared sacrifice. Things identified and espoused by the likes of Hillary Clinton. But 30 years of Fox News character assassination swayed too many dupes in Trumpland. Maybe they will finally learn which party is on their side in the future, but if the past is any indicator I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Trumpland to wise up.
1
Consistent theme of populace lacking in basic civic and critical analytic skills. This reality is abetted by transformation of “knowledge” and “information” via electronic and social media. These platforms have devolved into essentially propaganda mechanisms which users— by self profiling and purchasing decisions—to allow themselves be scammed, manipulated, and marketed to.
7
Trumpland may be "voting for its own impoverishment" but I seriously doubt that they are knowingly committing group economic suicide. When you have not been taught or exposed to critical thinking skills, I believe the human default is to emotion. A lot of Trumpsters voted their anger, thinking they were sticking a finger in the eye of DC. In fact, DC is doing just fine (especially defense attorneys) and Trumpland is getting angrier at their unanticipated outcomes. The next president (assuming we will get a chance at that) will have to be a Healer-in-Chief and will certainly have to call (after election, of course) for increased taxes to pay for the needed maintenance of infrastructure and improvement of public education and healthcare. Trump is the perfect Republican pol because, all his life, he has gotten something for nothing. The next president is going to have to explain to people that this is not how capitalism works.
18
Educate children to be consumers instead of citizens and you get people who are easily led or apathetic who lack the critical thinking skills to realize what's being done to them.
19
Rich people have their party, the Republicans. We need a party committed to working people.
Time to retire the Democrats and replace them with a Socialist party.
11
Politicians of the low character of a Donald Trump have no compunction scapegoating, and those in Trumpland are all too eager to buy into it. To their repeated detriment - but resentment is a powerful emotion. Blaming themselves is the last thing they will do.
13
If you toss a floundering man a life preserver and he shouts angrily, "I know how to swim, get lost" while ignoring the floatation device, is it really your fault when he drowns?
These regions will either grab the life preserver or sink into oblivion. The time to choose is running out.
November. Vote.
21
Get rid of Republican governors, House and Senate members in next election who vote against funding health care, funding for Publc education and free Community College or Vocational training and just maybe the citizens of these States will be able to be employed in decent paying jobs. And while we are at it get rid of Citizens United, that sham of a law that has put ordinary citizens in harm's way. It is because of this law that we are almost living in an Oligarchy.
Shame on the Supreme Court judges who voted for it. They are truly responsible for the bad conditions we find ourselves in.
14
Yes, but Fox News and the Sinclair stations will convince them that things are actually better because the Muslims and Mexicans are kept away and besides they can keep all their guns. They'll vote for Trump again.
17
Let's not forget rural America, especially the West, where blue collar work has gone away in large part because of shifts in federal land management policies that have undermined the ability of people to work in industries that actually are still in demand but are hamstrung by rules favoring aesthetics over work. There, too, a stronger placed-based approach to governance would help immensely, but this is where the obstacles emanate more from the urban liberal end of the political spectrum than from the right.
2
"Let's not forget rural America, especially the West, where blue collar work has gone away in large part because of shifts in federal land management policies"....It is true that a lot of people believe that, but it is in fact a total load of garbage. In places like New Mexico, there is little or no future in cattle, timber, and mining. They are dead and dying, and trying to hang it on land management policies is a joke. The aesthetics, the open spaces, the fresh air, the hiking, the mountains is the trump card that will encourage high tech industry to relocate here.
7
There is no justice and no break for the middle class. Americans don't want to pay the taxes or create a fair system for funding public education. Ohio, where I live, was ordered by its Supreme Court more than a decade ago to fix its unconstitutional and unjust system for funding public schools. The GOP legislature in our state has refused to take it up, and the Supreme Court and Ohio citizens have done nothing--to their shame. As a result there is indeed a brain drain in Ohio. And it appears that radical Republicans may take over the Governor's chair in November and Ohio may well resemble Oklahoma a year from now. Long story short=the GOP is in charge and they are doing the bidding of the Kochs, Mercers, big business, and big finance. We don't have a chance-and Trump in the WH is making sure of that.
14
I've met many, many people in NY who came from Ohio.
Exactly! Amen.
2
In discussions everywhere it is so fashionable now to blame Hillary, the Democrats, and anything else that can be rationalized except the problem that is like that mammoth in the room. And that is race. In the long run the election of Trump is long-term payback for the temerity of this country to elect a brown-skinned person to the White House. The hatred that came out of the woodwork when Barack Obama was elected was stunning. I've always known that there's a big racist streak in his country - after all we started with genocide and slavery - but the disrespect shown to President Obama was breathtaking. Trump won by appealing to the worst instincts of a large swath of the population; people keep talking about loss of jobs, people left behind, etc etc. Those things may all be true, but Trump appealed to our inherent racism. I am a 75 year old white woman, and I am cut to the heart with the knowledge that numbers of educated white people voted for this racist, narcissistic con man. Yes, you get what you pay for, but all of us are going to take the hit for this obscene purchase.
20
Krugman fails to take into account the role that religion plays in the Bible Belt aka Trumpland. Kids still grow up thinking evolution is a myth and that the government is out to make them all godless socialists. Or worse, take away their God-given guns. Hard to create scientists and professionals in that sort of environment.
7
What is also the matter with Trumpland?
The Faux news media; Sinclair and the like, are propaganda outlets serving the interests of oligarchic ideologues who’s only apparent objective is establishing and maintaining their hold on modern feudalistic power.
7
I continue to believe that the South, economically, politically, and intellectually, was forever crippled by the legacy of slavery.
10
All true, but do not let Wall Street and big corporations off for their complicity in the problem of losing good jobs to overseas production. They helped make it happen. Now they could do something but self-interest wins. Stop supporting job-killing lobbyists. Stop buying advertising on fake news sites, i.e. Fox & Facebook. Invest in new factories. Stop weaponizing the Bible for a start.
2
But capitalism will just maximize profits... It's up to government to channel capitalism for the greater good. I'm pro capitalism and pro government.. checks and balances.
We can be sure that there will not be any "Smart" policies emerging from the Trumpocracy to resolve this social/economic inequality. Republicans through Fox, Sinclair, hate radio have convinced generations to vote against their own self-interest, election after election. Their hatred and fears blind them to their own self-interest and that of their communities. Trumpism promises that it will only get worse, the con-man of idoicy.
3
So a rising tide no longer floats all boats (equally at least). The ‘tide’ is what it is so the problem must lie with the ‘boats’ and those ‘boats’ are adverse to seeking help to repair themselves. ‘Boats’ with holes don’t float (equally at least).
1
“It’s a free country.” That principle gives Trumpland the power and, I suppose, right to destroy itself. But it’s the the Electoral College that gave it the ability to take the rest of us along with; to put a man in the White House and majorities in Congress who might bring ruination to this nation
7
Some Americans want a president they can "drink a beer with".
Others Americans would rather have a president they can play a game of chess with.
Which one are you?
If you're the former, good luck because you're gonna' need it.
4
The solution to the problem isn't found within this mythical 'Trumpland' patronizing pundits like Paul Krugman just love to hate. Dr Krugman still can't figure out why these ignorant residents of Middle America don't mindlessly obey their betters in the mainstream media and vote the way they're supposed to vote. Hillary Clinton made a bad situation worse when she declared that she did really, really well in a handful of tiny blueberries scattered within these solid Red States. See? All is not lost after all. Hillary Clinton will never ever leave the State of Denial that she, of all people, lost two presidential contests. She lost the first Democratic nomination to a relatively unknown Senator from Illinois and the second as the Democratic candidate to a bombastic billionaire who never ran for any public office before.
If Dr Krugman is truly sincere in trying to figure out what's wrong with Trumpland maybe he should watch Roseanne. The ratings for the first two episodes broke TV ratings records and Roseanne been renewed for a second season. Maybe the indigenous people of Trumpland aren't as dumb as Dr Krugman thinks they are.
2
"Roseanne" is a television show, not reality. Some people are apparently unable to distinguish between the two. That is the problem.
4
I'm well aware that Roseanne is a TV show. But art has a funny way of imitating life. Roseanne struck a raw nerve that resonated with the people elitists disapprove of.
So we should tell people what they want to hear instead of reality? Many of these people ARE dumb, and we got where we are by coddling them. Enough. The truth hurts, time to toughen up.
2
Are we sure red states are too proud to take handouts?
Because last time I checked red states got 85% of ALL federal handouts.
And yet somehow they still manage to strut.
Unreal.
9
But everyone finds a way to strut... One way was too vote for Trump...
As an American of Sicilian decedents I refuse to believe I am a Mississippian!
So what is wrong in trumpland, simple ignorance.
Ignorance is not stupidity. Ignorance is to not know or understand all the facts. Stupidity is the inability to understand. They wish to believe coal and steel are coming back. They want to blame powerless immigrants for their misfortunes and not the moneyed interests manipulating policies to benefit them. The most courageous thin HRC did was go to coal country and tell them it was time to retool and the gov.. would be there with them. They did not believe her, with some justification. Yet they ignorantly chose to believe lie after lie. Look at the last 2 republican presidents. "W" spoke their language with them, they trusted him. "t" speaks to their base fears and fans them.
Thus the question, can they learn from their own mistakes or are they stupid? Better yet can the Democrats relearn how to speak to them and explain how their programs may leave a few less bucks in their pockets but create a better economy and society where they will be fare better off. Can the Democrats find someone with the appeal of "W" and the brains of Obama who can educate those in trumpland? The answer to this question will decide the fate of America.
Vote in November.
7
Trumpland is NRA land as well. Let them have all the guns they want and you can take everything else they have or is due them. Republicans have been banking on that principle for decades.
1
How about addressing Fox News and bible thumping radio that permeates the red states? The Fairness Doctrine could be renewed and pure propaganda and distribution of out-and-out nonsense eliminated. Brainwashing would become more difficult.
8
A well known cynic once said.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron”.~H.L. Mencken, The Evening Sun, July 26, 1920.
9
My question is, what is wrong with Ohio? A preponderence of white supremacists who showed up in Charlottesville last August were from this state and the picture of those steel folks are, too. I thought Ohio was one of the "civilized" states.
2
Darwin's theory of evolution in action: eventually, hopefully, natural selection will rid America of the Trumpland idiocracy.
3
One thing that all of these red states have in common is a high proportion of Evangelical Extremists. Last time I checked these religious zealots engage in magical rather rational thinking. Maybe the red states of the Evangelical Welfare Empire would be better off if they based their decision making on facts and logic instead of the writings of Bronze Age people who didn’t know where the sun went at night.
10
Ah Paul, I was with you until your comment about Nimbyism being responsible for soaring housing costs. We here in Seattle, on the front line of overpriced housing, know that numerous factors are more important. Developers tear down affordable stock and replace it with high priced housing targeted at the influx of tech workers with six figure starting salaries, compliant local government loves the increased tax revenue and so won't regulate development to ensure equity, and tech corporate leaders demand that cities accommodate their work force while providing tax breaks. We nimbys are low on the pecking orde of responsibility.
10
As a Californian suffering under similar problems, thank you for educating Paul about his lack of understanding about the housing problems on the west coast. Nimbyism is what the developers and their propagandists use to paint the local communities effected by their enrichment scams as irrational. We are actually very rational, that's why we object!
3
As a fellow California NIMBYism plays a huge factor in housing, especially in affluent communities as well as lack of funding for transit.
I have relatives in small, rural Indiana towns who refused to leave home for college because they were too enmeshed in their church communities. Now, nearly 50 years later, their church is all they have and they blame other, well-educated Americans for their ills. To be fair, some were never qualified to continue their educations regardless because they sacrificed their primary educations for the Jeebus and all He offers them in the afterlife. "Christians unite! High-paying factory and mill jobs await you in Heaven!"
12
Paul identified how growth and prosperity are distributed regionally and its keys (education,infrastructure, business clusters) to success.
Even within rural, low education areas, without infrastructure or business clusters, intentional planning to leverage these factors (education, infrastructure, business clusters) has had spectacular results! That success further reinforces why the deliberate, public use of best practices are important for the future.
Many readers will know my regular examples: the West Virginia Chemical Alliance Zone, a five county zone in West Virginia that attracted top global chemical manufacturers (several international), by building suitable infrastructure, improving roads, supporting business clustering, and tying tax breaks to research, to create collective export business of more than a billion dollars annually, with new businesses (medical devices, plastics) moving to the region, adding well paid jobs of $70+.
Using the same pillars--education, infrastructure, business clusters, with supportive regulation--South Carolina has become the new Detroit, revisioned as a global center of transportation manufacturing! BMW's largest plant, Daimler-Benz, Volvo, Borsch, and Boeing all have manufacturing plants in the state that support and attracted a wide range of business clusters and education enterprises, including special institutes.
With planning and committed investment in the template, even areas once rural and poor, can grow and prosper!
2
These folks voted for Trump because they believed his lies, and figured his insults were just par for the course. This mindset was aided an abetted by the mainstream media that should have recognized early on the difference between such organizations as the Trump Foundation and the Clinton Foundation. It took Think Progress to call this out - towards the end of the campaign. Suddenly,the media started to see the obivious false equivalency; too little too late. The horse race was too near the finish.
If the responsible media will do their job and treat elections with respect instead of as a populatiry contest, it will aid democracy.
4
“And when it comes to national politics, let’s face it: Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment.” Yes, Dr. Krugman, this is tragedy.
But the roots of tragedy are deeper and darker. Our, sometimes good Capitalism, evolved and deteriorated, and the American way, the winner took all.
You know, Dr. Krugman, better than many, that any human idea, a developmental concept, must be implemented by the power of state, when is huge in scope.
The State Capitalism propelled China, to the level maybe beyond reach to us, so hopelessly striving on chaos. Just to say a concept of modern, electrical traction east-west never was implemented here.
Koch Brothers and others are not interested
in it. But Government for the benefit of All, should have done it; it didn’t, why. This is the only one example.
Look at the Artificial Intelligence what developmental concept the US can offer?
What about the Exponential Age?
And so and so on. No concept, no developmental plan, brought on us systemic stagnation.
The process of American decomposition began at Regan time, unfortunately.
Please, Dr. Krugman, give us a hint….
Chickens come home to roost: by vilifying government as the problem, it has become the problem. Government is the one thing that could make a difference for the better in Trumplandia. However, since the Reagan administration, the GOP has demonized all levels of government and taxation, regularly blowing the political dog-whistle of race and identity, and aggressively gerrymandered districts.
To the Republican Party, I ask: after decades of anti-government/anti-tax rhetorical poison, how exactly do you expect govern when all you’ve wanted is to destroy the levers of government, well, except maybe those convenient to controlling women, their wombs, and minorities? Tough to grow something in the heartland when you’ve tilled the land with lies.
5
It took a horrible person, supported by horrible puppets in both houses, to energize the electorate to get out and vote in 2017 and special elections. This cannot be a one time event.
Voters tend to become complacent when "their people" are in power. It happened between 2010 and 2016. But educating voters locally to the importance of local, state and federal elections, and energizing them with local candidates that understand their problems is a winning combination.
We The People need to offset the mega-donors and PACs with our voting patterns. EVERY. SINGLE. ELECTION.
7
From yesterday's New York Times: Matt Russell, a rural sociologist and farmer in Iowa said: “Democrats do farm policy really well but are terrible at farm politics. Republicans do farm politics really well but have a history of doing terrible farm policy.”
Seem pretty clear that pandering to some people's deep-seated prejudices will "trump" common sense. However, facing foreclosure on the family farm may soon bring some of them back to reality.
5
I predict every Red state in America will be in an uprising by the end of this year (as in before mid-terms) and it won't just be teachers but other public sector workers, maybe even janitors. You cannot run a functioning government without revenue if you keep refusing to hike taxes. I will never understand why Republican voters are so dense and vote in their own worst interests- are their heads that clogged by racism? Though Blue state voters like myself are not immune when we let ourselves get duped by so called "progressive Democrats" who are anything but. I feel it too Paul, every day- America is heading downhill fast.
3
Some things never change. The GOP are masters at bait and switch. But their red states don't switch their votes. They dig in and continue to vote against their own interests.
4
Thanks, Paul. No matter how bad the news, it is always a comfort to read your op-eds, and see this bruised and brawling world make a little more sense.
1
Being from and living in Oklahoma I recognize there are 3 major industries here Agriculture, Oil & gas, and Crime. "Oklahoma has the distinction of being No. 1 in the nation for the number of female prisoners per capita and is often in the top five nationally in male incarceration" rates.http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/too-many-prisoners-in-oklahoma-...
Sounds like Paul is advocating an increase in Socialist methods. Capitalism is predicated on predatory behavior, as Moretti states, a system where no thought is given to humanity.
2
Great Op-Ed and post but not enough said about Murdoch and Sinclair media.
1
Trump is president not just because of the white working class, but because the relatively well-off portions of Trumpland (which also includes Staten Island, NY, which voted for Trump 57/40%) chose this lying, despicable man as their leader. Blame the Republican Party's primary process, blame racist beliefs, blame political propaganda masquerading as news, but STOP blaming the poorest of people. Hillary Clinton won the poor vote because there are more black and brown poor than white. If you're looking for the thread that connects Trump voters, it's racism irrespective of their various levels of want.
5
What's going on is the rich and powerful, like the Kochs, the Mercers, and the Murdochs, are pushing for a return to feudalism, where they are on top, untouchable, and nothing to stop them from anything they desire, but their range of desires.
Feudalism lasted far, far longer than even our Democracy has, and it has been rampant in Europe, Central & South America, China, Japan, the Middle East, and the whole world. It's back with a vengeance in Russia, China, Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines, and is well on its way in Poland.
And it's here. The polished feudalists have their ideal thug in Trump, who holds out 3 lies to supporters:
1) Be afraid of "the other" because they want your jobs, your homes, your women, your guns, and to destroy your churches.
2) You're better than "the other" because you're with Me.
3) I'm going to fix EVERYTHING and make it better for you, if you just give me the power without limit.
And they are lapping it up, in states like Kansas, Kentucky, Arizona and Oklahoma, where it's failing miserably, and in nations like Russia.
Will our democratic republic survive, or will devolve into dictatorship, civil war, or even our own version of "Brexit"?
But as long as Republicans continue to tolerate and allow Donald Trump to destroy the safeguards, one of those 3 is sadly, inevitable.
4
There's another divide you didn't mention: morality. The people who could support a Donald Trump as President inhabit a very different moral world than the rest of us. Or at least I think so. The NJ pols supporting the corrupt Bob Menendez give pause: how are they different from the evangelicals who support Trump? Our disgraceful pol uber alles? Is that where both parties are now?
3
Many in the red states seem to ignore their own economic interests and instead vote on single issues like abortion and gun rights.
2
"Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment. New Deal programs and public investment played a significant role in the great postwar convergence; conservative efforts to downsize government will hurt people all across America, but it will disproportionately hurt the very regions that put the G.O.P. in power."
Is it bad I'm glad to see this? Those of us who pay attention to these sorts of things have been warning about this for ages, but we're just "elitists" so why should we care now that what we warned about is happening? WE TOLD THEM SO.
6
Trumpland failed to invest in education. In the GOP-led, zero-sum world of the red state, ensuring the education of other people's children is wasted money. So K-12 suffers. There is no preschool. And childcare support is unheard of. Even where the data shows a clear dollar-for-dollar ROI for investment in education, "I Got Mine" ideology rules. Fast forward 30 years: 20-somethings are less employable, there is more crime, employers don't come and the tax base is soft.
Contrast this with blue states where education is prized and considered a right for all children. Even in California, where the Reagan-era Proposition 13 nearly destroyed the education system, Californians finally rendered it irrelevant by electing Democrats to every branch of government, putting the education system back on track. Blue states have robust university systems, vibrant venture capital environments and high-tech economic engines paying 6-figure salaries to highly educated employees from around the world.
Bottom line: red states are dominated by big-fish,small-pond thinkers, where blue states live and learn to compete in the global ocean.
12
The US owes its success more to geographic determinism than anything else. We are probably the least democratic of the nation's who call themselves a democracy. PACs and money in general in politics, especially since Citizens United, have bought and sold our politicians, also the electoral college and gerrymandering help further to dilute our democracy and since the demise of the fairness doctrine and 24 hour news channels and hate radio, so many people live in their own bubble, feeling threatened by any factual knowledge that might challenge their perceptions. A supposedly free people are the easiest to manipulate, especially when truth no longer matters.
12
It's something of a cruel irony that the GOP and Mr. Trump play to this country's economic divide and then take policy actions that make it worse. The classic example is one that you cite: poor states that refuse to take federal Medicaid assistance. Meanwhile, in Washington, representatives from these same states make every end run they can to cripple Obamacare.
That said, Mr. Trump, who is in perpetual campaign mode, goes around the country staging rallies and has been relatively successful at maintaining his core base. For them, he can do no wrong. And facts don't matter. Somehow, the Democratic message, whatever it is these days, gets lost in the shuffle. They can never seem to find the needle that can pop the balloon (or, to switch metaphors, lance the boil) of the GOP disinformation campaign.
The Trump base, while a minority of all potential voters, has a greater impact than the larger number of people who disapprove of him, because the base is motivated, and votes in greater percentage numbers than the Democrats. This edge is aided and abetted by gerrymandered Congressional districts, as well as the Electoral College that favors the base.
So far, the economic divide, even as it has worsened, has favored the GOP. But that may change, because after claiming last year's economic successes as his own (which were actually built on the foundations of the Obama economy), Mr. Trump may find that a faltering economy will be blamed on him.
10
It has been a slow death to all the old industries which once supported all these small towns and areas thru out America.
Once you could live a good life with only a high school education in these areas but now the jobs have moved on to robots or low wage countries. leaving behind the angry and poor.
Even in Red states you find pockets of urban liberal educated middle class and wealthy Americans who left these areas never to return. Go out to the hinderlands of America and all you find are dead small towns with a Walmart and lots of dead end service jobs.
Is it any wonder why anyone growing up in these back water lost areas gets out as soon as they can never look back...
8
Part and parcel of the deluded Republican voters polled saying education was a danger to the United States. Ignorance is bliss? Rather than seek to compete for new industries or gear their schools to teach skills for an information economy (and fund the schools in the first place and VALUE teachers) the red states and declining areas in blue states cling to a fake nostalgia for a past out of Father Knows Best or Mayberry RFD. So vote for the demagogue who promises to bring back coal jobs or the 1950 family demographic. Wish fulfillment does not do well in place of realism.
9
Places like Alabama and Mississippi vote and have voted for the GOP and Trump because many of their citizens were able to separate what they liked about their policies from the character of people like Trump.
Yesterday I listened to a piece on NPR that featured such a lady from Alabama who said she thought Trump was an alley cat, but liked his policies which I assume to be anti immigration, anti abortion and anti government, things that I will disagree with here, but can not do much about as Trump took our flawed election. but I will never accept that character does not matter.
A con man like Trump will take responsibility for nothing and change his tune at a whim. If he cheats on people around him he will cheat on you. policy depends on the character of the people implementing that policy and bad policy that degrades the very places that gain the most from that policy will turn around and bite its proponents.
8
The cult of personality.....in this case Donald Trump. But the real reason is that many in Trumpland need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Technology and innovation are making a lot of jobs irrelevant. And many in Trumpland vote against their own interests....case in point Oklahoma and Kansas. No one wants to pay taxes but nothing in life is free. The Republicans would like people to believe that taxes are bad but it's just not true. Oklahoma gives huge tax breaks to the fracking industry and yet the state does not want to pay teachers a living wage. These people voted for it and now they are complaining about it
8
We live in an age of wonder. Over 225 million Americans now have the most powerful tool ever invented by man in their pockets. Never have we been able to read all the collective thoughts of every person, and when visual information can make the presentation even stronger, we can watch lectures of the best educators and innovators in the world.
TedTalks, a brilliant combination of learning, informing and entertaining, offers inspiration that is consumed by more than a billion viewers since the launch of its digital platform. edX provides access to high-quality online learning with over 130 global partners including founding institutions Harvard and MIT. The Khan Academy is an extraordinary collection of educational resources for students and their parents and is a platform for everyone's lifetime journey of learning.
What we need is a cultural awakening and shift towards the rewards of lifetime learning, and we need to deconstruct the bias that real education-based knowledge can only be earned in our hallowed institutions and not by the tradition of self-learning that commended the best and brightest in our history from Hamilton to Lincoln to Edison and Ford and so many more.
We need a cultural awakening; education is for everyone and technology offers a democratic platform for gaining knowledge and skills. No excuses.
Learning is for everyone, now spread the word.
7
There may be a gender polarization, too. Woman-owned businesses are figuring out how pay a living wage in textiles. See Alabama Channin in Florence, Alabama and Elizabeth Suzann in Nashville.
2
but why do they support trump. why do people vote against their self interest. they either don't know that they are doing it or are answering to some higher angel or devil.
5
Many Americans hold strong and firm belief about the supremacy of individual rights, me-first selfish instinct, winning at all costs mentality, litigious blame-game attitude, demonize the government tendency, and fundamentalist reading of their Constitution and Amendments. People refuse to recognize their form of democracy is a popularity contest reality show that requires the contestant-politicians endlessly chasing after donor dollars and votes. All these beliefs and others such as American Exceptionalism congeal into a ball of paralyzed congress, broken basic systems such as health, education and infrastructure, gun violence and police brutality, bottomless swamps in federal and state capitals, wealth disparity, plus huge waste of human and natural resources such as large prison population. Despite Professor Krugman's writings and the insightful books he cited, to change USA's course seems unlikely and the obstacles insurmountable. The sense of despair in Trumpland and beyond is totally understandable. But the Make America Great Again is only an empty slogan. Change is necessary. A deep nationwide soul-searching is long overdue, one that could not be led by morally bankrupt religious leaders or corrupted politicians .
10
The socio-economic conditions described in this article are exactly why voters in such states were attracted by the bright shiny lies Trump persuaded them with. Whereas Hillary attempted to convey realistic solutions to sweeping problems, Trump treated the American public like just another gullible adversary, begging to be taken advantage of. Sadly, as evidenced by the lopsided tax cut and Trump's overt profiteering at our expense, America is on a downward slope with no bottom in sight. The question is, is Trump creating a hole of debt we cannot dig ourselves out of?
7
Isn't it amazing how many Americans have voted...and continue to vote...against their own interests. It is a function of education. The less you know, the easier it is to fill your head with "fake news", flim-flam arguments, and self-serving propaganda...all wrapped up in "us against them" rhetoric. We are fast becoming two America's with less and less in common with each other...and less and less inclination to find common ground. It bodes ill for the future of the country and our children. Four more years of this and there will be no going back.
5
President Obama came into office and America decided we had been saved. After eight years,
inner city education is as disfunctional and destructive toUS citizens of "color" as ever.
And the presidents wonderfully privileged daughters are both legacy/& by merit destined
for Harvard & perches at the top of eternal Pyramid.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. America as sadly unexceptional as ever.
3
Thank goodness Senator McConnell was there to help President Obama and his agenda along, especially those last 6 years.
7
"And soaring housing costs, thanks in large part to Nimbyism, are a real and growing problem."
How about "in small part?" This ties right into your (plural--including Austin, Wilson, Moretti, et al.) narrative that the areas with a combination of highly-educated work force and industries favoring the same have prospered, which then leads to higher housing costs.
I'm in Boulder--"Berkeley East"--which is a favorite target of right-wing cranks: "People's Republic of Boulder," "Kingdom of Boulder," "Boulder Bubble," etc. The combination of CU, high-tech industry, and lots of public open space with growth limits has led to average house prices over $1M.
Most outsiders are completely unaware that all the (much overused, now) open space was actually the result of just a few key people working diligently over the years, fighting fiercely against the forces of overdevelopment, to create these green spaces. Result: people--and businesses!--want to move and live here, thus the high housing prices. It's never automatic, and never a given. What you call "Nimbyism" I call "Long-view thinking."
A hundred years ago virtually anybody could buy beach-front property, the result of high supply and low demand. Today? Unaffordable to all but the 1%. Looked at this way, "Nimbyism" is just another word for "Overpopulation." Mostly I think the Right's railing against Boulder (and Berkeley, and other liberal centers with a high standard of living) is simple jealousy.
3
Mr Krugman's analysis basically boils down to people in Trumpland being indicted for voting against their own best interests. But --- and this is a HUGE "but" --- they did vote, and that is how we ended up with Trump. While Trumpland residents were being rallied to the polls with promises of new coal jobs, steel mills re-opening, Mexicans being deported, Muslims being kept out of the country, and China being slapped back into place, coastal elites, gathered together in their tight little economically booming cocoons, smirked and chuckled at their inland inferiors, and went back to checking their emails and ordering another chai latte.
Okay, that's a pretty broad brush, but the persistent question since November of 2016 has been "How did this happen?", and the consistent answer has been "Those people just keep voting against themselves." So, I repeat --- but, they DID vote. And the smug certainty of progressives, that a Trump presidency could never happen, was a poor substitute for actually marking a ballot.
All to say, this mess is not surprising, it's not complicated or difficult to understand, and it's relatively easy to solve. If, as so many of us claim when analyzing the misdirected beliefs of Trumpland, America is a nation of progressive thinkers, then those thinkers must become voters as well. It's not enough to just understand what has happened --- we have to understand how it happened, and make sure it doesn't happen again.
5
While most of the comments here are derogatory toward the Trump supporters, I have to admit I feel sad for many of them. Sure, they should turn off Fox News, and sure, they should try not to be racists and sexists, and sure, they should realize that not all people of color are evil. But they have been bamboozled and for the life of them just can't admit it. There are many more progressive voters than there are Trump voters, the progressive candidates just have to make their case for why progressive values will make their lives better. I know it's possible.
4
Here is the only prescription I see:
1. We get out and VOTE in record numbers and put Dems back in charge.
2. We SUSTAIN that at minimum until we have a wise and decent Supreme Court again.
3. We get rid of Citizens United, to make politicians accountable to US—not their donors, not the NRA.
4. We keep on voting and get some positive changes made.
These might include, for example, requiring any organization with the title "news" to actually be factual and report honestly, reining in Wall Street, and instituting some form of universal healthcare.
5
What? Is it possible a little more than half the electorate can't see the forest for the trees?
4
This is happening in Nebraska right now; our governor (Ricketts) and moneyed interests are pushing for huge, unfunded tax breaks while continuing to deplete our rapidly disappearing cash reserve. We apparently aren't capable of learning from our neighbors.
10
The presidential election was a rejection of status quo ruling elites, of both parties. Although much is made of the working class voting for Temp, the actually voted foe him by smaller margins than people more addluennt. Than themselves. There is also the fact that in many of the key states that allowed Trump a marginal win and gave him the electoral collegKeynes that had votes for Obama, he won by fewer votes than Romney lost by. Aside from the very viable probabliility of the influence if Gerrymandering, myriad voter suppression initiatives, machine tampering and even fake news, Trump still barely won voters, and only won the election because the democratic candidate did not turn out the vote. Let us not overhype Mr. Trump's base or popularity, or make assumptions about working class America's actual support for him. It may ne less incendiary to blame them, but the votes that elected Mr. Trump were actually more generously provided by the better off not the working class.
2
Trumpland is in trouble and Trump unfortunately is not the solution.They have tried cutting taxes which just leads to teacher strikes and hindering unionization, which may appeal to manufacturing but does nothing to attract service sector and financial sector activity. It is just these service sector workers that have made Clintonland wealthy and powerful.
Trumpland has many brilliant people, many of which have taken advantage of American mobility and moved to the east and west coasts , many have taken advantage of social mobility and find that if they remain in place their educational efforts are under appreciated…and underpaid so they move too!
Prior to the unification of Europe there was a bouquet of currencies that were manipulated to attract investment. The main issue in Trumpland is that it is not attracting investment . The american dollar is overvalued in Trumpland relative to the same dollar invested in Clintonland.
As long as Tumpland does not look at the new skyscrapers doting the manhattan skyline, they may be able to remain in denial when they should be asking, why is manhattan so much more attractive? Why do people invest lives and money in California ? If they do this, they may find the answer and stop losing precious time hoping in Trump and more time visiting California and New York !
1
Part of the problem is our horrendous health system. With the poorest states being forced to pay part of Medicaid (and Obama driving them further to the wall with his focus on Medicaid rather than Medicare), they have little left for training, etc.
VAT instead of the regressive Social Security tax and a reasonable capital gains tax would shift the tax system in a more fair direction.
2
VAT isn't regressive? Coulda fooled me. Why not remove the cap on "the regressive Social Security tax" and it becomes that conservative Holy Grail, a flat tax? See how easy that was?
4
Wrong. The poorest states elected GOP statehouses which ideologically (and idiotically) refused the Medicaid expansion even though they were "representing" some of the largest and most at risk populations in the country. The Obama Medicaid expansion is not a burden on them; it is a virtual giveaway to the "poor" red states, with blue state taxpayers propping them up once again.
And why are the "poorest states" poor and have no money for education, training, and infrastructure? Because their voters buy into conservative lies and continuously send GOP tax scolds to office. They don't pay enough taxes so they don't have enough services. It is that simple. After 50 years you would have thought they would have gotten the message that the GOP is killing them. It is their own fault.
VAT is the most regressive tax - a sales tax. The SS tax is the opposite. Its problem is that we all stop paying SS tax after some incredibly small income amount. Subject ALL income to the SS tax and the program is fixed in perpetuity.
Closing the carried interest loophole (which Trump campaign promised but ignored in his huge tax giveaway to the rich - just another Trump-GOP lie) would be a start, as would a 1/4-cent transaction tax to cut down on the abuses of computerized penny-trading. Don't expect any Republican to be advocating for any of these solutions.
2
Up state New York was an economic powerhouse when I was growing up. Rochester had Kodak, Xerox, GM plants, Bausch and Lomb. And many more. Michigan lost 1000,000 middle class manufacturing jobs. We went from skills and brains making stuff to Financial manipulation making little of value. All aided and abetted by academic elites who presided over disastrous national policies on trade and the emphasis on service jobs!
4
West Coast winemaking is a nice example of regional divergence arising from the "virtuous cycle" Krugman cites. It's a model for economic activity provides financial benefit across a wide range of income brackets - not to mention a wonderful product.
The region is a good place to grow wine grapes, but it's definitely not the only place in the nation that could do that. And yet, despite protestations from other "up and comers", California and a few other West Coast locations are where it's done. The reason lies in marketing, culture, and the complex multi-stage process itself. Behind the genteel veneer is a full bore labor-intensive agribusiness and industrial chemical system. Nowhere else do you see the combination of migrant labor, industry support, logistics, technical education, and suitable land area.
All of this was really only possible because of close integration of diverse agriculture, cultured economic hubs, and (at least pre-Prop. 13) cheap high quality public education through the University of California and the state's community college system. I mean, UC Davis is and has been the premier American school for viticulture and enology. Other potential American wine regions never had this particular many-layered economic mix.
It's an industry worth studying, not simply because its product is so broadly and justly enjoyed.
5
Over many years our politicians sold "hope" (on both sides of the isle). Trump has really tapped into "hopelessness", and was seen by many, with his willingness to "shake things up" in DC. But in reality, Trump only cares about himself, the fatal flaw in the idea that he would do anything for anyone else, unless it was "collateral" to doing for himself.
By the time we say "goodbye" to Trump, those who have lost "hope" will probably realize that they have been had.
I think about my father's mother, a woman who was not well educated, in the Great Depression, a widow with four kids to support in the coal fields of Central Pennsylvania, who knew that she needed to move out of that region for her kids to have any chance at success in life. Too bad these "hopeless" people don't make that same realization.
2
The high cost of housing in cities with jobs is partly due to restrictive zoning in the inner suburbs (NIMBY) -- but far more it is due to the lack of mass transit. People want to live where they can get around without cars. We don't have many cities like that and even in the exceptions, mass transit runs out long before the metro area does. If we had a modern transit system, downtown Philadelphia would be closer to Manhattan than most of Queens is today.
Increasing density in the already dense areas has basically no chance of reducing housing costs. What we need is to be able to get to work from further out in less time.
Home prices and property taxes are lower in poverty stricken Southern states. Rents, insurance, home, health, food the entire spectrum encompassing the cost of living remain the same. Let's be realistic Trump has or had absolutely no interest in assuming any responsibilities his office requires. Reagan spoke but someone else pulled the strings in Reaganland, Bushland and presently Trumpland. The behind the scenes sources, the 5%, Congressional majority and Evangelicals joined forces in order for Trump to contaminate this country. Trumpland exists because they created it and those with the lowestimmune systems caught it.
2
The key to our economic divide is not the greedy 1%; like the poor, they will always be with us. The key is the top 10% to 20% or so who do the real work to enrich and protect the 1% - the politicians, managers, media figures, pundits, successful small business owners, lawyers and specialty doctors and others of that ilk. They are doing far better than they imagined under our current neo-liberal system. Not nearly as well as the 1%, of course, but far better than the remaining 80% who are falling farther behind.
Many of them voted for Hillary, but not because she would really change things, it was because she would not make the necessary structural and paradigm changes to address the new conditions of the world. She was seen as someone who would tinker a little around the edges like Obama did, but still protect them from the have nots.
And that 10% to 20% contains great power. They were able to convince enough people that the policies pushed by Bernie Sanders were "unrealistic" and "politically impractical," and thus insure that the system would be protected no matter which one won the election.
That is the reason the that 1% needs and rewards the 10% to 20%; to insure that the system remains and that their ill-gotten wealth is protected.
4
Pride. That's what's the matter with Trumpland. States that refuse to expand Medicaid are also states that seem to have the deepest distrust of accepting help. From anyone.
Outsiders are mistrusted due to a great pride that stems from the White Work Ethic. And also the lack of acceptance that things can't go on as they did for the last generation. Coal jobs are waning, yet some young folks seek to imitate their grandfathers and fathers before them instead of seeking training for a different kind of employment. "My father did this, therefore, I will too."
The world is different now, and it is not at all undignified to accept new training for different skills and aid for health insurance. The world is a place where "outsiders" have to be understood to be our neighbors, even if they live hundreds of miles away.
5
The Republican ploy has been, fundamentally, to encourage and exploit grievances. By demonizing Democrats, "liberals," blacks, Muslims, immigrants, homosexuals, climate scientists, feminists, etc., they have gained the support of large swaths of the population for whom grievance outweighs common sense and, in many cases, even self-interest. Trump's victory shows just how virulently powerful the strategy of blaming Others has become.
20
Paul, tech industry has received an (unfair and unequal) advantage. But wait it is not ALL tech industry. Here in the North East our hi tech start ups receive every low valuations, the executives receive below market salaries, unlike Silicon Valley where valuations are outrageous and perks salaries are ridiculously high. The VCs who fund these Silicon Valley firms receive like a million times multiples of gains because of these inflated valuations. It is quite the opposite here in the North East. Having said that, the bio tech industry here in the North East takes the cake. They are extremely highly valuations for bio tech companies, which are definitely passed on to the consumers and impact health care industry pricing eventually which remain obnoxiously high. Sooner or later, all these "unreasonable" and unjustified inflations will crash. Sadly, as always the poor, the middle class, the hard working workers, will remain in state of inertia, no gains. We all thought we had learned something out of the high tech bubble, the boom and bust cycles. But no, Silicon Valley remains untouched, artificially inflated. They live in an alternate reality, fueled by their investors and VC funds.
2
One encouraging development - the educated people in red states are beginning to fight back - the teachers! They are fighting for more than their own pocketbooks - for school funding and respect and support for education. We owe our thanks to these dedicated people and can only hope the decades of denial of the importance of education will not defeat them.
16
And yet, in Kansas, they had seen what would happen in Brownbackistan, their once excellent schools ravaged, their good roads crumbling, needed services torn from their clutches; then they gave the messenger of their fate another term rather than vote for a Democrat and, thus, they continue their slide.
17
In Kansas there are people who will not vote for Democrats solely because of the abortion issue. The Republicans have carte blanche to do whatever they want as long as they wave the pro life banner.
I suspect this isn't limited to Kansas.
4
In Australia we had a slogan 'Rudd the Dud'. I would suggest this slogan for the USA would be 'DUMP TRUMP'
11
In some respects you can sum this column up as "you can't fix stupid ". Of course we know you can to a certain extent with education but when the willingly ignorant vote to remain that way, you end up right back to "you can't fix stupid".
17
Simple answer: "A fish dies at the head first", and by golly, this fish is beginning to stink!
3
Truth from Paul, again.
3
They are getting what they deserve!
2
trump's destroying my IRA--which is everything I have.
7
I don’t think question is difficult to answer. These poor states are relics of the old Confederacy, with a poorly educated, unskilled working class. That working class responds to Republican dog whistles denouncing blacks, liberals, Hispanics and the educated, and espousing a machismic jingoism. They hear guns, anti-choice and “personal responsibility” (a/k/a “lazy, whining minorities”) and you have their vote. They hear “big government” - and would not vote for an advocate of universal healthcare if their kids were uninsured and gravely ill.
Ethnic working class groups in some eastern and so-called “rust belt” states follow the same pattern. They, too, are poorly educated and tribal. They don’t like so-called elites, despise blacks, look down on immigrants and will follow any fool who shouts “America first!,” so long as the fool is white.
These people get their news from Fox and right-wing radio. They vote against their interests, believe what they want to believe and embrace candidates that tell them what they want to hear. My spouse and I have tried, before and after Trump, try to engage some of them - family - in discussion. We gave up. They are incapable of critical thinking; they can’t evaluate; they don’t reason; they do not grasp evidence as a concept.
The wealthy exploit the ignorant, at the expense of the rest. You can be sure that Trump will blame any economic downturn on Hillary and Obama - and among his followers, he will get away with it,
28
Well said, have the same "family" issues of Trumpism!
2
it seems time to divide the "United" States into two countries, separated by the Mason Dixon line.
4
Pay Day loans, working 2 jobs for all adults in the household, turning a small town into a Walmart town, a Dollar Store town, allowing state Congress to rape the tax system for personal profit, neglecting schools and infrastructure, giving the medical system for high profit, -- we really don't listen or acknowledge those that are just below us, one rung below us on the ladder
3
I frequent the Fox News comment boards and whenever I point out that the blue states, in general, subsidize the red states, I'm dismissed as a liar. Trumplandians are convinced that they're the ones subsidizing lazy liberals, which is why they're so keen on downsizing government.
19
What this all seems to come down to, Paul, is "can you fix stupid?".
Of course, it would help if those areas that vote against their own interests would have some sense of their interests. But that would take a funding and prioritizing of an educational system that the oligarchs fear would undermine their positions, so it's unlikely.
8
Well, it might not be nice to say. But, if people insist on cutting off their noses to spite their face, why should I be suckered again and again to help them put it back on? They're not going to thank me, just the opposite. They'll hate me even more.
8
This is what you get when you vote Republican. Can we just break up the United States now? Seems to me it's past time to do so.
1
"The truth is that doing something about America’s growing regional divide would be hard even with smart policies. The divide will only get worse under the policies we’re actually likely to get."
The two sides of the same coin spited themselves in this last election: poor blacks did not come out in numbers to vote and poor whites doubled down on their racist and nationalistic tendencies by voting Republican. The poor are riding in the same boat, rowing against each other.
5
Sometimes, stupid is as stupid votes. Until the areas of the country that are suffering economically vote in their own interest, there really is not much that can be done. The economic disparity will continue to grow, until taxes are increased on those profiting from the new economy, to support those who are not. Trump took populism and focused it on racial identity politics. This played into Trumpland fears of a changing demographic America. And that is why they voted for him. The economic trends support the Democratic Party. But until the Democratic party can overcome Trump's message of racial animus, America will not be able to move forward.
9
Grievance is the rallying cry of the Republican Party. No matter what ill afflicts a region or an industry, rest assured The Republicans will be there with someone or something to blame that has nothing to do with the root cause.
Leveraged buyouts enriching corporate raiders got you down? Vote for law and order Republicans because lawless inner city blacks are getting all the breaks.
Companies outsourcing and offshoring jobs to increase their bottom line cause you to lose your job? Vote for strong border, anti-immigration Republicans to halt the flow of undocumented low skilled workers.
Lawlessness, weak defense, minorities, weak borders,
greedy unions, nanny state, elites, welfare, state, anti-religion, homosexuals, transgenders, etc etc - just a laundry list of people and things to fear and to blame for all your problems.
It's all feel good politics. The Republicans put up a straw man that is the cause of all your problems and it feels so good when you vote against your own interests and stick it to that straw man.
10
Trump is a superlative con artist. That's why he is the perfect Republican. The Greed Over People party has spent decades conning their voters with single issues. At the same time the greedy have taken all potential financial gain and assistance from their voters. Sick party, when you hurt your base. Sick attitude toward America.
9
If the economic ideas of the far right were correct, then low tax, low expenditure states like Kansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana should be economic powerhouses, with flourishing economies.
They are not.
If the economic ideas of the far right were correct, then high tax, high expenditure states like California, New York, Massachusetts and Maryland should be basket cases.
(Parenthetically, the typically far more socialist economies of Western European countries should be in the toilet if the economic ideas of the far right were correct.)
They are not.
What does that tell you about economic ideas of the far right?
DUH. They are 2 for 2 in being incorrect. 3 for 3 if you include Western Europe.
The people who believe the economic ideas of the far right seem to be inordinately incapable of relating factual outcomes to the behaviors of the various state governments.
It ain't rocket science. folks.
(The GI Bill after WW II grew the economy by $7 for every $1 spent educating GIs after that war.)
(The RICH BLUE states pay in more than $1 in federal taxes for every $1 that they get back. The excess goes to the POOR RED states that pay in LESS than $1 for every $1 that they get back. That form of tax-based "income redistribution" is just fine, right? And the folks in the RED states think the people in the BLUE states are misguided losers, libertines, not real patriots, lousy Commie pinkos. Yeah, that makes sense, right?)
18
But when you control the media, truth and reality are irrelevant. There are even posters here who insist that NY and CA are failing economically. Hannity told them, just like O'Reilly before him. And that's what they believe.
3
All they know is Trumpland is their anger. It is their identity. This need to be angry and blame is fed daily by the Great Orange Prevaricator, so they love him. They are dependent upon whatever his spews forth.
ENOUGH.
Vote in November so we can impeach him NOW. I'd rather have hope in dealing with whatever may come next.
3
Greed.
1
Mr. Krugman touched all too briefly on America’s main problem: economic disparity as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This combines with another even more salient factor: the PAC’s with unlimited money controlled by a relatively small number of super rich people like the Koch brothers and their network of co-conspirators who pull all the strings of Congress and ensure taxes are lowered and “socialist” money for the poor is also lowered and healthcare (“Obamacare”) is gutted. I.e “we have money and you don’t so why should we give you any of ours”. The “democratic” governing by the people is a fiction. The real government is the “dark money”. No other country in the world allows government to be bought and controlled by the rich. Get rid of PACS and America will solve its problems.
732
Rich get richer... but ain't we got fun!
-- gun violence, increasing disparities, overt racism, tearing of the social fabric... but mostly in pockets! If Trumplanders really want to voluntarily improverish themselves, perhaps we should just let them. While this is no way to run a country, they are resistant.
20
“No other country in the world allows government to be bought and controlled by the rich.“
You seriously need to get out and travel more ... even just a little more.
58
Untrue, other countries allow their rich to control all the levers of power. Russia, for instance.
28
As a life-ling resident of "Trumpland" I have some ideas. First, these regions of the country are awash in right-wing hate radio and similar "news" sources. This brand of media explains everything in terms of race, religion and resentment. The result is more legislation reducing taxes, gutting regulations and using criminal justice to lock up the "other" for unreasonably long periods of time.
In addition, there is the unmistakable international phenomenon where rural dwellers are more likely to lean far to the right while urban dwellers lean more to the left. Not sure why this is the case, but it seems common in many if not most nations around the world.
14
I have wondered what role genetics might play. I grew up in a small rural town in Northern Illinois. The best and brightest students went off to college, and because there were few jobs there for college graduates, most never returned. Those that did not leave for college often remained in the local area, got a blue collar job, married, raised a family, and etc.. If the best and the brightest keep leaving, how many generations have to pass before this effect will show up in the local gene pool?
7
Very good as far as it goes. But you have some strange sentences such as:
"structural changes in the economy have favored industries that employ highly educated workers — and that these industries do best in locations where there are already a lot of these workers."
You imply these "structural changes" were some kind of mysterious, magically force that descended down upon us from another planet. No, it came from "globalization" that bill and hil promoted as did all the capitalists who wanted cheap labor and thus the jobs went quickly to asia and elsewhere.
No magic there; no thinking there; no regulation there. Just the usual lousy capitalism which became a "person" somewhere along the line with more freedom than real persons.
So you never get to the cause Dr. Krugman. Try to do better next time.
1
Alabama has an unemployment rate that equals Massachusetts, so does Tennessee. With better infrastructure and much cheaper housing.
Only an elitist can disparage the regular folks in the NYT.
Better infrastructure? If you mean smoother roads, maybe. If you mean better internet service, doubtful. If you mean better schools, well, by every measure, no.
Unemployment isn't a measure of long-term prosperity. Wages are, and Krugman's point is that wage disparity has been and is growing.
Problem is, he offers no solution. He credits "structural changes" in the economy, never mentioning globalization (which is the major culprit). How the country will convert the nation's gains from globalization into gains shared broadly among Americans, instead of going only to the top 10% income bracket — and mostly to the top 0.1% — is a question he never addresses, not now, nor in any column. That's the conscience of a neoliberal, not the conscience of a progressive.
3
More such columns with support from new and relevant academic work would be most welcome.
The regional economic divide may result in part from the lack of a critical mass of educated workers in rural and Southern/Midwestern communities. But the torrent of racial and cultural rage that we have seen from there since Trump came on the scene is rapidly turning this divide into a wall taller and more impenetrable than anything that Trump could ever build on the Mexican border. Educated and skilled people will never move to communities that revile them, and the few that arise locally will flee.
4
=====================
"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
- Candidate Barack Obama in 2008
===================
5
"I'm gonna' give you better healthcare at a fraction of the price".
-candidate don trump 2016
5
These people voted for Obama and would have elected Sanders.
It's not their fault the previous administration spent its powder on protecting illegals and passing Romney-care instead of building infrastructure.
How sad that someone so informed and wise as you has to spew anti-democratic fog for a paycheck instead of working for America (you should have resigned over the railroading of Sanders). Sad.
1
Turning down federal dollars for medicaid expansion ... Thousands uninsured.
Cutting school budgets to the bone ... A generation of economic stagnation and brain drain.
Being told your problems are all the fault of people who don't look like you ... PRICELESS.
There are some things money can't buy. Tax cutting, racism spewing, Republican politicians are not one of them.
6
It’s really this simple: if you’re faced with voting for a candidate who hates the government and says they’re going to destroy it, vote for the other guy who actually has solutions. Rural America keeps sending their worst to Washington. They’re sending rapists and murderers of another kind: of the American way of life. It’s time to vote them out of office and get some folks to Washington who are eager to restore integrity and the public trust to our most cherished democratic institutions. Wants to destroy the country? Nope, you’re fired.
4
Dr. Krugman, you must understand that Trump has promised to protect their gun rights and he has warned them that anything that appears in the New York Times is fake news. Realizing that a tax cut for billionaires is a lot of money out of the funds that could go to help them, compared to the tiny amount they will get from a tax cut, requires education in reading and basic math, which they don't have. They think tariffs on imported steel will help them get jobs in the steel mill. They don't know that their job in the Harley-Davidson factory will be lost if China places tariffs on US goods. With Trump, finally they have a POTUS who is a clueless as they are.
9
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron”.~H.L. Mencken, The Evening Sun, July 26, 1920.
Certainly flips the usual conservative "personal responsibility" narrative on its head, in a way.
This is why there is no substitute for a well-educated populace that can apply critical thinking. But this sort of blinkered thinking isn't endemic to Trumpland. I'm very concerned that the left and NeverTrumpers are increasingly putting their eggs in the wrong basket, trusting either St. Mueller to remove our problems or Facebook to only include #TrueNews.
We (the left, liberals, moderates) desperately need to rethink our engagement across state and political lines. "Rich" coastal areas include a lot of struggling folks, too.
Here's the problem with Trumpster elected officials and I got 2 in my district, Senator Terrence Murphy and Assembly Member Kevin Bryne. Neither of them have ever traveled the US extensively and both are pretty clueless when it comes to how towns, villages, govt are run. Neither understand housing laws, and both want to repeal the safe act, but when you write their offices and call them to ask why you get NO answers and the poor intern or staffer just takes a message. Hopefully, people in Putnam County will wake up and see what uneducated fools you have representing you in Albany.
5
Clueless actors with a provincial outlook indeed.
More jobs, Better living standards....irrelevant to the core Trump lover - those issues are just so much PC cover. By any standard, those who support an overt racist like Trump are racists themselves. This includes religious fundamentalists who vote for Trump and their pastors who tell them it is a sin to do otherwise. It includes those who claim they are just seeking jobs. It includes all the Republican two-faced servants of Trump who not only placed him in office being fully aware of his well-known racist past, but who continue to deny his blatant hatred of people of color.
5
I have few quibbles with any of this, other than calling the regions left behind Trumpland: snide, off putting to the very people who should be screaming - and voting - for political change to offer opportunities for communities like their own. I am aggravated at them; but Trump is like some dumb balloon mascot - not a leader, a caricature, who expresses their fear and fury. AS you pointed out HE didn't bring us here. Our politicians who have 2, 4 and 6 yr horizons, with a cynical view of their constituents, and little understanding of the global changes overtaking us, have squandered our advantages.
The weight of big money has sunk concern for the community at large. In urban areas on the coasts, we have massive poverty - with homelessness - living in third world conditions (we really need a new name for that) in full view of the wealthy, who mostly want the poor to disappear. Our population is too large now - there is no place for the poorest to go - and no housing they can afford has been built for decades.
A 'rising tide' doesn't raise all boats - those in disrepair on the bottom will just be swamped permanently.
Politics doesn't "control" economics, but it profoundly influences our quality of life, and the readiness of our population to adjust.
1
A man lies, cheats and steals his whole life. He uses people, refuses to pay people and sues his way out of problems. He becomes very rich; including using bankruptcy and tax laws to help him along the way (Giuliani might say 'genius').
He fools around on his wives and goes backstage of his beauty agent to look at the women that are undressed. He dodges Vietnam 5 times and says 'women' were his war. He says McCain and POW's aren't really 'heroes'.
He belittles people. He's a bully that loves mean nicknames. His people chant 'Lock her up!' at rallies.
He's a fraud and a fake and a billionaire. He's as far from the example of the Prince of Peace as one can be.
Yet, somehow, evangelicals and 'conservatives' and Republicans follow this.
So, I say, look in the mirror. Look at the rich, spoiled boy that cried wolf, with no real moral code, no honor. If that is what you put your faith in, then you are reaping the whirlwind of your own creation (you have seen the graphs of how much money, income, property and power have concentrated into the hands of to the top 5% of Americans, like Trump, right?).
Selfish greed is our downfall, and his representative is now our President.
11
Interesting that there is an article in the NYTimes this week on the “wildfire” of teacher’s strikes in many of these same (Trumpyville) states. Action-reaction. Go teachers!
4
That's why disparagingly calling it "Trumpland" insults all the pour souls who are aching for change. Go teachers!
1
Given that it is trumpland voters who put trump in power at everyone's peril, these voters should suffer the consequences more so than the rest of us - the rest of us do not deserve him.
Indeed, trumpland voters should be the only one's paying for the useless wall of hate by themselves.
5
It's zero sum logic.. If you make someone else's life worse, then yours will be better.
6
Trumpland despises elites. It despises altruistic solutions to its well being even though it is not them footing the bill but the well off elites who are. It hates being told that they are committing hara
kiri by ignoring education, taxation and purposefully disrespecting nature. Ignoring Education will not prepare their communities to rise. Being taxophobic will not provide them the luxury of living a modern life. And lowering EPA standards will surely affect their health.
Obama was right, these folks will forever cling to their guns and religion and live in states and towns where their salvation will be in possessing AR1. God bless America.
1
He does despise intellectual elites, and disdains the value of knowledge; but when it comes to power elites, or ones who have amassed enormous fortunes, usually by ruthless and unethical means - he's at their feet. They'll have there guns, but let any of them show up at TrumpTower a or Mar a Largo . .
What his core base doesn't want to understand is that at heart - he despises them as well for being what HE calls losers. Still, they've voted for more useless pols than just Trump, constantly against their interests,
1
Well you'd think the Democrats ought be able to work out how to beat Trump and the GOP this time around.
But wait .... don't get your hopes up.
There's the Pelosi-Schumer "losers in charge" problem still to be solved.
Trump knows the answer from the Apprentice copy book - "You're fired, you loser".
So you'd think the Democrats ought be able to work out the losers-in-charge problem as well.
1
The real reason for the economic disparity is that middle America insists upon mixing it's anachronistic, delusional social agenda--Christianity and guns--into its economic agenda. Church and state don't mix well. The Republican party represents this warped interest perfectly. They get what they deserve.
5
“It’s a free country.” That gives Trumpland the power and, I suppose, right to destroy itself. But it’s the the Electoral College that gave them the ability to take the rest of us along with; to put a man in the White House who might ruin our nation.
3
Poor people are poor because they are so foolish that they want to be captives of deceptive Reputation party on their own. So, Poor Paul cannot help them.
What an excuse!
I suggest you to become a Republican and persuade every person in the party one-by-one and face-to-face. It's not that difficult. If you have appealing ideas and show sincerity and enthusiasm, you can easily copy your surrogates with exponentially increasing speed and make avalanches eventually as Jesus Christ, Gandhi, and MLK did before. All saying and no deed makes little progress and if the saying is from so called elites and is mockery, too, then it only makes people angry. I am one of them, as you might know.
"What's the matter...?"
Short answer: "United States" has become an oxymoron.
2
Long farewell US of A. My sister and I arrived in September 1984, in Autumn. We were educated in public schools, and public colleges. Our parents worked in Bronx, and Yonkers factories. The Bronx, during the crack epidemic and the rise of AIDS turned out to be a great place to grow up. Besides the drugs, we had the Central Park 5, Tawana Brawley, and Anthony Baez. Somethings change and some stay the same.
I quit college and joined AmeriCorps, in Denver. The mid-90s in the west were great years. I got to see tremendous beauty and the start of the dot com boom just driving south on I25. I returned home to New York, and started work in IT. Then came the dot com bust, the market events, and all the rest.
I think there is enough to go around for everyone, but forces are at play to divide the populace. Somethings like the gun debates or religious beliefs have really spiked. Remember when the NYT Magazine used to write about militias in the 90s, right after Ruby Ridge and Waco? It's been simmering awhile.
From my point of view science fiction is becoming science fact, and not in a good way. Kiosk at McDonald's obviate jobs. Machines and machine learning threaten more. The media, the most important bulwark of democracy is under attack. Ignoramuses and golems govern.
330 million souls seems like too many to rule cohesively, and fragmentation awaits. I'm going on one last, long ride, to enjoy what good remains. Thank you US of A. You were good to me and my family, but you are ill.
3
"And when it comes to national politics, let’s face it: Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment."
Exactly - which is what we “coastal elites” have been saying for years now only to be told that we are not listening hard enough or are not sufficiently sympathetic to the plight of residents in these areas.
Well, we are sympathetic but we’re also frustrated that many Trump voters and residents of Trumpland seem unable or unwilling to ignore the propaganda coming from Fox News and Sinclair Media that is telling them that we’re responsible for a conspiracy against hard-working, rural Americans.
Comedian and provocateur Bill Maher has famously said that he thinks most Americans are stupid. Of course that’s not true, but they certainly seem to be indoctrinated with misinformation. Until and unless that changes, its hard to see how these areas can reverse the tragic decline Krugman describes here.
2
One word: schadenfreude. You reap just what you sow.
3
This insightful work of journalism hits the nail Right on its head:
Money.
And not merely money, but...
Money,
Money, money...
Money, money, money, money, money, money.
If you don't have golden faux hair and imported babes -- yes, they're a commodity, too -- hanging from your fifth ave
tailor's suit, you are not worth a tweet.
It's all about winning. And winning is an economic force, not the result of a loving momma.
That's why they don't care about your schools. They WANT
your children to get a third rate education so they can rub elbows with the Donald.
What fun.
1
Let's look at Medicaid for a moment. "Many of the states that have refused to expand Medicaid ... are also among America’s poorest." Remember that Medicaid expansion was a component of Obamacare, that accursed program that had the unAmerican temerity to universalize decent health for all Americans. The nerve!
In addition to that outrage, Obamacare was the initiative of a black president, the first ever in the United States, from whom no achievement could be tolerated, even if it improved the lives of the American people. Far better to be poor, uneducated, drug-addled, jobless and sick under a white demagogue than healthy under a black national leader.
5
I think there are some real, hard facts of life for this country and its inhabitants to consider. First, and perhaps foremost, education is the key to improving yourself financially. Whether you're from Iowa or new York City, that is a given.
Second, not everybody can be equally well-off, but there are trade-offs. The lifestyles in rural areas is dramatically different, and perhaps better, than living and working in a high-stress environment like Iowa. For some, the trade-off is worth it; for others, it is not. The answer to the latter group is education. If your state guts its educational system, you have to elect leaders who will restore it. America is not a land of economic equality, but it should be a land of equal opportunity, and that has to start with education.
2
Still, in denial, I see, about the impact of free trade, globalization and outsourcing on America's working class; their income, opportunity, and even their health. Just more evidence, as if any was needed, of the bifurcation between "liberal" and "labor".
1
That ship has sailed. No one is bringing it back to port, not the Democrats who christened it, the Republicans who crewed it, or Trump who is sunning himself on the poop deck. Global economy is what we've got. Americans must learn and adjust to work within it. Wishing it had never left port is a waste of time.
1
Thom Hartmann's book, The Crash of 2016, gives a thorough and frightening account of how we got here. John Grisham's book, The Whistler, among others, shows its readers the mentality of people just like President Turnip. And of course there's 1984. Other commenters will offer more exposes of Trumpland.
The upshot is that our problem is deeply rooted in human nature. The very idea of civilization is to tame the evil impulses within us and to restrain those who cannot or will not control those impulses.
It has been said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Hartmann and Grisham, and millions of other citizens, have been vigilant, crying to the ears of those who would hear, but the country as a whole has been deaf, asleep at its post, confident that we were the greatest, we were unique, we would always be great and unique, oblivious of the corruption spreading right before our eyes, and lulled by the fact that, while we had our problems, we seemed to be functioning pretty well.
Yes. Well. Now the corruption is being revealed for all to see. Huge swaths of the citizenry are awake and alarmed at the extent of it. We will be battling the forces of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and fox news in November, but that election and several to follow must beat back those forces and retake the ground lost. And then we must remain vigilant.
8
It is not very surprising in today political climate that one of the poorest states in the Union, West Virginia, is solidly Trump country.
This almost all white state also has one of the highest percentage of children born out of wedlock.
Akin to other poor states West Virginians vote in large numbers for the oh-so-pious "family values" party and constantly against their own economic interests.
Ergo the terrible circle of poverty, lack of a decent education, lack of sufficient healthcare, etc., will continue in numerous states of the still richest nation of the world.
At the same time the man at the helm of it enriches his tacky and greedy family and their cronies on the backs of tax payers money, plus the foreign dough flowing into is equally tacky businesses.
11
In Reply to Socrates: I have spent some time going at it with The Flat Earth Society. Don't forget to factor them into your theory!
The only difference between Trumpland and any successful area is political will. If we wanted Kentucky to be economically successful we'd set up a billion dollar parks and roads program and fix up their roads. and then we'd do another 5 billion on repairing their strip-mined mountains. And then we'd add another 2 billion for opioid addiction treatment and 3 billion for a jobs training.
It ain't rocket science...except in Trumpland.
3
But Kentucky is Trumpland. They will never sink that kind of money into helping themselves because they'd have to pay taxes to do it. And the bible and the NRA are against paying taxes.
1
In the movie The Sting Paul Newman explains to Robert Redford that when you con someone you have to keep his con even after you take him, he can't know you took him. Trump is a master con man. He tells you what you want to hear. He uses lots of superlatives and he speaks with total unflinching confidence. Someone that sure of himself must know something we don't, and if he doesn't, well, he'll figure it out.
The rest of us didn't fall for his con, we knew he was bluffing. His tell was his lack of specifics. That and his continual stream of lies. 15 months in and I still can't believe so many fell for it.
6
These poor rural areas of the south are called the Bible Belt for a reason. If you look at the situation as an anthropologist might, instead of strictly in economic terms, you might find that the answers lie in a culture of ignorance based in deep-rooted beliefs in religion. Religion and science do not always reside peacefully together, and we see that in the case of states where religious dogma has shut down evidence-based and science-based thinking and problem solving. Throw into the mix the greedy politicians and mega-evangelist pastors of the hard right, and you end up with a region that will be mired in poverty for years to come.
7
Mr. Krugman's book report is alright as far as it goes. But he seems to have given up the kind of indepth analysis he used to be good at. He identifies the point at which things began to go wrong for the poor and blue collar classes. But he fails to identify specific reasons. It's no mystery what a major cause of the downturn was. It was the early 1970's when President Nixon disemboweled the entire set of War On Poverty programs that had reduced poverty by almost 4% in less than a decade.
These programs were, in many States, welcomed and supported by State governments. But in others -- many of which are in "Trumpland" -- the Federal government had to cajole, filibuster and sometimes exercise its legal power, to establish and support these job development, child education and community development programs. After 1971 the overwhelming majority of these programs disappeared in the States that needed them most.
So the current condition of "Trumpland" isn't totally the result of magical "economic forces" as Krugman and other economists seem to believe. It is also the result of Federal, State and local governments that shut down lifelines for the poor and blue collar citizens.
1
Maybe heartlanders are just stupid.
I remember the Ken Burns documentary about The Dust Bowl.
Seems the heartland farmers began using a plow that completely exposed the soil to the drying effects of the wind.
Local Native American farmhands, whose knowledge of renewable farming techniques was part of their culture, told the heartland farmers it was a mistake completely flipping the soil.
As expected the Native American's were ignored because they were "savages" and the heartland farmers began plowing their own graves.
The EVIL Federal Government came in and tried to help those idiots but their "pride" got in the way so the Dust Bowl lingered far longer than it needed to...because of their "pride".
Years and many thousands of lives later, the EVIL Federal Government's Bureau of Land Management, came in and in a very short time restored streams, and grasslands and showed the heartlanders that their plows were the real problem.
Actually it was the heartlander's greed that was the real problem because even after fixing a problem they caused and showing them responsible farming techniques, when the price of wheat went up, the destructive double plows returned and so did The Dust Bowl.
Few people knew that the Dust Bowl returned in the 1950's not because of drought but because of the heartlander's fierce ignorance and greed.
11
More working class people voted for Hilary than for Trump. Why the myth that Trump voters are all working class? Many were the wealthy wanting to protect their own.
6
I think the Arlie Russell Hochschild book, "Strangers in Their Own Land" is an excellent diagnosis of the deeper problem in Trumpland. The problem does not begin on an economic level. It is far more ephemeral. Basically, these people feel like they are being left behind. This is why they voted for Trump -- because he paid attention to them. Granted, he lied to them. He truly does not care about them. But he at least pretended to.
Instead of bashing Trump supporters and denouncing them as a load of ignorant, racist, sexist fiends, perhaps the Democrats could try a different approach. Namely, instead of cutting down these people's dignity, they could try to push more unifying rhetoric. After all, if this past election has proven anything, it's that Democrats can't just rely on urban voters to elect them. They need these people too.
If Conor Lamb's recent win in the traditionally Trump-supporting 18th congressional district of Pennsylvania is any indication, Democrats can actually win in Trumpland. But to do so, they have to rethink their image. Lately, Democrats, though well-meaning, have made a habit of talking down to the majority of the country. Instead of operating as a sound box spouting anti-Trump rhetoric but doing little constructive work, perhaps the Democrats could actually put some effort into wooing the populace of Trumpland. It's not rocket science, but it would require a lot of Democrats to wolf down some crow.
417
Arlie Russell Hochschild book, "Strangers in Their Own Land" is an excellent book to read. The people she writes about are not strangers. They are living through the same problems all of us face. They have come to their conclusions based upon their life experiences. They are no different than the rest of us. Some of them are regretting their votes for Trump. But who can say that some of us wouldn't have regretted our votes for Clinton if she'd won?
What our politicians have forgotten is that we're living in the same country and policies that are enacted on a national level affect all of us for good or ill and not the same way in two different places. We forget it also. Perhaps we need to lock all our national and state representatives into a large room, deprive them of any outside contact and force them to listen to and work with each other for our benefit instead of theirs. And we don't let them out until WE are satisfied.
28
The self assured, well meaning, look out for the little guy have morphed into well meaning, liberal elites whose little guy no longer lives in Appalachia or what's left of the factory towns. They've been abandoned for the more dramatic and telegenic future voters. The Dreamers, the refugees, the LBTQ. Older white guys like me who grew up with Democrats and who've leaned left are concerned these Dems are over playing their hand and worse, requiring 'purity'. I'd vote for a person like Lamb if he surfaced in NY. Gillabrand, not so sure.
31
Hillary's platform was the most constructive platform one I have ever read (I am 79), and it came with detailed fact sheets that fleshed out the proposals.
The trouble was that the media did not cover policy at all preferring to use space on Trump's outrageous tweets and 2 eMails that were improperly marked confidential.
And too many voters were too lazy to look them up.
218
My own understanding in regard to an educated workforce coincides with yours. We own a small company in NJ that we began about 25 years ago. It started with one part-time employee. When the need for a larger staff became necessary, we hired minimum wage employees. The result of minimum wage workers, proved to be a negative for a growing company.
After some discussion we decided to seek more skilled employees necessary for continued growth. This is just what happened, we have offered very fair wages along with regular increases. Included in this package is paid vacation/sick time days, totally paid family healthcare with the deductible paid as well and a 401K.
The result of our little barometer is that we have a wonderful workforce with very little if no turnover. These individuals have grown into a successful team and the business continues to thrive.
6
It is cultural in this case. As Prof Krugman notes, many of these states are refusing aid and making stupid choices for wholly ideological reasons.
6
Where guns and Jesus rule, fear and ignorance are destroying the nation. Americans would be better off clinging to Einstein and their Encyclopedias, and teachers marching in red states know this better than anyone.
10
The good news is teachers are speaking up and walking out and calling attention to the bankruptcy of the GOP idea of tax cuts for the rich while public services such as education are tragically, dangerously underfunded.
8
Save the U.S. Bernie in '20.
1
When does Bernie wave his magical libertarian wand and transform into a Democrat again?
2
The best thing that government can do to help all the people is to promote a good comprehensive public education that provides the tools and materials for teachers to improve their teaching skills and students to learn. It breaks my heart when I hear about school districts in rural areas that are still working with 50-year-old textbooks. Parents need to demand for their children and we need to invest more in the children in order to provide the conditions for upward mobility.
Speaking of mobility, governments need to invest more time, energy and money to build a strong infrastructure such as roads, power grids, bridges, rail transportation, broadband, airports, and mass transit systems. Maybe we all can't afford to live in a wealthy town with top-notch opportunities, but it should be easier to hop a train or bus or other transportation service to get to where the better job and education opportunities are. Nothing good is going to happen if we don't invest in ourselves and our future.
8
After a spate of traveling last month, I am heartened by the progress evident in mid-size cities visited (my hometown in New England is one). From the ashes of a collapsed mill economy, an increasingly vibrant economy and rising educational opportunities (very innovative match with local tech jobs) are blossoming. The sight of beautiful infrastructure (the mills) repurposed and full of tech industries, museums, restaurants, retail, etc. is very moving. Mostly driven by local initiatives and determined city, state and federal leaders. Make no mistake, problems still exist - opioids, etc. My Irish ancestors gained a foothold a century and a half ago trudging to dangerous work in the weaving rooms, for 12 hour days. It is thrilling to see these iconic structures - mills, housing, schools, libraries, churches built so long ago - not only saved from the wrecking ball, but filled with hometown citizens working to make a mid-size city thrive again.
7
The great strength and the concomitant great weakness of our democracy is that all citizens have the right to vote -- even those citizens (when they take the trouble to vote) who are uniformed of or misinformed about the candidates or the issues on the ballot.
3
If it were truly that each vote counted equally, we'd have missed out on Bush Jr. and Trump. The electoral college needs to go.
I grew up poor in rural Ohio. Fortunately, I was able to break the cycle of poverty and escape through education. Retired today, I look back at my midwestern roots, my struggle to better my lot, from a Progressive lens. Not looking backward, but always looking forward, embracing change, and shedding the shackles of cultural nativism. I understand and appreciate Dr Krugman's analysis, but at the same time it remains incomplete; like that word that you can't quite remember that sits tantalizingly at the tip of your tongue. One struggles to understand the incomprehensible.
4
Or, perhaps there are some "mysterious flaws" in the rural Anglo-American culture that must be addressed.
2
Something to think about: Herbert Hoover got almost 40% of the vote in 1932, even though the Great Depression was in full force by then. And we wonder why Trumpies wave their signs?
3
The battle over teacher's salaries in Oklahoma tells it all. It takes 20 years for teacher there to make $40,000. One idea is a national policy to create -- as best possible -- a level playing field for education. The kids can't vote, and we need to shield them from the stupidity of their/our leaders. Supporting the education budget of poorer states gives the kids a stronger base that can ultimately help boost the economies of those states. This is really urgent. Of course, we need an education secretary that supports public education.
10
I agree. But the mantra of right wing politics is "states rights" and less Federal Government. This in spite of the fact that the Constitution starts off with "To form a more perfect union"; and further that no one can cite a single example of a prosperous and successful country that did not have a strong central government.
1
I feel terrible for those kids in those states who are being completely ignored and mistreated. But their parents vote for these republicans who do NOT respect education.
Here is Massachusetts and other blue states we are willing to pay to have good schools. We already subsidize these red states with their rock-bottom taxes. Let them wake up and pay to educate their own kids.
2
States rights unless you're in California! Then the current federal government sues for control: see yesterday (April 2) NYT article on battle to control development on land in CA.
1
The problem with Mr Krugman is he thinks his ideas are actually good when in fact he has no idea or plan outside of redistributing income to help the situation. Education Is not the answer. No one wants to recognize that most of us simply do not have the abilities to do this modern high education work regardless of how many classrooms you stick us in or what age we get started. We have limits to our intellect. For vast swaths of us, there is no hope to ever have true abstract problem solving in a world where it is a pre-requesite skill. I have yet to hear an idea from the left or right, Dem or Rep) that doesn't simply represent a view looking backwards. Are there people out there doing forward thinking work? Perhaps it's time to cut Mr. Krugman's repetitive column of complaint with nothing new offered(he still talks about Hilary Clinton) and offer it to younger people in his field doing more relevant work about where to go instead of describing what the weather was yesterday.
1
Edward, you clearly are not including yourself in the group that does "not have the abilities" to learn. You are, of course, speaking of someone else, and condescendingly so. Writing off "vast swaths" of children as never able to possess the pre-requisite skills to succeed in our world is harsh judgement, sir.
Research shows, however, that you are incorrect. Applying the best practices developed for talented/gifted children to all student has shown remarkable beneficial effect. They have the capability. Better informed teachers and curriculum can draw it out and develop it, with remarkable results in disadvantaged populations. (Ref: The Economist, Mar 24 2018, p55--sorry I can't provide link; I read them on wood pulp.) And my German grandchildren are in a system that clearly feeds a thriving multifaceted economy.
Implementing these programs will cost money and take time. But I think your premise is incorrect. We need to support programs to develop all of our population with continuous development of educational methodology and systems. And educators who are well enough paid to live and retire.
Not everyone in the "new" "information age" economy will need to have abstract higher math mastered, or know computer programming, or for that matter be particularly good at science. We will need plenty of thoughtful communicators, emotionally-intelligent managers, leaders with empathy and "soft skills", legal-minded talent, creative talent, diplomats, the list goes on. Education goes way beyond STEM -- success goes way beyond being good at STEM fields -- and maybe there's not enough emphasis on the needs beyond STEM in our current pedagogy? That being said, having a reasonable amount of exposure to e.g., the scientific method, basic genetics, and how to interpret statistics makes for better critical thinkers and better citizens.
Education and training are the answer. You hear about companies looking to hire but can't find qualified candidates why is that? Look at the successful companies partnering with local schools to train people they can hire.
First, realize that red areas of red states aren't 100% red. The red/state and blue/state hand wave too often glosses over the political heterogeneity found in every state. Many of the most extreme and ideological GOP representatives are from districts in blue states.
Second, the reason many white uneducated people are Trump supporters is purely emotional, pure and simple. They've been told by Trump in a hardhat that he listens to them. It doesn't matter if it isn't true, it triggered an emotional center. Romney and McCain weren't able to do this -- they were too polished and professional looking. Too white collar and too establishment. Obama wasn't able to do this very well because he too was too polished, too professional (and yes, for some, too black). Hillary failed at this 100%. It doesn't matter her record, it doesn't matter her actions, but when she called Trump supporters 'deplorable' (even if she was specifically referring to the racist, bigotted kind), there was no saving grace. Ultimately, a lot of why a message of "I hear you" worked for Trump and not for most anyone else is because Fox and other outlets feed misinformation and loops messages centered on who stands with them and who doesn't. It has nothing to do with policy, everything to do with an emotional connection. Now, it is important to note that MOST of them don't watch Fox news or the like, but rather, are friends and talk to someone/some people that DO consume Fox News. It is a peer to peer culture.
13
@Jim:
If Trump voters really believed any of his claims about jobs, manufacturing, or the economy, then these voters really are gullible small-town rubes, in full stereotype.
But I think Trump voters knew what they were really voting for: tribalism, white grievance, and the promise to punish immigrants and minorities.
1
Right on! I agree 100%! Trump's appeal is an emotional connection. The content is ignored. He has the brash voice, the bold body language and the angry tone that resonates with his base.
1
I live in Trumpland, and Krugman is right: the people who would most benefit from Medicaid expansion, for example, vote for politicians (at the local and federal level) who deprive them of it. And they don't even realize they're doing this. Recently a neighbor's adult son had a health care crisis, and he was uninsured. She was shocked that he wasn't able to get any temporary insurance through Tenncare. She didn't understand that Tenncare is Medicaid; that her beloved Republican representatives in the state house had voted to reject the Medicaid expansion; and that Obama, whom she hated, had tried to make sure that people like her son would be insured. She could hardly believe me when I told her these facts.
She also compared her son favorably to the undeserving poor: "He's never asked for any help before! Unlike those people who are permanently on the dole." Those mythical people who do not exist. She still believes that there are lots of lazy people who are on welfare and get free stuff, whereas her family does not. Actually the social safety net in our rural area is almost nonexistent. When a family became homeless because of an (uninsured) illness and lost their house, there was nothing for them.
(My friend's son is an alcoholic like his father and has never worked. She supports him. She ended up paying for his hospitalization and surgery; that is, she will be paying for it for the rest of her life.)
21
And of course this is the brilliance of the Reaganism: Give 'em the sizzle while you take the steak! Capitalism causes dislocation. In the 1930s we saw a loss of faith in democracy and capitalism all over the globe. Many nations turned to authoritarianism of one kind or another: the authority of the nationalistic leader or the authority of a total theory—namely Marxism. Reading literature from liberal (philosophical not political) thinkers of that period is truly eye-opening in its relevance. Augmenting the physical security provided by the state with some measure of economic security makes all the sense in the world. Universal education and healthcare, among other things, provide freedom for people to use their own skills and talents to adapt and thrive in an ever-changing world. Yes, we should argue about how much of this security the state should provide. And there is such a thing as trying too hard to stop anything bad from happening. What we shouldn't do is abuse vulnerable people by playing on their fears. It makes everyone's life worse. But I guess if your goal is to live in a gated community, writ large, it makes all the sense in the world. When will Trumpets realized that while they run from all the "others" bearing down on them, they are nothing but "others" themselves?
4
Democrats are the party of Wall Street. Bernie Sanders offered democratic socialism such as taxing day trading to fund higher education to allow the poor to go to college debt-free, while Hillary Clinton was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to give speeches to bankers. Liberal cities are not special--visit a large coastal city and you'll find homeless everywhere and NIMBYism that refuses to increase density for more affordable housing. We are a selfish nation.
2
"Democrats are the party of Wall Street. Bernie Sanders offered democratic socialism"....You need to leave the safety of Seattle occasionally. As someone who grew up in the rural Midwest, Bernie and his East coast elitist ideas would have been dead on arrival.
1
You have completely missed the point of the column. Of course there are homeless everywhere. But the fact is that the jobs are in the cites. It's just the truth.
1
What's the matter with Trumpland?
1. Jobs in their rural areas have disappeared due to globalization and competition. No amount of punitive tariffs will bring them back. Tariffs will only hurt other U.S. industries, like farming, when other countries retaliate. Plus, Trump's tariffs are driving up prices of everything he duties--steel, lumber and newsprint, for example--costing everyone more.
2.They don't want to leave their towns and move to where the jobs are. We have 4% unemployment and jobs are going wanting closer to the cities (where the population centers are), but they don't want to go there.
3. Trump has created a bogeyman out of immigrants. Immigrants aren't stealing their jobs. In fact, immigrants have been taking the jobs Trump's base doesn't want. Trump's base is not rushing out to take farm jobs, roofing jobs, paving jobs and other lower skilled construction jobs. Costs of construction and delays are rapidly rising due to lack of workers.
4. The reddest states are at the bottom of virtually every educational system ranking. Their lack of education leaves them without skills employers want, and also poor critical thinking skills which make them susceptible to autocrats and conmen like Donald Trump.
The blue states will survive Trump. The reddest states will wake up to find they are like the frog put into a pot of tepid water. They don't notice when the temperature goes up a degree or two at a time, until they eventually find themselves boiled.
21
As trump said while campaigning: "I love the uneducated....."
2
Wedge issues helped elect republicans. They wore their little cross lapel pins and spoke fervently about family "values",( i.e. the danger of gay marriage) the sanctity of unborn babies, the god given right of owning a gun, etc. And people ate it up. The Democrats need forget about spewingmfacts and logic and use the same kind of values language to communicate with people who are not politically savvy or well educated. I recommend reading George Lakoff, a linguist who understands the power of language and being passionate about your values. That approach, and being sincerely invested, will begin to create voters who will vote for their own and their childrens well being. The alternative will be to let things gets so bad for these people that they will eventually change. But a lot of hardship will result first.
6
Most Americans have no idea that the prosperity they enjoy is a direct result of vast government investment in public infrastructure (interstate highways, anyone?), education (the GI bill, anyone?), regulation (trust-busting, anyone?), and business (where do I even start with government subsidies and R&D?). Until the public understands that our current way of life didn't happen through individual hard work, but through collective self-investment and effective taxation... we are doomed.
19
Paul Krugman has not gotten it right yet. I love reading his opinions because I then know the opposite is true or most likely to happen. I don't know if he does this on purpose, but keep up the good work. Thank You.
It will never be right for you because you don't know what right is.
3
It can't have escaped Mr. Krugman's notice that coastal employers would rather hire lower-wage immigrants for their service-sector jobs, than go to the extra effort and expense to hire Americans.
In 2006, Mr. Krugman wrote an excellent column entitled "North of the Border" in which he stated:
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/opinion/north-of-the-border.html
"Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans....The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays -- and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants."
4
Save money on salaries! Why on earth would any intelligent business person do that?
I think its problematic to say that its a coastal v. interior problem. It is in general a rural v urban problem. The post industrial midwest (its time we retired that tatty old label "rust belt") has pockets of urbanity that look very much like the east coast, and rural areas that look like Kansas. Kansas has areas that don't fit the stereotypes...most of upstate New York is every bit as rural as the rural midwest. Oregon is on the coast, but most of it is not exactly Portlandia... We are back to city mouse and country mouse; its inaccurate to lump whole areas into one overgeneralizing block. East coasters reflexively do this, I get it,but what looks like geography (and from personal experience with friends who moved to the coasts, i can assure you there is a whole lotta geographic snobbery going on-- its okay with me, I feel an instinctive need to remain by the best fresh water supply) is more a function of population density
3
Keeping those people poor and angry and ignorant is the GOP plan because facts are not on their side and they need simple emotional identity politics to win.
9
Dr Krugman,
I have read too many of the comments.
I am not an American conservative yet I will say the only thing as ignorant as an American conservative may be the people who write comments and cannot see their own humanity and ignorance mirrored in their Trump supporting fellow Americans.
To all the commenters who call Trump voters stupid, please reread Dr. Krugman's column, and you can see the appeal of Reagan and Trump, even to people who are rational and not racist and xenophobic. What Dr. Krugman describes is the gutting of the economy of much of America. The result is people losing not only their jobs, but their social support networks (family, community, etc.). Even if we could retrain everyone who has been displaced by the new economy (which we can't), the current Democratic Party program can't preserve the old society they were a part of.
Reagan and Trump made empty promises, but at least they spoke to the people who were losing ground in the modern economy. If we Democrats want to make real progress in Red States, we need to come up with new policies which support the economies and communities of those states. Unless we can promise some actions that will support the things that made middle class life viable in those states, even empty promises will always be appealing.
3
We need a federal legislative body that will perform to the needs of the Union. Meaningful legislation will drag the nation out of depressed condition on all fronts, immigration, taxes, education, labor and healthcare. All of these are primary issues that our elected legislators have neglected, at the behest of special interests.
"To all the commenters who call Trump voters stupid, please reread Dr. Krugman's column,"....Ok, but that does not mean they are not also stupid.
1
Dems should have fought the tax cuts harder and offered infrastructure improvement as an alternative -- one that would not only create more jobs but be more bolstering to keeping corporate jobs in the U.S. than the tax cuts. I didn't see that fight happening in any kind of coordinated, meaningful way, and certainly not communicated out to "red" states.
So true. But the opposition in 2016 offered (1) DACA and (2) transgendered bathrooms as prime issues. And the democratic convention was co-chaired by a congresswoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who goes to bat for pay day lenders. Was this supposed to somehow be attractive to blue collar workers?
3
Seriously. I am very left-leaning and progressive, and I did not understand the identity politics play in 2016. There are huge economic issues that were just swept under the rug.
Trumpland does not intentionally vote for its own impoverishment, the white voters in it intend to keep down the non-whites. Democrats' attempts in the past (since the Civil Rights era) to run truly liberal Presidential candidates, such as McGovern and Mondale, failed. When Democrats did move to the right in some ways, running Carter and Clinton, they succeeded. But while Democrats came to rely more on big donors and moved to the right economically, they also came to rely more on non-whites among lower-income people. White working people may be getting fed up with the false economic promises of Republicans, as Krugman pointed out in a previous column, but their discontent applies to both parties.
If Democrats want to reverse the divide on racial/geographic lines, they will have to adopt economic policies that work for the 99% of all colors and quit relying on the backing of big-money interests. I don't know if the time is quite ripe for this yet, but isn't it worth trying? The 2016 strategy of Democrats is not winning.
1
The First Rule of Holes is being ignored from coast to coast and border to border. Oklahoma, just 5 miles north of where I sit and, coincidentally, my birth state, is but one of the most publicized in recent days. My familiarity with Oklahoma was, until very recently in my 70+ years, limited to its very southeastern county, McCurtain, a paradise to a young boy who saw it only during summer vacations, but isolated and Appalachian poor to its year-round residents. I was born there, as were my parents.
Mom's parents got electricity in the early '50's, and their own flush toilet a dozen years later. Both events are well within my memory of the place. Today, there are millionaires in that mountain valley, though you have to know who they are to point them out. Their homes, for the most part, don't give much in the way of clues. They are a tiny minority, though, and the county's poverty is both rife and apparent.
Why do the citizens of McCurtain County vote against their best economic interests? PhD's in sociology, psychology and economics have proposed innumerable theories and "reasons" that get substantial ink in publications like the Times. But maybe, just maybe, it might be that inertia is the main reason, along with a conviction much akin to that of the young boy mentioned a few lines back, that, poverty and all, this place is Paradise with the capital "P", and change is neither wanted nor needed.
2
Why do people in Mississippi and Kansas and Oklahoma vote against their own best interests?
Their voting is visceral. Moral outrage for gay marriage, co-ed bathrooms, welfare queens, late-term abortion. Every election cycle has a new one. Issues that are symbolic and tinged with self-righteous religious fervor. Voting against your own economic interests matters less than joining the fake moral crusade.
4
Guns and abortions are the only thing their limited minds can grasp.
2
"Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment... conservative efforts to downsize government... will disproportionately hurt the very regions that put the G.O.P. in power."
I'm reminded of the passage from Proverbs 16:18...
"Pride goeth before the fall."
2
Red states can fix all their problems by having more children. Then we can do concerts like farm aid to feed the starving American babies. Too many people, not enough of anything else. Capitalism works great, but not when it doesn’t.
1
In the past decade, Republicans have shown they hate Obama, Obamacare and Hillary more than they love their jobs, their businesses, and their health.
Republicans have utterly flipped on their own Heritage Foundation’s idea for Obamacare, as well as traditional family values, wasteful spending, the national debt, Russia, our allies, free trade and even the value of a college education.
The single unifying theme driving Republicans today appears to be schadenfreude. They seem hellbent on one mission – shoving their thumb into the eye of Democrats – and blinded to everything else.
13
Unfortunately, the GOP wins by further impoverishing its constituents. They have their own political-media virtuous cycle: Lower taxes and regulations on the wealthiest citizens, who donate to campaigns to keep the milk train coming; Deprive ordinary citizens of all sorts of government support, for education, health care, environment, all of it; Partner with right-wing media to convince the suckers that their ever-mounting problems are due to whatever bits and pieces of government remain, and also due to Mexicans (or Muslims, or liberals, or whomever is the scapegoat du jour); Get re-elected by the hate-infused and resentful populace; Suppress voting by the wrong people and gerrymander the districts so it hardly matters if they do vote; Repeat. It's a win-win-win for the politicians, their donors, and their right-wing media shills.
It's not really fair or accurate to describe the Trumpland politics as "self"-destructive. The politics are carried out by politicians, and they are extremely destructive, but not at all destructive to themselves. The ordinary citizens are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the politics that keep them poor and voting right and of the media that keep them ignorant and voting right.
4
Thanks Paul, everything you say is on target, but I've given up on these lovers of the self-inflicted wound. I have no interest in telling them how to live their lives, but now, armed with gerrymandered districts and extra rural representation/electoral votes, they are dragging down the whole nation.
Need the young and the suburban female voters to VOTE and make their views a reality.
12
"Too Dumb to Help Themselves, Red States Decline Further" should be the headline on this one. My dad is from Kansas and my mom Oklahoma. I have first have knowledge of these two poster children for self destruction. Neither capitalized on their greatest resources when they had a chance. There is a church on every corner, yet faith hasn't healed them economically. Think about it, Kansas was once the hot bed of union activity in the plains states and every kookie religious cult in existence ran around there. Now it is a single party proto religious monstrosity, punishing the poor and uneducated. Oklahoma, a similar basket case. Once a state where Woody Guthrie lyrics pointed the way( he was from OK)towards progressive politics they are now single party rule. They squandered their oil wealth at least twice. Ugh. And then there is the rest of the South. Oye, not enough time, not enough space. Glad I don't live there. Maryland is far enough south for me.
10
Trump is just the latest in a long line of GOP politicians to sell their constituents snake oil. He is more blatant about it, but the shtick is the same. Conservative votes have voted AGAINST their own self-interest for years. They seem to be driven by some combination of abject ignorance of the issues, highly effective Republican propaganda or some compelling single social issue.
4
I hesitate to ask, but it too much to say that these folks have been brainwashed to some degree? I mean, can you underestimate how completely the messages from Fox, the right-wing media (back at least as far as the 80s with Rush Limbaugh), and now Russia and Sinclair media have wormed their way into the minds of these folks. This media plays on, exacerbates, and now creates fake news and propaganda using any stereotype, grievance, wedge issue, or shiny object it can dream up to place liberals and liberal policies in a bad light. Is it any wonder these folks are making their economic situation worse? Is there any way to expose the man behind the curtain?
4
I agree, intensive right-wing propaganda has been in existence for decades. I do think the left underestimates its power. It needs to be opposed.
3
"Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment."
There it is, in a nutshell. Trump supporters vote against their own best interests because they think Trump is their friend and will look out for them. And in furtherance of that delusion, they forgive his massive mountain of transgressions along the way, even going far as to violate their own values by giving him a mulligan for his adultery.
Sorry to say, Paul, but there are none so blind as those who refuse to see. And Trump supporters are the blindest of all.
4
How is this bad for Trump---it's anger drives his base.
Outright calls for violent insurrection are common in the local media of the areas the doctor describes. The 20-year smear campaign against Clinton was waged in this same media environment.
Allowing outright lies to be broadcast in the public sphere opens our democracy to hucksters, faith pimps, rabble-rousers, and foreign agency.
Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.
1
A growing continuing ignorant electorate isn't going to help themselves. The politics of resentment is as strong as ever and Trump - and many others have seized upon this phenomenon. Why blame yourself, if you can blame somebody else. In steps a politician with a cure all and next thing you know they are president, governor, etc. and things don't improve. So lets re-elect them. We, as a nation, will have to begin to think our way out of these complex issues. The dumbing down of our country is not aiding in this process.
3
Nothing, most of us are making more money than ever and living far better than under Obama.
I just buy cars now, no leasing.....second home, yeah, ill take it.
1
What's the matter with t....land is "t" himself...always blaming others particularly his predecessors for everything he has done wrong and will continue to do wrong as long as he's in office.
1
People, not land areas, are what matter in considering whether the economy and society are doing well. If an area's population shrinks, the area's importance shrinks too.
Therefore, there's a fallacy of composition in evaluating the performance of a region by looking at it in isolation at two moments of time (e.g., 1950 vs. 2010). The people, which is what counts, are not the same. To have a valid comparison, you need to correct for that.
One approach would be think about the region's people at the beginning and then play that population forward.
Changes occur by births & deaths and by migration.
-- The region itself contains part of the relevant 2010 population: the residents and their descendents who stayed, plus the immigrants who in 1950 resided elsewhere.
-- The other part of the relevant 2010 population are the former residents and their descendents who emigrated, plus the people from elsewhere who normally would have immigrated (if the region were demographically average) but did not.
Many towns and small cities are like the ones discussed in the press, for example, Syracuse, New York and Ashtabula, Ohio. Their populations started shrinking long before 1980. By 2010, more than 50% of the 1950-comparator population lived elsewhere.
Why wouldn't that outside majority of 1950 Syracusans be typical of America as a whole, economically and politically? If they are, then they're doing okay and the majority of their votes in 2016 went for Hillary.
Because of a long successful track record that Democracy has had in this country, if not the whole World, we have forgotten the central pillar upon which Democracy can build its platform. And that is : an Informed Electorate. because ignorant people will elect ignorant Leaders, and ignorant Leaders will destroy the countrty. We are now witnessing such manifestation of our Democratic System at the hands of a fundamentally ignorant President whose only mission in life has been the pursuite of wealth, at all costs, and whose only loyalty is to the Dollar!
650
But, of course, The United States of America is not a Democracy but rather a Republic. This distinction has been argued as negligible but that view has been demonstratively proven to be false as we now elect minority governments on the regular. Throw in legislating from the bench and gerrymandering and its almost impossible to call this country a Democracy with a straight face.
35
Yes, ignorant and selfish Trump's only mission in life indeed was chasing the mighty Dollar and winning at any cost. This is why I can not understand how so many Evangelicals, low income workers, people in rural areas and manual laborers voted for him for it was well known that he had no compassion, lied and was a cheat. Trump voters were hoodwinked, just unbelievable!
24
Very true, Kami. A major problem with an educated electorate is access to valid, reliable news and information...that I would say is accessible and does not speak down to viewers or give them the impression that it does. Unfortunately, many voters get their news from Fox and "talk" radio because, I believe, it is very easy to digest and readily connects with their anger and frustration. Yet until this issue is addressed, and voters come to realize how they are duped by these sources of "information," many voters will continue to be misled and ultimately vote against their own best interest.
22
What would happen if the United States government as well as state governments had to buy American? That sounds like a patriotic act that would help millions of people! I know it seems preposterous because the supply chain, but it could be a goal for the future creating much needed jobs.
Too little too late. The US Government already buys American, unless one submits a written appeal. Can't speak for States, although I suspect its similar.
This problem has its roots in the "Reagan Revolution," when the master liar of his time took advantage of a temporary economic decline and the under-the-surface racism being carefully nurtured and exploited by Reagan and some other (not all) Republicans to convince the white middle-class that "Government is the problem." Because our decline has taken decades--and is in fact still under way-- we dance blithely in our boiling water like the allegorical frogs.
515
Voodoo economics on a grander scale
Agreed on the frog reference.
All the sensational tweets are intended to do is to keep up amphibians from glancing at the thermometer.
Problem, is the person responsible is not in the same hot water as extreme wealth serves as the great insulator from reality!
13
A biologist ran the experiment of putting frogs in cool water and heating it—only frogs that were "brain-dead" did not jump out of the pot of water being heated.
Which maybe gives hope that if the poor sections of the country can be convinced that the measures that Democrats support for the recovery of their livelihoods is no more a "gift" than the tax cuts the Republicans support for the wealthiest, they might figure out that those measures will only level the playing field for those who otherwise would be crushed by the economic power of the wealthy.
7
It's funny that the people who believe that "government is the problem" never seem to wonder why places like Somalia, Libya, and the Congo, places where there is no government, aren't thriving paradises.
Actually, it's not funny.
24
Ever since the era of JFK and LBJ West Virginia, now considered the most Trump state in the nation, has been the beneficiary of government programs. Senator Robert Byrd was in a position of power to channel federal spending and projects into West Virginia. Maybe the government programs were all terrible, all undermined by corruption. I don't know. I think race must be a factor of significance and a stubborn unwillingness to adjust to change.
1
"I think race must be a factor of significance"
West Virginia is 94% White. What is your point?
1
“It’s a free country.” That principle gives Trumpland the power and, I suppose, right to destroy itself. But it’s the the Electoral College that gave it the ability to take the rest of us along with; to put a man in the White House who, along with depraved ignoramuses in Congress, might bring ruination to this nation.
8
Professor Krugman states "While these structural factors are surely the main story, however, I think we have to acknowledge the role of self-destructive politics." But the emphasis is on the structural factors. After all, the ill conceived Kansas tax cuts, the refusal is expand Medicaid, were all in the last six years and the problems go back almost forty years. Those areas that voted for Trump felt abandoned by the established politicians like Clinton and Bush, that's why they voted for Trump. They need a real alternative that speaks to them.
2
Yes, let's not blind ourselves to the fact that many manufacturing facilities, e.g., for furniture, textiles, etc., rushed overseas to pursue improved profit margins. This has had an effect on the regions they abandoned. That was facilitated by free-trade agreements, which politicians of all stripes promoted. And the orthodox response that most pols offer is that the jobs are gone and are never coming back. In essence, there is nothing we can do. Hardly an adequate response in the regions of which Mr. Krugman writes. So it's not so terribly surprising, that given a shrug of the shoulders by both parties, the population sought someone who offered a solution, even if some of us know it's a false promise.
1
Paul Krugman illuminates an important part of our current political crisis. But I've just looked at the employment rates in the states he mentions and the statistics don't reflect this problem, probably because of county-by-county discrepancies. But, also, I suspect, U.S. unemployment numbers don't reflect large numbers of unemployed people whose benefits have run out and who don't collect unemployment. And, of course, they don't reflect the poverty of people who work low-wage jobs. I'd appreciate a Times article looking into this. How can our unemployment rate look so good in the face of so much suffering?
5
'How can our unemployment rate look so good in the face of so much suffering?' was the same question we Republicans were asking under Obama and the left dismissed it as a right-wing fantasy. Guess the shoes on the other foot now.
When you look at the data, the notion that Midwestern states that supported Trump are filled with poorly educated Americans just doesn't hold up. If anyone doubts that, just look at SAT and ACT scores, high school and college graduation rates, and NAEP math and reading scores broken down state-by-state. Iowa, for instance, is and almost always has been one of America's best educated states. States like Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are above average.
As for the coastal, left-leaning states, California ranks pretty low on several metrics. The Golden State's NAEP math and reading scores are only marginally higher than the worst-performing states such as Mississippi and Alabama.
And spending doesn't correlate very strongly with educational outcomes. Utah ranks last in spending-per-pupil, year after year, yet does pretty well overall. Washington, DC spends over $19,000 per pupil, yet ranks last in HS graduation rates and 47th overall on the SAT.
8
Ben, you are looking at the wrong numbers. The 'brain drain' involves the kids with those good SAT scores & the well-educated leaving Trumpland and heading mainly to big coastal cities for industries that employ highly educated workers. Take a look at state rankings by % with a bachelor's degree or advanced degree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_educational_attainment
2
Speaking for my state of Michigan, many of our highly educated technical college grads are leaving Michigan for better jobs on the coasts or even overseas.
1
Wouldn’t it be great if the rich citizens of blue cities & states paid their recently raised Fed taxes without complaint and perhaps some honor rather than to engineer “work arounds” to avoid taxes? Is their attitude against limiting the SALT loophole any different than other who want to reduce their taxes whom you vilify, PK? If not, then are you really just stoking more division between the parties while also complaining when others do it?
1
The work around matters for those of us who might seem to have ample incomes, but who - after living in a town for 40 years and more - can barely afford property taxes with some discount provided by the deductions. we could become tax refugees, I guess, and move to low tax states ( many have) -- which in itself then increases the costs in those areas - increasing property values - good and bad - but increasing municipal costs (garbage handling, water, sewage, roads, school systems for the non-retirees). And this all places pressure on local people.
2
I suspect many “rich” citizens of blue states surely would absorb the hit if the money was going towards providing social services or infrastructure where it is badly needed. Of course, that is not the case. Trump is targeting high tax blue states to redistribute wealth to “rich” people in red states and corporations.
3
I live in a red state, have a household income between 150-200K a year, and I am SALT limited as well. I am not exactly 'rich' (though, I can say I am comfortable where I live), I don't live in a blue city or a blue state. And the reason the SALT provision hurts, is because at this upper middle income bracket level, there is next to no real reduction in taxes owed by the lower rates and we are taxed more heavily than the true wealthy (who don't pay SS taxes, and have much of their income on lower capital gains rates). The slightly lower rates in my bracket are offset by an elimination of the personal deductions. The doubling of the standard deduction saves me nothing because I still itemize above it, even with a SALT cap. So, The SALT deduction limit now means I have to pay some federal tax on my taxes paid to my red state -- its double taxation in a much more direct sense than any 'death tax'.
3
I was in Newfoundland when cod fishing was forbidden due to overfishing, thereby creating financial hardship for its residents. I learned that the Canadian government was funding superior schools in Newfoundland so children would be able to learn up-to-date skills. Maybe Mississippi can take a page from the Canadian educational playbook
604
But schools don't create jobs, except for teachers. They can only lay the groundwork for location of knowledge industries. Something more has to happen to make the education pay off.
4
Federal governments in Canada know what Prof. Krugman has only recently relearned, that microeconomics and location are the bases of what is added to be macro numbers.
Education has also enabled workers who had done their "homework" to relocate to locations in which the demand for skilled workers is higher.
Finally, Krugman seems to have relearned the lessons provided by Gunnar Myrdal, that economic activity is based on cumulative causation.
Canada is more practical and enlightened than the US. There was an initiative in coal country here, which retrained coal miners for IT and other emerging jobs which proved to be successful and participants often cites as saving their lives. Which the Trump has now dismantled. But education and retraining are the answer and it is a lifesaver and absolutely works when done correctly.
47
Let's start with the obvious: your column tracks worryingly close to Hillary Clinton's recent overseas comments about the "productive" parts of the US voting for her. I think the offense people took in reaction to her comments was overblown, but she never seems to help herself, as many Democrats do not, because they never mention the other part of the equation, which is neoliberalism.
You also never utter this word or discuss its effects. Do you agree with it? Yes, the question of education and already flush regions is key, but what halted that long march towards relative equality was, to a large degree, the adoption of neoliberal programs that continue today. Mkaing everything subject to the market, allowing consolidation and monopolies, gutting the public goods and commons in favor of privatized services, no real fight (except by *some* unions) to save union jobs, etc., all have had a devastating effect on not just Mississippi, but even parts of Massachusetts (ever been to Springfield?) or California (keep driving north of Napa Valley) or othe rich states.
The Democrats' acceptance of neoliberalism, their beholdenness not just to the likes of bankers but pro-neoliberal foundations like the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Concord Coalition, etc., are another major source of Trumpland's--and the entire US's--problems. Why on earth will you never discuss neoliberalism or its effects?
6
I find your argument confusing, given that market consolidation, Darwinian capitalism and privatization are key components of the so-called conservative groups and the GOP, not neoliberalism.
4
"Neoliberalism" is merely a word used by Republicans to blame Democrats for the failures of Republican policies.
3
Have supposedly liberal politicians fought market consolidation, free trade agreements, offshoring, and outsourcing? Now liberals are all too ready to accept the argument that all the jobs disappeared because of automation. Offshoring and outsourcing had nothing to do with it and heaven forbid we should ever suggest that an illegal immigrant or two might have a job that an American could and would do.
A well thought out piece, and one that does attempt to explain Trump nation, but there are some other things Paul missed. Yep, as low and semi skilled well paying jobs disappeared, the Trump nation kind of places didn't have the education system to create new jobs, and worse with the GOP "slash taxes" education got even worse (and with people struggling, the tax cut looked like a great idea, but they didn't think of the consequences). Trump came along and rather than committing to finding ways to build jobs that match the times, he basically promised to bring back easier times, when people could have limited education and still get that job in a factory with good salary and benefits (and another irony, Trump nation swallowed the bilge that Unions killed jobs and cheered their demise..),he basically promised to bring back the past, the steel mills that needed thousands of workers, the manufacturing plants where people turned nuts and bolts on an assembly line. They don't see that steel tariffs may bring work back to US mills, but those mills won't hire people because they are heavily automated, or that manufacturing likewise will be. The thing Paul missed is that Trump nation thinks that 'their jobs' have been taken by someone else, and blame affirmative action and women's rights, when the jobs are not being taken, they are disappearing all over the world.
24
"They've got the FOOLS on their side, and that's enough of a majority in any town." -Mark Twain
24
Like most theme parks, Trumpland takes your money with meaningless distractions and pockets the profits. It is an artful scam full of lies and sleight of mind where we saps play at rigged games for worthless kewpie dolls but somehow laugh all the way home, while the barkers payoff the shills, fold up their tents and the circus moves on.
346
Nice metaphor, although it confuses theme parks, which are relatively stable, with circuses, which, as you say, move on. Both the Republicans and Democrats have been theme parks for years, even decades. That, too, has been a problem. Their main thrust has been money extraction in exchange for what passes as entertainment. The problem is that, whether theme park or circus, we’re being entertained to death. What we really need is education (not always synonymous with schooling).
8
"Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment. "
Not if you ask a Trump supporter. Their only worry is he won't go far enough; he won't build the wall, lock her up, close the presses that are the enemies of the public.
20
Moratti's quote that, "...structural changes in the economy have favored industries that employ highly educated workers" supports what a lot of us have been saying. That globalism has disproportionally impacted these communities. We now see how threadbare and unimaginative our collective response has been to their plight. It's easy to shrug our shoulders and say it's just a shift in the economy and rise of technology but that doesn't create any better of a safety net for those caught in the midst of this shift. No one is immune. Yesterday's globalism is tomorrow's AI. White collar highly educated workers could very well be next in line for their pink slips.
9
I do think that Obamacare's offer to cover Medicaid almost 100% was something more than a "threadbare response" and yet these folks through their elected officials turned it down. What else would they reject? Subsidies for education = "we don't want government telling su what to teach". Subsidies for infrastructure rebuilding = "the government is too big". At some point Trumpland must learn to accept help.
2
There is no "collective response" to their plight. The Republican response is to shout "tax cuts!" even louder. The Democratic response has been to favor policies on education and health care that might actually help. The problem is that a significant proportion of people in rural/rust belt communities will vote for the more racist of the two major parties no mater how badly they are suffering. And if they have to accept absurdly failed Republican economic theories to justify their race-based vote, they will. My temptation would be to say, "let them suffer!," if it were not for the collateral damage to others from Republican policies.
You say that as if we weren't warned of this for years. I'm only in my 30s and I clearly remember my father's words to get a college education because the world was changing and to get on board or be left behind. He worked blue collar jobs my whole childhood, working on his degree on the side. It's not like he had a crystal ball or something. The writing was on the wall but many people were too stupid or stubborn to see it. He also encouraged me to move where the opportunities were, instead of expecting a good job to come to me. What you say about globalism is true, and Krugman is right as well but there comes a point where personal responsibility has to be considered. You can't help people who won't help themselves.
In this very disturbing article, I believe that Krugman left out an important observation when he said that certain states cut Medicaid and lowered taxes which hurt education. He left out that the states that cut taxes which cut education and the states that cut Medicaid by and large are states with Republican governors and Republican legislatures. Pity.
16
An observation:
Comparing per-capita incomes of MA and MS without taking into account respective costs-of-living is a meaningless exercise.
4
Those feed off of each other, though.
"These days almost everyone has the (justified) sense that America is coming apart at the seams. But this isn’t a new story, or just about politics. Things have been falling apart on multiple fronts since the 1970s: Political polarization has marched side by side with economic polarization, as income inequality has soared." What a socialist view! Thankfully, it's not held by all of us. If you're that inspired by economic inequality than sell all your world goods, donate the money, and live in austerity. The reality is that you'll never do that and give up the creature comforts you toiled to achieve and amass. You preach equality but will protest the mere mention of affordable housing being constructed near your home or the thought of a homeless shelter within walking distance of your dwelling. God save us from liberals!
There will always be those with more and those with less. What is so desperately need is adorable medical care, safe and decent housing, jobs, and a functioning educational system. 8 yrs of a liberal White House achieved none of it. Racial tensions are at an all time high, the middle class is shrinking, affordable housing is disappearing as neighborhoods are gentrified and rents soar, and the affordable care act is for many unaffordable. Pointing to and raging about a problem does not resolve it. Holding your elected officials accountable does. Where are the articles condemning our liberal mayor for his inaction?
1
Where are the articles clearly describing the 'Trump effect'?
His mindless rants & actions, particularly the tariffs triggering a trade war are precisely what we don't need right now.
Liberals aren't the problem...Trump IS!
1
And where are Republican solutions to the problems you claim the “liberals “ failed to solve? Republican “policy” consists of cutting taxes to mainly benefit the wealthy while gutting public education, environmental protection and anything that benefits the whole society.
2
One can bash the repubs and Trump all day all night but until the dems get a meaningful message and until we get big money out of our plutocracy nothing will change.
11
Don’t forget the destructive tax cuts that have ravaged Louisiana. So Kansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana are ignored hard evidence of the looming damage and suffering to come from Trump - GOP national cuts.
5
"structural changes in the economy have favored industries that employ highly educated workers..."
Those pesky structural changes.
Structural changes like offshoring every factory that could be moved.
As if the ignominious "structural changes" were not government policy ginned up by those same elites who look down on anyone that actually gets their hands dirty.
5
Structural change is a euphemism for engineered change and multilateral economics is the new collectivism; except wealth flows upward. Neoliberal economic policy is embraced by both mainstream Democrats/Republicans. Social and tax policy divides now, and they're not far apart either; there was not much debate on Capital Gains last fall nor on immigration currently.
Democrats are basically pro-gay marriage, pro-choice Republicans now.
The information economy is vastly overstated. Appliances, cars, and the like are still manufactured but just not here. Even US companies that have somewhat automated are doing it overseas.
Education is not a panacea. Large portions of this country lack the cognitive speed necessary to succeed in abstract jobs and, since complex mechanical jobs based on learned skill have largely off-shored, people are forced to compete with migrants and illegals for leftovers. Trump didn't create the immigration backlash, it's been brewing for 15 years.
The fallout from this engineered economy elected Trump. More troubling is the utter disdain his voters endure. Half the country is now racist and stupid because they no longer trust the political elite who told them our way is best.
Trump’s approval rating is rising. If he wasn’t such a transparent racist and womanizer, he’d have beat Hillary by more. He’s on his way to a second term.
3
You can't read Paul Krugman's columns without hitting nonsense in the first few paragraphs. First he talks about "thriving regions." Knowing that is nonsense--we aren't all millionaires in Seattle--he then backpedals and concedes the obvious, that everything isn't great in coastal cities. Try saying otherwise to the huge homeless population in Seattle, or to people leaving because they can't afford to live in the neighborhood they grew up in, Yet he then follows up with more nonsense, blaming soaring housing costs on "Nimbyism." Notice that he doesn't attempt to explain that statement. What is the "Nimbyism"? It's people living in residential areas who don't want high-rise apartments built there. Mr. Krugman reliably traffics in convenient myths, and so it's no surprise he'd be portraying people clinging to their houses as unreasonable and obstructionist. There is a concerted effort on the part of people like Paul Krugman and Richard D. Kahlenberg to portray average people who simply want to keep their houses as being villains. Don't buy it.
1
Well...We do refer to our democracy as a representative government...
1
Today the richest three Americans have more than the poorest two-thirds of the entire population. I've worked with quite a few poor people in our community. Things are tough. It's true that a few poor kids will be highly successful, but they are the cream of the crop and like Barak Obama have parents who are fairly educated and determined to help them succeed. The treadmill of ruthless victimization of poor people and thier families by everyone from payday lenders to courts and bondsmen, all doing their utmost to take what little they have, leaves most fatigued and defeated, thankful if they can just survive as waitresses and landscapers. Americans of the upper middle class and higher are always giving us the poor mouth but have no idea what it is like.
9
We have seen the citizens of the red states consistently vote against their own best interest.
From doing their best to gut unions, which is what right to work laws do, to actually giving someone like Blankenship a shot at a senate seat.
Supporting Trump is just one part of whatever else is going on.
They haven’t just voted to downsize government they’ve actively endorsed bad government.
17
Many people who live in Trumpland are under-educated and skill-deficient. Why this is so no doubt has more than one explanation. But when you don't have a college degree, and when your skill set if limited, your job prospects also tend to be much more limited than they otherwise would be. If Trump really wanted to help his base, he (and the feckless Republican party) would go all in for providing them with a viable way to earn a college degree ASAP.
4
The problem is capitalism. This country worships money not people.
10
Capitalism's main driver is greed.
Trump is the true epitome of greed and he displays such on a daily basis.
There is a quote from the musical 1776 that applies to Trumpland. “A man would rather cling to the dream he may someday become wealthy, rather than admit he will forever be poor.”
6
A theme that is also explored in the short story "The King of the Bingo Game" by Ralph Ellison. In my opinion, it applies to all of America.
A starting point to address this dilemma would be for leaders to state that "we are all in this together". Instead, we have a "demonizer in chief". An angry child at the helm.
A real leader who cared about all Americans would insist that every American have full and equal access to affordable health care, absolutely equal educational opportunities (with no debt at the end of the process). If that is what some of you call "socialism", then sign me up. I call it fair. I call it humane. I call it smart because we are now wasting the brains of millions of poor people. I call it the American Dream.
All it would take is compassion and political will. There is plenty of money to fund it. Those dollars are just in the wrong places.
14
We need to stop judging and begin fixing. No matter how angry you feel about Trump voters, our primary concern must be the welfare of all Americans, regardless of race, class, or where they live.
8
"...our primary concern must be the welfare of all Americans, regardless of race, class, or where they live."
Sorry. But that sounds like something you should be directing at Trump voters, since the majority of us are already aware of that.
Truly a downward spiral for Trumpland states: they spend less on education, so producing less educated people, who double down and vote red. And with the help of the electoral college system they will try to drag the rest of us down to their level.
10
That picture shows a pretty impressive demonstration of support for Trump. The good thing is after they were finished they could all get in one car to go home.
6
This has always been the revenge of Middle America. Make no mistake: The vote and subsequent presidency of Trump has always been a symbolic one for these people. They wanted to take down "that other side", even if it meant destroying themselves.
8
Obviously, when people who inhabit Trumpland get the their "news" from the FOX and the Sinclair noise box on a daily basis, they become transfixed zombies, mesmerized bots who can spit out verbatim sanctioned talking points of the Trump Regime.
Don't think it's possible? Ask those clever folks on Madison Avenue who get paid a king's ransom why corporations pay them hundreds of millions to push product if it didn't sink in and work.
Still not convinced? I'm going to hazard a guess that approximately half of those reading this use Tide to solve their laundry needs, and keep those shirts oh-so clean. Any takers?
DD
Manhattan
4
Well, Tide IS the best, I saw it on TV...
The red states vote for Trump mainly for noneconomic issues: they loathe coastal liberals whom they regard as dangerous p.c. types. Also, they want to protect guns, evangelical Christianity, white supremacy, and so on. They are voting for a mindset that is antiquated and threatened by modern life. They cling to Trump because they believe he represents that mindset.
11
To me much of this situation is a result of greed. When CEOs make hundreds more than their average worker, there is something wrong. Greed has taken hold of the upper class and they have weaponized it. No CEO is worth the hundreds of millions they are paid. Donald Trump Jr said it, "they're not even people to me." Mueller and his team can't work fast enough for me.
7
Mr. Krugman describes the shift to fascism as the Trump groupies look for easy solutions while expressing profound hatred for anything labeled liberal. Make American Great Again is no different that Germany Uber Alles. We see a slow erosion of any semblance of competence as a basis for
administrative advisers and instead neo-fascists and right wing ideologues have the president's ear. Lying and creating fictions and deflections for the masses are the daily fare from the White House. Sanity left the building when Trump moved in. The anti-intellectuals reign supreme in the GOP.
5
Wow Paul, not a single mention of the free trade agreements which you have long cheered for, and which have devastated rural towns across every region from New England to Appalachia and the northwest. Exhibit A recently is Carrier in Indiana, but just take a rural drive through a northern state and you’ll find one empty factory after another. Roger and Me... I will never forget a moment at a public talk you gave in a midwestern town some 10 years ago, packed house, and when asked about the return of the auto industry there, with cringe worthy callousness you patly said that those jobs were never coming back, as if talking about some natural force. Crickets then angry replies ensued.
You try to make a similar point as I, weirdly, in your article here: namely that all these forms of suffering are not the result of natural forces but POLITICAL CHOICES. The rush to feed the “knowledge economy” in cities, also a result of human choices. The powerful create the world, including the economies, they want.
Abolish the two party system and privately funded elections. In the resulting democracy ‘oi polloi would have the power, not educational/“merit”-based or Wall Street or trust funded elites. Imagine. Clinton would have never been able to get away with NAFTA or ending “welfare as we know it”, Reagan with slashing taxes on the rich while crippling the unions that put him in office, Obama with mucking up health reform or letting Wall Street pillage our treasure and security.
1
In the 1950s and 60s, there were entire school districts that were prepared to shut down -- white schools and black schools alike -- if the federal government forced them to integrate. The Trump voters are just more of the same. There have always been white Americans who believe that democracy is a zero-sum game, and they will sacrifice themselves, their own children, and their self-interests if they think it means that the people they hate won't get any benefits, either -- whether it's education, health care, jobs, food and housing assistance, or voting rights.
8
What I will never understand is, why? Why do the politicians in those regions harm their people the way they do? Without good schools it is obvious that they have a group of people who lack the intellectual skills to understand what is happening to them and why. Why are they taught that the educated and successful people are the enemy? The educated and successful folks I know have no hostility towards those regions suffering under political rule that leads to their decline. Wanting those sad regions to turn things around will accomplish nothing without a change in leadership. Instead of calling the educated men and women the liberal elite, they might want to ask how they can improve their own lot. It is not going back to 18th century jobs, I assure you.
3
Why? Have you ever seen the personal wealth statements of a typical US Senator? It's one the craziest things I politics. The vast majority of them have never had a job outside of working for the government and yet they all have personal wealth in the millions. It's pretty neat trick.
What about, "If they actually believe they're doing God's work by voting for Trump, the deserve what they get."? That's what's the matter with Trumpland.
3
This matter is quite serious,
but really not mysterious.
Trump's view? You're on your own.
Some get the meat, some get the bone.
Our once great nation used to care,
Our bounty was for all to share.
4
This is a good article of how lifting all boats is the best solution. Many states in the middle section of the country have decided taxes and regulations stifle the economy and the results are like night and day. High tax states that provide better education and civic benefits draw people with more ambition and of course this feeds on itself. The states that cannot provide these services lose out when their ambitious youth leave for a better life. This keeps being perpetuated by crooked politicians and ignorant voters who prefer to blame others for their problems.
3
No one likes to admit they made a bad decision, or that they've been taken advantage of. Add into the mix a sense of stubborn pride, and you've got a task ahead of you.
That being said, the Democratic party needs to be bold and unapologetic about showing people that voting Republican is voting for impoverishment. Our government works very well when it's allowed to, that is, when it's not being sabotaged by the GOP. Our environmental policies are better, our healthcare policies are better, our jobs and economic policies are better, our educational policies are better. Frankly, Republican policies are nothing but the ultimate form of identity politics- resentment, racism, and fear of change in a self-reinforcing propaganda echo chamber.
The Republican party has been strip-mining this country for the 1% since I was an infant. I'm 38 years old now. I could see this scam when I was in my late teens. Honestly, how long does it take for people to get with the program and wise up? I'm out of patience, and I think most of us are as well.
9
I'm soon-to-be 65 and the scam's been going on since I was in my late teens. The mess we have is the "long game", which I generally refer to as Nixon's revenge. If Richard Nixon was still alive, he'd be basking in the glow of what he started, even as he was being forced to resign for crimes against the Constitution.
But how can we convince these people to vote in ways that will actually help them? And how do we make them believe you?
The usual highly selected set of facts from the professor.
In this episode, mentioning only the more prosperous regions in general. Ignoring, of course, that when you look at actual voting patterns on the individual level, the poor (<$20,000 annual income), vote Democrat at an almost 2:1 ratio vs Republican.
1
The recent tax cuts for the wealthy are a prelude to corresponding cuts in the already meager social network if the Republicans remain in power. Many of those who suffer will have voted for Trump and the Republicans. They are boneheads who don't know where their best interests lie.
3
You do really reap what you sow. Down with science, check. Facts don't matter, check. Education is less important than a tax cut for a precious few, check. Lying is accepted behavior by the President and by right wing media, check. Deceit is a strategy employed by those who wish to socialize costs of pollution while privatizing the profits of business operations, check. Judeo-Christian ethics matter only when evaluating Democrats. Care not for the sick or poor, check. Believe what you want to believe, check. Vote against your own interests and the country's, checkmate.
2
Interesting that this leftist Ivory Tower professor, Paul Krugman, mentions the 1970s. Straight after the 60s, the 70s was the decade of runaway inflation, Jimmy Carter, and the race to the bottom in education. Liberalize this, liberalize that, make things easier for losers, tougher for winners. Black is beautiful but how about white? Thank God Trump came in to stop the runaway train to Loserville.
2
Carter is true Christian continuing to help people via Habitat for Humanity into his '90's.
Can you imagine Trump helping build a house for poor people?
Liberalism isn't the problem...runaway greed is. As a prime example, I give you Scott Pruitt.
Sinclair Broadcasting Co. management fostered a statement supposedly about Sinclaair's policy to not report fake news. Words to that effect.
Once upon a time we had a Fairness Doctrine which incidently still applies to political speech, the reasoning behind various cable news shows always including alternative viewpoints from different people on their "news" commentary panels.
Give or take, ninety years ago when Congress created the Radio Commission, included was Section 18: 'In the event a candidate for office was on the radio, another candidate for the same office was / would be entitled to an equal opportunity.'
In ninety years of FCC, one person only, Lar daly, in Chicago qualified.
The fascist policy of FCC is not to even keep a record of any candidate who applied for an equal opportunity.
Every electoral period at least a half dozen outsiders seeking to run for office, see the incumbant on an a.m. cooking show, not news event, and apply for access.
The station disses the outsider candidate. Upon complaint the FCC staff attorney in charge disses the candidate, generally over the phone and, after reporting said candidate to FBI for name checking because after all, the candidate might be ISIS, the written complaint is destroyed after the election passes.
Not recorded. That qualifies as a fascist confusion of reality. The essence of our Constitution is our 1st Amendment in our Bill of Rights. Sinclair supports your right to stand on a street corner. That is all.
2
Mississippi should be investors' buying opportunity.
1
An important segment of the Republican political base has a deep resentment of better educated people, has job skills which are no longer needed and has the conviction that Washington purposely ignores the plight of Middle America.
Ironically, Republicans can expand its base (and, thereby, the G.O.P. political power) simply by reducing relative education levels in Middle America. Industries with better-paying jobs must leave Middle America and cannot open new sites there.
The only way this cynical power grab can work is if the Republicans can convince the working-class political base that the deterioration of the quality of life in Middle America is the fault of Democrats.
That task is accomplished by a propaganda machine like Fox News and an unrelenting liar like Donald Trump in the White House.
2
"Hard work and making sacrifices will result in the American dream for anyone making these choices."
Nonsense.
The tragedy is that people who are voting for their own impoverishment don't understand the primary axiom of society: You will be ruled. Outside of Somalia, there is no society of "free agents" living the libertarian vida loca.
So, for all of recorded history, the three choices have been the rich (these days, the corporations), the church, or the government. Of these, only one offers a chance for citizen participation.
I don't think that those who vote for ever-slimmer social services (including education and infrastructure) while bolstering an already bloated military were born stupid. However, at some point they fell prey to a siren song that demonized (for other and completely legitimate reasons, of course) women, people of color, and non-Christians.
Every government policy benefits a portion of the electorate. Medicaid expansion improves the lives of millions living on a bankruptcy bubble. Who benefits from the lack of such expansion? It's hard to say. And that's what's scary.
Paul, a friend said recently that he had lived through America's Golden Age, which peaked during the era you call the Great Moderation (from WWII to Reagan). He is convinced that the courtesans and soothsayers such as Sessions and Ingraham are permanent fixtures rather than aberrations.
I hope that he's wrong, although I can marshal no evidence to dispute him. We have a Cabinet that looks like a reunion of the Usual Suspects and a President who mocks his own office.
Tell me something good.
2
Evidence shows that progressive, forward-thinking states do well while generally, conservative backward thinking states lag behind. Trickle-down economics redistributes the productivity gains from the actual productive workers to the top to be, supposidely, redistributed back down the economic ladder to those workers. Only instead of being redistributed back to the wealth-creators trillions of dollars in gains have been siphoned off by the "job-creators" devastating the middle class. Look at the once middle-class suburbs populated now by title loans, and Dollar Stores. They're there for a reason. Mr. Krugman, you imply these people are too ignorant to know who is harming them, and that if they just vote Democratic their problems would be solved. But while the country-club Republicans are no friend of theirs, which is why they dumped the establishment Republicans like Bush and Rubio, they also know that the Democrats will use them too. Hence, we have Trump, a faux populist. Maybe, just maybe, if Hillary hadn't rigged the primary with the DNC, we would have the most popular politician in the White House. Bernie Sanders. And we wouldn't be in this mess.
And what explains the self-destructive politics of the white working class? Racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. These forces have bonded them to Tea Party politicians and now to Trump. They are not well-educated enough or self-aware enough to see how they are being duped by the right-wing politicians who echo their insecurity and hate. Or maybe they do know and don’t expect anything more from politicians than a kindred spirit. Maybe shared attitudes about what Anerica should be (whites in power) versus what it actually is—an increasingly brown nation—is all they ask for in their decline.
Did you explicitly decide not to include "religiosity" as an underlying causal construct? Organized religion and southern churches have worked strongly for perpetuating Jim Crow, prevent an educated population, and produce the type of Trump voters who regard evidence, data and facts as irrelevant because it does not fit their beliefs. MA and MS differ greatly, and one key difference in 2018 is the control religion has over its people.
1
Case in point: Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. It is among the most economically depressed counties in the Commonwealth, which saw its fortunes evaporate when the tin and heavy metals industries left decades ago. Crime, poverty, economic decline all set in yielding a decayed environment. Only 19% of those over 21 have even an Associates degree and young people are leaving in droves. The population is among the oldest in the state with among the highest Medicaid patient rates in PA.
And how do the community leaders respond? They work hard at trying to attract manufacturing businesses back to the area, especially in (yes, you guessed it) heavy metals.
Oh, and the region voted solidly for Trump. MAGA! #BringBackTin!
380
If they got nothing from Obama over 8 years, who wouldn't vote for the chance at something different?
6
So with an older less educated work force you think a modern tin industry is looking at Pennsyltucky? It is exactly this type of logic that is killing you. Other than massive tax incentives, that will be paid for by tax payers like you, what do you have to offer. Oh and by the way the jobs will last as long as the incentives.
23
Policies of St Reagan destroyed Lawrence Co. yet they vote heavily Republican.
Fox news has convinced them to be victims.
40
The GOP with Trump at the helm are continuing to 'punish' the Blue States for their prosperity. Instead of raising taxes to support education and job training, Kentucky and Oklahoma dig down to ruin their public education system then cry fowl at the jobs in New York.
The Democrats need to explain in simple terms that government in the form of taxes and support for public education can be a positive influence in peoples' lives.
If things don't change soon, the Blue States should withhold in some sort of trust account their share of federal taxes until Washington, DC gets it's act together.
There needs to be strong resistance to the GOP dividing our country.
1
Thank you so much for that dissection, Mr. Krugman. Every detail rings true. In lieu of the circumstances you describe, I find the perversity of our president's decisions all the more frightening. Needless to say, he would never read a column like this in the "fake" New York Times (another disturbing element of his persona). That's truly sad, as he has the attention of a wide swathe of Americans who feel they have been neglected, as well as the ability to help them, not enlist them in political, not practical warfare.
4
The late science fiction writer Ted Sturgeon once wrote about "The Next Question". The short version is, don't stop looking because you've found an answer to your immediate question - see what new questions arise from that answer.
http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/Sturgeon-Q.htm
What's interesting about this column is how far it goes - then stops. We have growing inequality in the country and it's getting worse. We have policies that could fix things - but those policies aren't even on the table. The places that need them the most are places that reject them.
So why is that happening? There's a geographic factor in all this - but what's driving it? Noting where people live seems to determine their economic fate should be followed by the next question - why is that?
Noting that things seemed to improving up through the 70's then reversed should suggest the next question: what changed?
I could suggest a number of explanations - class warfare, the rise of the super-rich, movement conservatism, FOX News, Talk Radio, even the Borking of America (but not the way you think: see https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/02/06/the-borking-of-america/)
If you won't or don't ask the next question because you might not like the answer, well you've already shown you stopped asking questions too soon.
6
Lurking in the background is a curious incentive for the Republicans to mistreat their constituency. From a recent study by the Pew Research Center, quoted in The Times by Thomas B. Edsall, we learn that "voters with no college experience have been moving toward the GOP: 47 percent identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, up from 42 percent in 2014."
The weakening of the public education is thus more than an ideological goal of the right: it's a way of shaping the electorate in their favor. Educate people, keep them healthy, move them up the social ladder, and they turn into Democrats.
What's the matter with the voters of Trumpland? They're caught in a vicious cycle: in their misery, they seek salvation from those who benefit politically from keeping them miserable.
21
An Ignorant Voter Is Our Best Consumer: GOP 2018
7
Spot on. This phenomenon is what’s behind the GOP’s erosion of public schools (personified by the professional dimwit Betsy DeVos). No person capable of thinking critically or evaluating evidence or seeing through rhetorical tricks would vote Republican. So for the GOP, the decision is really very simple: educate tomorrow’s voters as poorly as possible.
1
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a democratic village in a Republican town. The upshot of it is to see on a small scale the divide.
The taxes in the village are in addition to the town taxes,republicans kept the taxes down in the town that flounders along crisis to crisis.
While the village in the town prospers it has become the hub of restaurants and culture and housing is becoming more expensive as more people wish to live there. I pay those taxes happily.
16
So many readers' comments reflect the divisiveness and disparagement promoted by Fox, Trump, and the Russians. The country sorely needs a figure like Lincoln, a relentless wartime president who nonetheless always sought to bind the nation's wounds.
7
That's a lovely thought. Seems we had a president who spoke about our being one nation, rather than red states and blue states, and emphasized that we're all in this together. I forget how that worked out for him. Oh yes, Mitch McConnell said on his inauguration day that the Republican party had no greater goal than to make him a one-term president.
Barack Obama reached out so many times that he must have wrenched his back. He even betrayed core Democratic values on SS and Medicare to try to reach an accord with congressional Repubs in 2011. He got spat on in return.
Reconciling this country goes far beyond the ability of one person, the president. The divide is deepened every day by lies, propaganda, the politics of personal destruction, and the systematic destruction of the rule of law. Trump targets Amazon, Amazon stock tanks. Trump targets Andy McCabe, McCabe gets fired. The financial corruption is endemic and pervasive. And the Congress sits by quietly, sending the silent message that it's ok. Religious leaders? Jerry Falwell Jr said over the weekend that if Trump were accused of rape, he'd have to learn more about the circumstances before he'd commit to repudiating him.
Welcome to the autocracy. Hope you like it.
1
The trouble is that Obama, unlike Lincoln, did not make his adversaries pay for their sedition.
Interesting perspective. Will Trump now focus on the balance of trade between states, or even within states, or even within states? If so, he may eventually realize the flaws in his global trade balance sheet.
3
Fascinating that the exact same is happening with Brexit. London and the south, the base of knowledge intensive industry is remaining pro-EU whereas the impoverished, government funding starved and rusting north is resolutely the most in favour of Brexit, which will only serve to deepen its own economic malaise and accelerate its decline.
14
Along with attempting to downsize government, conservatives’ efforts to destroy what is left of private sector unions along with those in the public sector will accelerate the race to the bottom in those poorest of places. A ray of hope is the recent spate of teacher job actions in several of these states.
27
Add to this the fact that "right to work" laws, designed to hamper the effectiveness of labor unions, have been enacted in exactly those states that are falling behind and would benefit from stronger organized labor. This is just another example of how cynical politicians have exploited the frustrations of their electorate to enact laws that benefit corporations and hurt their grassroots political supporters. It was shocking to see a "right to work" statute enacted in Michigan, a state that was at the epicenter of the industrial labor movement in the US during the 20th century.
30
And yet, people argue that it is the unions, themselves, that destroyed Michigan.
In my view of the world, the problem of America is even more basic, Americans are not being paid enough. How Americans value workers contribution to society is just wrong. Those at the bottom, the dishwashers, those who clean up our physical messes do a valuable and necessary service to our society. Think of the results of the garbage strikes. But they are not paid living wages. Both parties support subsidies for these workers, and the companies that supply these services. Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps and Medicaid for 40 hour workers does not work. Paying people enough to buy their own food, medical care, education and retirement is the better solution. But Americans will never go for this. This is considered "Socialism", which is the bane of Freedom.
Paying people enough to live on is not what America wants.
45
I was raised in the rural west, had a good education but migrated to the urban areas for my highly specialized and compensated career. After retirement, I relocated to the rural south, not far from a university city with good medical and cultural facilities. The social and economic divide is starker than my youth plus the added racial divide. I have some hope but the long climb up I made just doesn't seem in the cards for most of these people. No one takes the chance to escape to other areas. It takes a lot of guts and luck.
22
One line in the new Roseanne show embodies the other problem with Trumpland "He talked about jobs", as Ms. Conner says - apologizes? to her sister.
He did talk about jobs. (He also talked about going to Mars, about fixing healthcare and about making peace in the Middle East ("It's easy!")).
How he fooled anyone with mere words is the big mystery. This man had no history of sacrificing anything in his life to improve the lives of others. His work and his words before he decided (on a whim, as many believe, after President Obama made fun of him) to run show the same appalling lack of empathy he's shown since he became president.
Failing to see Trump was naked is how he was elected president, and now he stopped even pretending to have any clothes on. (I give him the infamous bathrobe, for decency's sake.)
53
A revolution against the Republican Party is taking place. Even in states like Kentucky, Kansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma. Students are demanding rational gun laws; teachers are demanding respect for education. Even there Republicans are in jeopardy.
Across the nation resistance is turning into revolt. California leads against Republican backward thinking. Other States' Attorneys General are suing Republicans for policies of negligence and intentional harm. The people go to the streets to march and rally for change. November puts Republicans in a bullseye. Where they belong.
Trumpland doesn't get it because Fox and right-wing hate radio broadcast non-stop fake reality and Republican propaganda. They are doomed to live in third-world conditions. The rest of the country has tried to help them, but they have refused our hands and even spit in our face. Trumpland doesn't want help, Trumpers want to wallow in their misery, voice their anger as they try to pull us down their level.
Trump is the Molotov cocktail Trumpers have thrown at us. But instead of bringing us down, it is going to cost their overseers their jobs - Republicans out in November; Trump out before 2020.
43
Not sure I'd give the red state's credit for this much foresight, but the reduction in education and other services might force the lower tranch of their citizens to self deport to more generous blue states.
Any evidence of this?
4
So the next question is, "Why is Trumpland voting for politician and policies that impoverish it, when the other parts of the country don't"
Looking at where and the resins people give, it's very hard to escape the conclusion that racism has a lot to do with it.
Our original sin is punishing us yet again.
7
Paul. I wish you would start writing opinion pieces more focused on way to fix the US economy to deal with this inequality problem. You only touch on it here. We aren't talking about solutions we just cry over our problems. Let's get up off the mat and fight for our country.
10
Unfortunately, Mr. Krugman, you are preaching to the choir. It would be great to hear you give this editorial on Fox News!
19
Whats the matter with Trumpland? -- You mean besides the fact that they haven't woken up to the truth about this president? ... Well, then that's a hard question to answer.
The strange thing is, most everyone who isn't in Trumpland sees the problem very clearly, and that it starts with everything that comes out of Mr. Trump's mouth.
It's not hard to miss the fact that his phony nationalist appeal plays better in some places in the nation than in others, which is why he always goes there. And it's hard to ignore his hurtful legislations that have only one goal in mind; to erase every living memory of his predecessor, even if it means poisoning the water we drink and the air that we breathe without any viable recourse to affordable health care.
And don't forget those new taxes, and the fact that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will soon be a thing of the past. And all those new tariffs against China that will ultimately result in less U.S. productivity in what few remaining manufacturing industries we have left.
And then there's the specter of an ever-growing racial, social, political and geographical divide that is fraying the very fabric of this country -- and the fact that those in Trumpland don't see it.
So it's my guess that's the matter with Trumpland... and the rest of us are just paying for it.
15
I know it's not his main point, but Krugman trots out his tired argument about soaring housing prices caused "in large part by nimbyism," or, in other words, people who don't want giant high rises in their neighbourhoods. The supply provided by monstrous towers will do little to nothing to lower prices in cities like NYC, which Krugman has decried for its rampant nimbyism, where demand is international. My current hometown is also proof: we have built like mad, but housing prices have soared.
On another note: calling somewhere "Trumpland" isn't gonna get you many friends from the other side of these debates. I wonder who this article is for?
3
Sadly, Dr Krugman's point IS that the villagers of Trumpland have had their issues defined clearly and have been given many opportunities to not only improve the status quo but to thrive, and with the exception of the latest uprisings in Wisconsin and Michigan, have chosen to vote against their betterment and instead select regression and wallow in their pity-party.
There is no question who the article is for, the question remains is why do they keep pushing away the life preserver?
5
It is small potatoes and engaging to cultivate a good attitude when you are not fretting over the heating bill. When asked for a forecast of the outcome of the presidential elections by a rara avis in Maryland, I hedged on the policy that honesty is not always the best way to blather.
It will not be a landslide, I ventured, but a close call and there is a chance that Trump could win. In conformity with her volatile climatic nature, the shouting began, and it was all because I lived in Trumpland (and baseball caps) - remember, Mr. Krugman, when Trump and Pence are sweltering it out in Louisiana, doling out care packages to those in need, wearing their caps in the sun, as a measure of solidarity and unison with The People.
Pay attention to our Elders here who will never trust Wall Street, Big Government, Washington, or politicians. Especially 'The bleeding-heart Liberals', even though on occasion they wax nostalgic for the Days of Bill Clinton.
Mr. Otter, a retired construction worker, likes promises made by Trump. The Coal Industry and giving jobs back to the miners among us. He likes The Wall, although he enjoys hiring Hispanics, and after all, it is all 'Obama's fault' and 'how could we vote for somebody with a name like that', followed by 'whatever happened to tit for tat'. He used to have some Black friends and some of them were quite nice.
Austria and I, earlier had one of our spars about 'Poor People'. They are angry; 'involuntary poverty is ugly'.
"And when it comes to national politics, let’s face it: Trumpland is in effect voting for its own impoverishment."
It's the Dunning Kruger effect writ large. People with inadequate critical thinking skills, not even enough to recognize an obvious con man, lack the skills needed to recognize both this inadequacy and other Republican cons (e.g., right to work laws).
12
In July 2007 I formed the Free Right Now political party, I posted about it to my blog. Then it was me thinking about the winding down of the WWJD thought meme, What Would Jesus Do. The people had a cool idea and it ran it's course, but they were starting to miss the whole point of Jesus. They had co=oped it to what would Jesus Drive. Which is just a bit funny as he would have walked even in our world, and taken a boat, and would have flown as well. But those two are around a lot of other people. Before this I had come across the Joshua book (a modern retelling of Jesus like guy trying to bring peace back). So being a thinker person and an author, amoung other things. I thought in the election cycle When Jesus ran for POTUS what would his Platform be, and thus the party was formed. That first blog post was bare bones. I was posting my thoughts to Energy Information forums then. Helping the homeless in Central Ark, and just walking about.
I recently Revised the thoughts behind the Free Right Now party and my run for the POTUS in 2020, (thought experiment mostly, but) I lined out the basics.
Trump came on the scene after the savior got elected Obama, who was just a man, but his Talking points spoke to the Family values of the progressives. and Trump is the savior for the other side.
But they are both human men, I wanted to see the first female POTUS, But i liked Bernie better.
Trump in a cartoon is seen hugging the Cross, T is for Trump....That is the issue.
My father-in-law who immigrated to this country with no possessions or money and who spoke very little English (he became fluent) once told me that anyone, regardless of background, race, nationality or circumstances can succeed in America if they really, really want to. Hard work and making sacrifices will result in the American dream for anyone making these choices. We are all very quick to blame the economic plight on geography, racism, government and anyone or anything else we can think of. I remember the journey of my father-in-law (who became very successful) and what he was able to achieve for himself and his children.
11
A very few manage to do this; I know many people, in particular, women, who work 2, sometimes 3 jobs to barely stay afloat. Don't tell me how anyone can succeed when your father-in-law was a man.
1
Good to finally read a very thoughtful piece by Krugman, instead of the typically Trump-bashing derangement. We are all Americans, so lets discuss calmly on how to solve our problems, recognizing there is a very legitimate reason why Trump is president today. The solution to Trumpland is not complicated: simply boils down to providing better paying job opportunities — get factories to move back; tax policy that encourages companies to invest in America; open up coal and energy exploration; better trade deals that helps American workers first; immigration policy that does not harm the labor pool and forces wages down. Just sImple common sense notions, does not need a Nobel Laureate to understand.
4
Factories are increasingly run with robots - moving them back will not create jobs the way it did in the past.
We have a robust fuel industry, and solar is amongst them. Coal is going to be a thing of the past. Renewables is where the world is moving.
Trump is ruining us regarding trade deals. His ignorance is a huge gift to China and a drain on the US.
We could argue about the net effect of immigration on wagers, but ultimately all of us want a decent immigration policy. Immigration policy has been held up largely by the Tea Party and ultra conservatives who proceeded them. We almost had a major bill pass under GWB but the extremists killed it. Reasonable trade policy is possible, but not with extremists in Congress, and certainly Trump is no leader on this issue.
1
Why are factories always touted as the answer to employment problems? Are Americans only ever to be a nation of assembly-line workers? Don't poor and middle-class workers ever tire of being told their problems will go away if they could just work in a factory? Politicians denigrate education and convince constituents that educated people are out of touch "elites." But, the uneducated are also easier to manipulate and control, so of course politicians would rather keep them that way. The calls for more factory work overlook the reality that more and more of those dangerous, boring and repetitive jobs are being done by robots, who don't ask for higher wages, work 24-hour shifts, don't need benefits and never get sick. The days of factory work for everyone are behind us. Americans have to stop thinking that education is a waste of time. Even though Trump ridiculed community colleges, they have done an amazing job of lifting millions of Americans out of poverty and into good-paying jobs, and should be encouraged more than factory work. Americans must aspire to something higher if we want to succeed. Education,not factory work, is the way to get there.
Your concept is correct but the steps necessary for low wage or unemployed workers to arrive at the Promised Land is way off base. Better-paying jobs would help lower poverty but coal and energy exploration and manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back. Specialized education is the only way forward.
Alternative energy has created many more jobs than coal has lost. Energy exploration is being done by satellites and specialized geological computer software. The USA is currently setting records in oil production. Yet, employment in the energy states hasn't grown. When a potential oil find is located and drilling commences, new automated technologies take over from manual labor. Employment in the energy sector is neutral at best. When you combine the neutral employment picture with the fact that the USA is setting records in oil production, it's not a pretty picture for those employed in the oil sector. As far as manufacturing is concerned, production lines are going to be manned by robots. The future isn't bright for those who citizens who don't have specialized education. We're agreed on immigration. It's the DNA of America. Each immigrant group, after several generations, have added to the rich and diversified lifestyle available in the USA.
States that opt for tax cuts (that just happen to be whoppers for the super rich and peanuts for the rest) have no money for education, healthcare or infrastructure. Their legislatures won't even accept federal help. Clearly, voters in these states have been sold a bill of goods by unscrupulous politicians who are used to turning political power into economic gain. Just as our president has been doing at the federal level.
33
As a resident of CT, how is your state doing with multiple tax increases over the past few years? How is education outside of the gold coast towns? How about the state pension? Roads?
2
Our GDP growth has not been enough to cover expanding population. The reasons for GDP growth not pacing well enough are manifold but unwillingness to even out inequity and stimulate modern infrastructure are major factors.
President
GDP Growth Avg
GDP/Capita (Also seems to be about Median Income)
Normalized 1961
Eisenhower 2.76% $16,869 $16,869
Kennedy /Johnson 5.01% $21,209 $16,891
Nixon/Ford 2.95% $25,289 $12,226
Carter 2.80% $28,603 $9,139
Reagan 3.64% $32,596 $7,776
Bush 1 2.03% $36,098 $7,450
Clinton 3.66% $41,666 $7,093
Bush 2 1.64% $47,560 $6,623
Obama 2.29% $49,720 $6,258
Exacerbating this problem is the negative effect rightful automation has on the need for unskilled and semi-skilled labor. One has to be about 3 times more "skilled" to solidly penetrate Middle Class than you did in the 1950s.
Further complicating this issue is our love of dogmatic ideology, our parochial life styles, revelation, charismatic figures (mostly charlatans and false friends), and rugged individualism fantasies over cold hard facts and more scientific processes and assessments.
This and our apathy otherwise has allowed demagoguery and charlatans to rule the day.
The GOP offers ZERO cures for what ails us. It offers wealth for the already wealthy and false hope to the masses.
Dems at least woke to issues.
33
Since automation will only skyrocket in the future, and since blue collar jobs have already disappeared, please explain why we need more immigration (of would be workers).
1
They vote, don't they?
Because a large number of immigrants (majority) are highly educated professionals, highly skilled otherwise in many things, highly motivated e.g. as entrepreneurs, highly moral and of good character, and even if not highly skilled/educated smart and hard and willing workers at jobs must of us here would eschew. And most of their children will rise higher because of the fire in their parents' bellies to come here.
We need them ... the only reason they challenge "real" Americans is because they are better - isn't that capitalism at work????
So, according to Mr. Krugman, everything could be solved by more socialism.
Wondering why doesn’t he move to a socialist dreamland, like Cuba, Venezuela or Bolivia.
Also in the bastion of Western European social democracy we arrived to a point where the city of Vienna (red-green governed)
is accumulating EUR 500 mio deficit each passing year. Wondering who will pay for it ?
(50% of the GDP is spent on different welfares, in the US this is between 17-19%).
From about EUR 65thsd gross/year you are taxed here around 50% meanwhile you never will be able to buy a 80sqm flat
in Vienna (other places than some infamous districts).
We had socialism for the past 60 years, so what’s the issue ?
Maybe less inequality in the world as a whole, countries like China, India, Brazil are also taking a share of the wealth,
So less is distributed in the west. Or ?
3
Aid to poor regions needs to be about far, far more than just “Medicaid”. Some good old fashioned jobs programs are what is really required. Everything from Amtrak to rural airports needs to be fully funded again, just like in the fifties. Need to add a few million blue collar jobs? Propose a real infrastructure program, one that replaces every bridge and water pipe within ten to fifteen years. Want to make boring infrastructure sound more exciting? Start researching and deploying new, advanced technologies for the twenty second century. Automated cars and trucks on the way? How about optimizing roads and traffic systems to be ready for the transition? All these things must be done or America really will fade into a second rate economic power. We could end up just like Russia, bristling with nukes and tanks while our citizens work for scraps. Democrats only hope is to out Trump, Trump. Make government programs sexy again. Sell the sizzle. Use it to wrap around the things that are good for you. Set bold goals, not boring budget spreadsheets laced with stats. It’s not about “eventually getting to Mars”, it’s about committing us to land by next Tuesday. It’s not about filling potholes, it’s about building the country of tomorrow! Democrats needs to stop lecturing and start motivating. Do all of this and the social backpedaling we care so much about will almost seem to correct itself. Also, don’t forget to take full credit for anything Trump accidentally does right.
20
Perhaps one divergence we see today (economic greed/religious extremism) is really a full circle return to America's roots.
The earliest two groups of colonizers from Europe came here to: 1--increase their wealth (by exploiting the environment--beaver, tobacco etc--and humans) and 2--practice their "extremist" Protestant religions.
What are we today? A country seemingly dominated by greedy elite investors and harassed by religious extremists.
The mirage was the brief time in history when there was a large, contented middle class.
9
Unionization brought varied results, but many gave us lectures, book clubs, art, and, for my family, a fine medical centre for Philadelphia's clothing-workers. My father belonged to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and I benefitted. Its head, Sidney Hillman, fought Communists in the working class, teamed up with government, manufacturers, and other unionists help FDR control many of the larger strikes that endangered wartime production. "In solidarity there is strength" was the ACWA motto.
The murder of our unions brought a quick fix to profit slippage after WWII, but it also slowed education, decreased health, ended cheap loans... and renewed wage and pension disparities. It sent jobs to near-slave working conditions abroad and brought undocumented wage-competitors across the border. Few union members? Few unions now have power compared to anti-worker PACs, while Germany and Japan worker protections, education, medical care, vacations, and pensions we dropped. Ask Trump, Koch, Mercer, Ryan, Carson, de Vos, Pruitt, and FOX News why Benz and VW are unionized peacefully and profitably, and read "No End Save Victory" by David Kaiser about that lost ingredient, "the labor leader".
12
The disappearance of unions wasn’t a murder,’it was a suicide. When you kill the industries you live off of (kill the host), you kill your self.
American unions have worked out great for workers in Asia and Africa however.
Some did themselves harm, but not in Germany, e.g., or in your Canada with the "AutoPact". I think "the open shop" meant unions lost support from people benefitting from union agreements, workers who got something for nothing.
Germany has no "open shop", nor does Scandinavia. Unions supplied the income that government in the US would not: health care benefits, educational aid, workplace-safety, and reliable pensions. Who in Europe took them away from Benz and VW workers? No one. Only the Red States in the US...
How do you ready people for the future who listen to Fox, do not believe in evolution and read the bible as a scientific, historical document?
We got a real problem on our hands in the fact that the economy of software, technology, mathematics and science doesn't share its rewards with people who do not or will not participate in it.
For all the cries against immigration, maybe the Trumper needs to learn how to frame a house, lay a brick, pound a nail, dig holes, lay rebar, pour concrete, mow lawns and roof houses.
There are jobs there for which only a grade school education is required. They will not be rich but their wages will be commensurate with their education.
Welcome to capitalism as they wanted it.
24
How do you ready the people who are middle aged, established in their lives, and not above average? They suddenly find the basics of their life gone, and then what? "They should be smarter?"
4
They should stop worshipping ignorance and improve themselves.
Life is a continuous learning/education experience and should be treated as such.
Your skills today may not be as applicable to tomorrow, which needs to be recognized and addressed. It's hard, but we need to constantly evolve in our skills and having a president who gives promises to bring back coal by killing alternative energy jobs is only paying lip service to those who want a pat on the head and a shoulder to cry on, not realizing he is not their benefactor (one only needs to recognize how he rails at cheap steel while using it whenever he can).
With a humongous deficit of 1.3 trillion dollars, I do not see that "reduction of government", Dr. Krugman.
What I see is a relentless attack on education and social programs, but ot downsizing the government, unless the military is not considered part of the "government."
6
The deficit is not from the size of government, it is from the size of the tax cuts.
We currently spend about 4% of GDP on defense, which is far too much. However, even half of that would be saving just 2% of GDP. Defense spending is a problem, but it is not the real source of the big problem. That comes from the people with all the money from all the growth for decades keeping it for themselves, "I've got mine."
6
The deficit is from the size of the tax cuts *and* from the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Take those out of the equation and the situation is not nearly as dire.
Who brought you both of those? Republican politicians.
Is it important the origin/reason of the Deficit? I think not.
"A deficit is a Deficit"; that is not downsizing government at all. Neither items of the deficit like the "Eisenhowerian " growth of the "Military-Industrial complex."
Maybe we need a Radio Free U.S. where we can broadcast programs other than those owned by right-wing media giants to isolated rural areas of the country. A major priority in our country should be the delivery of science based- and fact-based programming to the the information deserts of this land.
20
The poorest states in the union are red/republican like Ky, Alabama, Mississippi, OH, Nevada and OK.
So, Cutting Dept of Ed, social security, Medicare/medicade, Food Stamps will hurt his core supporters the most. Republicans will never see a return of coal mining jobs any more than they’ll see Trumps tax returns.
18
Which is cause and which effect?
Are they poor because they are Republican and have backward ideas?
Or are they Republican because they are poor and forgotten and angry?
Republicans may feed off that anger, but what are these voters really offered, apart from insults and the promise that other places will do even better?
Republicans may have much to blame, but Democrats have their own logs in their own eyes.
2
Yes, but they do not care. They never did. They blame the Dems. They always do. They believe real problem is that the GOP has not given enough to the rich. And the Dems want to destroy America.
They believe this with all their hearts, without regard to anything else the see or experience.
1
I was an MBA student about 12 years ago in a conservative university. There were several Econ classmates who insisted that the Laffer Curve, trickle down economics, an ownership society, no tax on capital gains, reduced regulations, and small government were the only viable options for America. In spite of many articles, research, discussions, istory, and papers, they simply refused to listen to an opposing viewpoint.
if MBA students refuse to acknowledge good research and convincing numbers, there seems little hope that the average American will listen either. Politics is about emotions, not about logic. Never has been, never will be.
41
Politics is not completely about emotion. The Koch/Republican network is about economics and uses social issues to inflame emotions in the Republican rural electorate. On the other hand, labor unions were at one time major political players in the Democratic Party. The old industrial unions won't rise again. But perhaps teachers' unions will develop into serious national political organizations. And there are even rumblings in some of the largest technology companies.
6
Most schools have some bad students, whom education only makes into greater fools.
The saving grace is that there is a lot of intelligence among regular folks. We see that on juries all the time. You'll see it all the time in the good sense of some blue collar workers and clerical types who are underappreciated by those with unwarranted higher opinions of themselves.
Which would you trust, either of the Kushner brothers who had places bought for them at Harvard, or the plumber they'd call to fix what they broke by doing something stupid?
3
He majority of economists lean right generally.
Part of that hole in which we are stuck is due to systems that are archaic. For example our educational system assumptions create and reinforce the learning differences you talk about. Our economic, social and political systems do as well. Taking education as an example of this rigidity, we see a system that uses the same approaches available for the last four hundred years if not more. We have the knowledge and tools to create new assumptions that could address the issues you speak of, but our politics and cultural biases won’t let that happen. Just ask yourself why the expertise is located where it is and then think about the reasons why we don’t make that expertise available across the whole US - it is possible for us all to do the learning we need to move forward, our problems are within us and our failures to move beyond rigid systemic boxes.
5
Unfortunately, Twain was right: where I live, the Trump supporters can never be convinced that they are mistaken, only overwhelmed at the polls, and ... over time ... replaced. The reason is cultural here: even if they understood all of Krugman's arguments, they would vote based on issues of sexual morality, respect for traditional authority, and gun ownership (with a dash of racial fear); not income inequality and shared prosperity. I would guess a similar mindset exists in Mississippi -- and even in the Sicily of Dr Krugman's example.
58
Do you really think that Democrats are immune to cultural arguments and litmus tests? Do Democratic candidates ever say that abortions are actually declining, largely because of the ready availability of birth control pills and devices? Have any other Democratic candidates taken Conor Lamb's nuanced position on the issue?
1
What this says is that it disagrees with them about everything, money issues and all other issues too, all of the cultural ones.
Perhaps we could work on getting agreement on money issues, and stop for awhile with the insults and abuse on other issues.
2
What you refer to as "sexual morality", I would refer to as belief in love, marriage and commitment. Why do liberals insist that those are negative things? The right to own a gun has been fundamental in this country for centuries, and for many is essential for self protection, as is a strong police force. Respect for traditional authority maintains order/structure and avoids chaos.
1
America is a victim of its own individualism myth - as manifest by the primacy of the states. A national education scheme, a national health care scheme, a national transportation and infrastructure scheme - would all go towards equalizing society. This isn't socialism - the rest of the system remains - but core elements with benefit for all Americans would at least be subject to rational long term thinking.
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It's going to be an interesting couple of years. Teachers are demanding higher pay, better facilities, and greater investment in education. That will, of course, require higher taxes. And fewer services. So people will have to decide if Republican policies of lower taxes and cuts to social programs will make their lives better. And Republicans will either have to run supporting more investment in education or in criticizing the teachers. So the way out of poverty for children, education, becomes the pawn in the Republican chess match. And Republicans will ultimately face a checkmate situation because they have absolutely no move to avoid being boxed into the corner. They made their move, giving more to the wealthy. Pretty hard to defend that move when teachers have not had a raise in ten years. And without a tax increase, or for the public agreeing to forego healthcare or food on the table, defending that will be very difficult.
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"That will, of course, require higher taxes."
Or ending six or seven wars, and reducing the defense budget to what we ask of our allies, about half of what it is now.
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As we have already seen in NJ, Republicans will blame the teachers.
At least in W. Virginia, my understanding is that to give more to the teachers, they are shorting other social programs.
Not one mention of the heartland's loss of Labor Unions?
Interesting considering it was the Labor Union that created The Middle and Working classes in the first place.
Sadly Labor Unions are not even discussed anymore.
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Unions were discussed fairly recently. There have been a couple of votes by workers at foreign car assembly plants in the southeastern US, where else, on whether to organize with the UAW. Both times a majority of workers voted down union representation. The companies remained neutral but there was hard anti-union lobbying by local Republicans.
Success! As you say, unions aren't even discussed any more.
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Unions aren't discussed anymore because the corporations and wealthy plutocrats who control congress and the media make sure they aren't discussed. Beyond all else, the oligarchy hates unions or any efforts of workers to organize. Suppressing labor organization is more important than even tax cuts.
With the exception of two big events, the Revolution and the European wars of the 20th century, America's primary struggle has been with disunion. The difference now is that for the first time in our history we have a president who thrives on disunion as a means to gain personal power. (Regardless,of what one may feel about presidents like Pierce and Buchanan, they sought to protect the union.) Unlike all other presidents, Trump wants to, needs to, divide the country. Those who support him understand that and embrace those divisions.
Interestingly, the only person who called himself "president" and favored disunion was Jefferson Davis. That one of his namesakes, Jeff Sessions is third generation in his family named after Davis, is now the top legal officer in the nation should tell you that we haven't come very far from our beginnings as a fractured country.
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was the top legal officer in the nation...
Several years before Nixon’s ‘historic” visit to China, a group of American women—mostly of color—made the visit. In Detroit, we had house parties to raise the funds to send several of our women.
When they returned, they held community meetings to describe their experiences.
One of the things that was most poignant was how peasants were taught to embrace modern technologies. Trained people—mostly engineers from the universities—used models to show uneducated farmers how to build dams, roads and bridges to increase crop yields and to allow locals to move crops to urban centers.
The lesson was to retrain people, not to for new jobs but how to do better the ones that were still needed. “Creative destruction” was indeed destructive—a western way that also destroyed communities. The Chinese sought ways to keep communities but change how communities did what they did.
That was a part of the “Cultural Revolution” we did not see because our vision was trained to only see what scared politicians wanted us to see—the things that didn’t work and not the things that did work.
Now, 60 years later, China is an economic giant bigger than Russia and approaching the stature of the United States.
American neighborhoods have been abandoned as have been the factories that supported them. American needs to save neighborhoods by changing what neighborhoods produce.
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I think Trump is handing Democrats the mid-terms, but only if Democrats get out of the identity trap and focus their message on jobs, education, and healthcare.
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This.
Exactly this.
I recommend Strangers in their own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Hochschild. It provides much insight into what underlies “Trumpland’s” support for a political party and policies that harm their most basic interests and futures.
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Trumpland might also be called Kochland. There, ALEC provides the blueprint for an ultra-libertarian life. Wisconsin is virtually ruled by ALEC. The tax cuts Krugman references in other states are straight out of the ALEC playbook. Some people in Trumpland agree that climate change is real and that sane gun laws are needed, but the Koch control-machine will not allow anything to be done by government--no matter what, they can't admit that government has a legitimate role. Everything must be privatized, remember? And remember that government is the problem. Keep in mind, too, that the largest experiment in Koch fantasy economics was in Chile, and that murder and torture were essential tools for making Chile great again.
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For some reason ALEC is largely ignored in the media, other than ALECexposed.org and occasional articles in other online venues.
As you point out, absent ALEC there is no Trumpistan or Kochlandia.
How is it that most of America has no idea ALEX is behind the majority of draconian GOP legislation?
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This makes a lot of sense although I am not sure how you can leave out discussions of post 1970's tax cuts, and, consolidation of virtually every industry. Author has written in past about monopoly power driving profits so much of which come at the expense of labor.
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It would be better if you asked what's the matter with Capitalism. While there are a great many factors which result in the disparities you mention, the underlying frame work is the capitalistic system we have that focuses on economic gains, the amassing of "capital" despite any effects of that effort.
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I personally know 3 women, not related, all of whom have never lived more than 50 miles away from where they were born, schooled, raised, and married. Two of the three have never traveled outside of their own state. The one who did went as far as NYC and couldn't stand it even one day and thus did her honeymoon week in NYC end the same day it started.
I know of 2 men who have traveled the world, one via active military. Both of those men settled into the town that their wives refused to move from.
It makes no sense to me at all that any one person who wants to would choose to stay in a place where they can't find a job or a job that will pay them enough to live on. I moved constantly, it seemed, to place my children within better school districts. The longest we ever lived in one place was 6 years when they were high school. They couldn't believe that I packed up and left that town as soon as the last child left home after high school. They, my own children, expected me to stay there the rest of my life in a dead end job. The only way up was to become an R.N. because the town was becoming a retirement community for some of the most wealthy retired Americans.
I've concluded that there are quite a few people who are more like the dog who gets caught in a trap and just decides to lay there and die instead of the fox that chews off its leg and moves on to hunt and breed for a few more years.
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You don't see many three legged foxes out there, because most of them die.
People stay in dying towns becasue there is some social support network that can help with your children, getting to and from the store or other appointments if you don't have a car, people who will give you a chance just because they know you or your family, and you have a roof over your head because it was paid off by your parents. Never mind that you can' t sell that house or land due to the depressed market so your equity is really just theoretical.
Until there is some kind of grant or program, similar to what we give refugees, to get these individuals and families moving away from economic dead zones, they will see economic opportunity in a distant city as not something for them but maybe thier kids, if they can get their kids through admittedly weak schools.
Just like urban poor these families don't have the bootstraps by which to pull themselves up and need similar amounts of non-condescending financial and social help.
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Agreed with Susannah, as I commented elsewhere I was encouraged not only to go to school but to move to where the opportunities are, which is how I ended up in nyc. I won't stay here forever because cost of living is crazy but I'll have a leg up to find another job elsewhere when I'm ready to go because of the job experience I gained here. Even college educated friends back home are still stuck in soul crushing sales jobs. In response to Adrienne, If they expressed willingness to leave I would believe your reasoning, but in my experience they don't. They want to stay where they are because change is uncomfortable and hard and they expect jobs to be handed to them. When there is an outcry for assistance to leave economically troubled areas I will support it wholeheartedly, but it will have to come from those people directly.
We had a cat who did perfectly well all spring, summer, and autumn long with 3 legs. It was only during the winter that she spent most of her time sleeping in the house.
Just in case you didn't understand what I wrote. I was a single parent of 3 children. Divorce happens. For every one month I received any child support there were 11 months were nothing was received. My x was too busy playing to settle down. The only time I asked for help was when I was still married to him, he was in one of 'waiting-for-the-right-job' modes, when our son was born and was sent to the NICU in Loma Linda. Hence, it was Medical Aide to pay for the HUGE cost of NICU. I was the sole support of our family and he couldn't be bothered to take care of the children just in case he got a call for a second interview from his 'Dream Job'.
He was staunch Republican. Absolutely hated welfare queens (that is how Republicans say 'Black or Mexican Entitlements). However he didn't mind at all that he sat on butt day in and day out for months, reading one Soldier of Fortune paperback after the other, while I was trying to support him, our kids, and do all the cooking/housework. I learned not to respect people who think they are owed something and as soon as they get it they will be riding high. If a woman with 3 kids, 2 hamsters, 3 cats, and one dog can pack up and move from TX to CA on her last paycheck, then the conclusion is only laziness is stopping those who sit & wait for their ship to come in.
Mr. Krugman, you may have phrased your column "What's the Matter With Fantasyland" ?
Many of the Trump fans in rural areas were living in the fantasy that the "good old days" of the 50's and 60's would go on for ever. Farm prices were livable, until corporate farming put then out of work. The small town Mom & Pop stores that helped the local economy slowly but surly were driven under by the Way-Marts and other big box stores.
I guess no one ever told these undereducated that nothing ever remains the same. As technology and business advances, education is paramount and cutting taxes is no way to advance in todays world where it's advance or die.
Kurt Anderson wrote a terrific book "FANTASYLAND: How America went haywire. A 500 year history". But just try to get the voters of Trumpland to read a book like that would be like pulling their remaining teeth.
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Why does Trumpland vote for policies that impoverish them?
Answer: The GOP has managed to convince many that "government spending" means taking money from hardworking rural (white) communities and and giving it to undeserving urban (minority) communities.
There was a recent study that showed that Trump voters were less accepting of mortgage relief programs if the model representing the program was a minority.
In other words, in Trumpland, government is considered the enemy and source of their ills.
To Trumpland, progressive Government immigration policies represents the taking away of blue collar rural jobs, the loss of American culture and, of course, the introduction of drugs from Mexico.
To Trumpland, education represents elites looking down on them, kids moving away and that they must change their way of life of making it via gut instincts and common sense
Trumpland is voting on resentment, fear and a notion that of Trump vanquishes those so-called elites and undeserving minorities, they and their kids will be able to compete and regain the economic footing that their parents had
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