Carter, HW Bush.
NYT: I wished you would at least educate your readers who your Opinion writers are before your readers get into exchanges that really are not particular helpful to anybody but those who love to sow and thrive on conflict.
The Washington Free Beacon is smack in the middle between right and extreme right. If you check out the Media Bias Fact Check (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-free-beacon/), you will also find out that "Overall, we rate the Washington Free Beacon Right Biased based on story selection that favors the right and Mixed for factual reporting due to misleading and false claims."
If you check the website of The Washington Free Beacon, you will find that it claims to be "dedicated to uncovering the stories that the powers that be hope will never see the light of day." In right-wing speech this probably means that it embraces and reports on conspiracy theories. When I googled this just now, I found a lot of evidence of this.
8
The thing to watch for is targeted misinformation on social media. Trump won in the US and the Brexiteers won in the UK by using scare tactics on social media using fake stories like HRC being a pedophile or the EU costing the British economy hundreds of millions a week. Trump will do this again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSMr-3GGvQ
The most dangerous people are the ones like Trump and McConnell who have no ideology but only want to stay in power.
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/05/729957825/mitch-mcconnell
3
“...Elites insulate themselves...” [op cit]
—
Well said!
—
Shades of the French Revolution, wouldn’t you say?
“...Let them eat cake...” Sound familiar?
2
The former thinking class, aka Democrats, are really putting forth a tremendous effort to guarantee they’ll lose in 2020.
Between their promoting monetary reparations for slavery to their endless cheerleading, ad nauseam, on behalf of the tens of thousands of migrants illegally swarming across our southern border month after month....
Free health insurance for illegal aliens in California while American citizens struggle to pay their premiums, if they can afford them at all!
Way to go, Dems!
6
I think Trump has a great shot at winning because all he sells is stupid. Americans will line up around the block to buy stupid.
8
Wow. What a crock!
Why is it that the majority of Americans who neither voted for Trump nor favor most of his vile, White Nationalist policies are termed “elites.”
Why is a minority who support the rich and the non-taxpaying upper slice along with their wannabes who believe that association with these elites will help them continue White Privilege considered “non-elites.”
5
Democrats must accept the facts of this column. The right is in its ascendancy all over the world. It didn't start in the US but trxmp's election gave it a set of very powerful legs (and other anatomical features). Ignore this at your peril, dems. Nominate someone who can win, period. It's no time for symbols and cherished dreams. A symbolic victory will simply be a crushing, devastating, irreversible blow leading to the total evisceration of everything you have worked for for the past century.
This is what is at stake: trxmp 2020, Pence 2024, Pence 2028, SC 9-0.
7
"But there really can be no doubt that Mr. Trump was among the first heralds of an anti-elitist turn that has disrupted politics..."
Is the author blind? The most elite of the elitist postures is "the rules don't apply to me." – a position that is the core of trump.
And trump is such an "outsider" that he doesn't even know anyone. His primary advisors are his children and Fox News pundits. That's "outsider" to the point of irrelevant. If it wasn't for his continual tweets and screw-ups - there would be nothing to report on about him.
The world doesn't progress because of trump - it moves despite him.
2
Ah yes, he's definitely anti-elite. You can tell by the way he taxes the rich, fights for collective bargaining and workers' rights, and hahahaha I can't even go on.
I agree with this column in regards to Trump having a better chance of victory than the current crop of polling indicates. This is a reality that should not be ignored or forgotten. The rest of it is just conservative drivel.
771
@karp
That is all very nice and dandy, but how does it help Trump' non-elite voters?
Trump's policies are like giving a better filet mignon, pricier wine, and cushier seats to the first class passengers in the flight; and give an extra packet of pretzels to the economy class passengers.
43
@Roarke The thing you're missing is, you're not an authoritarian. Bob Altemeyer explains it very well.
You have to start from the idea that social hierarchies are right, natural, and good. The rich should be obeyed by the poor; the weak should be in thrall to the powerful. But embedded in this is the idea of legitimate vs. illegitimate power: the former is what we're used to, and the latter is any way of reaching the top of the pyramid that's different, weird, or new.
So "elite" doesn't mean just someone at the top. It means someone who wants to steal power instead of earning it: to upend the hierarchy. Getting a degree in climate science isn't supposed to allow you to tell businessmen what to do. Organizing isn't supposed to give workers power over owners. That's cheating. Those are the "elites" Trump voters want to stop.
36
@karp well said. If the regular lower-middle classes are afraid that the winds of change will put cracks in the (rigid) structures of social hierarchies they will run to the wealthy conservative who promises to build a wall to stop that wind, purely fantastical horror story.
22
The general perception on the left of a Trump voter is heavily skewed and flawed. There are a heavy dose of educated conservative/moderate voters out there in cities like mine who while roll their eyes at much of what Trump tweets or says. The problem is on the other end of the spectrum we have the far left pushing for some of the most radical abortion laws in the world, slave reparations, restrictions on free speech, and open borders. Democrats have moved so far to left because of angry twitter mobs and moronic millennials that they’ve alienated and continue to alienate many who would have considers themselves very middle ground on most issues less than 5 years ago. No of course we’re just demonized as racist and bigots. No nuance whatsoever and that what continues to push us further apart, at least on online platforms.
2
Fear mongering is galvanizing. Creating an 'us vrs. 'them' argument is what T. does best. I think he sees himself as a victim of 'the system' and this is what many of his base align with. They are also victims of the system (pick your system). T. still reminds me of videos of Hitler. It is the delivery of the (social) emotion in their speeches and the appeal is not their knowledge or political savvy or their 'reasonedness' it is emotionally. And, many of us humans around the world apparently, are easily swayed when emotion is taped into -- especially fear.
It is so much harder to connect and get excited about a vision of the world as wonderfully diverse, clean environment, and employability for all. After all, that just plan hard work to strive for that. Until we let go of the 'us' vrs 'them' (elitism or not) we will suffer the consequences of someone with T.'s fear mongering.
1
What is the wave? Fear.
1
Also, the toxicity of the political correctness debate is starting to polarize the voters more than ever before. Everyone is for equality but seeing racial preferentialisation practiced widely in entertainment (the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, MTV awards etc are widely seen as sops to interest groups rather than merit, hence 50% decline in viewership), federal grants, jobs and contracts, immigration, mainstream media agendas... can reach a point of knee jerk rejection, the exact opposite of what has been hoped for. Why not stop stoking the flames of racial polarization, imagined privileges and self-serving grievance?!
3
It's all about turnout. His followers will be out, guaranteed, like sheep to the slaughter. If dems, millenials and every single voter who is nauseated by this slimeball turn out, the country still has a chance to recover. Otherwise, not. VOTE.
1
"Only two of the nine presidents up for re-election since World War II have lost. In the past century the public has booted a party from the White House after a single term just once. And Jimmy Carter’s presidency was plagued by foreign policy setbacks and stagflation. Neither condition pertains today."
Jimmy Carter also never slept with porn stars or told people to grab women by the you-know-what. No President has been this polarizing and had such consistently low approval ratings.
Yes poor people are to blame for immigration, terrorism and climate change. Thats what president Trump peddles, it must be true! The elites only made money off of the afore mentioned, they are blameless.
Can we just clarify that the "elites" are the wealthy of the world, but it serves as a dog-whistle to differentiate rich and the educated-left. And, though he rants agains the "elites", he did give them the greatest tax cut ever, the TRUMP TAX CUT!
Surprise, he lies to you.
1
I had a friend argue that he doesn't care what the president does as long as it helps the country. This is the basic argument from the rest of the GOP. But, Trump is a worldwide embarrassment. How does that help the country?
Further, the voters that support him do not understand the climate disaster on the horizon and Trump's dangerous dance with Iran. Due to the electoral college, the US is flying down the highway at 100 mph and the idiots have removed the brakes.
2
I hate to sound like a liberal elitist but for significant portion of “disenfranchised” rural whites, can we really separate their grievances from their massive ignorance? Watch a few town halls and tell me if I’m wrong.
3
One thing that is missed by elites is that lower class people do suffer directy from competition with illegal immigrants. Case in point the housing crisis in California. Absent the illegals competing for low cost housing there would be no shortage and few homeless.
1
Representative Governments don't act - they react. In the words of Charles Cook, Trump was elected by filling an inside straight. He lost the popular vote by three million votes, but won the Electoral College using the votes of anti abortion evangelicals and anti science creations, the displaced and resentful white working class , who are worse off because economic integration has made many more better off, and racists. Some of the groups are overlapping, but to lump them all together and call them nationalist is makes for a good title not for good analysis. Trump may also want to thank Clinton for her bewildering myopia about the electorate and James Comey for his rightgeous determination to always be free of blame.
Please stop fighting Trump: it is fuel for him! Dems need a strong and energetic candidate with his/her own plan and inspiring ideas. Don’t try to beat him but walk your own way.
1
OK got it:
the elites vs the entitled.
the compassionate vs the base of hate.
the lower to middle working class vs the minority rich and upper middle class.
Democrats: do not underestimate the power of anger, hate and entitlement.
Wishful thinking Mr. Continetti! There is no global 'anti-elite' wave. But each country is being divided between right and left (the goats and the sheep). Whichever is the majority will win (as along as they show up to vote). Cheating could of course, affect the results. We will find out for sure in 2020.
Today alone I have read that Democrats opened a reparations debate in Congress and that Democrats in NY are about to pass a climate change bill that may require me to pay more for electricity and undergo an expensive replacement of my home heating system. I also read that NY Democrats have passed a bill allowing illegal, undocumented people to get drivers licenses. Why do I suspect that the costs of all this lunacy will come from the same place it always comes from: my middle class, taxpaying, self-made pockets? Last question: who do you think I will vote for?
2
Who are the "elites" that the author refers to? I think they're just people who agree with the Times' agenda. I am a Montana farmer and an independent with a Master's degree in Mathematics, and I support the President's agenda.
The leftist agenda is not embraced by all Americans. Liberals have stubbornly refused to confront the issues of MASSIVE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION and OVERPOPULATION, not just of the U.S., but the entire world. They have also failed to recognize how the loss of industry has weakened our country, not just in terms of job losses (which is a secondary issue), but in terms of loss of capability.
As far as population is concerned, if we were to divide all of the land area of the Earth (including Antarctica, Greenland, all the deserts and mountains...), equally, amongst all the people of the Earth, each one of us would get about five acres. Now, imagine trying to get all your needs for subsistence from that five acres (food, clothing, shelter & materials, fuel and energy, mining...). If U.S. lands were divided equally amongst its citizens, each would get about 7.4 acres. In India, the number would be about 0.3 acres per person.
WE HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO OVERPOPULATE OUR COUNTRY, just because other people have already ruined theirs with UNCONTROLLED POPULATION GROWTH.
2
"Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, whose government was re-elected in an upset last month, famously held up a piece of coal before Parliament in 2017 and said, 'Don't be scared.' "
...Or, maybe, y'know...DO be scared.
Can't believe Continetti think anyone's actually gonna take this anti-climate denialism seriously. here.
1
Do we really have to have a recession for him to lose?!!!!
Perhaps that is the only thing that will thin out "the base".
Your analysis fails to take into account the distorting effect of the electoral college in the United States. Trump would never have been elected in a country, like France, where the system is based on one person, one vote. Bush would never have been elected either.
2
I see a lot of comments here fixated on the term "elite," and focusing on a definition closer to the literal dictionary version. But in politics it's become shorthand for those who are sufficiently insulated from the economic consequences of high-minded theories that they are safe to indulge in holier-than-thou preaching about how citizens of a wealthy nation, regardless of their relative standing within it, have an obligation to sacrifice their own economic well being for the greater good of the planet, and citizens of less wealthy countries. (Yeah, I know. A bit of a run-on sentence.) But that's what you're up against when you try to convince people to accept policies with benefits that are not immediately obvious for themselves.
3
Talk of "the elite" is misleading because there are several of them.
There is an economic elite (Trump is arguably part of that), an intellectual elite (this is the one Trump is really against). These are subdivided further. Sometimes there is a separate power elite, the people who are actually in control, but their power is not clearly derived from wealth or knowledge - for example Putin and friends, or the generals in places like Egypt or South America.
George Will put it very clearly when he was a guest on Bill Maher's show. Countries will *always* be run by an elite, the only question is which one? That is what the voters can sometimes influence.
And yes, Macron's ill conceived carbon tax and Obama's anti-fossil fuel policies were characteristic of the intellectual / tech entrepreneur elite. They were inspired by true concern for the environment but showed little regard for the not very educated middle class who need to get around in cars and trucks and depend on old-economy jobs.
The power / old industry elite represented by the Koch brothers and Putin etc. (and now championed by Trump) used their considerable influence to channel the anger of the blue collar middle class against their rival elites.
2
The independent voter in battleground states will most likely decide the election. The US "anti-elite" sentiment is not the same as it is in poor countries like Italy or Poland. There is a deep run of racism here that Trump has tapped into. I spent a lifetime running rural mills, it is real. People vote against their economic interests due to this and other social issues.
4
It's true that there are grievances that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have addressed, but to imagine Trump, aside from his boasts and pretensions, is the champion for solutions is absurd. Consider his iconic embrace of coal miners, who represent a shrinking portion of the American extractive industries. His promise to bring back coal is about as convincing to anyone who is not a coal miner as would be a promise to bring back the slide rule. His claim that he and his friends would end up paying more in taxes is a lie made to make the rest of America think he is their champion. The GOP's strategy for decades has been to fire up the electorate with wedge issues such as integration, abortion, gay rights--all tides of the future, harvest their votes and use that elected power to feather the corporate nest. Trump has just lowered this to the gutter. He rants about wedge issues stripped of any nuance and then gets to strut while Mitch McConnell gets to pass legislation and install judges to insure continued advantage to the well advantaged.
4
All this, yes. And more more thing: he's perfectly capable of stealing what isn't his by right. It's not a question of if he'll do it, it's a question of what we'll do when he does.
1
Conservatives like him because at a deep personality (not necessarily a behavioral) level they are like him.
Read up on authoritarianism. Most authoritarians are followers.
5
"Liberal elite" is just like "Obama Care." They are both Republican dog whistles for under-educated white racists. News stories had shown time and time again that the poorer, white, Republicans hate "Obama Care" but like the "Affordable Care Act." Of course they are two different names of the same health care system. The defining issues in the incoming Presidential election are 1) will the liberal Democrats still votes for the Democrat candidate if Bernie Saunders doesn't get the nomination. And with the Democrats put forward a candidate that will appear to all the people not just the left of center voters. Finally with the Bernie Saunders voters again abandon the Democratic party to vote third party id Bernie does not get the nomination?
2
Democrats would have a better chance if they talked more about the damage Trump has done to this country and to the world:
1 He pulled the US out of the JCPoA and may start a war with Iran,
2 He pulled the US out the Paris Agreement on global warming,
3 He ended nuclear arms-control agreements with Russia,
3 He started trade wars with the EU, Canada, Mexico, China, and other countries,
4 He ordered the mistreatment of immigrants,
5 He made hatred acceptable,
6 He ordered US forces to help Saudi Arabia commit crimes against humanity in Yemen, ...
And less about his inconsequential venalities:
6 Taking campaign help from Russia and from a UK company, Cambridge Analytica,
7 Profiting from his hotels near the White House where Saudis and others rent entire floors,
8 Colluding with his running mate Putin in order to build a hotel in Moscow, ...
4
Hillary Clinton was not nearly as strong a leader as Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Kamala Harris or Beto O'Rourke, yet Clinton beat Trump by over 3 million votes. Warren, Harris and O'Rourke do not have any albatrosses handing around their necks, either.
And the Democrats won back the House, strong, in November 2018. Mr. Continetti is talking about "The Wave That Could Carry Trump to Re-Election," but of course he is, as Mr. Continetti is a well-known conservative right wing journalist. Has Mr. Continetti reckoned with the fact that Kansas, deep red state Kansas, elected a Democratic governor recently? If Trump is a shoo-in for re-election, how is it that the Trump-backed Republican couldn't hold onto the Governor's mansion in Kansas? And that's not the only governor's mansion that was taken over by the Democrats last fall.
More and more women voters are standing against Trump. That's a huge advantage for the Democrats in 2020, as it was in 2018. New, Democratic governor of Kansas is a woman, by the way. She didn't get elected by a wave of anti-elitists.
5
History and the unrepresentative electoral college (further twisted by GOP gerrymandering and voter rights suppression) are definitely on Trump's side. However, I can only hope the reasonable and rational people of Murica will vote him out.
3
Another victory for Trump will result more likely because of the chaos within the Democrat party than as a referendum on the Trump presidency. If the Democrats continue promoting ridiculous issues such as reparations, a wealth tax (look up the details - most countries that tried that got rid of it), an end to ICE (not just its policies, but the agency as a whole), and lax boarder control (when, in the past, they were hawks on the subject) Mr. Trump will win again because most voters will be scared of the extreme Left. Better the devil we know, they will decide. As in 2016, with the hubris of the DNC in pushing Clinton, it is for the Democrats to lose the race rather than for Trump to win.
2
During his run for the Presidency against Ike, a woman came up to Adlai Stevenson and said - Senator Stevenson, all the smart people are for you. Stevenson said - That's nice, but I still need a majority.
369
@JoeG
Alas for any Dem in the race this might be the better
Adlai Stevenson quote
“I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them”
67
@JoeG - Wonderful!
7
@JoeG
Do you see a difference between Trump and Eisenhower?
3
The neoliberal strategy of out-Republicanning the Republicans, which worked in the 90s and 00s, led to the revolt against neoliberalism -- the blend of lip-servicing liberalism on social issues while marching to Wall Street's globalist tune doesn't wash with the great majority of voters who have been left out in the cold by the "booming" economy.
Trump speaks only for his base, while servicing the top 1%, yet his loutishness and ignorance is painted as somehow "populist" and "anti-elite" -- one hopes that the voters who haven't drunk the red Kool-Aid come to their senses in 2020 and vote out not only Trump, but as big a swath of Republicans as possible.
Meanwhile, the neoliberals still at the DNC will try to square the circle by ignoring Main Street while genuflecting before Wall Street. The DNC needs to jettison neoliberalism once and for all. What may have worked for Bill Clinton and Obama is insufficient for 2020 and beyond, largely because of the success of neoliberal economics.
5
Yes, I've found it curious that the hero of the conservative rural voter is a liberal New York promoter. But, that's the key -- he is quite the salesman. It can take a long time to see through lies, especially when you want them to be true.
3
"What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others. It is the idea on which Mr. Trump and his anti-elitist supporters base their campaigns. And it shows no sign of abating."
The problem that poor people the world over have is they can't identify the policies which are killing them, so they blame "elites" instead, which is what pols like Trump sell them.
The single policy of the past 40 years that has led us to this political moment is the arbitrary choosing in 1980 by the Reagan admin. of supply-side economics as its economic pole star. It set us on the financial path we tread today.
99% of the world's population is poorer today, both in nominal and in relative terms, compared with the richest 1% because of the con job of Milton Friedman supply-side economics as promulgated by the Republicans and exported to the world.
By the Republicans.
By the Trumpers, who profess to favor the little guy.
The little guy who is being robbed all over again by another Republican administration lying through its teeth to the people who voted for it.
Who, in this admin., is more elite than the illegitimate con man leading it? Is more elite than his billionaire friends in and out of the Cabinet?
Here's what causing your pain: It's Reaganomics. It's cutting taxes on the rich. It's refusing to tax corporations. It's believing that the rich create jobs, that immigrants are stealing them and that Trump is the answer.
6
Biff, All great points and right on target. However, you forgot to insert Grover “No new taxes, ever” Norquist. An economic ruiner in his own right, blindly leading local, state and our federal government into the ruination of our schools, infrastructure and trust in government institutions.
My only hope is that voters will see through the cheap tissue that is the GOP and support candidates with sound ideas who are capable of knocking 45, the imposters of the evangelical movement (tax them!) and his sycophants out of office and on to the lobbying and boardroom positions that await them. Sad. Bigly sad.
Finally, we have millions of people young and old who have never voted and will proudly admit to that fact. Let’s see candidates, on both sides, propose ideas and policies to new voters and to the Lumpenproletariat, that break through the fraudulent and even criminal policies of the decades that led us to where we are today.
What’s the statute of limitations for bankers, traders and CEOs who nearly ruined a nation AND helped fuel the Nationalist movement we see metastasizing today?
1
A primary synonym of Elite is Educated -- a word, alas, that does not apply to Trump and many in his base.
7
I own a roll of toilet paper with Donald Trump’s picture on each sheet.
Does that make me an elite?
Maybe yes, maybe no; but it sure makes me laugh every time I look at it.
2
The Democrats have to make it their mission to debunk this myth of "Liberal Elites". Nothing about Democrats or the party policies are elite and this is just a lie being pushed by the Trump Administration to divide our country and rally his base. The GOP is the party catering to the 1/10th of 1 percent and screwing the working class. The Democratic Party needs to expose Trump and the GOP for who they really are.
6
The writer Mr. Contintti is a writer for a conservative right wing web site. Of course he is going to put forth that Trump has the right stuff and ignore anything positive from the Democrats. Much of what is written goes against reality. Trump is not popular nor does he represent the down trodden, rather he is one who steps on other people's backs in his climb to power and money. Lying is a big part of the deal. The Republicans have used deflection and lies and hot button issues, scubas gays, immigration and abortion to persuade voters to vote against their own interests. The Republicans and so called conservatives merely blame the Democrats or others for problems while having no solutions of their own. It is very hard to govern effectively when you don't believe in government.
6
This is my biggest problem with this analysis: By any measure, Trump is a member of the elite, and furthermore, the only real policy achievement he has, the tax cuts, favor the economic elite at the expense of the majority of Americas. By accepting at face value Trump's faux "anti-elite" shtick, Continetti bus in to Trump's big con. The way the Dems win is to show Americans the reality - that Trump and the Republican party he leads, do not have their interests
3
Continette is a little prince-ling from a long line of elite right wing little prince-lings. He just can't co-opt the current catch phrases by lying about who these people are. Anti-elite? Who would he say fits that trendy propaganda trope the best? Elizabeth Warren or the orange real estate hustler who owns his own fleet of aircraft? The republican tactic is always the same. Tar their opposition with the crimes and short comings they themselves are currently committing. And the media buys it every time. The Obama economy is strong and people still hate Trump, McConnell, and every other right winger bent on destroying the middle class.
3
A couple of quick points:
1. Maybe Continetti forgot, but foreigners do not vote in American elections, so what they think about nationalism or globalism is interesting, but irrelevant.
2. Donald Trump acts like a bull in a china shop, and has broken a lot of china, but has otherwise accomplished very little (other than a monster tax cut for the 1% and getting totally unqualified judges appointed).
Continetti needs to explain again why any rational person would vote for Trump.
All Trump has is the Cult of Trump and they are a minority.
3
Can you imagine Republicans, as well as Trump (they are not the same thing, as blurry as it may seem) being ok with the level of Russian involvement if Clinton won? Would the R's have called the election legitmate, as well as columnists like Mr. Continetti? This is not to dismiss Trump's support, as he clearly beat out 17 other Republican candidates to head the ticket. But that fact is not stressed enough when 2020 is considered - and perhaps legitimately so as it is may be hard to quantify. I would like to think the Russians won't have the same success as they did in 2016, I'm hoping that will be one of many factors that helps elect the next president.
2
By traditional metrics, President Trump should win easily. But this is not a traditional president. Our political establishment is determined to remove him from office. Thus, his re-election is far from a foregone conclusion.
2
Unfortunately the Dem's response is not a response to Trump (like they think it is). It's a response to the almost 50% of the country who thinks like Trump. They don't get this. This election will be referendum on the type of country America wants to be. The sad part is that it's so close. We are in the "quiet civil war" time. If Trump's America loses, they will not go away quietly. If the Dem's America loses, they won't either. The Dem's need to stop renouncing Trump because in so doing, the are renouncing half the country. They need to make clear who they are against. And still draw the line against hate - what this "quiet civil war" is really all about.
3
Mr.Trump's chances for reelection in 2020 are based on almost the identical factors on which his "surprising" election in 2016; the gross ineptitude at messaging and unresolved internal conflicts of interests/national policies within the Democratic Party.
The "inconvenient" political truth in the 2020 presidential election cycle is the Democratic Party is an unidentified political asset for Mr. Trump. Evidence of this is staring the Democratic party leaders in the face with Joe Biden's overhyped front runner status.
If the American electorate wanted a business-as-usual status quo candidate as President the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. the last name would be Clintion.
2
"What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others. "
Exactly. And this notion is not just held by people on the right. It's exactly why Bernie Sanders almost derailed Hillary, a candidate who could not have been more poorly suited for where the electorate was and still is at.
Everyone is fed up with the globalist oligarchy and the "elite," which I define as the people who get richer no matter what happens to the economy, who win no matter who gains Congress or the White House.
It's why Democrats need to embrace "populism" and even "nationalism." Nothing about these terms require jingoism or nativism. I would argue that FDR, the most successful of all Democrats, was a nationalist populist. Everything he proposed was put into the prism of what is good for the average American, and America as a country.
Even an "America First!" policy, run by a decent, serious president, might be refusing to be pushed into a war with Iran on behalf of the Saudis, UAE, Israel and military-industrial complex.
I believe Elizabeth Warren is the right person at the right time. The more I hear about her priorities and plans, the more I become excited by her candidacy.
7
I've got news for you; its not just the Republicans who are facing a serious anti-elitist backlash. Most of us have not yet forgotten the Democrat's pandering to finance during the global economic implosion that they caused and the almost complete lack of support for the working class. It would be insane to believe that this did not play a huge part in the defeat of their anointed candidate who just happened to become rich via speaking fees from the financial industry. Joe Biden, the DCCC's heir apparent is way too close to banking for anyone's comfort. Sanders and Warren seem to be the only ones who would have the spine to go after the financial industry, and that is why they would be the only ones I would vote for.
9
Using just qualitative terms, one can build whatever argument one likes for a win or loss for Trump. How big is the center? How many people have peeled off the edges?
At the time of Trump's election, the Dems had a 2% net approval in the generic ballot - within the margin of error. Its now over 7%. Trump had a net approval rating of about 2%. He now has a net disapproval of over 10%. These are both outside the margin of error. These numbers are quite resilient, new scandals or end of scandals (Mueller anyone?) shift them little.
The data points to a Trump loss.
Trump supporters are true believers. Even if peace and prosperity become shaky, Trump will still have their votes, because he will blame others for his policy failures and whip up even more fervent support. Given the high probability of a second term for Trump, the "elite" should start building strategies, tools and methods to defend our institutions against the abuse of Presidential power. We need to be prepared to fight this war for at least 6 more years.
3
Americans (well really, everybody) respond most strongly to PAIN. Back pain, stomach pain, economic pain, military pain. I hate to see it or predict it, but that would be the end of the "Ogre from Orlando".
Holding your hand over a flame too long and you pull away. Start a nuclear arms debacle with Iran and then? China is not going to subvert its economy for Trump- this will not turn out well. North Korea is going to keep testing without more concessions from Washington, making the Pentagon extremely nervous. Climate change is going to deplete FEMA of resources and money. Crop failure may be next. When all these (and other) issues come together you get PAIN. The red caps will end up in the garbage and the GOP will get tarred and feathered (if they're lucky). I recall 1929 and 2008- an RN I knew cashed out of her mutual funds and converted it all to cash, and she had a secure income. I told her the economy would eventually bounce back, but she said she had run out of time. Losing a third of your hard-earned savings is just one story, and she was better off than most. Remember- people were bussed in from all over Florida for that rally- that was not just locals. And it wasn't for them anyway- Fox News televised the event with plenty of bloated commentary. Hail to The King! People never change, until they are told "to eat cake" when there's no bread. The founding fathers were educated and smart.
We need savvy leaders. We owe them our survival- so far at least.
1
To all commenters: I know of a few Republicans who voted for Trump over Clinton by telling themselves "he'll surround himself with good people." And more than a few Independent voters used the same rationalization.
I can assure you, they won't make that mistake again next year. And many voters who sat on the sidelines in 2016 "because it was just the lesser of two evils" will go to the polls in 2020 to rectify this mistake of a presidency.
8
Dream on.
Trump was carried to victory by just 77,000 votes in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. That's not going to happen again next year.
Did you happen to notice that Wisconsin and Michigan elected Democrats as governors in 2018, and that women flipped four previously Republican House seats in Pennsylvania over to Democrats? And Dems took the House back?
Now, that's a wave. And it hasn't crested yet. Not by a long shot.
8
Until we don’t have the electoral college, states still matter, and thus state polls still matter.
Trump has lost the center, the slim “well let’s give him a chance” voters.
He was the president of just his base.
And his base in the states that decide, just ain’t big enough anymore.
86
@Jane And that is the undeniable truth. The math doesn’t work. He can’t win.
17
@Steve Collins
Didn't stop him in 2016. He was outside the margin of error in major polls over long periods of time in states that swung the election and he *ahem* "won".
Russian has had 4 more years to refine their strategy. Why would we ever imagine that they we not be better at it now? Because we've put in lots of safeguards? We are fools.
16
People that want to dump the electoral college never took statistics in college.
5
If Trump is so anti-elite, then why does he do everything to benefit the wealthiest among us. He gives voice to Nationalists but does little else. He just used them to get elected and god forbid, re-elected.
120
@Lisa, but look at the crowd. He is the consummate snake oil salesman. It worked last time, and it might work again unless the Democrats and independents who stayed home vote this time.
15
@Lisa
"Elite" no longer means wealthy, it means educated costal dwellers who are pro diversity. Most people in that group are upper middle class. They believe in meritocracy, in contrast to rural less educated people, who have no ability to climb out of poverty on their own merits, but they cling to the pride of being in a better social class than other Americans due to their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. They are angry now that their relative social clout is diminishing as other groups gain mainstream rights and acceptance.
11
@Lisa I agree - This is my biggest problem with this column's analysis: By any measure, Trump is a member of the elite, and furthermore, the only real policy achievement he has, the tax cuts, favor the economic elite at the expense of the majority of Americas. By accepting at face value Trump's faux "anti-elite" shtick, Continetti buys in to Trump's big con. The way the Dems win is to show Americans the reality - that Trump and the Republican party he leads, do not serve the interests of most Americans.
3
As several other commenters have already said, I'm at a total loss to understand how so many of the so-called working class Anti-Elites are rallying around someone who was born into wealth, has lived an over-the-top, outlandish and opulent lifestyle and has probably never even been inside a grocery store. How and why do they think that he relates to and understands their struggles at making ends meet? It's a mystery wrapped inside an enigma that I just cannot comprehend.
4
@Larry Todd: He punishes us 'libruls' and that seems to be good enough for them. Can one eat vengeance? It seems the MAGA crowd can. As long as we eat 'crow' they're seemingly happy.
Oh, and they think he doesn't lie. And that he's a victim.
Totally delusional.
2
He’s not who they hate. It’s perplexing, but they admire rich people, especially those like Trump. They love celebrities and reality tv. They hate the UMC people they actually deal with in real life. They think that the lawyers and accountants and even doctors who sit at desks all day don’t work as hard as they do but enjoy greater respect and higher paychecks. They resent it. Those same UMC people live in safe neighborhoods and send their kids to good schools while supporting policies that correlate with increased crime and poorer school performance in the Trump voters’ neighborhoods. The UMC marry each other and consolidate their gains while people who long to go back to a more traditional lifestyle fall further behind and see no hope of ever regaining what they perceive they have lost.
November 8, 2016, demonstrated that democracy does work, just not always in the way we want it to. The people always want a leader who personifies their nation. Hillary wasn't that, Trump was.
He still is. Today we are still in an angry, bigoted, violent, ignorant, greedy, self-obsessed, delusional mood. The soybean and corn farmers around me are still Trump fans. In 2020 he will again get two out of three votes again in Minnesota's CD-1. Farmers tell me they like the way Trump is teaching China and other foreigners a lesson. Trump personifies them.
I hope that in time moderation and reason will prevail. Until things ease up for ordinary voters, though, Trump is the easier sell. And, ironically, the more his policies hurt voters, the better his bile sells.
2
@Charles Tiege "The people always want a leader who personifies their nation. Hillary wasn't that, Trump was."
Heaven forfend !
2
Trump is an elite. Born with a silver spoon in his whatever. Privileged beyond anyone in the article's accompanying photo could imagine. These people aren't ever going to change their minds. As was evidenced by the Amash post town hall meeting interview with the woman who admitted she'd never even heard that there was anything incriminating in the Mueller report, these Fox watchers are so uninformed nothing will get through to them.
It is important to keep in mind however that Trump won some states by incredibly slim margins. I wouldn't count on him being so lucky this time around. This is why impeachment hearings are so important. Who cares about his base. If enough of the obvious evidence of obstruction and his recent admissions that he'd break the law and take help from foreign countries is exposed I think enough swing voters will have second thoughts.
2
@CaptPike66 Enough with the "ifs." Now that you feel so strongly, it's time to get out there and actually do something before NEXT year's elections.
Uh, fellow Americans (sounds so quaint!), if you would just PULEEZE VOTE, I believe that would most certainly do the trick. Jeez louise.
2
It's a bit presumptuous of you to think that Trump's political success has to do with his anti-elitist appeal. While he likes to portray himself as such, the guy comes across as a jerk in the process. And, Trump has never been that popular to begin with, if one looks at his minority vote in his race with Clinton and his consistently poor ratings as President. There is little question that Trump did get a piece of the Archie Bunker vote, but his election was largely owing to Republican loyalty and a never-Hillary feeling among that crowd. I think the race is up for grabs, and it really depends on the Democrats putting forward a popular candidate. A strong candidate will defeat Trump.
4
Who are the "Elites" ?
1
@RickB Anybody who doesn't recognize the term.
The Grifter in Chief belongs to an elite and he is an out of control elitist. He is also the most practiced and successful American demagogue in my lifetime--for the record, I´m pushing 78 and 78 is pushing back--, and on a world stage his only rival is Berlusconi. The author is quite right to point out that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose upon others, and the Grifter does so systematically. The Democratic candidate who exposes the Grifter´s bogus populism and presents the electorate with real solutions to real and pressing problems has a very decent shot at putting an end to the White House clown show and sending the head clown back to his tower.
3
@Edward Baker "the most practiced and successful American demagogue in my lifetime"
We're the same age, and I remember all too well the days and horrors of Joe McCarthy.
"Deja vu all over again."
2
@Edward Baker: The Dems need to make sure every person knows what Trump said to his cronies at Mar-A-Loco the day the tax cut passed: "I just made you all a lot of money". He didn't make the 'little guy' a lot of money, in fact those tax policies hurt the middle class. Somehow that reality needs to be drummed into everyone's ears, over and over again until it sinks in.
3
@kenneth I, too, remember Joe McCarthy well, but he was a small time carnival barker compared to the Grifter.
If Democrats nominate a candidate who wants a return to business-as-usual (Biden) or a candidate who simply wants to tweak regulations a bit (Warren), Trump will win.
Obama could have prevented all of this had he only taken seriously his own words in 2008 about people who had nothing to cling to but guns and religion. But he didn't. He rewarded the Wall Street robber barons. He left Main Street to twist in the wind.
Now it is too late for technocrats, tweaks and a return to business as usual. None of that will be enough to halt the slide into fascism.
4
@Derek Flint OMG, again with the twisting in the wind.
1
Here's the problem. Trumpism requires a total suspension of the rational faculty. Observe the closing statement of this column: "What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others." Who exactly is insulating themselves from the costs of their policies? Trump would have us degrade the earth's atmosphere, crush the aspirations of desperate refugees, destroy entire sectors of the agriculture economy and possibly drive the global economy into recession, disenfranchise as many democratic voters as possible, deprive poor people of any chance to get health insurance, and then start a bloody war with Iran after driving their _entire society_ into penury. So who exactly is uninterested the costs of their policies?? And all this so we can preserve a few thousand coal mining jobs? Republican political discourse has become a kind of tsunami of sewage that's spreading out over the land leaving increasingly isolated islands of compassion and reason.
6
"In the past century the public has booted a party from the White House after a single term just once. " Wrong.
In the last century (since 1919): Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George Bush Sr.
1
Trump is the ultimate elitist, one who defines himself, his family, and his purpose by one metric only--money. That his supporters can't see this is depressing. Or--that they can see it and agree with it, even celebrate it, is infinitely more depressing.
3
@Anne
His supporters see it. They don't care. They are mostly authoritarian type personalities. Once their fear center has been awakened, the rational mind shuts down and is relegated to second place.
1
How ironic to say "elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others," when in reality it is the people AGAINST carbon and fuel taxes, against making any sacrifice to fight climate change, who are insulating themselves from the costs that their behavior, like using too much fuel, imposes on others, like future generations. The "elites" are actually trying to protect vulnerable people, while the "populists" only care about themselves and just want low prices and fast cars. Strange times.
8
The polls are really bad for the Democrats right now. I mean really bad. Democrats will not win in 2020 unless something changes and fast. I was just looking at the aggregate polls for Clinton vs. Trump before the 2016 election. In July 2015, Clinton led 54-34 against Trump nationally. As late as April 2016, polls were showing a 10 point lead for Clinton and talk of winning Texas was in the air (sound familiar, anybody?). Biden and Sanders show a 10 point lead nationally at the point where Clinton had a 20 point lead. What's worse is that there are Democratic candidates who are polling nearly even with Trump now, when the brutal GOP blitz has not even started. This one's in the bag. Four more years of Trump. The only thing to save us now is if the economy starts going soft in a noticeable way.
2
The question is who can stop the wave that is pushing the Trump's reelection?
2
Terrifying to say that the disastrous effects of climate change will have to be quickly very visible in people's lives to escape a Donald Trump's second term.
P T Barnum’s, republican circus is on full display and the grifter Trump still has his cult of haters who will follow him over a financial cliff. Most of the red states who have the majority of Trump voters have the highest deaths due to opioids but Trump has done .... NOTHING to help their states to deal with it. I guess that trillion dollar deficit tax cut for his ultra wealthy donors is more important to him. Putting more cancerous filth into our air and water to harm their kids doesn’t matter either to the Trump voter. Pushing us into another war in the Mideast seems to be okay with them knowing it’s their families that would be probably fighting it. Just like for the 9-11 first responders these republican politicians will be missing in action to fund and help our wounded war veterans ! Trump and disgusting McConnell will be missing in action except to enrich themselves and their families. Leading and taking care of those who take care of America is not elitist...it’s decency ... vote the republicans out, they have taken us down a very dark path.
3
Hope Hicks testifying in front of The House Judiciary Committee and the headline is...
Hope Hicks Declines to Answer Lawmakers’ Questions on Transition, White House.
Murdoch family has a lot to answer.
Former Trump Aide Hope Hicks to Join Fox as Communications Chief
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/business/media/hope-hicks-fox-job.html
"Her new role also signals the ambitions of Lachlan Murdoch, the elder son of the mogul Rupert Murdoch, as he prepares to lead the next version of his family’s empire."
Again, just follow the money...this is the main culprit that will wipe out every existent democracy one by one.
Money is the cancer of a global proportions.
The concept of just a few people transforming world order, using their obscene wealth is utterly terrifying.
5
"Mr. Trump welded the issues of terrorism and immigration in his call for a ban on Muslims’ entry into the United States." Most terrorism in the U.S. comes from people like Trump supporters: white nationalists, KKK-types, Neo-Nazis. It's not the Muslims. It's the Trumpers who are the worst terrorists.
8
He owns a gold toilet. Would someone please define "elite," just for effect. Oh, heck, here you go: A group or class of people seen as having the most power and influence in a society, especially on account of their wealth or privilege. (source: the "elite" Oxford Dictionary.) Do we need to define "wealth," or "privilege?"
92
@Richard Wells I think the problem is not his wealth. Most of us have been fed the American Dream since birth. Work hard and get rich is an ideal that many in his base still believe in. The gold toilet is a perfect example of what many who might be labeled elite (intelligentsia, old money, art and culture icons) consider vulgar display-something no one with culture, taste, sensibility would consider. That's how I feel myself.
However, coming from a world that is one of the epicenters of his base, I can tell you that they view it differently. It's a sign of having made it. To them, he is the American Dream Incarnate-wealthy, a TV star, the president. He's stuck it to the man and come out on top. In the words of Charlie Sheen, he's "winning", and they want badly for one of their own to win for a change.
Doesn't matter if they're right or wrong come election time. I fear that what it means is another four years of Trump. It will take a candidate who has the ability to make these people feel heard and understood. I hope someone emerges who has the leadership and patience to do this.
2
Nice try, Matthew.
1
Another article of populist right wing propaganda in the NYT.
Full of lies and manipulations.
It is getting to a point where people have so little analysis that everything is possible.
Ignorance and archaisms lead the world of the self identity called modernity.
1
Michael Moore wrote in the summer of 2015 an essay ("Five reasons why Trump will win") that explained why Trump was going to win in Michigan. The people Moore described as Trump voters are far, far from the elite. Whatever you say about about Trump being from the elite, somehow he knows how to reach these voters. Hillary didn't know how and was perceived as elitist because she couldn't connect with them. Dems gotta figure this out or they will lose again.
Kamala Harris has been a prosecutor and Attorney General of California. She can talk tough about law enforcement and cleaning up the scum in Washington, but also about enforcing immigration laws. My guess is that if she can do this and not alienate the left wing of the Democratic party then she has a reasonable chance against blowhard tough-guy Trump.
3
Trump claims he went to Wharton but some type of legal mumbo jumbo he paid money to instigate prevents the school from releasing his grades or establishing whether he graduated or ever even showed up. but he comes across as uneducated, incurious, and rather dumb in a very ordinary and accessible way. perhaps he really is a genius, who knows? but he can convincingly play the part of a compatriot and savior of the rubes and they lap it up. Democrats almost never advance anyone like that and so Trump voters say Dems talk down to them. forget all the detailed plans and wonky knowledge. voters want some they can identify with who believably (though falsely) says he's on their side. Trump, Bush II, and Reagan are examples, none known for brilliance, which is off-putting. most of the Democratic contenders come off as too brainy by half to sway even the alienated Trump voters.
@Tucson Geologist
Dems know how...and who.
Bernie won Mich. and the Midwest swing states in the Primary. He's polling well there again and beating Trump in said polls.
The swing states aren't looking for status quo, business as usual Democratic's. Especially one from California who takes Wall Street money.
It's odd that centrist Dems still don't see this.
1
@Pottree
So your solution is to dumb politicians down to Trump supporter acceptable levels? I'll pass. If Trumpies are the new normal of American intellect, I am moving out.
Bizarre.
Let’s try to remember that President Trump is an “elite”.
4
If it is too soon to look at what choices face the electorate then it is also way too soon to declare your man or should I say, orange man a clear path to a second term. Climate change is real and even those on the other side of the issue know it and cannot continue their denial with their lies. People are waking up and though Australia tripped their last vote, it is far from a done deal.
You seem to be reading the electorate incorrectly as the future generations are beginning to get restless and are ready to save the Earth and stop the violence pervading societies.
See you at the polls!
2
The inability to criticize the very prevalent aspects of Islam that are misogynistic, homophobic, colonial and violent is an embarassment for the Democratic Party. I don't agree with Trump's stances. But at least he addresses the problem.
4
@TMDJS
No, he really doesn't.
And what about the right wing's misogynistic, homophobic, colonial and violent ways?
He certainly does not care about this (he actively encourages it). Your point is invalid.
If the state of the economy and its visible consequences in people's lives is what matters most ( and it may be what matters most, especially in all countries voting for populists), I am afraid Donald Trump may be offered a second term.
"National and state polls don’t tell the whole story. A global anti-elite surge improves the president’s chance of victory."
If that surge exists here, why isn't it reflected in the polls?
Put another way; we aren't Eastern Europe.
1
Trump is a loser. The majority of the population is disgusted with him.
6
Even if all you say is true Trump is still a fraud, cheater, con man, misogynist and LIAR. He lies so much it’s pathological. He is conning his supporters. He is the WORST PRESIDENT EVER!!!
4
The column ends "the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others.... is the idea on which Mr. Trump and his anti-elitist supporters base their campaigns." The assertion seems plausible. But why not add that Trump is a con man? By not investing infrastructure or education or environmental improvement, etc. Trump is imposing long term costs on the non-elite to reduce the taxes of the rich (the elite of the elite)
Well, according to this piece, the democrats ought to change their tactics as follow:
Put a tax on renewable energy to help the coal industry grow and provide jobs
Identify multiple racial and religious groups and campaign to keep them from immigration under any circumstances
Promise major increases in unemployment payments if the unemployment rate rises above 4%
Reward companies using the current tax code to pay no taxes by providing the funds to hire poor, white uneducated workers from the mid-west and south - have an Amazon amendment that doubles the prize for every $100 million in refunds the company gets
Rewrite all existing laws regarding sexual assault to allow grabbing of various parts of the female anatomy
And finally, for Judge Kavanaugh, lets require beer drinking as a consideration in judicial appointments
By golly, Matthew - you've just saved the Democrats from another humiliating defeat - now let's see how many of the countless democratic candidates pick up on these words of wisdom
Mr Continetti, if Trump is "uniquely American figure" then are you suggesting that America is a lie and outright pretension? Whatever happened to the shining city upon a hill? Perhaps history will provide some soothing answers.
In historical perspectives, it's too early to have a proper assessment. For the time being and with due respect to Mr Trump's supporters, though, it's better to call a spade a spade and lie a lie.
1
Trump is an elite. I have voted for both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Unlike most of them who seem to want to serve the people, Trump only serves his own needs. Everything is about himself. That's an elitist attitude but not for a group of people, just for numero uno. I am sure there must be Republicans who would not vote him in again.
4
The general review of the political landscape here isn't as scary re the re-election of "The Great Divider" Trump as Continetti's main conclusion--that those who defer to elites, and to the idea that people have to be manipulated by those in-the-know to enlist their support, haven't changed their tune. How can we nominate a credible threat to our national disgrace of a president if that alternative doesn't recognize that politics-as-usual doesn't cut it anymore, that appeals to the exceptionalism most all of our pols assume don't strongly relate to most people--educated and uneducated.
People may seem to want simple solutions to complex problems--many will always want this, as most Trump supporters evince--but what I believe they really want is a simple way to translate complexity into a national vision that represents the best and not the worst of us. They are also crying out for a more honest politics that actually tries to educate them about the complexities facing democracy and appeals to something broader than individual or group self-interest.
Read the conclusion again: "What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others. It is the idea on which Mr. Trump and his anti-elitist supporters base their campaigns. And it shows no sign of abating." React--in horror over our elites' inability to respond, and with hope that a national vision may arise that's truly inclusive and inviting.
1
Market forces, yes the great free market fueled by oil and gas, have been killing coal mining in the U.S. for years. Environmental and health/safety regulations are the least of the problems facing domestic coal mining. Moreover, Trump has made no significant changes to put out-of-work coal miners into decent jobs.
Coal is on "life support" because the Kochs want to keep pushing U.S. coal on India and China, so they want to reduce our health and safety regulations down to foreign (and outdated) levels. Does anyone really think coal is the best way to generate electricity, except for the fact that its true economic costs are "socialized"?
Where is the grand infrastructure plan that could put many former coal miners, and others, into high-paying jobs? Trump has not even started to work on one. We have two trillion dollars of great infrastructure work to be done over the next ten years, at least.
Sure unemployment is down, but how many of those new jobs really support the costs of living in desirable areas? Housing costs are nuts, and Trump has done nothing to address the cost of housing.
But Trump may get re-elected because too many people believe his lies and/or too many people believe it does not matter what Trump says or does.
2
The extreme pro-abortion positions of Democrats will work to the benefit of Mr. Trump. Many Americans are disgusted by that party. Btw, remember it’s the economy stupid.
Continetti's attack on elites needs translation and interpretation. An “outsider politician” is somebody who's been in office for more than two years, and campaigning a hundred years before that. Yet Trump, the quintessential outsider politician, also benefits from incumbency.
Trump's “riding a wave of national populism that has yet to crest”. Trump's a surfer. But the wave may be cresting; Greens are leading in Germany; Brexit wouldn't survive a second referendum by informed voters; US mid-terms elected those who are hardly nationalists.
"Sustained prosperity" may improve Trump’s chances of a second term if he stops his trade wars, which doesn't look imminent. Economists see a global downturn with China hobbled by trump's tariffs.
In Continetti speak, Trump's lies are “inflammatory remarks”, as in Mexicans are rapists and criminals. Inflammatory, yes. Despicable more like. Also wrong. Yet, if you defend a group of people, like Muslims, you could be "charged" with political correctness, like a crime. But isn't political correctness just civility? Remember civility?
Elites' efforts to fight climate change provoke an anti-elitist response among trumpites. This means cutting off nose to spite face.
What is an elite? Trumpites perceive educated, privileged. maybe successful people who dislike Trump as elite. But the rich, like trump, corporations, the Kochs, the Adelsons and Russians, apparently they aren't elites.
What claptrap.
5
Rule by vigilante/mob justice . If you think courts and laws and constitutions are a nuisance, just try one of these. Even Vince Lombardi who said that winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing, played by the rule book.
The Democrats didn't get in 2016. We've been "rewarded" with Trump.
If they don't get it again, one has to be very concerned about the future of our nation and our democracy.
All the issues raised in this piece are real and important. Even more significant: will the Democrats look back to the Obama ground game/e-media approaches? Will they run a responsible and laser focused campaign?
Do the Democrats want to win? Or are they another narcissistic bunch who prefers to thump their chest than do what is best for our country?
2
If Trump could win a second term then it’s necessary to begin NOW to see his taxes, his endless lies regarding his dealing with foreign policies, his love with the words dictators around the world, his total lack of expertise (except for insulting) in absolutely all subjects, etc., etc. This man with his family cannot continue to run our country as if he were our mob boss. We don’t need to impeach, anything just see all the documents that have been asked to be turn in to Congress. Simple like that, if he does not comply with the requests then out he goes.
3
"What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others."
I'm not crazy about the term 'elites', it smacks of class warfare, but I understand the concept, and I think it's accurate. Why would you care about 'open borders' if you lived in a gated community? Why not support additional fuel taxes, if you drive a Lexus, or could care less about an added $ 500 dollars a year cost to drive your Lexus if you're in the 1 %? But if you're a contractor who needs his pick up or you live in one of America's many POV dependent cities (e.g., Dallas, Columbus, St. Louis, etc.) it matters a lot.
Trump has a lot more support than many analysts think. The democrats are hanging their hopes on anti Trump sentiment and pandering to specific groups - abolishing student loan debt, free college, reparations.
3
@del s
"Why would you care about 'open borders' if you lived in a gated community?"
Why does anybody still need to correct statements (lies) like this? Nobody is in favor of open borders. Nobody has ever been in favor of open borders.
Yep, sales taxes hurt working class folks unfairly. But only five states don't have them: New Hampshire, Alaska, Oregon, Delaware, and Montana.
1
@del s Correction ' if you drive a Tesla' not a Lexus.
Mr. Continetti masks the individuals whose economic lives are subject to disruption by technology, competitive labor rates, and the arc of civil and economic rights toward all.
The economic and world competition forces are a fact and they can't be eliminated by disrupting trade agreements, the development of market distribution gains by U.S. farmers, service providers, and technology innovators.
The simplistic view that a class of people as to the trend is "don't get it" is the tell in what Mr. Continetti is "up to," It is obvious what his opine is about, but that must be evaluated by what he is "up to." The Beacon did engage Fusion GPS for oppo research on Trump and others in 2016 but somehow contracted with no parameters on methods and sources of the oppo. It strains credibility not only there but also in this instance as well
I have no confidence in anyone's abilities that voted for Trump in 2016 to do the right thing in 2020.
The remaining Republicans are authoritarians. It has little to do with education level, and much more to do with personality type.
Authoritarians are emotionally driven people (the main emotion being fear). Subconsciously they fear Trump, and as such believe that to join him is better than to oppose him.
As for so-called "independents", almost all of them that I know lean right, and will be pulled in that direction if their fear centers are awakened.
Dems need to understand their enemy if they are going to win in 2020.
4
So, all your back-and-forth arguments about elites versus non-elites is exemplary of your whole country somehow collectively ignoring a common fact: America has not invested in education.
Those with education, elites, can struggle too.
Those without education, are left impotent and angry, finger-pointing at elites.
Want to fix your country's myriad problems? Start with your busted educational system.
3
@Karolina Hordowick
Yes, it's a big part of the equation, however not all of it.
Education is broken because of the right-wing plutocrats that have successfully demonized it among the already uneducated, appealing to their religious sentiments, creating a positive feedback loop.
Education can only be fixed when the plutocrats no longer control the message.
Stick a fork in...the turkey is done and knows it, thus the redolent smell of despair emanating from his war bunker.
I'd hazard a guess that 10 million of the 40 million who took a flier on Trump in 2016 have buyer's remorse and feel suckered by a Mount Trump of lies and wasted by a 24/7 drama parade of petty bickering and crisis mongering. All while the nation spins its wheels on urgent but unattended business.
These folks feel grievously betrayed and are in a slow burn as Trump substitutes intimidation for leadership and personal vengeance for public policy.
Those disaffected with Trump prefer paper bags over their heads to over-priced red caps with the most sardonic political slogan ever: MAGA (which fittingly means sucker or fool in Nigerian patois). You can't make this stuff up.
In 2020 Trump's a known unknown. The two signature GOP "wins" -- the Supreme Court confirmations and the skyrocketing deficit GOP calls a tax cut -- were authored by McConnell and Ryan. Trump was incidental if not an obstacle in both cases.
Despite total GOP control of Congress his first 2 years, Trump has nothing to show, not a full Cabinet or Chief of Staff. He did set the record for a Government shutdown.
But what he can show is the biggest GOP House loss ever and an encore for Speaker Nancy Pelosi who handles Trump like a poodle at a dog show. Pelosi knows her heels.
Trump's easy to read: he confirms by denial. He says he's winning but his eyes don't lie. He's running scared.
4
I am filled with dread for our future, knowing that a large portion of Americans willfully ignore facts and are thus easily manipulated by big lies and the politics of fear mongering and hatred. Uninformed people are clay in the hands of demagogue Trump. Democracy cannot survive without an informed population and one for which a majority agree that facts and truth exist, whether or not those facts and truths are comforting. With all that we know about Trump -- the incessant lying, the racism, the corruption, the pathological narcissism, the willful ignorance, the lawlessness -- those who still embrace and support Trump are either ingesting only lies and pro-Trump propaganda, or they accept and condone all the toxic qualities just mentioned. For them, it no longer matters that we have a racist, hate-filled, lying, lawless, corrupt, and quite likely traitorous president. They're "all good" with that. For the daughter of a WWII war hero -- one of the Great Generation -- that is soul-crushing and leaves me in despair.
4
Help me out, here. Who are these mysterious "elites?"
3
Hopefully a minimal level of competence will be on people’s minds when they vote in 2020. Trump is an incompetent ignoramous to name just one of his malign qualities. Despite what his friend the Prince Of Whales says. I believe that Americans are basically decent people and Trump’s indecent policies and behavior will result in a blue wave regardless who is the Democratic nominee.
Wanting to address climate change is elitist? I expect once the populists are inundated with rising ocean waters, or obliterated by tornadoes, or broiling in their skins, they'll change their minds.
116
@lagiocanda The point is that in the US we have not yet suffered major disasters that can be attributed unambiguously to climate change. There is not yet a critical mass of people who see the need for accepting sacrifices to halt climate change. The merchants of doubt have been successful in creating delay. This is understandable and tragic.
5
As a counterpoint to this rosy forecast for trump's 2020 prospects, here is my prediction:
As the election draws near, at some point trump's poll numbers will fail to get close to 50% and barely budge above 40% (about where they've been since inauguration day).
In the summer of 2020 trump will resign angrily as he privately knows that an election loss will leave him extremely legally exposed. Pence will issue a blanket pardon and then proceed to lose in a landslide on November.
The Democrats will hold the House, but as for gaining control of the Senate it's a toss-up; Senate control being where the electoral playing field is tilted the most against them.
1
The incumbent usually holds "the strongest hand", and this is no different with Trump. Having said that, the president is in an unusual situation where his overall approval ratings have always been below 50 percent. His "die-hard core supporters" appears to be intact, but there are indications that many mainstream voters are "on the fence" with him. These are people who are tired of his antics, tweets and overall disdain for his style of leadership. In other words, if an attractive, effective, intelligent and popular alternative emerges from the Dems, the race will be close!
My feeling is that Trump will be exposed in the debates. His core voters will not be moved, but a Democratic candidate with a sharp, bright mind who is personable and respected could drive Trump crazy. Once Trump knows that he isn't favored by moderate, middle-of-the-road voters, he'll resort to name-calling and mocking his Dem rival... which will be popular with his base but, ultimately, will turn-off the majority of the voters.
1
In this same issue of the Times there is a story about how the Greens have become Germany's leading party. This fact alone, given Germany's importance in Europe, undermines the POV of this opinion piece. There was a global surge of anti-elite populism which has had the effect of energizing the complacent left. Soon the environment will be the main topic of every political discussion and troglodytes like Trump and his keen supporters will be left standing by the side of the road.
"Elites" is now mostly just a code phrase for "knowledgeable people who disagree with me."
In the past, people used to see knowledge, education, and experience as good things. Individuals who had those qualities were seen as competent authorities in their subject matter and their opinion was given extra weight. The general public relied upon these individuals and the insight they provide to reach their own reasoned opinions.
Now, people see knowledge, education, and experience as good things ONLY if they are used to reinforce the opinions they already hold. This is especially true in "populist" movements. How dare those knowledgeable people try to sway my opinion?! It's 2019 and I'm entitled to my opinion no matter what, facts and logic be darned!
Anyone who uses knowledge and experience to posit facts or opinions I disagree with = "elites" or "swamp creatures" or "sell outs." Their voices are given no weight whatsoever. In fact, their mere existence shows why we must do the exact opposite of what they say! (e.g., climate experts and economists)
But, people who AGREE with my unshakable opinions, even (especially?) when they have no knowledge, experience, relevant education, or even basic factual support = "telling it like it is" or "a man of the people" or "sticking up for the little guy."
So yes, "anti-elitism" could guide Trump to re-election, just like politicians in other countries. But let's call it what it is: Ignorance and Arrogance.
5
We keep letting the wrong people control the message.
Granted, it is PERCEIVED that "elites" are out of touch with what the "people" want and are the cause of their disaffection. The reality is the right has long employed the following formula: Wealthy elite donors with special interests (almost all of them supporting Republican candidates) cynically use the right-wing propaganda machine (FOX, Sinclair, talk radio, the opinion page of the WSJ) to misinform the under-educated as to the cause of their economic woes and anxieties. They are the problem and the cause, and simply use the conservative machine to obfuscate that fact.
Time for the Democrats to deliver this message of truth with clarity and simplicity.
3
So basically what you are saying is this nation is chock a block full of knuckleheads who just love leaders who cheat on their wives, demand the death penalty for 5 kids who were accused of a violent crime they did not committ and who jeopordizes the world with reckless withdrawals from “nuclear deals”. Yahoo !
2
Time for the DNC to talk about American inequality.
Time for the DNC to talk about American inequality.
Time for the DNC to talk about American inequality.
Stop aiding and abetting, Biden.
2
"Anti-elite surge?" Apparently the Stupid White People who constitute trump's immutable base of support haven't noticed all the millionaires, billionaires and lobbyists that make up his Cabinet or all the rich parasites hanging around Mar-a-Lago, the gasbag's cartoon country club where membership is a tidy $200,000 a year. That's an increase of $100,000 since he improbably became president. Just a coincidence, no doubt. Fox News and rant radio have done a great job of dumbing down the country the past 30 years but people are wising up to trump's scam regime, including the GOP's scam tax cut. The "elites" have never had it so good.
4
The stark reality about the 38%-40% of Americans who support Trump is that they're just as ethically challenged as their fascist leader.
One cannot support Trump without also supporting subterfuge.
5
Which of us coastal "elites" are elite? African Americans? Latinos? Jews? LBGT? Any minorities identifying as Democrats? Anyone identifying as Democrats, including highly educated but NOT rich? How do they get to call so many of us elites?
2
Mr. Stephens, please stop shilling for Trump. All you do is embarrass yourself.
2
@Jack Connolly
Mr. Stephens and I appreciate your joke.
1
We all forget that Hillary didn't energize a lot of people and that if you look beyond the actual count of Electoral College votes Trump really did squeak by in three states with a margin of only about 150k votes.
That's a razor thin victory he needs to replicate while also holding onto every other state he won in an environment where a huge proportion of the liberal voter base has woken up and is incredibly motivated to see him gone and jailed.
I won't count my chickens and I'm not naive but I also don't see all the doom and gloom that a lot of liberals are expressing about his relentless march to a second term let alone will I let the editor in chief of some nothing conservative rag make me feel hopeless about beating Trumps ass in 2020.
6
@Hern
And let's not forget Comey's hit job 10 days prior to election day.
I love the "not engaged a a major war." What is Afghanistan, an 18 year minor skirmish? Another entertaining assertion is "interrelated issues of unchecked immigration, terrorism and the imposition of carbon taxes and other measures to mitigate climate change. Elites’ inability or lack of interest in tackling these problems — or even seeing them as problems." Has Continetti not been paying attention to several of the democratic candidates? Not to mention that Trump has done nothing about these issues except for setting up internment camps for immigrants in which 6 children have died. One final (among the many) laughable factoid of note in this piece is the writer's focus on three attacks that were perpetrated by identified radicalized Muslims while ignoring the many more than three massacres perpetrated by right wing nut jobs. Thanks for the amusing ramble, Mr. Continetti and cudos again to NYT for running pieces that run contrary to its own leanings.
3
The media always misses the obvious when chalking up the successes of the gop. Along with gerrymandering, voter suppression, gobs of money, their clever use of propaganda is powerful and successful. The gop is the party of the wealthy elite. Their policies are primarily to protect the wealth of the wealthy. By using scare tactics about socialism, taxation and labor they have been successful. The irony is that the gop is fiercely antilabor and they like cheap labor. Who hires all those illegals anyway. Don't forget that the gop waged a 25 year propaganda campaign against Hillary. As soon as a front runner emerges the slimeball campaign will start and as we have seen the gop does not care who proves the dirt. Any foreign government will do.
3
I'm sure others have better smarts about this than I, but I've wondered if the mass of Trump's followers even know about his lies, his corruption, his failures. That is, I wonder if they are in such a sealed bubble that they only hear Fox News' sneering vague allusions to these things. Goodness! What if they know nothing!
1
Trump, the unreconstructed reprobate who has not yet learned life's lesson that we are fourth dimensional spiritual beings inhabiting a third dimensional materiality, divides and conquers by ruthless scapegoating of others for selfish gains. History will not judge Trump as anything more than an aberrant object lesson that compassion is necessary for civilization to advance. Every person of goodwill is being called upon to vote and demonstrate to the world the power of democracy, and America's resurgent leadership.
3
You strongly imply that you're not a member of "the elite."
With an address inside the Beltway, and financial backing from the billionaire fund manager, Paul Singer, I think you're a member of "the elite."
Not nice. But expected from the right side of "the elite" spectrum.
1
Continetti and "The Washington Free Beacon" is heavily involved lobbying for Taiwan and has a reputation for misleading, right-wing reporting. They are "backed by Paul Singer, an American billionaire hedge fund manager" and supporter of Trump's extremism. Get ready for more such bilge as the GOP machine ramps up the lies, supported by legions of Russian trolls who, for some reason, Trump doesn't see the need to protect our elections from.
3
Still beating that "global elites" dead horse? Factually, Trump is the epitome of a "global elite". He sells his name all over the world and is paid handsomely by those seeking to defraud the gullible. Kind of like the Republican party has done with Trump.
More and more of the people who switched from Obama to Trump are realizing that they have been lied to and defrauded. Put that into your calculator the next time you want to write a fluff piece proclaiming how really wonderful everything under Trump is going despite our lying eyes.
2
It's hard for normal people to understand why anyone at all supports Trump considering he is a compulsive liar, proven con-man, and the most corrupt and disgusting person ever to be "president." But obviously we have people in the US who are Trump fanatics and worship his every word and deed (not that he has actually done any noteworthy deeds). It is sad that these people have been taken in by his lies - lies that are obvious to normal people, but seem to be manna from heaven to those who hear from Trump what they want to hear, even when they know he is lying. It is also sad that their delusional support may ruin the US for a generation if he is somehow re-elected. Under Trump the US has already lost it's status as the "Leader" of the world, and is now just another country out for itself without any concern about any other people or country. And the racism of Trump and his supporters does not bode well for the future of society in the US. Indeed, the sociopathy of Trump and his supporters is dangerous to us all.
3
After reading the "20 questions" story and reading the comments here, the dems still don't get it. Reread this opinion and reread until it sinks in.
6
Wrong, wrong again! The reason for his success is his own persona. It is simply the fact that President Trump is himself his own marketing team. Plus facts speak more than words. He has not simply delivered, something rara avis in politicians. He has overachieved even his own promises. And has fixed what BHO and Bubba ruined. He shall be re-elected with a clean slate behind him, hopefully media won´t bully him and let him govern to continue making the USA proud to be a real icon to be followed by the world. A beacon that has recovered its own light again.
It is generally the meme now that demographics are our destiny and Democrats therefore will rein supreme; well there are a few black voters, myself included, and it was proven that Latinos do not all subscribe to this theory, many voted for Trump, keep fooling yourself; Democrats need to quit the arrogance. You are not necessarily our destiny.
1
Media Bias/Fact Check rates The Washington Free Beacon: "Overall... Biased based on story selection that favors the right and Mixed for factual reporting due to misleading and false claims." Why even give Continetti the time of day? His online journal is rated between "Right and Extreme," which puts him alongside Alex Jones and Matt Drudge. Don't waste our time publishing this hogwash.
1
I suggest that the author obtain a copy of today’s New York Times and read the article by Jochen Bittner about German politics. He might regain a smidgen of hope.
This has become a cult of personality, facts don't matter. Hopefully, we have the numbers and the votes are mostly correctly counted.
I had to laugh when I read the title, I thought it must be a large wave of toxic waste and sewage that the author was referring to.
FYI billionaires like Trump (assuming he is one) and Peter Singer are the elite
1
That's so very 2016 thinking.
There are the MAGA hat wearing Trump supporters and then there are the silent ones. You have to waterboard the silent ones before they'll tell you that they are voting for Trump in 2020.
The silent ones have jobs, families, and responsibilities. They are absolutely terrified of the PC Police, and the left who like to brand anyone who is not in complete lip-synch with their agenda.
It will be interesting to see exactly how many silent ones are out there.
5
Release Mr. Trump's taxes. Then well see
In a companion piece to this article in the NYT, the writer's thesis is that Trump is relying on the fact that "anger can be power."
When articles such as these appear in Progressive newspapers, often the authors describe Trump's ability to gather that "anger" and to translate that "anger" into votes, which translate to "power."
Maybe.
But whenever I read those descriptions, it almost always reminds me that the Left may be described in the same manner. That "anger" is found in every censoring and politically correct American college campus. And socialist populists like Sanders seek to marshall that "anger" into votes to obtain power.
The difference, of course, is that the Left is on the side of God. In a secular, woke sort of way.
5
The only people who are "insulated from the costs of policies" are the ones who can afford it, and who are often Republican, the real elites who do not share the values of caring for humanity. Generally, Democrats, from all income classes, do.
Republicans cut their taxes and then claim government is too expensive. As federal aid to states is cut, the expenses to support health care, public education, transportation, housing, community development, child care, job training, and clean water, to name a few, are shifted to the states as "states’ rights."
As states attempt to make-up the gap the tax payer feels the Republican-made squeeze. Their cover for this is the claim of government overreach, except when it comes to abortion (too much overreach) and the death penalty (too little overreach). An odd combination, don’t you think?
Here's the deal: The regulated (us) pay for the regulations (federal and state government) and intern we pay the people that administer those regulations that govern our society. As a result, we have cleaner air and water, safer food, medicines, cars, roads, building standards, and so on.
Tell me again what is wrong with platform for a better life?
A platform that pits us against them.
It’s a sure bet, that if the Republican elites continue to erode the ability of a federal government to continue to improve the life of everyone, we will lose the achieved gains that benefit everyone.
1
If the pending recession doesn't occur soon, I'm afraid he probably will be elected again. Very few seem to understand that deficit spending (resulting from the tax cut) is what has propped up the economy so far.
Trump doesn't need a "wave" or any other push to win re-election; he just needs to be breathing and its a done deal. Forget about rebellion against elitist politicians; this election comes down to common sense which the average middle class and lower income American apparently has a lot more of than the typical over-educated and out of touch liberal elitist.
A perfect example is the push from New York politicians to get New Jersey to also issue driving licenses to thousands of people who have no legal right to be in the country and strangely are now called "immigrants" even though they have broken countless laws by simply walking into our country without our permission. It's an insult to my parents and millions of other "immigrants" who went through the legal process to enter this country and become American citizens.
5
@ERA
The Democratic politicians in California & in New York are walking talking advertisements for Trump's re-election.
4
The term "elite" needs a context - in this article - and in any use of the word. Everyone is "elite" in some way (except for a few people I know.)
1
Isn’t Trump the ultimate ‘global elite’? His wealth is inherited; his admittance into ‘elite’ educational institutions was enhanced by his family’s wealth and power; he joined his father’s business; and he never had to take responsibility for his own actions. His disastrous business decisions were covered by his father or pushed onto the backs of those less well-connected. His disastrous personal decisions were covered also using his wealth. Heck, his family’s wealth and power even enabled him to be excluded from military service in Vietnam.
1
The center is the party in Europe and in France in particular that have seen the highest progression in the European elections.
And the left has clearly won the elections by a strong margin of 20 %.
So. How this guy here can declare "the loss of the center left " in the European elections and in France ?
Either he is unable to read the results or it is a voluntary manipulation .
Or both .
I believe that much of what Continetti says is true. Trump's base has been largely unwavering and is willing to overlook his lies, his chaos and his millions of dollars in golf trips because they see him as anti-elite. And there are lots of voters who will support Trump if the Democrats stray from issues that affect all voters (like health care, jobs, education) and start talking identity politics, reparations and the like.
Our electoral system favors the smaller, rural and conservative states where Trump is favored. He is an incumbent. I am very afraid that he can and will be reelected if the Democrats don't have a strong candidate who talks to the issues that matter to swing voters and can stand up to a bully like Trump.
1
Identity politics, reparations and the like are exactly what Trump talks about, with his anti-immigrant, deport them all screed. You have simply been trained not to associate Trump with those words.
Just too rich to hear Continetti try to stand behind the fake curtain of "anti-elitism". He reeks of Ivy League elitism, even before he opens his mouth. But this line is the killer: "What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others." He is talking about mining coal, here! He is actually pretending that Trump really cares more about coal miners than the "elitist" Dems -- I can hardly believe this. At the same exact moment he is "insulating" himself "from the costs" that burning coal imposes on the other 7 billion humans on the globe. But then maybe he forgot to study science at Columbia...
The suggestion that Trump represents the “anti-elite” is a truly ridiculous idea. Indeed, he has worked diligently to eliminate policies and programs that would benefit all of us. Trump governs to serve his personal interests and those of the wealthy. The rest of us do not matter.
2
Trump may very well win a re-election, but it won't be because he is seen as an anti-elite. The guy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had a daddy that covered all of his financial failures isn't perceived as a working man's dream candidate. I don't think Trump is the standard bearer for anti-elitism, in fact, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't even know what that means.
1
I'm thinking that "elite," as that which Trump's followers don't like, is simply an educated or wealthy person who doesn't foam at the mouth with hatred.
... may we recognize our mistakes
and succeed in fixing them in time.
somewhere along the lines, social democrats, liberals,
steady fighters for global "freedom and justice for all!"
overlooked that
- [disappointingly] many people do not find their ideas
as charming and expedient as they do,
- a "free" market economy must not equate to free rides
twd unbridled mega-mergers, mass exploitation, global militarization, devastation etc.
may the blind on the extreme right see in time
that those who vow to bring down today's elites are just out
to replace them with their own bc they despise poverty and
all the "poor little critters" who fail to see thru their scam.
The "anti-elite" wave, to the extent it's based on genuine loss, is built upon the lies of its leaders about who is doing what to whom. Continetti assumes that the lie will continue to work. He also appears to assume that Trump won the 2016 election. He did not. If the horse that placed first was illegally injected with steroids, we don't demand proof that he wouldn't have won without the steroids. If the horse that placed first was illegally injected with steroids, we don't demand proof that he wouldn't have won without the steroids. Trump finished first only because of the combination of his campaign's corruption, Russian interference, and McConnell's cynical betrayal of his constitutional duties. If Hillary had placed first with the help of such cheating, the R's would have called the election illegitimate from the start.
2
Trump is a clown and an imposter but make no mistake that his cunning was early identification of the intense dislike for globalists (like myself and presumably most NYT readers).
The lie that progressives tell voters is that we can tackle climate change and inequality without having a dramatic impact on the middle class because all of the pain will be borne by the "elite". As with all wars, it's the common people who will be impacted the most and that's the discussion that politicians on both sides refuse to address.
Look at the yellow vests - they see that to combat climate change requires significant increases to the cost of gas (even though they already pay 2-3 what we do here. FTR, I am completely on board with huge gas and carbon taxes) and they believe that they shouldn't have to bear that cost.
In addition, the recent discussions on leisure travel and increasing home density are illuminating - NYT readers by and large don't feel that they individually need to contribute to fighting climate change in ways that limit the lifestyle that they've become accustomed to and that they feel they've earned.
Doesn't sound so different from the people they mock in flyover country!
2
I want to know why only Trump's 20,000 person rallies are being covered.
Biden, Bernie and Warren have got to be bringing out the voters. Right? They are, right?
2
The Democratic Party is now seen by non-Democrats as the party of open borders, late-term abortion, identity politics and Trump Hatred 24/7. And the party has yet to field a candidate eager to counter that perception. At this rate, the Dems are handing Trump an easy path to re-election in 2020.
4
We can only hope that the majority of voters, the normal people of this country, go out in force and dump trump in a 50-state rout. Nothing less will suffice to stop trump.
If polls a year out from an election are meaningless, why did Trump fire his personal pollsters when they showed him being trounced by Biden?
2
I'm a Trump supporter but I'll tell you how to beat him. Nominate a trash-talking, face-punching, fire-breather who can go toe-to-toe with the president on his own turf. Maybe a MMA fighter (a genuine tough guy) who has the guts to call his democratic opponents vulgar names during the primary and who is more than willing to insult and belittle the president during debates and at campaign rallies. Above all, this person has to be a celebrity who can draw HUGE crowds, bigger than Trump's. This is the only path to a democratic victory, but I am absolutely certain it will not be followed. The dems just don't get it.
I've read many recent columns discussing Trump's chances for reelection, and they all seem to have one feature in common: they treat Trump as an ordinary candidate in an ordinary election. But he is not, nor is this election. I won't bother listing the usual adjectives describing Trump, but they are numerous and all negative. A substantial majority of Americans find the man totally loathsome, and even many of his supporters, based on town halls that I have seen, admit he is a lying scoundrel. They put up with him because they like his "policies" and the way he bullies them through. They still think he is fighting for them, even though his record speaks otherwise.
Surely the fact that Trump is totally unsuited for office will have some impact on the election, hopefully enough to expel him from office in no uncertain terms. I don't know why Trump's character and limited intelligence are ignored by so many political analysts.
There is no need to try to predict the future in this case. Just wait for Election Day. Meanwhile, what does Mr. Continetti think of Trump? Is "The Washington Free Beacon" also an "enemy of the people"?
Focus on the failure of Trump to EVER have approval ratings >50%. In fact, he is always in the 40% range, with some small variance over time. That leaves 60% that either disapprove (approx 52%) or do not approve or disapprove (approx 8%). These numbers will dog him in 2020. Trump winning is unlikely if he cannot improve these stats. His wrecking of the economy via his present actions will likely increase his disapproval rating.
Just more GOP drivel--I choose to think that NOW the American voter will see the light and the odious electoral college will reflect the popular vote for a change.
1
>> The United States is not engaged in a major war. <<
I think that’s open to interpretation.
That Trump’s supporters choose to see him as pro income equality, anti-elite, and ‘for the working man’ is a testament to people’s need to believe in something however irrational, illogical, or contrary to any known reality. I’ve no doubt many of these ‘believers’ still think Obama a Muslim, the Apollo moon landings were faked, and that the Connecticut school massacre was a staged event.
Trump roles back regulations on cleaner air. Trump tries to eliminate the affordable car act. Trump fights globalization with tariffs and pulling out of trade treaties. The education secretary wants to privatize education. Nothing he has done will bring back lost jobs, or create a more affordable education or health care system. His tax cuts have gone into stock buy backs. His wall will do nothing to stop the economically and socially depressed from fleeing to our boarder. His base has been fooled by a con man who has neither the educational or intellectual ability to address the complex issues we face but still they vote for him and cheer him on. It will end Like the movie the “bridge on the river kwai” when Alec Guinness says at the end “my god what have I done “.
Why are Democrats or progressives tarred with the label "elite"? And by the way, what defines an elite? A college degree from an ivy league school? Republican politicians have more of their fair share of those. Among the top income earners? Ditto for Republicans in politics and business. Someone who is an analytical thinker? While disagreeing with what most Republicans think, they have shown remarkable cunning (a form of thinking) in playing the long game to outmaneuver Democrats. Republicans have been gaslighting Dems for years with the "embarrassment" of being intelligent, thinking, concerned and caring people. And look where that's landed us.
Continetti's detailed warning should be heeded. Last time, we were SURE Trump would not win for he was laughable, too much of a braggart, just a posturing mediocre TV person, and we were WRONG!
Right or wrong, he appealed to a mixed group of people who were mostly ignored by both parties- Trump still appeals to them.
We need to wake up and find a challenger who can sling mud like Trump and be better than him.
Too many Americans do not like intellectuals, sad to say. We are in a serious position, and we need to wake up.
This article is nonsense. There already is a great economy and Trump is tanking at the polls. The economy isnt gonna get any better rather it will in all likelihood get worse. Point being: the economy has no effect on why people like or dislike Trump. People forget how Trump barely won in 2016 and if the stars hadn't aligned perfectly he wouldn't have gotten elected. That aint gonna happen this time. Many of my past Trump supporting friends admit they made a mistake voting for him hence his slide in the polls. Trump surely isnt going to pick up any new votes. It is only his rabid brainwashed base that will continue to support him and Trump will lose by a landslide 2020. Mark my words.
This is pathetically off target, and sad.
Irrespective of any opinion about the issues Mr. Continetti identifies, and their perceived (or actual) impact on the lives of everyone, lies the odious soul of the person leading the "surge."
Probably unintentionally, the author therefore infers that those who are "anti-elite" are categorically immoral and driven by hate, based on their unshakeable worship of one horrible man.
It is sadly revealing that the president's deranged, narcissistic and immoral actions seem to matter not a bit to Mr. Contineeti and his golden Wave, so long as he continues to read from the same script.
What's wrong with elites. I have a dentist appointment in a few weeks, with an "elite" educated dentist to do the work. I'm not going to let the nearest high school drop-out do it instead; I want an elite.
1
What's funny (not funny-ha-ha, but funny-creepy) about Trump's supporters are the physical resemblances so many of them have with their fearless leader: looney grimaces, starry-eyed looks of self-importance (more like self-deception), and golly-gee-whiz body language.
It all reminds me of how thankful I am that I'm educated.
1
I enjoyed the good laugh. Trump is done and that is reality.
The night of Trump's Orlando rally I watched on MSNBC three men ridiculing the people who attended the rally.
Keep it up "elitists" and you will guarantee his reelection.
3
At last--a small measure of clear, non-PC thinking on the New York Times op-ed pages.
The lockstep arrogance of the woke-left in the USA will not (let us pray) bring their victory in 2020. Unless their wholly secular prayers are answered with a rollicking depression. If the economic numbers stay solid, Trump will squeak in--aided by the partisans of various defeated Democratic candidates who will sulk in their tents.
The real tragedy of Trump is that he has now occupied the space on the right-wing of the endless (let us hope) debate between the poles of American political thought. There is now (beyond Kevin Williamson) no right-wing voice that can counter-balance the left-wing's increasing radicalism.
But there are moderates, even of the leftish variety, out there who see Trump as insurance against the unrestrained power of the woke, the smug, the envious, the racial/gender "studies" types (Harvard, you get the stink-eye). Sometimes an inept doofus like Trump is the only shelter in the storm.
George HW Bush and Jimmy Carter were denied second terms. LBJ declined to run in 1968 because he saw that he was going to lose.
This analysis is spot on. The world is hardening under the threat of a very uncertain future of depleted resources and possible huge waves of migration triggered by global warming. People are voting hard line right wing populists because they fall for tough image and false sense of security fascist dictators bring on the stage.
1
If reading Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz and passing ninth grade civics class makes me elite, I guess I am guilty. But you don't have to be an economist to see that Trump and the Republicans are hurting the poor, the middle class, if you pay taxes in New York State the upper middle class and true economic growth (by sucking capital out of the system into the pockets of huge monopolies). If Trump is reelected it will be by voters who are so uninformed or so blinded by their own racism that they ignore their own interest.
I am a independent union member (teacher) who walked out
of the classroom for over a week. Our patience and a positive
approach to the realities of the issues payed off in the end
and our demands were met. It's time for the Democratic
party to get real.Shed the "latte liberals" influence and roll up
your sleeves and get to work. Trump can be defeated at the polls.
"Elites’ inability or lack of interest in tackling these problems — or even seeing them as problems — generates a crisis of representation in which large numbers of voters look for alternatives they cannot find within traditional political structures. The results have been unexpected."
Big example: abortion. Liberals were so delighted on having "won on abortion" that they didn't realize that removing an issue from voters' control made them look anti-democratic. With most politicians and commentators refusing to take voter resentment seriously, the "alternative" turned out to be Trump.
2
Just look at how he fills crowded arenas. Unfortunately, I have no doubts that he will have another 4 years.
2
Trump is an easy win based on the economy and lack of unpopular wars so far. Lets hope it changes. Even more frightening is his likelihood of staying in power after defeat.
3
It was estimated upwards of 100 million eligible voters stayed home in 2016. How many of that number voting in 2020 will, in all likelihood, determine the outcome of the election.
1
I guess I define "elitist" differently. Those believing in or struggling against climate change would not be in that group. Many are just younger and see what's coming.
To me Trump is a good example. Born into wealth, using family money and bankruptcy to stay afloat, dodging taxes, probably laundering money in offshore accounts, signing tax cuts for himself and other elitists, etc..
People like him are the problem.
8
Reality. Strong economy, firm foreign policy, weak opponents with no message. The issues are jobs, immigration, jobs, and immigration.
They poll like it's 1985, pay attention to the social media. The coastal elites live and die by the poll, and learned nothing. Then there's the money. $24.9 million in 24 hours? 20,000 ravenous fans at a rally?
Meanwhile Swalwell has 9 people show up for a presser?
It's over before it begins.
4
Uh...I prefer ACTUAL reality, the one that isn’t warped out of all recognition by Trumpists’ TDS.
Foreign policy? China’s expanding while Trump weakly tries to get back into the TPP he trashed, the DPRK is building more A-bombs despite the promises, Iran’s pushing back hard and we don’t have a SecDef, Venezuela’s still collapsing into chaos, and the NAFTA redo is just sitting there. Oh, and border crossings have tripled. But hey, Putin’s doing well.
The economy? ACTUAL wages are flat, with the tax cuts meaning zip to most, idiot tariffs taking about a thousand a year in new costs, and health consta up because Trump keeps attacking the PPACA. Oh, and we’re losing—repeat, LOSING—manufacturing, steel and coal jobs. Heckuva job, Brownie.
I won’t even mention the zooming deficit and debt, or the environmental bills we’re running up, and so on. They involve, you know, facts and science, all that yucky stuff.
But I do get tired of having whatever vicious idiocy you got from Der Bingle and Hannity howled my way on a regular basis. Who the heck do you people think you are?
1
If only potential Trump voters could have an open mind and ask themselves, what has he actually done that helps me other than express anger and resentment? How in practical terms am I any better off now than in 2015? Not the fantasy achievements that he lies about, but real actual changes?
7
@Bonnie
Ok, I'll answer you. I am an attorney in deep blue NYC and I am a Trump voter. Why? Because I am doing much better financially under Trump...I received a substantial raise last year and my stock portfolio is doing very well. I did not pay as much in taxes, still a considerable amount, but less than in the past. I have several friends who own small businesses who are doing very well and are hiring more people due to the good economy. I also have a house on Long Island where there is a real problem with MS13 and other gangs. Trump is at least attempting to address the gang problem here. The Democrats try to tell us there is not illegal immigration problem, but that is not true. I also have a friend who is an excellent attorney who has been nominated for the Federal Bench....shall I go on? By the way, most Republicans I know are not the angry and resentful ones...you Libs pretty well have that covered!
2
"They are looking at national and state polls when our “America First” president ought to be viewed in a global context."
Viewed by who? Populist movements elsewhere may get mileage from Trump, but Trump voters don't pay any attention to what's going on in France or Poland, if they could even locate them on a map. There is no "cresting" populism in America; all the energy is on the Left, and conservatives are merely cynical.
A lot of people who voted for Trump last time will not this time around, either staying home or voting Democratic. Sure, he'll get some new voters, but just as in 2016, it will be Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Wisconsin and Michigan that decide it. And there is no way Trump will carry all of those states to win.
3
Trump rides a wave of prosperity and a gainfully employed America? Even though roughly half of America could not weather a sudden $400 expense, the economic "recovery" has continued under Trump? Are we really reporting that as a fact? Unemployment is at half century lows? Really? If I earn $1 in a week I am "employed?" I doubt that you will post this comment, so this is more a message to the NYT. PLEASE stop reporting these two issues with such a blase certainty. Your readers are smarter than that. It impugns the rest of what you're attempting to do here.
5
Donald Trump is 100% for the “global elite” & one of its most undeserving members. He was born into a real estate empire & was bailed out by daddy repeatedly. He got huge loans & ran more companies into the ground.
He has devoted himself to luxury hotels, luxury golf clubs, & luxury apartment buildings. He has suckered people w/his casino, or was it a for-profit “university”? He & his daddy ruthlessly drove working people out of their homes to raise rents. He used his sham “charity” to enrich himself. He refused to pay people who worked for him time & again. He hangs w/the Saudis & he gave a huge tax cut to the rich. Now he & his family are making millions off the presidency.
In sum, there is not one shred of evidence from his entire money-grubbing career that he has ever cared about anyone besides the “global elite”. His rally theme song tonight revealed his true attitude toward voters: “You can’t always get what you want; but you just might find, you get what you need”
1
As long as the Dems think the way to handle immigration is to scold the natives for being racist, they are in a bad position.
6
"anti-elite" now must mean dumb as a rock.
5
The Free Beacon...the FIRST group to try to gather dirt on Trump about his Russian connection. Why bother ?
1
"Surveys taken more than a year from Election Day are meaningless," and so are GOP screeds from biased pseudo journo-hacks. One look at Continetti's very select choice of terrorism attacks (all Muslims!) to make his point about "elites" coddling radicals reveals all one needs to know about his worldview. I think you might have missed a few slaughters of innocents by white guys, Matt.
1
I’d take this more seriously if i thought the NYT doesn’t have the same profit motive as Fox News...sell more subscriptions.
2
Call "global anti-elitism" by its real name: bigotry, which, in fact, is the most insidious form of elitism, the elevation of your tribe above others who don't look like you.
3
Dear Matthew,
Anybody who knows the stance of the Washington Free Beacon and your fairly right wing conservative history should not be surprised that you see the world through that lens.. I think the great conflict that is gripping the world right now is not a battle between right and left. It is a battle between the ideas of the Enlightenment and democracy versus tyranny and dictatorship. Which one will lead us into the future?
This is the great battle that was fought in WWII with no guarantee that democracy would win.
The people’s of the the world are gripped by great fears right now. Due more to the massive and swift changes which have come to a head especially in the past 30 years, and to huge issues that were well known 70 years ago _ population explosion, climate change, nuclear bomb annihilation - but which humans have chosen to ignore until it’s too late.
Fear is the enemy - not all the scapegoats like immigrants, again - Jews or Muslims, elites or taxes, etc. The Rich world wants to keep their privileges and don’t want to share with the billions of people who live in the world of destitution, violence and despair. A world they have very much created by their own greed and exploitation of the that world.
So, which will we choose? Tyranny or a continued faith in democracy? The odds are on tyranny at the present moment. I believe Democracy is worth fighting for even if it is defeated in the end.
2
Suddenly, anyone who can string a sentence together, spell, has a vocabulary of more than 50 words, sees gray rather than black or white, chooses compassion over blame and cares about issues that don't impact them directly and immediately, is described as a member of the "elite".This is indeed a Global World phenomenon and in many ways an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the economic impacts of the Digital Revolution. The solution lies in a concerted effort to help the casualties of such dramatic change, not a race to the bottom coupled with promises about winding the clock back which amount to trying to push water uphill. Viable Democracies depend on lifting all boats. Today's so-called Elites are Yesterday's Aristocracy. And we know how that story goes.
1
That the author of this piece seriously believes we are not, unlike during the Carter administration, "plagued by foreign policy setbacks and stagflation," suggests he does not read the newspaper that published his column.
Trump, the nationalist, lost the popular vote. If this were any other country he would not have been elected. Our status vis-a-vis our allies has tanked during this administration. Our administration applauds leaders of nations that do not have our interest at heart. We are engaged in a trade war with our leading trading partner and our manufacturers and farmers are suffering. Economic forecasts suggest that if Trump's tariff threats continue the average American will be paying more for goods than they were last year. Wages have risen in some small sectors of the economy but most are stagnant. Polls show that most people in the United States believe that climate change is a threat and that government needs to do something, quick.
The Trump die-hards claim the economy as booming. When they see the empty malls in their areas could that really be why they support him? The demographics of the fans at his rallies suggest other things (like anti-immigration, anti-entitlement programs, the dreams of the wannabe wealthy) are just as, if not more, important.
I am really sick and tired of far right bias and the willful disregard of facts. Mr. Continetti, your support of questionable ideas will not make them any more palatable to most Americans.
3
It’s wryly amusing that the Democrats are shoving one another as far left as possible. Reparations, free everything, white male bad, woman gay “of color” good.
The message doesn’t play.
I never imagined Trump could win even once. But he’s going to do it again. He knows the script.
8
Sorry, @David G., but Trump doesn't have the numbers to win today, and still won't in November 2020.
As long as the people who read and write this newspaper totally refuse to ask questions about Building Seven or fully accept newscasts that report news before it happens with absolutely no questions you deserve Trump and he will win.
The right is just really good at shaping the discussion. All leftists (despite being socialists) are really elite. Right wingers who run the government and cater totally to billionaires and suck up to Wall St. and despise the poor are just regular amurikans. The news media plays right along. The right doesn't even have to put any effort in it.
1
Elite. n. Someone you don't like who makes more than you do.
3
Why would "anti-elite" sentiment lead people to elect a billionaire** New York real estate baron who has been President of the United States since January 2017? Can one be more elite than that?
** self-reported
1
Trump could easily win re-election. He has delivered on the only thing his base wanted from him - bigotry and hatred. Demonizing brown skinned people and religious minorities. Targeting women. And they love that they may now use their religion as a blunt force instrument against the rest of us. They are thrilled that this Senate and this Supreme Court are installing a Christian Republic of Gilead, where women will be nothing more than forced birthing vessels.
But I cannot target Trump voters solely for his likely re-election. Fully ten percent of Bernie Bros voted for Trump. They cost Hillary Clinton the election because they had to have their tantrum that their prom king didn't get the nomination. And I don't see that any of the Bernie Bros have learned anything since 2016, blaming her, rather than themselves for their ignorant votes.
But as long as Trump continues to mirror his voters' bigotry, their racism, their misogyny, their xenophobia, they'll vote for him. He is a reflection of them. He'll promise to make sure that the rest of us must live in an America where those of us who are neither white nor Christian must accept the scraps of second-class citizenship. And so far, he's delivering.
Trump voters have had ample time to peel off in the past three years. But instead, they love that he tells them that the KKK and neo-Nazis are very fine people. Trump will be re-elected because they love all of his lies, his hatred, his bigotry, and they are going nowhere.
2
You know it's trouble when a publication decides to call itself the "Free Beacon." That's code for "conservative mouthpiece."
1
There was and still nothing new, except anger and trash talk to his clueless base.
2
god forbid.
Bernie will win.
The guy with gold toilets who spends all his time (and our money) at his private golf clubs is going to win because of ‘anti-elite’ sentiment? Lol!
3
And what, pray to God, is 'an anti-elite surge'? Did you just make that one up?
2
Can the media stop covering these things so intensely? There is never any news. It is the same speech every time to the same set of adoring white People in red hats and shirts.
4
There is an anti-elite surge (I guess you could call it a surge) as a result of the 2008 depression (and 30 years of supply side economics) just as there was in Germany in the late 1930s due to he Great Depression, but it is not that big, not big enough, because Bernie would have beaten Trump in 2016 (in fact, even a Hillary/Bernie ticket may have beaten Trump, when Hillary picked Tim Kane, I knew she was going to lose, clueless).
1
The numbers related to growth and employment may indicate a trend, but there is much more—in the abstract—that determines the health and strength of a nation and its people. How do we now see ourselves within the context of freedom, democratic principles, civility, kindness and our moral role on the world stage. If nothing else, I have been troubled by the “tone” of our current President and his administration; there is a strong and pervasive undercurrent of anger and aggression in virtually everything they do. This eats away at our national spirit and sense of global purpose. Sure, there may be job growth and more manufacturing, but this is utterly meaningless when much of the world looks down on you for your behavior toward other nations and the planet.
Yes elites are a significant contributors to our problems. Over the past 30 years there has been little difference between both Republicans and Democrats on how they have serve primarily the interest of the elites. Follow the money.
Continetti fails to make the point that Trump's supporter are motivated by ignorance and fear, along with ample doses of racism, fascism and misogyny. And yes, Trump, while talking a lot of tooty continues to deliver primarily for the elites.
All the Democrats need to do to win is put up a progressive, populist (not Biden) with positive ideas and real solutions.
Trump's hateful, fear-driven political rhetoric loses to real problem solving. Real problem solving is "not the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others." i.e. Trump's tax cuts and the subsequent trillion dollar addition to the deficit.
Two errors, one factual, one conceptual:
The public booted a party out of the White house after one term twice: Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, lost to Ronald Reagan, a Republican; and George H.W. Bush, a Republican, lost to Bill Clinton, a Democrat.
The conceptual error is treating the Trump presidency as a normal presidency.
2
What Mr. Continetti appears to be saying is that this election boils down to a contest between the Know Nothings and the Know Somethings. Let's hope the latter win. I don't know if our country can survive the re-election of someone whose "stupefying ignorance," in the words of Boris Johnson, makes him unfit to be president.
2
If African Americans, and young people actually show up in droves on election day in 2020 as they did when Obama ran, this assessment of Trump's path to re-election won't matter one bit. What should matter to every American, is that this election is not about policies, elitists, globalists versus isolationists, but about whether we want to re-elect a racist, criminal with no moral compass. We shall see what happens.
3
I think the author defines "elite" broadly to mean anyone with more than a high school education who does not work with their hands and who tolerates differences in people.
Compared to the leaders of the countries noted here, and as awful as their politics are, Trump is a total outlier in his colossal ignorance, criminality, delusional self aggrandizement, cruelty, inability to reason, inchoherence of language, and utter dishonesty. Other than that, he fits right in.
1
Miners need transition assistance. But blasting "global elites" for trying to prevent climate catastrophe is sociopathic. And those officials who do that and obstruct action are part of what in 2019 can only be described as crimes against nature and humanity
1
I'm a Wyoming Republican whose grandfather was a 1960 DNC convention delegate, putting John Kennedy into nomination.
Today, both political parties are purely fascist (as defined in 1895 by the Italian political scientist Gaetano Mosca). They seek only to destroy each other's bases and equally support the militarism and imperialism of the US military that has bankrupted the nation, just as Eisenhower warned would happen in his 1961 farewell speech.
AMERICA DESERVES FOUR MORE YEARS OF TRUMP!
2
I have a simpler explanation for the Electoral College president's likely chances in 2020:
Half the population, by definition, has below average intelligence, a perfect base for a practiced con artist with nearly every one of the deadly sins: Lust, Gluttony, Pride, Greed, Wrath, Envy, Dishonesty, and others, too many to list.
The photo at the top of this piece is hilarious. I rest my case.
Trump’s an elitist wannabe who has snookered the aggrieved working class into supporting his elitist interests. Populism is merely a means to an end.
It is clear that those agreeing with this article live in an all white-old world. The young are engaged in a way I never thought possible, and they are horrified! The author pretends that 2018 midterms never occurred and tries to link Europe with the US. Wishful thinking, the under 40 crowd will vote in numbers never seen. Sorry boomers your time is up
An elite is a person who believes their ideas (and only their ideas) are correct. The sole remedy to the problem of their choosing is their proposed solution....which they endeavor to impose upon all others. Simply put, an elite believes they know what’s best for you without knowing you. Your stated vision in this post is certainly a noble one. But cramming an ultra liberal platform down people’s throats and not understanding why others reject it is at the heart of the elite issue the author has chosen too address.
3
@Rago "An elite is a person who believes their ideas (and only their ideas) are correct.
By this definition, Trump is clearly an "elite".
2
Is a surge in xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, gay-bashing, and women's rights bashing now being called a surge in "anti-elitism"?
Trump, an elitist, is directly accountable for stirring up all of the racists and anti-Semites during the past two-and-a-half years. Anti-elitism is a non-issue, simply because the elitists in the United States, namely the rich, white, Republicans, are playing everyone for fools. Ditto for many of the rich and powerful in the rest of the world.
2
With all the the commentators claiming about the use of the word "Elitist", I would point out that for the NY Times:
1. Trump and the Republicans are "Conservatives"
2. Centrist and Right leaning Democrats are "Liberals"
3. The mass majority of the current Democratic Party and Independents are "Leftists" and "Socialists".
I think the writer is dead wrong.Who is more elitist than Trump,his family,his friends,his entire cabinet? He lives in a gold filled tower,his wife wears designer clothes,his kids and grandkids want for nothing and he is not elitist? He is a con man who will say and do anything for approval .This man will get their votes as a backlash against the elite? The blue collars who will vote for him are one or two issue people, who have forgotten what
"made America great."He is laughing all the way to the White House once more.(this comment was sent by Elaine Goldman.
Trump is the ultimate elite, masquerading as a populist. Apparently, Americans are a dumb lot placing their hopes in yet another hero. We are on a path towards a dictatorship as a result of simplistic thinking.
Great, Mr. Continetti, you vote for him!
1
Here we go again with this ridiculous "elite" label. Trump, and the multitude of very rich people who support him because he gave them enormous tax breaks and allows them to grift off of the tax payers the way he does, are the actual elites in this scenario and they are all conservatives. Trump talks about coal miners, farmers and factory workers but he has actually made their lives worse with his idiotic tariffs. He's popular with people who want to blame immigrants, people of color, educated people or uppity women for the fact that they are not doing well in our economy. It's so much easier to demonize the "other" than it is to understand the public policies enacted by the republicans that have hollowed out the middle class and transferred yet more wealth to the mega-rich. Here's a hint, a post-doc with huge debt is not an "elite", a reality T.V. star who was born rich and lives in various gold-plated mansions and names buildings after himself, is an "elite."
The United States of America has become the acknowledge homeland of White pride and Nationalism. The election of an America President who is an unabashed White Nationalist has reinvigorated the belief of many White people who believe in White entitlement. The restoration of White power and domination is the aspiration of Trump and those who believe in Make America Great Again. Trump is driven by the need to destroy the reputation of his predecessor who is a much admired Black man.
1
Trump claims to be a populist but lives and acts as the 1%er he wants to be. All of his policies benefit the millionaire class that Trump - like all nouveau riche- aspires to. He is a money-laundering New York realtor with criminal instincts.
Trump tapped into some justified fears and resentments against elites, and redirected those resentments towards brown people. He lucked into an opponent who generally denied the justified fears and resentments.
Hopefully, the Democrats will be wise enough to acknowledge the justified fears and resentments, and smart enough to actually address them even if it burdens the elites. In a word, Liz.
If not enough voters buy it, we're doomed. We might be doomed anyway, but it's worth a shot.
1
This op-ed rings true. As a lifelong Democrat from NYC now in the most liberal state I too believe that Trump will win in 2020, unfortunately. But I am hopeful that after winning a majority in the Senate this insane and malignant president will be impeached.
So says Matthew Continetti with his ongoing yet misguided obsession with the “elites.”
We're heading for some really social unrest in the coming months, from clashes with neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other factions of the Trump cult.
So far, there are no indications that there is any coordination between states, law enforcement, Congress, and other organizations on how to deal with it. It will likely result in violence.
Whether Trump wins for loses in 2020, we are about to enter a period that could break this country.
1
“The attacks at the Bataclan theater in Paris in November 2015, at an office party in San Bernardino, Calif., two weeks later and at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., in June 2016 heightened fears of terrorism. Elites downplayed the ideology of the assailants for fear of an anti-Muslim backlash, opening themselves up to charges of political correctness. After San Bernardino, Mr. Trump welded the issues of terrorism and immigration in his call for a ban on Muslims’ entry into the United States. His Democratic and Republican opponents rejected the policy. But Republican voters supported it by a wide margin.”
So let me get this straight. Trump supporters are so fearful of the ‘other’ and possible terrorist attacks they want to close the border and ignore a humanitarian crisis going on in Central America. But at the same time we have mass shootings by Americans here at home (Sandy Hook, Parkland, Las Vegas, etc) and these same voters ignore those dangers because of the rights to bear arms and support Trump who has nothing to say about such home-grown terror? Give me a break. This is why us so-called elites (basically just people with some empathy and half a brain) look down on such voters.
"The United States is not engaged in a major war. " There's lots of conflict. How you define major and war. Economic sanctions are a bootless-on-the-ground war. And what about the tariff war? And when a kid returns without a leg from a major war, oh yeah, that was a conflict not a war. No, there's conflict and both parties participated in it.
Mr. Continetti makes his preference clear when using the phrase, "our “America First” president", he's a Trump supporter. Trump may be 'his' President, but the majority of voters, on the day he won the Presidency, rejected him. The current occupant's vociferous claims of voter fraud not withstanding.
The idea that Mr. Trump is "riding a wave of national populism" is certainly true, if you define "national populism" as bigotry and hate.
My own opinion of the current President could not be more different from Mr. Continetti's, his presence in the White House has been, and continues to be, a national disaster. Yet he has incumbency on his side, and a lot of people can be fooled more than once in Donald Trump's game of 3 Card Monty. You bet your life.
Fox News viewership is double that of cnn and msnbc combined. For these viewers, the president can do no wrong. And most will vote.
It will take an exceptionally enthused and engaged progressive electorate to defeat Trump.
Otherwise this article has got it right
2
Not saying that it couldn't happen, but consider the source. I'll never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter though, and with the archaic Electoral College system, it could happen. Again.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-free-beacon/
1
Without the “Electoral College”, without an unelected cabal of vengeful amateurs and hacks, the Republicans can’t get a majority of Americans to vote for them, as they’ve failed to do in six of the last seven elections.
1
Anti-Elitist?? Trump has never bought groceries; sweated the rent; mortgage payment and the car note; walked to work; taken a bus or a subway. His daddy paid for everything and bailed him out of multiple bankruptcies. He stiffed the small contractors who worked on his properties and hired illegals. Trump lives in the same bubble he did as a millionaire toddler
2
This just latest news...very powerful editorial I want to share, from conservative newspaper.
Our Orlando Sentinel endorsement for president in 2020: Not Donald Trump | Editorial
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/editorials/os-op-sentinel-not-endorsing-donald-trump-2020-20190618-63ya7cyb5ngf3irllodwxnznui-story.html
Historically very conservative outlet, but they did endorse Obama.
Very powerful piece...
"After 2½ years we’ve seen enough.
Live Updates All Day Today: President Trump in Orlando for re-election rally »
Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies.
So many lies — from white lies to whoppers — told out of ignorance, laziness, recklessness, expediency or opportunity.
Trump’s capacity for lying isn’t the surprise here, though the frequency is.
It’s the tolerance so many Americans have for it.
There was a time when even a single lie — a phony college degree, a bogus work history — would doom a politician’s career.
Not so for Trump, who claimed in 2017 that he lost the popular vote because millions of people voted illegally (they didn’t). In 2018 he said North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat (it is). And in 2019 he said windmills cause cancer (they don’t). Just last week he claimed the media fabricated unfavorable results from his campaign’s internal polling (it didn’t)."
2
Bestowing the 'anti-elitist' mantel on Trump is merely playing his fool. Trump's rhetoric is belied by his policies. A fake 'man of the people', you merely help him to further his con.
There was nothing at all anti-elite about the tax cut he pushed for and signed. Rather, it was Republican elite worship at its finest, once again protecting the pockets of the uber rich. There is nothing anti-elite about ruining the chances for people to obtain good health insurance. There is nothing anti-elite about calling climate change a hoax so that industries can pollute more and produce more carbon emissions. That just protects the coffers of the largest corporations.
You are falling for the gag when you think that a man who is only 'anti-elite' because he never was accepted fully in high society and who makes it a point to persecute the lowliest migrant.
Really now, try to get serious.
1
So wait, what?
Ok. As an incumbent president, Trump has a 60% chance of reelection. I am not disputing Mr. Continetti's stats about recent presidential history.
However, he has ignored some facts about Trump, or logged them under the heading of "micromanaging by pundits." But the facts are these: Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. That means that his racist, xenophobic, "anti-establishment" strategy did NOT appeal to the most voters. He unexpectedly won in in the electoral college--and even he did not expect that--but it was in spite of his campaign's themes, not because of them. We look back and act as if 2016 was inevitable, but it was not. Trump was incredibly lucky.
Since then, Trump has not expanded his base at all. If anything, by doubling down on nativism, xenophobia, and racism, he has probably shrunk it. His plan for 2020 is to make 2016 happen by design instead of by accident, winning in the electoral college even at the cost of the popular vote. So polls showing him trailing almost any Democratic candidates in states he needs to win are not good.
The election is over a year away, and Trump can still win, but only if he gets 2016 to repeat itself. And that means deliberately remaining unpopular with all but his core supporters. That would be a headwind, not a wave.
1
60 minutes did a segment during which they broadcast images of 1000s of migrants, primarily young men, walking across the border with impunity. the NY times had an article quoting 2 young men joking they came with a child to cross the border as "a ticket to America"
Believe me: even folks who have considered themselves open and liberal are disgusted by the distortion of what should be asylum laws. They will not say so publically but they will vote red.
1
"... the interrelated issues of unchecked immigration, terrorism and the imposition of ... measures to mitigate climate change".
So, what you're saying is that racism, fear and ignorance of science are driving a wave of populism that will sweep Trump back into the White House? Are you proud of that claim?
America needs immigrants to feed its soul and its economy. Terrorists supported by states like Syria and Iran do more damage than individual rogues with rifles, and are part of a civil war in Islam among Shi'ites, Sunni and modernity. If we (elite or otherwise) don't voluntarily make huge changes in our lifestyle, which can be positive, then climate change will make them for us. and those will be very negative.
Besides, Trump is incompetent, stupid, and narcissistic. He has not and will not be able to deal with any of the problems he used to reach the White House.
1
Present the national electorate with a candidate for POTUS who is respectful of majority sentiment on major issues & aware of the dangers in/willing to change the current tax structure which obscenely favors the top 1% in terms of income, then sit back and watch Trump be proven the weakest incumbent since Herbert Hoover.
2
"...elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others."
Amen
3
Thus writer is completely, utterly, entirely on target.
1
The comments here protesting the moniker "elite" prove the point. Isolated. Insulated. Demeaning. Dismissing.
Pundits downplayed Trump's crowd last night. He's stale. Old playbook. Kinda like Joe Scarborough's geezer rock at Prohibition.
But. Hey. How will Trump's crowd look next to Biden's? All those "uneducated deplorables" vote.
2
@Carol Colitti Levine
So, Carol, you seem to know all about it.
How do you take the Richest Senator, the Richest President, the Biggest Media pile, and exclusive and egotistical religious poobahs, get them all together to wreck benefits, security, pay, and opportunities for the working class, defund medical and social services, slash education spending (except for-profit diploma mills), wreck the environment and lie for years about their plans for healthcare, tax reform and the environment and, this is the big one, attempt (again) to shrink and privatize Social Security after swearing he would never do such a thing, and believe them when they call someone else 'elite'.
I get that it amuses you that we are confused.
But we are confused.
Please, do, straighten us out.
1
Continettti’s fanciful insights fail to take into consideration one immutable fact, there are more of “us” than there are of “them.”
"Elite" is code for educated, right?
1
@tony
Not necessarily. It’s probably best to think of it in relation to a society’s status hierarchy with the elite residing in the upper echelon. Education has become a proxy for the privilege of access to resources, both material and intellectual, that members of the upper class command.
I say start impeachment before he does any more damage.
2
I can't wait until Hillary announces the she is running again.
2
Never. Never. Never Trump.
1
Never been a President whose policies more closely align with the interests of the elites. Total con job.
3
Sorry, please tell me how a billionaire inserted into office who then hands the wealthy a multi-trillion $$ tax giveaway is 'anti-elitiest'
He is there to advance the interests of the rich. Nothing more. Wake up.
3
Oh please, the writer would do well to look at the actual facts on immigration. Instead he uses trumps dog whistle as if it’s true and we aren’t facing it. Frankly, we hear enough of these opinions every day and don’t need to read them here presented as “facts”.
1
Could we exchange the description of liberal (elite haha) to just literate? I think that is more descriptive and accurate.
1
You've gotta hand it to the american conservatives... the democrats/liberals could learn a thing or two about message discipline from them...
1
When I see the enthusiastic crowds supporting him, I wonder if the Dems, who do indeed want to raise taxes not just on the rich, and who do indeed seem to value the illegals more than the native born, are going to beat this person.
2
Why do Republican voters not see him as an 'elite'? One look at Mar-a-Largo should tell them
1
What is an "Elitist"? If it is a college educated, politically correct identity politician who ignores science unless it can be used as a political weapon to forward the "blank slate" myth, then I can understand the animosity. Trump supporters include many who see the seeds of this creature in every male. They believe that these seeds are natural and not to be negotiated out of existence. They do not focus on his antics. They focus on the source of his disdain, which is the source of their own. Progressives do not fathom the depth of that disdain. They will keep being outsmarted until they do.
1
I’d say there is barely a 1 in 10 chance of ousting Trump in 2020. Of course he’ll lose the popular vote, again, but the electoral college will elect him, again. I don’t see Biden getting the Democrats particularly energized - he’s the Old White Male version of Hillary Clinton. Without impeachment, or the Democrats doing something unusually bold - like a Warren- Buttigiege ticket, or a Harris-Booker ticket, I’m ready to take bets at 9 to 1 favoring Trump. And don’t forget Trump has promised a great new inexpensive health care system for right after the election, so that puts that issue to rest.
Finally I see what I have been telling privately. Political polling has become an industry that had become the mutual back scrubbing club between the media and the polling folks. The glaring example of the polling pundits were wrong is election of Trump. Hillary and her campaign believed in the polls and ran on that premise. She produced big agendas, planning documents etc. addressing each minute details of tge issues gleaned from the polling data. Did any body read them or were swayed by them? Trump understood the pulse of the country and that was very different from the bicoastal elite establishment.
1
Elite's who play golf every weekend at their own clubs, which then receive money from the taxpayers that goes back to the candidate? I'm hard pressed to imagine that once there is a Democratic candidate, this and the myriad other ways that Trump enriches himself and his cronies will not be daily messaging.
2
this would have been more convincing had the writer acknowledged that trump is only rhetorically an “anti-elitist”.
aside from his own biography of entitlement and the current nepotistic and corporatist configuration if the current admnidtration, even a cursory look at how the 2017 GOP tax act distributes benefits quickly settles the matter, as does examination revised rules for labour law, overtime pay.
under trump, business and corporate interests have an even freer hand in writing legislation.
by populist “anti-elitism”, then, the writer seems to mean the ability to appeal to xenophobia and a reliance on duping the uneducated and whipping up irrational religious fundamentalism, especially around issues of gender and women’s equality and reproductive rights.
1
(typos, sorry.
tax benefit data/ analysis:
(see “distribution by income” and “healthcare impact”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act_of_2017#Healthcare_impact
The meta-narrative of the Trump voter is that they are reversing the non-white presidency of Obama. Period, full stop. They don't even hide it -- Trump trumpets it every day. Big Ol' Mitch actually said it yesterday! So that's the core of the anti-elite wave, which is basically a second vote for Andrew Johnson.
As for the 'anti-elite' wave in Europe, it would be a reaction to the "browning" of northern Europe and it's exacerbated by the current refugee catastrophe. That's the one, sole, meta-, plain reason for voting Trump.
1
This is a realistic analysis of the climate in Ohio which is crucial to the election. Democrats would do well to pay attention, even if they don't like it.
2
I wish someone would define "Global elite" for me, in a way that doesn't suggest that it just means someone who went to college? Who is the "Elite?" In America, haven't we gold plated the myth of the self made millionaire/billionaire? Is that person "Elite?" When did excelling become a bad thing? Don' we want an elite quarterback, an elite pitcher... an elite president?
1
Both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter's average approval rating was below 50%. Trump's approval rating has declined as his disapproval rating has climbed; as many have cited, he has not added to his base. I see more likeness to the one term presidents. Clinton came out of nowhere to beat GHW Bush as did Jimmy Carter to beat Ford.
Polls may not mean much one year out, but neither does Brexit and global trends cited. Trump had to bus people to his rally yesterday, hardly a sign of a healthy candidacy.
2
Any definition of the term "elite" has to include Trump, who was born into money, bought his way out of Vietnam, ran his businesses into the ground but was repeatedly rescued with generous financial help from his father, and spends his life in luxury apartments and on golf courses.
How is it possible for ordinary Americans to relate to him?
4
How to counter the emotional politics of fear and resentment ? Sadly not by rationality, but more likely by stoking alternate fears and resentments. And I hope I’m wrong.
2
It seems to me that the so-called populist wave crested in 2016-2017. Recent elections worldwide have seen fewer gains from the anti-immigrant right and more from left-wing parties focused in climate change. The people of Britain seem to be waking up to the fact they were conned about Brexit. The 2018 wave here swept in Democrats, not “populists.”. Nevertheless, we can’t be complacent; Trump and the Republicans have shown they will use every dirty trick available to them to keep power, including lying and opening our cyberspace to foreign interference. We have to be vigilant and not let them divide us, expose propaganda, push back constantly against voter suppression, and above all, vote, because the truth is that nationwide, there are more of us than there are of them.
3
"What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others." It is this, and only this. The day I see Nancy Pelosi or any of the other wealthy elites put their money where their mouth is (offer subsidized housing in their gated community, send their kids to inner-city schools, etc.) is the day I'll reconsider my vote. So tired of the rules are for thee, but not for me.
9
@Anonymous. When I hear the term “elitist”, I think of the Kennedy family as a perfect example. Wealthy, graduates of liberal private and Ivy League schools, who live on an isolated compound and want to tell those living in the inner cities and in small towns on the southern border how to live their lives, because the policies they promote do not effect them.
2
bingo.... why was this editorial written now and not two years ago... I have voted for every democrat since McGovern and now even I feel left out... two years ago we could of moved to the middle but not now.... we are off the rails!!!
6
Did he forget about GHW Bush?
3
@jaltman81: When GHW Bush lost, the PARTY had been in control of the White House for three terms.
In contrast, when Jimmy Carter lost, the Democratic Party had held the White House for only one term.
I had to read that statement in the editorial twice to realize what he meant.
I’m looking forward to cleaning up on my MAGA merch sidehustle with garbage drop-shipped from manufacturers identified on Alibaba. And with apologies to Alfred E Neumann, Tariffs. what me worry?
Thank you for your poor taste in merch, Trump voters! Wear your MAGA pride each and every day!
2
That's strange, because if you're correct about "the surge," then all of "The Elites" are non-Caucasians, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, gay, or trans-sexual.
That's quite a group, considering that the traditional "Elites" in the United States are mostly rich, old, white Republicans.
4
Quite right.
2
trump will get his bigoted 40% again. IF we stop Russian interference in 2020 trump will again be beaten.
1
Skimmed the piece, got the gist.
My comment would be, if you find yourself in a wave of Trump mania, get some fins and goggles. It's going to be a long swim to the island, of Trump.
"Only two of the nine presidents up for re-election since World War II have lost." Ford, Carter, Bush, Sr.?
3
@Blair
Ford doesn't count because he wasn't elected, so he was not up for re-election.
Anybody who is taking this editorial seriously needs to look up Matthew Continetti on wiki. 37 years old. Graduate of Columbia University in NYC. ( Yup - an Ivy Leaguer), married to William Krystol’s daughter.
4
Hands down the best piece I’ve read in this publication in years. I guess there is someone who gets it at the NYT after all.
3
The idea that a numbskull like Trump would carry yet another election is preposterous. His lying, his ignorance, and all of the other things, are not worthy of consideration for another term, unless you assume that we are a country of numbskulls and cheats and dodgers, and women haters, and racists, and criminals, but I certainly hope that this is not the case. His slogans and his rhetoric has had a numbing effect on his base, but not on the mainstream. He is an aberration, but a necessary canary in the coal mine of America. Now we know what we are up against.
3
What about the costs the anti-elitists impose on others?
1
Mass deportations. Race baiting. Nationalism: "Uber Alles." Detention camps. Kidnapping children -- giving them to politically-connected parents. Jobs, jobs, jobs! Work two jobs. Three jobs to survive. No unemployment. Start a war somewhere, right before the election. "The Fatherland!" Down with the elites, and up with Trump - a self-made man who worked his way up from nothing.
Somehow, all of this making America great again sounds a little familiar...
1
The author says:
"Elites downplayed the ideology of the assailants for fear of an anti-Muslim backlash, opening themselves up to charges of political correctness."
There are more deaths in this country by white males than Muslims. By a lot.
3
Law enforcement works round the clock to prevent Islamic attacks in the US. Without those efforts the numbers would be very different (as they are in the rest of the world).
1
@Max
My brother is in law enforcement, both local police and FBI.
The threats are not what you are claiming.
Even in a country like France, our shootings by white males are much higher.
On the other hand, we are the only first world country with active shooter drills for our children.
This election is the Democrats to lose and so far they are doing a bang up job!
4
The ultimate elitist--a man who inherited virtually all of his wealth and has run a handful of high-profile businesses into bankruptcy, a man who believes in a racial elite--is the vanguard of the anti-elitist movement. What sort of nonsense is this?
5
1. Economy is good
2. Abortion opponents are giddy with the possibilities
3. I repeat: Economy is good
4. No impeachment
5. Media loves, promotes, and worships Trump, even if politically they oppose him
6. Biden is too old
7. DNC will ruin the chances of anyone who isn’t Biden
8. Electoral college, gerrymandering, Citizens United
9. Hillary “won” by 2.7 million votes
10. Trump is, apparently, above the law
Tell me more about this poll that has several Democrats defeating Trump in 2020...
6
The NYTs must have missed the story that Joe Biden only had 85 people at his rally in Iowa. Trump had 20,000 with 100,000 tickets requested. The Democrat party has really fallen out of touch with the American people and pushing Socialism doesn't help their cause either.
8
People believe what they think is true. Reason and polls and statistics don’t matter. Keep quoting them and a second Trump term is assured. Discount the real or imagined concerns of the middle class and working class at your own risk. Everything seems to be us v them, plug in your own us or them. Some moderation is needed. Yes he’s a vulgar bully. Too bad Kirsten Gellibrand shoved out Al Franken who could have give Trump a real verbal challenge.
2
@retirement lady. I too am a retired lady and I despise Gillibrand for her behavior re al Franken. I am always shocked though gratified that others and not just us retired ladies feel the way I do. I'm waiting for his next book. I promise to buy it, not just borrow from our great public libraries.
1
There is more of the decency then of them!!
The problem is we have Tom Steyer and Bloomberg in the party now. Tom Steyer is quite frankly a character from Luther. He bought my company just so he could come to the office, watch and tape my bosses fire me---only because I said I believed it was unjust to fire someone for who they voted for.
When I later pushed back, he attacked my family, including my special needs cousin-using his connections to have the school district isolate her from classmates and teachers for a whole year--not to mention using his political connections to go after a State University Dean and a US Attorney, through state means and connections to gubernatorial candidates.
He is a horrible person. Democrats should not accept his help, and he gives Republicans an opening merely due to his presence in our party. I know what he is capable of--he is rich, and SHORT--but also one of the most envious and jealous human beings on the planet. A total ego-maniac, who uses his money to survive in a world he has no business surviving in.
If he sees this, he should know that if he continues, I will be forced to beat him to death with my barehands-whenever I next see him, and I will see him again. Nature will not allow you to run from someone like me--so please keep that in mind--and if anyone can pass along that message to our very-own dwarf-sized mime (watch him speak), then I would really appreciate it.
Tom Steyer is evil, and its easy to see. Having him run the campaign to impeach is political suicide
1
Not "anti-elite".
Anti-elitist.
And anti-statist.
This analysis is the most accurate explanation of Trump's success and continued domination of American politics. Nothing much has changed since November, 2016 in terms of the polarization of the US. Elitism is a reality. The fascist elite who support Trump are invisible by the majority of Americans because the media has so polluted and corrupted serious journalism. FOX, MSNBC and CNN continue to be the biggest obstacles to any change in this disastrous climate. Facts are no longer relevant and are so easily and immediately manipulated into standard rhetoric clear thinkers are looking for ways to survive this global crisis. Do we need to look to Hong Kong to find our democracy again?
2
How many ways do we have to educate the uneducated white males that Donald Trump is not their savior, that he is not going to save them from the elites of which he is one. But not in a philosophical way. He feels detached from the super rich because he is from Queens and he knows that his father operated in basic mobster fashion, racist fashion, and so Trump is ashamed but afraid to admit it, and he's been running away from it his whole life.
1
who thinks Trump is going to win 2020?
1
This just latest newsflash...
Our Orlando Sentinel endorsement for president in 2020: Not Donald Trump | Editorial
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/editorials/os-op-sentinel-not-endorsing-donald-trump-2020-20190618-63ya7cyb5ngf3irllodwxnznui-story.html
Historically very conservative outlet, but they did endorse Obama.
Very powerful piece...
"After 2½ years we’ve seen enough.
Live Updates All Day Today: President Trump in Orlando for re-election rally »
Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies.
So many lies — from white lies to whoppers — told out of ignorance, laziness, recklessness, expediency or opportunity.
Trump’s capacity for lying isn’t the surprise here, though the frequency is.
It’s the tolerance so many Americans have for it.
There was a time when even a single lie — a phony college degree, a bogus work history — would doom a politician’s career.
Not so for Trump, who claimed in 2017 that he lost the popular vote because millions of people voted illegally (they didn’t). In 2018 he said North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat (it is). And in 2019 he said windmills cause cancer (they don’t). Just last week he claimed the media fabricated unfavorable results from his campaign’s internal polling (it didn’t)."
1
Of course the great irony with Trumpism is the man himself. Has there ever been a president who has more financial ties to entities in foreign countries than our current president. While Trump is selling his America First gospel to the world, his children are busy looking for business deals throughout the world. It's no wonder that Trump seems to have such a casual attitude toward receiving dirt on his political opponents from wherever. Hopefully the Democratic Party candidates pick up on the irony and go with it. They need to brand Trump with a slogan like "It takes a global village to win an election."
Sure. Nice enough analysis.
But there is one thing that will "carry Trump to re-election": Nancy Pelosi.
She will not move to impeach, will not legitimize all the Democrat hue and cry, will not rise above politics as usual, and Trump knows it now.
Pelosi has single-handedly confirmed Trump's mewling complaint about being a victim; Pelosi has confirmed Democrats are no less self-interested and avaricious for power than Trump.
The tide is building, I suppose in some dream world she could change her mind. But it won't matter.
Its. Too. Late.
The road to 2020 is now nothing but a really, really expensive, really boring show.
2
Trump will need more than red hat MAGA's and evangelicals to win again Mr. Continetti. The voters who gave it a shot won't be back.
@scott k.
Twenty-five to 30% of the electorate will vote for him no matter what b/c they sincerely believe that, warts and all, he's Divine instrument of national moral salvation. Another ~10% will vote for him b/c they'd rather open a vein than vote Dem.
However, his net approval rating has diminished since Jan17 in all 50 states and is underwater in over 50% as of May17. He can and probably will be defeated IF independents vote in significant number in Dem primaries AND the party unequivocally accepts and supports the will of primary voters.
2
The wave that will get Trump re-elected:
1. Economy
2. Media
3
Another perspective that forgets 90 million people did not vote in 2016 - and even if half of those do not vote - those that will, won't vote for Trump.
The other factor though that we can count on is foreign financial interference - we have no financial borders with "Citizens Untied" (AKA corporate personhood and money as free speech). Any 501C3 can be set up to bombard us with lying propaganda. Facebook has done nothing to fix this.....this second factor is more troubling.....
4
You know we live in "Bizarro World" where a man who owns a golden toilet is somehow not an "elite".
I envy my infant nephew. By the time he grows up, this unfathomably stupid era in American history will be over and he'll have zero memory of it.
2
Only in today’s amoral Republican echo chamber could a rich-born, draft-dodging, wife-dumping, pornstar-paying real estate heir with his own Manhattan tower be pitched as the “anti-elitist” hero defending working class Christian values.
He says our “elite” “enemies” include the likes of decorated Marine combat vet and career lawman Robert Mueller, and Joe Biden, faithful husband and the son of a car salesman from blue-collar Scranton, PA.
Donald Trump is a talented con man, and clearly not the only one in his party.
7
"Jamais deux sans trois", the French say. Never two without three. Jimmy Carter (#39) and George H.W. Bush (#41) lost their re-election bids in 1976 and 1988. May Donald Trump (#45) lose his re-election bid next year.
3
It will be a pretty wave that washes Trump on the beach, belly up.
1
You ducked the issues of racism, misogyny, lack of education, etc. that may Trump supporters are associated with, for example Trump.
4
I was ignorant (and assuming no bias as is my usual) about the bias of this contributor.
But after just a tiny bit of reading his pro trump bias is eye popping I read the whole article and was dismayed that someone apparently well educated can be so blind and ignorant.
While I agree trump fooled some once. Fooling that many again won’t happen. There are those few who are mired deep in the muck with tRump and this contributor is definitely one of those. Like an ostrich sticking his head in a sea of wishful sand.
His Washington Beacon reads like a conservative rag magazine. A people magazine of supposedly thoughtful analysis. Which is actually thinly veiled idiocy and surface level deep if that.
Good luck on your sad bias. Hope it gets you where you want to be.
4
“In the past century the public has booted a party from the White House after a single term just once”.
Jimmy Carter (D) was defeated by Ronald Regan (R) in 1980.
George Bush (R) was defeated by Bill Clinton (D) in 1992.
2
This was not an oversight by this right wing columnist. Most of his readers are so uninformed they didn't catch the lie. Just a microcosm of the partisan lies trumps cult is exposed to 24/7.
1
Mr Continetti seems confused about elites. The most elite White House staff in history is in place: Kushner, Mnuchin, DTjr., Ivanka, et al are the epitome of monied privileged elite. Note that Trump lost the last election, but grabbed office due to a strange quirk in the Electoral College, and he has held power due to the grossly anti-democratic structure of the Senate. An underlying reason that Trump has remained in power is that the US is witness to the rise of the racists. Racists voted for him and they like it this way. The big question is what to do with this hard core racists minority after the next election. Let them go back to their sleeper cells? Take away their MAGA hats? Force them to wear their MAGA hats? Expose them to public ridicule? Take away their Harvard diplomas? Hard to say.
4
If Trump is reelected any residual faith in the basic decency of US voters will be lost for at least a generation. That any voter could even consider voting for this disgraceful, xenophobic, unethical, ignorant dolt beggars belief.
3
To most Trump supporters anyone who dared to EARN a post graduate degree is considered “elite” and thus their enemy. How sick is that?
3
James Comey bashed Hillary Clinton with Anthony Weiner's computer the week before the election to put Trump into the presidency. It was a bloodless assassination.
6
Why the fear of immigrants when the bulk of terrorist assaults seem to be coming from likely Trump supporters.
3
Did you forget George Bush Sr was a single term president?
2
How in the world is Donald Trump not an elite? That's insane.
2
Trump's ridiculous LIES and FEAR-MONGERING about immigration is WHouse adviser Stephen Miller's scheme for Trump's winning a 2nd term as president. This insane PROPAGANDA will go non-stop like a runaway train. Good luck surviving it, folks.
2
"The Washington Free Beacon"?!
Where do they find these guys?
5
Someone please explain to me what the term " ELITIST" means. Seriously, when did this word become a staple of American Political Discourse, especially on the right?
All answers will be Appreciated..TY..
1
@vladimir blinkin
Most of the people who comment here and who hate Mr. Trump might fall into the category.
Anti-elite=Trump? seriously? This is ridiculous. He’s doing such a good job selling snake oil and the PRESS is responsible for giving him the platform — making it possible for this slick egotistical narcissist to be president. It’s on you, press. Airtime selling his lies. Airtime for letting him debase anyone who doesn’t agree with him. Stop giving him oxygen. Stop.
1
Trump is in trouble because he is the most indecent President ever. He lies constantly. He is without morals. He is a traitor and condones treason as he said last week when he said he would take something of value during the campaign, which is illegal, from our enemies. Of course he did that in 2016 and only the corruption of the Republican party enabled the cover-up, allowed the corruption of government to continue unabated, and then politicized the entire Justice Department to stonewall constitutionally protected oversight of the executive branch. This article is a bunch of nonsensical propaganda. The "elites" are those who benefited greatly from globalization while they funded misinformation and propaganda media channels to sell tax cuts for the top 1/100 of the 1 percenters globally. And all of those people advocating those policies were Republicans. Just wait until the Republican masses figure out they have been had. Of course that may never happen for most of them but that won't matter. A majority will be enough to claw back the wealth stolen from the nation. Then we can rebuild the nation.
Americans are disgusted with separating Guatemalan babies from their mothers at the border, letting them die of curable diseases.
Farmers unable to plant crops in fields flooded by excessive rain now see climate change is real.
Real wages have not recovered from 30 years of stagnation.
The wealth gap widens.
Voters in the middle felt, in 2016, that they were choosing “the lesser of two evils” when they voted for Trump.
But what made Hillary seem “more evil” than Trump in 2016 was the KGB style, brain-washing propaganda provided ny Putin.
Today’s middle voter now knows, which they did not know in 2016:
that Trump’s promise to release his tax returns was a lie;
that his pre-election 2016 statement “I have no business in Russia” when he was really negotiating a half-billion dollar Moscow Trump Tower deal with Russia, was a lie;
that his “beautiful tax cut,” which would only help the rich, and raise the deficit that the middle class gets stuck with, was a lie;
that, even while he Was downplaying his “Access Hollywood” misogynistic vulgarity as mere “locker-room talk,” Trump was telling Michael Cohen to make hush-money payments to two women with whom Trump had had affairs, lying to America and his own wife about it;
that Deutche Bank records indicate Trump laundered money for Russian oligarchs.
The bigoted, largely male base still adores Trump despite his lies.
But the middle voter sees through Trump: he is not a true populist, and has no plan.
He is an impostor.
1
The irony (we need a new word, here...) is that the trump crime family (laid out in devastating detail in these pages) is a faux gold plated member of the "elites" the author references.
Clearly, we've segued from the "I want to be Trump" explanation of the disease, to "I've been hurt by socialists and their helping everyone just like Trump and his adorable family". Heaven is not going to help us: it will take all of us making sure everyone votes them all out, cleanses our sacred White House, and takes the whip to the Congress.
1
Silly article. The past century won't tell us a lot about this very different time, or about a president who's polled below water his entire term.
factual error? "Only two of the nine presidents up for re-election since World War II have lost. In the past century the public has booted a party from the White House after a single term just once. "
Since WWII was less than a century ago, that doesn't make sense -- wouldn't both the post-WWII losers have been "booted?"
The problem is, we are so divided, it's very hard to get a pulse on the nation.
If I go by NY Times, democrats will win convincingly. But then I thought the same in 2016.
2
If they can clean up coal, burn it. What's the problem? But that's a big "if".
Nukes have no carbon emissions.
Our genius governor is forcing Indian Point to close within about 2 years It's the cleanest plant around here. It provides copious amounts of energy to New York City and Westchester and Cuomo is forcing it to close. Good going guv'nor. Trying to keep up with your daddy who unnecessarily shut down the brand new nuclear plant at Shoreham on Long Island wasting billions of dollars and rendering Long Islands electricity rates among the highest in the world.
2
Trump is all talk, he has a republican senate and hes doing nothing.
1
Continetti needs to rethink this essay by first defining what “elite” means. Trump may be a relative outsider to Washington D.C., but he is nothing if not a member of the business and financial elite. From this perspective, Trump has very little in common with his base.
Trump shares with his base the deliberate cultivation of an anti-immigration ethos, white nationalism, anti-liberalism, and anti-intellectualism. In short, an ostentatious refusal of ethnic difference and values commonly embraced by educated coastal elites.
The paradigm more apropros Trump’s temporary ascension and what Continetti calls a “global anti-elitist surge” is the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe—German brown shirts, Italian black shirts, and Spanish blue shirts. Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were case studies in the charismatic leadership of strongmen who cultivated the mob’s collective affect by projecting a romanticized and racist image of national tradition against the threat of Marxism.
Like these spiritual precursors, Trump solicits and manipulates the gross prejudices of his base, which happily ignores grotesque disparities in wealth and income. This is not anti-elitism but nationalist populism.
The gilets jaunes represent a more authentic anti-elitist impetus, originating as a rural, working-class protest against a proposed eco-fuel tax, but this surge, too, has been compromised and morphed into a less cohesive movement that has absorbed anti-immigration and anti-government elements.
1
The photos of pregnant Honduran teen mothers with several more kids in tow is not helping Trump. Americans consider motherhood sacred. The fact that felons can now vote guarantees he will lose in Florida.
They aren't felons. They are American citizens who have served their time and the state of Florida decided it was wrong to continue disenfranchisement indefinitely.
1
viewed in a global context!?
vast swaths of the 'folks' don't know a world exists outside the usa.
after all that world only comprises about 95% of the planet's population.
1
these articles produce wild, and destructive, reactions.
There are no "elitists" running for the D's.
And the likely candidate, Joe Biden, is as common as they get. As are Kamela Harris, Elizabeth Warren, or Abby Kobuchar.
Seems like, if GOP is losing, pundits present a false race to
improve GOP chances.
Trump should be impeached, but, if not, he is a loser.
The Hillary/Trump election is hardly a precedent. GOP
rigged things to run against a loser
1
This analisis completely ignores Trump's obvious and accelerating mental deterioration. He is less and less coherent, his constant lies seem to have turned into delusions.
The interview with Stephanopoulos shows a mentally unstable man who can't even keep his lies straight.
2
I rarely talk or comment on Trump, because in some ways there’s no mystery. On the other hand it truly astonishes me how cynical and truly fascistic the GOP has become in 20 short years.
The real irony for political scientists to relish is how Trump is able to appeal to the great unwashed. He’s an arriviste. He’s like the proverbial dubious down and outer who got rich quick by selling his soul. They can relate to him and aspire to be him simultaneously. But he was born into it and fully relates to the wealthy and is glad to work for his economic class. Couple that with the glibness and amorality of the con man—-he couldn’t think less of his adoring rallygoers—-and you have a rather potent political toxin.
This paper needs to do whatever it can to stop this guy and the GOP. I get a kick out of the patriotic flag waving types who still vote GOP. The Koch family and the rest of the anti-FDR brigade has already accomplished their long cherished goal to destroy US democracy, their pals gumming up the works and proving government “doesn’t work”.
Sad times. Hug a young person today and, especially if you’re a Boomer, apologize to them, and vow to fight til your dying breath for the best world that can be salvaged from the current wreckage.
2
Does elite also mean stealing tax payer dollars, 'cause the Trumps excel at that con.
1
I want to add some more examples of "elite" thinking that drives me nuts and drives millions of people into the arms of Trump.
Ridiculous front page articles about how Americans will no longer own cars in the near future. Articles about the evils of single family homes. Numerous stories about how evil white children are to be forever tarnished for using the same word that we hear in every explicit (E) rap that is published and promoted by the elite media as art. Racist, sexist editorials on these pages that proclaim "no more white men" for Democratic nominee.
All of these and many. many more examples proclaim to the majority of Americans that their their fathers and sons as well as their very way of life is under assault by the liberal elite.
I will never vote for a racist like Trump. But, I find it increasingly hard to justify voting for a party filled with people who hate me.
1
By the time you're headed to the polls in 2020, the national and world economies will be slumping badly. Trump and his "anti-elite bazillionaire with the golden toilets" attitude, whatever the heck that is, will be returned to the swamp they crawled out of.
1
Mr. Continetti and other glorifiers of Trump, the dictator, write and speak about the man as if he is a normal person, possessed with lofty traits. A man to be admired for all his good deeds. The problem is that Trump is the lowest common denominator for a person who could be chosen as a leader who has autocratic tendencies. He is the bottom of barrel as far as autocrats go and maybe that is why his base sticks with him. By design, autocrats are wired to be me, myself, and I types. His supporters are probably wired the same way; what bread crumbs (physical or emotional) can I get out of supporting a guy like Trump. History has shown that nothing good comes from autocrats or dictators (Hitler), yet enough people follow them to a not so good ending. Trump is a liar and a crook, the perfect autocrat.
1
The Trumps are elites. None of them are in jail. They aren’t treated like the rest of us. As if a regular joe could go into a bank and commit bank fraud???? Heck banks even help people like Trump and his cronies defraud them and launder cold cash. Hey they are FDIC insured, ...by our taxes of course! The rest of us would be indicted for a bad $5 check.
4
The author is endorses White House adviser Stephen Miller's reelection Propaganda-trumpeting for Trump. What an obvious hoodwinking attempt!
2
"What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others. -- This sentence loaded with vagueness. Who are the "elites" ? What are the "costs"? How are they "imposed"? Who are the "others"? This "anit-elite" surge is pure marketing catered to sway the the impressionable ignorant. There are no "elites" coming together to "impose" outlandish sacrifices on the masses. If you are fed this in daily doses(Fox News) you'd eat this drivel up.
Trump is one of the biggest elitists in the country. A spoiled rich kid who used to live in a gold tower and spends all of his time golfing. He wouldn't give one of his working class supporters the time of day. He has always bragged about surrounding himself with wealth and luxury. His supporters have no idea how inferior he really considers them.
Great. Thanks to the tactical skills of people like Steve Bannon and Vladimir Putin, the world is sliding down into a new order of strong man autocrats funded by oligarch billionaires.
Vote as if your freedom depended on it.
It does.
2
This is an astute assessment.
So, we as Democrats who loathe Trump should make sure to nominate a candidate who embraces the Green New Deal -- with staggering energy taxes -- who supports curtailing the authority of ICE and looking the other way as illegal immigration surges and who promises a return to the days when official government policy is to never use the T word.
After all, we're the party who nominated Hillary Clinton after Barack Obama had demonstrated her utter inability to win a national election. Why learn from the past?
3
Donald Trump was not democratically elected in 2016. He was appointed by an archaic system. Now he views himself as anointed by those pictured in the photo in this article
The President understands that his political arch enemy is the informed electorate - those who seek knowledge, facts, and truth. As such, he has to find a way to make them the villains to demonize them. The first step in that process is group them in some way - in this case as "elites." The next step is to get his adoring, photo snapping audience to start chanting "lock them up."
I wonder if the folks at his rally have figured out they are paying the tariffs on the foreign phones in their hands. Sadly, I think not.
Maybe it is time for the "elite" to start looking for dragon glass.
1
Keep dreaming. All politics are local. The international trends you talk about are no longer on the increase, and even if they were, it would not impact those who disapprove of him, his behavior, and his actions. His support is firm, but not growing and not able to win re-election. His tariffs and actions against Iran are not making the economy stronger. It is only a matter of time before the recovery stalls, as all recoveries do. His actions are reducing the time until it does. The biggest irony is that the economic elite are the ones pulling the levers of power, pointing at the 'other' as the problem, when it is technology and automation that is driving 85% of all job losses. Trump is the perfect tool for the wealthy to continue distracting the masses from what is really going on. SAD
1
@Bruce Maier: Politics is scale-independent, which means it looks and feels the same at all levels it is played.
“Elites insulate themselves”? Of course they do. For most elites that’s the whole point of becoming an elite. Like most of us, they crave the autonomy and security that elite status confers. And Trump supporters are no different. They too have a need for greater autonomy and security in their lives, a need that Mr. Trump has acknowledged.
However, the “interrelated issues of unchecked immigration, terrorism, and the imposition of carbon taxes” are really the framing of issues by unprincipled opportunists trying their best to harness the anxiety of people with a legitimate sense of loss of autonomy and security. They are cheap emotional fixes designed to deflect attention from the more costly structural changes required by globalization, technology and climate change. These are changes that cannot be solved by deregulation and cutting taxes for the wealthy.
When the political class really puts its back into meaningfully addressing the real causes (i.e. today’s predatory policy and policy making process), the right wing political blowback, the xenophobia, racism, anti-scientism, and nationalism that opportunists have latched on to will crawl back under the rock from whence it came, along with its more visible proponents. But shaming will not make them disappear…
2
@KM: A genuine intellectual elite exerts influence, not power. Democracy cannot endure defiance of reality.
@KM: There is no adult supervision after graduation in the US. The "elite" don't fool themselves about it.
I agree that Trump has a lot going for him, that the trend that elected him is still strong, and I think that the Democrats would be wise to keep that in mind and to not try and run against Trump's personality or the sleaze in his administration, because that won't work.
What will work is to point out the promises Trump made, about health care, about so many things, that have not happened. More importantly, I would ask them if they felt like they were better off, do they now have jobs that pay a decent wage, do they have health insurance that is affordable and doesn't leave them afraid of going bankrupt? Ask them if with Trump in office, do they really feel like they have hope for their kids future? Reagan hit the nail on the head when running against Carter, he asked people if they felt like they were better off since Carter was in office, and if so, vote for him.
2
It's too bad the Democratic Party can't come out for the rule of law on immigration- such as agreeing to reviewing amnesty laws or e-verify. Or even make a statement as to what they feel our limits on immigration totals are. All we see is a bill from Congress to give rights to DACA individuals with no accompanying controls on immigration. If they adapted they would win in a landslide. Otherwise it is a tossup.
Too bad we could lose the wonderful Democratic values on healthcare, gun control, right to choose, etc. in the White House, all for their perceived weakness on immigration.
5
@John Dyer: There is a logical distinction between people fleeing a government with abusive public policies and people fleeing anarchy of their own making.
2
@Steve Bolger
And that distinction is meaningless because we cannot afford to accommodate all of the people in either category who are swarming the unprotected border.
2
From here in southern Arizona I expect the Federal government to secure the southern border. If they don't they aren't doing their job. I don't hold it against Trump supporters if they vote against Democrates who don't want border control. Dems say we can't control the border but if we can build a freeway from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, we can build one serious impediment. Dems are offended by walls and don't want one, especially one that works. Trump supporters think Dems want essentially open borders. Dems are weak on national sovereignty and Trump supporters are offended by such an attitude.
8
@Tucson Geologist
Sigh.
Dems DON'T say we can't control the border. What they say is a wall is not the best and effective means to control the border.
No wall has been proven to work. But a combination of barriers and other measures to address the majority of illegal immigration would work well, but Republicans have no interest.
Trump supporters have been told by FOX News the lying GOP that Dems want open borders.
Trump and the GOP destroy national sovereignty by asking foreign adversaries to violate our election process, not doing anything to protect it from foreign influence, and reneging on deals that helped support our sovereignty and those that build relationships with our allies. He rejects our allies in favor of those whose objective is to eliminate the USA, if not in fact, in terms of geo-political power.
3
@Tucson Geologist: Get a clue, sucker, you will never see any issue resolved if it can be exploited for profit and fundraising by con-artists like Trump.
1
@Tucson Geologist This is so NOT true. Dems do want border control, just not an ineffective wall. There are other, better methods. Dems want to expand those.
2
As the provisional government of Alberta goes, so goes the United States. Got it.
State polls tell the whole story, not some nebulous "surge." Obama understood that in 2008 and 2012. Trump understood it in 2016. Hillary did not and neither does the author of this column.
2
Continetti and his ilk abide by immoral behavior, rank incompetence, and ignorant foolishness that they would never put up with in a Democrat. They display their power-seeking venality and hypocrisy every day and with every word. These are a few more full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
5
Mr. Trump is so inspiring. He understand that America is a great land of promise and opportunity. That the government should step aside and allow the Americans to flourish. He is what would be the antithesis of such politicians like Elizabeth Warren's “giveaway for free” politics ─like dealing drugs that people get addicted to. Such politicians strip away every incentive you have to-- grow, develop, build, create, and triumph over adversity. Let them pre-empt every God given human potential or attribute that you have to form and built a successful life for yourself and your children. And become a permanent addict of programs provided with taxpayer money. Stay permanently poor, dysfunctional, sick, feel always oppressed, discriminated against. And vote Democratic every election...
2
If “anti-elites” vote for the gold-plated orange buffoon whose chief desire was to get rich(er) by running for President, they deserve the aggrieved disappointment they express. Talking about voting against your own interests. They seem to believe that they’re going to hit some proverbial lottery and won’t have to pay taxes if Trump is Prez. I’d feel sorry for them if they hadn’t held the rest of us down, too.
The Wharton School MBA business man, TV star and billionaire isn't himself a member of the elite? Please. An anti-elite Trump supporter is an oxymoron.
3
By constantly reinforcing the lie that oligarchs and their servants are best described as fighting "elites," pundits like this one do their best to propagandize horrors into reality.
3
"This bill is basically seen as a pro-immigrant bill" said NY's Gov Cuomo about a recently passed bill to give NY State drivers licenses to people here illegally.
There's an article about it in the New York News section. Also a bunch of comments.
99 out of 100--and there are hundreds--are negative. Many are from Democrats. According to the article, moderate Democrats, along with a majority of NY voters, oppose the bill.
People wrote about soaring insurance rates in states where this has been implemented. Some called it a pro-illegal immigrant bill.
They commented on the requirement to read English to get a license.
The incongruity between people registering as undocumented drivers but too scared to answer a citizenship question on the census.
The new ability to get a license without extensive documentation--unlike regular drivers.
People being sued for fake injuries--apparently a cottage industry in California.
And a lot more. And it appears that none of it matters. That's how we ended up with that horse's behind in the White House. And well could again.
4
Yep, the voters in states that lack ocean frontage may get Trump re-elected by the fictitious electoral college!
Who would have thought that so many people of little means and low expectations would cast aside their own interests to follow a New York con man?
5
This is somewhere kool aid and cotton candy.
Not very much to hang your hat upon some seventeen months ahead of Election Day
So many imponderables are in play that might effect the 2020 election
Among them:
1. the economy
2. Iran China North Korea Russia
3. findings by SDNY vis a vis Trump’s financial circumstances
4. bond markets dive
5. corruption
6. surging Democratic nominee
7. rising price of oil
8 extreme weather
9: an unredacted Mueller Report surreptitiously released (remember the Pentagon Papers).
Add your imponderables
1
Total nonsense. The disdain for Trump stretches from poor ethnic minorities who Republicans are desperately trying to prevent from voting to well educated suburbanites particularly women.
3
Oh, stop. Your suppositions are false and diction inflammatory. No western government has "downplayed" terrorism; measured tones on religion and culture are appropriate following violence, they do not indicate weakness or lack of resolve on the part of government officials and lawmakers working on responses and policy changes. Frankly, I find the writer's tone "elitest." To believe that one could fly above realpolitik and hard choices seems fantastic and narrow. Merkel took in desperate and dying Syrian refugees fleeing the murderous Assad regime while other world powers, including the US, stood by. That's heroic, not elitist. A solid majority of Americans and the Congress, agreed with Obama's DACA program that you have mischaracterized as out of touch. Steps to address climate have been slow to become policy in most countries precisely out of a desire not to "impose" them but instead to have them embraced as necessary by voters, without whose cooperation they could not succeed. Finally, this talk of globalism smacks of conspiracist nonsense, one stray comment away from claiming that the bankers secretly run everything. Please stop. I like my leaders to be smart, innovative and collaborative, unafraid to step on the toes of boorish, hateful colloquial folk living in a fading past.
5
@Edward Drangel. I am a Democrat and disagree with everything you say - except your last sentence. Maybe “elitist” is not the right word to use, but such opinions will serve to get Donald Tump re-elected.
The press did a horrible job reporting on the 2016 election. For example, cable news would show an empty Trump podium rather than dig into what the campaigns were actually doing i.e. meeting with Russians, not going to Wisconsin, etc. They were asleep at the wheel, lulled by 8 wonderful years of no-drama Obama.
But that was then and this is now. It’s a bit like traveling by plane pre and post 9/11. Things are different. News organizations are still simultaneously appalled and enthralled by Trump but we all now know the depth of the corruption and stupidity that Donald Trump is capable of. There is no “benefit of the doubt” this time around.
Why do global trends matter in this case? Hungarians or Britons lacking dual citizenship cannot vote in our elections. Millennials and “swing voters” will decide this election and a competent, engaged Democratic candidate is likely to mop the floor with Trump. He’s done nothing but insult people, cut taxes for wealthy people and add nutjobs to the bench. How does that help the vast majority of people that voted for him?
This is a failed presidency of historical proportions so drawing on historical precedents to contextualize (or validate) it is pointless.
2
We do'nt have a war -yet. Looking at history's playbooks (1939, Germany), it would behove Trump to start a war before the 2020 election to suggest electing a new president would be detrimental to the war effort, a war only he can win, of course. He has been goading several countries to go ahead and dare him......Or he could suspend regulatory powers because of a war he was intent on starting to solidify his powers.......it's all been done, so please tell me we have learned enough to not have to repeat this painful lesson!
What a lot of Democrats, particularly Progressives, as well as most journalists and newspaper reporters fail to understand is that Joe-Maga considers an “elite” to be an intellectual liberal progressive interested in globalization, socialism and, now, climate change. Let’s add in gender identity issues and an open-door policy towards immigrants to the mix. Stir it all up and have these people call Joe-Maga “deplorable” for not agreeing with them. Voila! That’s what Joe-Maga considers “elite”. It has nothing to do with money. Some “elites” are even “poor”, college professors for example. In fact, to Joe-Maga, it’s perfectly ok to be rich, even to be a billionaire, if you aren’t visibly overeducated, not too intellectual, and are a little bit uncouth. Being rich definitely doesn’t matter if you’re not into reading, culture or politesse because those are “elite” pursuits. If you act and speak and think just like Joe-Maga, then you are not “elite” no matter how big your bank account is. Trump is not “elite” because he’s just as uncouth and politically incorrect as his supporters are. He had to start his own country club because none of the existing clubs would have him as a member. Trump has been ostracized by the “elites” the same as Joe-Maga has been. Real “elites” look down their noses at Trump. That’s why Joe-Maga loves him.
6
@Ann
Great analysis!
@Ann Unfortunately, I believe you are exactly right. The question is, how do we break through the bubble Joe-Maga lives in? How do we make Joe-Maga see that he votes against his own interests and those of his children and grandchildren?
2
The Times must stop giving prime platforms to extreme right-wing publications and writers peddling disinformation. It's destroying Truth.
The Washington Free Beacon's mission is to discredit facts in attacking what Trump calls "fake news" by "uncovering the stories that the powers that be hope will never see the light of day". The powers that be, true "Elites", are Trump and the GOP, but The Washington Free Beacon doesn't write anything but "Beautiful" things about them. They cover-up stories about Trump while giving disinformation. It's what we see here.
What you'll never see in The Washington Free Beacon is that the GOP is a right-wing Authoritarian Party controlling the Senate, the Judiciary, and the Executive, and rigging elections.
Justice Ginsburg just stated that 5 right-wing Supreme Court Justices, GOP yes-men, will reverse a lower court decision and uphold the Trump/GOP census in Department of Commerce v. New York despite it just having been proven to be a pack of lies central to a criminal conspiracy to gerrymander the entire country to disenfranchise over 15 million people in the US entirely legally, and the states they live in, of the fundamental right of proportional representation.
Trump may win in 2020, but if he does it's because the GOP stole yet another election by destroying American democracy. The Times unforgivably allows Continetti to disseminate disinformation pretending, in advance, it's part of a "normal" international trend against "Elites".
5
The Power Elite relentlessly pushes mass immigration, sexual oddism, special preferences for favored demographics, and other things repellant to wide swaths of people, and voting for Trump is the reaction to that, rational or not.
5
@JackC5 - The Power Elite
The only favored demographic among the Power Elite (such as Trump, McConnell, DeVos...) is, wait for it, the wealthy elite such as themselves.
2
You forgot to mention the happy farmers who are getting free money form Trump. I’m sure they all will vote for him.
Day is night, up is down, and those fighting for the survival of our planet are ‘elitists’. Madness.
2
The most elite of all is Trump and he brings his elite friends in with him. If you don't like elites, don't vote for Trump. Those who vote for him do not see the elite side. He walks and talks like them. But he is a rich liar, cheat and narcissist and that is not going to change. Perhaps that what they like about him.
1
The current wave now in America are the swing voters who are sick of Trump and realize they made a mistake.
The democrats wisely realized this and ran moderate progressives in the 2018 midterms and scored a minor miracle by winning the House despite the fact it was gerrymanded against them.
How can they blow this in 2020? Run an identity obsessed, social engineering east coast liberal, I am not Trump, elect me because I am a woman and the era of the white man is over, my time of anointment has come candidate like Hillary.
That "wave" will all but assure Trump of a second term.
1
anti-elite = anti-intelligence We advanced technologically, but humankind is still primitive. We deserve an asteroid.
1
Indeed. all that AND he's already told us the election will be stolen, again. So, there's that. Enjoy!
One has to wonder about the flyover country motivations and ability to be swayed so easily. You don’t have to read WaPo, NYT or listen to CNN to understand the facts behind the curtain.
If ignorance is bliss, trump would be a saint.
Anti-elite? That's the slogan of the Trump cronies who are robbing the U.S. blind.
The Washington Free Beacon.
You know, Paul Singer’s Washington Free Beacon.
The same Paul Singer that paid Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump. The very same dirt that Christopher Steele dug up and when Trump was declared the GOP candidate, Singer dropped it only to have the Clinton campaign take over financial support. Then Steele got so freaked out about what his sources told him he contacted the FBI...
Hilarious to read Continetti talking about elites, isn’t it?
Trumpism is anti-intellectual. Intellectuals are not running the world. They're just another identity group to bash.
1
The abortion issue is a potential spoiler. It will motivate both sides to come out in droves.
What a strange mirror world some people live in, where the President of the United States AKA the world's most powerful person is "anti-elite," while migrants and climate change victims (who are overwhelmingly the global poor) are considered "elites."
If you feel you are doing worse than your neighbor you're going to be upset and vote against the folks you perceive to be responsible.
Exactly. With the exception of left-wing extremists the silent majority are sick and tired of the elites and their globalist, diversity driven agenda and Orwellian groupthink. Being dictated to what's normal when it isn't, or that if they're a white male than they're evil incarnate. Any leftists out there that don't think Trump and the GOP can't take it all need to give their head a shake and take a big whiff of reality. Scared? You should be. But just remember, you're the cause of all this to begin with.
1
Elite is PROPAGANDA WORD Republicans throw around when they have absolutely no arguments to back themselves up! Republicans are perfectionist at nonsensical advertising.
The author of this piece acts as if more-perfect-union-formation is of an order somehow totally devoid of evolution.
How, for example, can any idea of a white nationalism NOT depend on insulating its OWN elitist bent on society? After all, any flaws which precluded any previous stay on what could only be subjectively GREAT anyway duly render evolution's MOVE FORWARD dependent on our adaptability to change NOT survival of some tribal instinct based on an immutable fitness somehow marginalizing greater numbers.
Besides, even if self-sustaining whites ARE superior, wouldn't complete disclosure of all tax returns provide a better indication on how white privilege IS unduly usurped by a taxation-w/o-representation dystopia?
The elite stuff is what demagogues use to stir up anger among the rural populations. It is not hard to pull off. But the core of Trump supporters are really racists defending the Anglo-Saxon claim on this country just as they have been doing since the country was founded. They are joined by the anti-government types who seem to think these are still the days of the western frontier. One group hates non-whites and Jews and the other hates the federal government. Many of Trump's supporters are violent and dangerous. A reading of American history would show the US has been populated with these type of people for years and their victims in most cases were blacks, Native Americans, and Mexicans. If the American people really want a racist white Christian authoritarian country then Trump could win and perhaps the experiment in democracy that began in 1776 will finally come to end.
2
Since when does the (lack of) intelligence of the American voter correspond to those of Germany or Scandinavia or Australia or Canada? No, the assent if Trump is an American phenomenon as nowhere else in the world is there a voter, in a democracy, as obscenely stupid as in Alabama, Mississippi or South
I agree with every single word you said.
Just as in 2016--with Mr. Trump's numbers down in the polls--I saw (like odious mushrooms) those innumerable TRUMP--PENCE signs everywhere.
Around Pittsburgh or Philadelphia? No.
In central PA--or even the suburban environs of those cities?
Oh yes.
AND--
--I see those immense, MAGA-capped crowds at this or that Trump rally--gosh, they look pretty revved up.
Two glimmers of hope. Pretty darn FAINT--but glimmers all the same.
(1) I listened to snippets (and snippets, Mr. Continetti, are all I can take) of Mr. Trump speaking in Florida.
Oh yes--when he excoriated the "fake news"--there was lusty cheering. And (of course) he gestured to you bad guys sitting at the back.
But the Mueller report? The "Russia hoax"? The "witch hunt"?
Very little feedback. He can't but have noticed that. The charge of "collusion" (legally meaningless though it is). Or "obstruction of justice." That disquiets people.
Even in Florida.
(2) So much of Mr. Trump's message is EXCLUDE EXCLUDE EXCLUDE!
Is it possible, the ranks of the EXCLUDED are growing and growing? Young people--minorities--Latinos. And others.
And those fabled "anti-elite" guys are themselves the EXCLUDERS?
The ever-shrinking white base? The angry or disgruntled "patriarchy"?
Well--lots of women are vehement Trump supporters. Some black people are. Some Latinos.
But more are not.
Many more--
--I hope.
1
Currently, in the electoral college where the election is decided by a mere 538 people, Trump is assured re-election. Would a huge popular vote defeat of Trump give a Democratic candidate a victory? A loss by 2.7 million votes is not enough, we already know that. I don't believe it is possible, given the state of the electoral college, for Trump to be ousted. When we talk about voters, we are talking about the wrong people. We need to talk about the electors.
2
Apparently it's "elitist" to reject vulgarity and ignorance; to consider education, knowledge and understanding a good thing; to strive to live in decent harmony with one's fellow-beings, and to treat others with all possible respect; to refrain as far as possible from destroying our natural habitat for the sake of short-term profit. In that case, I'm more than happy to be labeled an "elitist".
And I will continue to oppose with all my strength anyone who tries to promote the opposite values: vulgarity, ignorance, disrespect, and private self-enrichment at whatever cost to others, to the society as a whole and to the natural world.
You speak of the "economic recovery that began in 2009."
There was no such thing.
Obama's first year in office can be dis-regarded; it was the recession. But he said the recession ended by his second year. In that year, the annual economic growth was 1.6%. In his last year, it was 1.6%. In no year of his administration was it as high as 3%.
This was the only 8 year period in the history of this nation when the economy was that bad.
There was no "Obama recovery."
The recovery began with Trump. It is all his.
And that confirms this article even more.
1
Trump will not be president in January 2021.
Why not?
Because American voters, like a good hitter in baseball, will not be fooled twice by a change up slider. With only junk fastballs and tired predictable curveballs, his throwing arm has nothing but memory of a lucky pitch against a hobbled hitter two years ago, The bullpen remains seated. There’s no relief coming. Fans are heading for the exits. TV cuts to commercial. The juice is gone. The franchise is taking no more questions.
3
Lost in this is the fact that Trump lost to one of the most reviled candidates(unfairly I might added). Many votes were powered by a 30 years campaign to discredit HRC. Right or wrong Trump will not have that built in advantage that allowed him to squeak through an electoral victory while losing by 3 million votes. 5% or more of his votes came from anti clinton voter). I'd like to see how that plays out when he has candidates not shackled, by national animosity, by a press that gave far too much press to Trump, and little examination of his record. These Op-Ed piece that omit the obvious unique force that propelled him into office, hatred of HRC, are pointless.
2
"What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others."
Warren has it right. The narrative that it is the monied rich elite, the .1%, that is the elite to hate. The rich, corporate elite that is ripping them off and rigging the economy, with tax cuts and program cuts, to line their own pockets and go laughing all the way to the bank while leaving crumbs for the workers.
Instead of emphasizing racial justice and climate change (tackle those after election) emphasize class justice for the campaign. Just don't use the word "class". Student debt relief, healthcare for all, education for all and make the rich, corporate patriarchy pay for it. Then, maybe, even an ardent Trump supporter may start hating the rich corporate elite, the elite that is really behind their troubles, rather than those "liberals" that keep telling them how stupid they are for not seeing it the way they do.
1
Misguided though it is, this article points to a real phenomenon.
Ignore Marx at your risk, but I believe that the people are sick and tired of the 'elite' bestriding the world while those less fortunate are starved. They're tired of different laws for the rich and powerful from those for the poor and powerless. They're tired of corrupt political leaders. And they're tired of corporations that control their lives, destroy their pensions, and ship their jobs overseas or replace them with machines.
In fact, I suspect that Trump was promoted as a means of blunting the drive of the 'proletariat' for greater freedom and justice. That drive was evidenced by Bernie's strong run, by the "Occupy" movement, and numerous other things. The movement has been inchoate, but still strong enough to scare the 'power structure' that thrives on exploiting the 'working classes.'
I think that's the real reason Hillary lost (if it can be called a loss). But, as the Bible warns, Trump followers have adhered to a false prophet: a wolf in lamb's clothing. Some of them, I hope, have learned better by now.
@Justin: Democracy allows all people who are coerced to pay taxes to have some say about how the money will be spent. A "public sector" is an enduring money-pump for projects of benefit to all.
I don't understand why it seems so difficult to paint Trump in this same elitist brush when everything he does is diametrically opposed to the best interests of even his own supporters' well being. Trump is the ultimate lackey for the elites and special interests. If the general population is too ignorant to see that and the Democrats incapable of messaging this, then Trump in 2020 looks very likely indeed.
However, perceptions of elitism is not the key driver. Trump understands that his base and the Republican Party is, first and foremost, scared and fearful of a country where they are the minority. They will stop at almost nothing to try and keep the last vestiges of it.
Elite hypocrisy and avoidance of their own public policy choices is not exactly new.
During the 70's, elites (usually, but not exclusively, Democrats) championed forced busing to achieve school integration, while sending their own children to private schools.
Of course political elites have always sent their children to private schools - this is not a recent phenomenon.
But, if busing was so beneficial, why were their children not sent to those schools?
Busing for thee, but not for me!
"What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others."
Republican voters love tax cuts; they don't love the loss of services provided by non-profit seeking governmental agencies. The average Republican voter does not own a golf course or a private jet, but he pays for their upkeep through tax gimmicks and loopholes that benefit the Republican Elites.
Republicans hate regulations and 'government interference'; they like to elect politicians loyal to Republican Elite corporations. They don't own any coal mines or oil companies or meat packing houses, so they don't save any money when Elite corporations are allowed to inspect themselves.
But the average Republican voter doesn't like it when contaminated food makes them sick or the pipeline breaks or the chemical plant explodes or the bridge collapses or the airplane falls out of the sky.
Republicans love to get tough on foreigners. They love to hear the Carnival Barker tell them how great they are, and what a raw deal they are getting from other countries. They want to believe him when he tells them only He can fix it for them.
But they don't like it when the cost of the
goods they want gets more expensive, when the new jobs never happen, the new plants never get built, their crops don't sell.
Republicans love to take care of their Elites. They love to Pretend It's Good and Don't Admit It's Costing Them.
"There's a Sucker Born Every Minute"
"The," Democratic candidate, whomever it turns out to be, had better turn their attention to three things.
1) Keeping the economy robust.
2) Keeping the country safe.
3) Moving people up the economic ladder.
If they hope people are stupid enough to believe if we just tax rich more, we can eliminate student debt, give everyone a free college education, subsidize housing, food, energy, and transportation for the poor and give every worker a minimum wage regardless of the value of their contribution to the employer, then Dems can expect to lose.
Imagine looking at a man whose name has been synonymous with wealth for decades and deciding, not only that he does not qualify as an "elite," but that he is anti-elite. Imagine watching him hand out wealth to his fellow elites (oops) and maintaining this conclusion. Imagine noting his slavish devotion to his party's mainstream and dubbing him an outsider. What honest thought process could lead to such a conclusion? We may never know; any honesty in this piece is surely coincidental.
Indeed, as absurd as it may be, Mr. Continetti takes Trump's anti-elite status as given, and ex falso quodlibet! Right is wrong, lies are truth, correctness is political and reactionaries are moderate.
1
He employs a pretty simply strategy focusing on the issues people care about most. The economy, jobs, immigration. Democrats mistakenly focus their mental energy guy on gender issues, racial issues, the environment and welfare benefits.
It’s not rocket science.
They also care mostly about poor government leadership. Obviously he is the shining example of poor leadership but he pretends as if it’s everyone else.
Thank you for this good dose of reality. Democrats are now approaching Trump with a sense of invisibility, similar to the way Hillary ran her campaign yet there is a brilliance to Trump. For someone to have openly colluded with our most significant 20th century adversary, then openly obstructed that investigation while continuing to get more than 99% of his party's support is nothing less than brilliant. He is an advertising genius; he will shift any negative narrative in a second's time with a tweet that looks idiotic on it's surface yet is successful in shifting everyone's focus of attention. He will diminish an opponent with a fifth grade caricature by giving them a name such as "sleepy" or "little"; on the surface it seems childish and idiotic, but somehow it works! I guess it's the same trick used in advertising to sell soap or laundry detergent and the repetition doesn't hurt. He calls himself a genius and he may be right, he may not be a genius in setting or understanding policies or in having a moral compass but he knows what he's doing in his politicking and in setting the stage for his re-election.
Polls are useless this far away from the election they're probably useless even close to the election. This seems to me an incredibly difficult fight for Democrats to win and if they let their guard down and underestimate his capacity it will certainly be 2016 all over again.
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Mr. Continetti should be praised for attempting to cloak in decent speech and grave analysis the misguided and ugly fears of a duped electorate.
Like so many others, he willingly refuses to comment on the role of nefarious outfits such as Fox News and anything financed by the Koch brothers who try, and unfortunately succeed, to multiply said fears.
He also refuses to state the obvious : the only beneficiaries of populists policies are the very elites supposed to be attacked.
3
Oh hogwash Mr. Continetti. Trumps poll numbers continue to remain in at the dismal level, he's built such a hate level with Democratic voters, and every last one of them will be voting.
With a strong economy, he should be polling wall above 50%, but he hovers in the low 40's, and hasn't move north of that since taking office. The Republicans took a beating in the House in 2018, and again the economy was booming.
This is not a shoe in for the Democrats but Trump is his own worst enemy, and you Mr. Continetti are likely well aware of that.
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It is not just an idea that the “elites” ( politicians pandering to their guilt-ridden donor class) insulate themselves from the costs of policies they impose on others, it is the verifiable truth. Worse than that, they actually profit from from those policies. “Sanctuary cities”, are a good example. They are merely protecting the cheap labor force. They insult the intelligence of the electorate.
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"What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others."
Matthew Continetti, I believe you're right that Donald Trump has an excellent chance of winning, but your reasoning in the above statement leaves me absolutely floored.
I think Mr. Trump's biggest con on his loyal base is that he's not an "elite." Of course he is! He just pretends not to be.
And furthermore, he himself of couse is inured from the results of policies he inflicts on others, from passing tax breaks for the rich while claiming the middle will benefit to round after round of tariffs (when your money is in real estate, how pray tell, will tariffs hurt you?).
To claim that Donald Trump is an outsider poor boy who relates to his supporters is absurd. He uses his supporters, knowing he can gain their votes by his obscene form of racism, demagoguery, and anti-liberal lies. He is good at only one thing: fomenting division by constantly framing everything in terms of us versus them, when by any analysis, he's one of "them".
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Missing the point again and again. The anti-elite sentiment is about financial insecurity of middle and lower classes and rising inequality. That combined with the financial elite corrupting government and tilting the political playing field still further in their own favor.
Trump Will be seen as one of the financial elite and a hypocrite when debating Sanders and Warren. His record speaks for itself. Debating Biden or another corporatist, he can and will point to hypocrisy, and be fairly right about it.
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@trebor
The author does not miss the point at all. I'm a Trump voter because of unchecked immigration that is shoved down our throats by elites who do not live with the consequences. Whether it's a U.S. Senator living in Georgetown or a movie star in a mansion in Beverly Hills, they do not endure the problems caused by having a house down the block inhabited by 17 Third World immigrants and they even insult me by saying I'm racist because I don't want the problems dropped on my doorstep, and on my dime too, because they're on every welfare program imaginable. This article nails it.
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@Grunt But Trump has not got anywhere near fixing immigration, (unless you consider kids in cages to be an improvement?). He does not offer solutions that work. What are the problems that your immigrant neighbors cause, please describe. And how is Trump improving the situation? We have lots of immigrants where I live, and I have not had any problems with any of them.
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@Grunt
OK, got your single-issue (and valid) concern. What has your hero done about it? Did his Great Wall get built? Would it address the problem even if it had been built (or are you one of those who believes he’s building it as we speak?) Where is his solution other than a worthless, ineffective, expensive wall that not even the Republicans support? What about the tax breaks he gave to the wealthy? You live in a neighborhood a block down from a house inhabited by 17 Third World immigrants - how do you feel about the one-percenters (including the Hollywood movie star) getting enormous tax breaks while you get nothing? You’re riding the wrong horse headed in the wrong direction I’m afraid.
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If "anti-elitism" is what drives Trump´s supporters, do they not see that Trump is employing only the worst of the elite ? That he is only bringing n legislation that will benefit the most greedy of these elites? That he is supporting those elites who do not care whatsoever about "John Doe"?
Why does John Doe not see this? I am puzzled - not for the first time, though.
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Trump is a fake anti-elitist who blew through a lot of inherited money and revels in the excessive consumption of the global elites. His policies reflect the needs of his billionaire donors, his rhetoric is for suckers. None of this is true of his European counterparts. Continetti is engaged in wishful thinking, much like the deluded supporters at the rally in Orlando yesterday.
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If history is correct...what goes around comes around again. It seems we are experiencing a new and potentially disenchanting revolution in the making. Much like that of the French Revolution, the "mob mentality" has been awakened with the vilification of the "elite" as the nefarious bag boy that's gone astray with the political reins. Call it what you will...the "mobsters" love a show and will pay their coin for a seat at the arena to witness mayhem and social provocation. Trump is the ringleader of the show under the big top and the suckers are lining up at the gates shoulder to shoulder.
Yes, indeed, there are those voters who will believe whatever falsehoods Trump is spewing out. But, I have more faith in the electorate. I think that the Orlando Sentinel captured the zeitgeist properly by refusing to endorse Trump in 2020 given the increasingly common view that Trump is a habitual prevaricator and that everyone should be tired of it by now: “Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies.” Hopefully, even the most ardent supporters of Trump will reflect on their advocacy of such a poster-child of malice and throw his administration where it belongs— out of power.
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Immigration was the animating issue for Trump's win last time. We wish we could say that Dems have spent the last three years offering a competing immigration policy that reassures voters who think immigration had been too chaotic for years, but they didn't do that. Instead, the response was all DACA and what a mean guy Trump is. The see-what-a-jerk-he-is approach wasn't enough after the Access Hollywood tape, and it hasn't been enough on immigration. Still betting on the magic power of demographics?
The writer assumes much.
Trump has never faced an onslaught of 30-second ads featuring promise-breaker Donald Trump making hypocritical, contradictory, and chaotic pronouncements.
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Anti Elite- how about anti criminal?
Let’s hope the vote is huge.
Hillary’s 3 million more votes will hopefully seem like chump change- and bring the electoral vote to the Democratic candidate and trump that much closer to jail.
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Having just read many of the below comments just solidifies my agreement with the article. They can't help but defend the elitists discussed in the article. The support displayed by the "base" at Trump's rallies puts all of the dem rallies to shame. The elitists will call them "deplorable" and/or "irredeemable" but they are our fellow Americans that believe the dems have it all wrong. Trump will win again and the elitists will just have to learn to live with the true American way of life.
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Awash in money the Republicans will be able to stealth fund third party efforts where it counts, and the vanity and greed of the third party candidates will allow it.
What was the story on Jill Stein at Putin's table? Why was that never explored?
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The writer misses the point that there is a big difference between the establishment left - Obama, Clintons, Biden, etc - and the economic left - Sanders, Warren, etc. Bernie Sanders would have easily beaten Trump in 2016. Hillary Clinton's brand of " everything is fine and we just need to tinker around the edges a little," was and still is a loser.
A centrist, moderate, establishment Democrat will certainly lose to Trump. Our existing system is failing most Americans even if they have a job and own their own home. The times call for radical change and most people would rather see that from the left than from the right. The Democratic candidate must be capable of hanging McConnell around Trump's neck and blasting government for the 1%, the billionaire tax cut, socialism and handouts for the wealthy, the Trump corruption and the rest. That captures the mood of the people.
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Most Americans know Trump is an elitist. Look at he failed to fulfill any of the promises he made to working Americans. but he did get the billionaires their tax cuts. Americans now see him as the lying failure he is. 2018 was a prelude to 2020. Why do you think his biggest donors are dumping him.
I can't think of one anti elitist thing Trump has done. Ignoring science isn't anti elitist, it is just stupid. Trump is your ultimate corporate elitist. He even bragged when he told them he just made them a lot richer. He never said that about his rank and file. They he know are just a means to his end, not theirs.
If you want to look at the wider view, think about this. The conditions in the world that have led to a huge influx
of immigrants both here and abroad are not changing. Trump makes sure of that. No more aid for Central America. Trump is the captain of a lifeboat who sees all these people in the water trying to get into his boat. He simply pushes their heads back down into the water. Protectionism which not only refuses entry but works toward maintaining and expanding the problems of the immigrant becomes cruelty. And , oh yes, it is absolutely wrong for religious based mass murder. But home grown mass murder offering no solutions becomes just as offensive with each event. It is fine to look at the world from the lens of the 'victim', but when you live by the philosophy of 'do as I say, not as I do', eventually your hypocrisy becomes clearer. It may not be a wholesale change. But Trump, unlike Carter, is not your typical president. The voters didn't like Carter's policies, but he was a good man. Voters today, at least 55% of them, loathe the man. We will see if he can overcome that .
When Democrats get complacent as they did in 2016, they lose. They have to be afraid and realize as disastrous as Trump's election and McConnell's control of the Senate is, re-election of them will be CATASTROPHIC, and will be confirmation of their will and desire to end American Democracy in favor of a criminal-run dictatorship.
The article yesterday on how Guatemala's true democracy collapsed and is now in the hands and pocketbooks of organized crime, WHICH TRUMP GLEEFULLY SUPPORTS, is the canary in the coal mine.
Complacency is deadly and Democrats, especially the DNC and so-called "leadership" are totally susceptible to it. 93 million didn't vote for either party in 2016. Those people need to be motivated to save our nation. We cannot have a repeat of 2016. We need a super-charged version of 2018, especially in Red states. It wasn't the DNC that won, it was boots on the ground, angry, frightened people who SEE what Trump and McConnell are doing and gave the Dems and Pelosi at least ONE tool to stop it, which they've squandered by indecision and fear of alienating "Obama / Trump" voters.
Haven't they figured it out? Those people (and their base) LIKE strong, tough positions, not wishy-washy delays and poll-taking. It's why Bernie, Pete and Liz are catching Joe.
It's what Trump voters like, too. And it's decidedly what the Dem leaders are NOT! You can't lead from behind and being afraid of alienating people. You must lead from the front. Or we lose. Again.
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Anti-elite? He inherited $400M+. He's lived consequence-free his whole wicked life. He was a co conspirator in a tax evasion scheme as a toddler. If he were born in one of his father's tenements, the police would have beaten a confession out of him and we'd all have been spared his presidency.
If there is an anti-elite movement at all, Trump is the poster boy for everything that is wrong with the privileges of the rich.
I’m no conservative, but with the exception of the overuse of the term “elites,” I applaud the reasoned tone of this piece.
"held up a piece of coal before Parliament... and said, “Don’t be scared.”... What unites these issues is the idea that elites insulate themselves from the costs of the policies they impose on others. " The presumption here is that coal doesn't have a cost, that will be imposed on others, namely, our children. I really don't know who to blame for that presumption; I'll just note that this author isn't doing it's demise any favors. I will also note that Canadian permafrost is melting 70 years ahead of schedule: its turning rapidly into 'thermokarst lakes', which could easily double the rate of CO2 production from melting permafrost. If that happens, we could all be toast no matter what we humans do in the future.
I understand that, to many Trump supporters, what I'm saying regarding permafrost is 'elitist'. But, many Trump supporters didn't get their corn or soybeans in this year, either. I would suggest that 'elitist' is bad information presented unapologetically by 'elites'. Like Trump or Hannity suggesting climate change is a hoax, rather than an unavoidable conclusion of 19th century gas physics. If a climate scientist tells you that global warming is real, that's not 'elitist', that's 'expertise'. He's using it to save your harvest, or possibly your house. The rest is up to you. If, despite the warning, you choose not to, I would suggest that you're an 'elitist', yourself.
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The two main shock events of populism - Trump's election and Brexit - look far different than they did a few years ago.
Trump now has a record, and it is clearly not one of populist accomplishment. His one legislative victory? A massive, budget-busting tax cut that obscenely and disproportionately benefits only the wealthiest. This emperor clearly has no clothes.
And the UK is clearly in a mess over the repercussions of the Brexit vote, which was sold to the masses by lies and disingenuous scam artists like Nigel Farage. People now grasp that it will an economic and social catastrophe, and I seriously doubt that it could survive another referendum.
Still, xenophobia and immigrant bashing cast a strong appeal for many millions of voters. It is entirely possible that they will ignore the reality of the Trump administration and vote their seething animosities once again next November.
Trump may well win but it won't be for the reasons given here. Hate sells well, and Trump is the best US hate salesman ever.
This writer hits the nail on the head, especially when he says elites impose policies on the electorate that they themselves don’t suffer from. I’m a “liberal” but am finding the democrat candidates for president either totally misguided and too far left, or utterly gutless and politically correct.
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What really shows no signs of abating is the blatant racism, which is Donald Trump - pure and simple. You can put lipstick on it and call it populism, but it's still racism in its ugliest form. Trump has tapped into a vein of racism that most don't want to admit exists in America, but it's there alright, and trump is playing it for all it's worth.
While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, he secretly knows that they can be led around like bulls with nose rings - only instead of bull rings, he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead voters wherever he wants.
If DJT doesn't destroy our fragile democracy, he has published the blueprint and playbook for some other demagogue to do it later. If a democracy like America's is going to exist, there will have to be a paradigm shift in human thought throughout the world.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
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The voters you describe turn their backs on their Christian theology. Jesus would be appalled by his followers lack of compassion.
I am not an elite but I can see climate change as a threat to my families future and the damage it will do to untold billions in other lands who will be seeking refuge in the very nations most responsible for the damage done to them. I am fully willing to make sacrifices for the greater good which seems to me to be impossible for many if not most.
We are coming upon a time where the only way to stop the movement of people will be with guns and murder. We will then see if Christians are indeed God's children or the devils tools.
Trump is part of the elite and he's not. He might have (operative word, might) the money but the real social elite of the North East won't accept him, he's too gauche. He won't be accepted by the financial elite because of his business practices. So he's almost there, like a kid with his nose pressed up against a window looking in.
However he's a master self promoter. How else can you explain his tax breaks to the rich while shafting the poor and the middle class and yet they follow him fervently. Racism and anti-immigration seem to be the common factor.
Will enough of us see this this quagmire and get him out? I don't know but I hope Matthew Continetti is wrong. Better buy stock in anti-depressant medicine companies.
In my opinion, a global surge of anything means nothing. Thanks to trump's "leadership", many American know nothing about the rest of the world, and couldn't care less.
Ask them about nationalist movements in the UK, Poland, Turkey, etc. and watch the blank looks.
trump has to run on his pathetic record of zero accomplishments here. He might win yet, so we all must vote next year.
I agree that trump might "win" in 2020, but not for the reasons Continnetti gives. The world wide support for faux-populist fringes has a ceiling, trump has reached his and the
The EU election did not produce the sweep that was expected. No, if trump wins it will be because of voter suppression and other interference with the vote, both Russian and domestic. It happened before, and nothing is being done to stop it the next time. And, of course, the Dems could nominate someone like Biden who plays it "safe" like Hillary did.
08:05 EDT, 6/19
Well, this dovetails perfectly with the recent piece here about Democrats courting Wall Street. What are Biden, Buttigieg, and Harris promising to those charming bundlers? If any Democrat wants to participate in their own anti-elite crusade, they can stop making small donations to candidates taking in 200K gulps from Goldman Sachs. You're not chipping in; your $20 just makes you a chump.
Mr. Continetti writes that Trump's popularity is the result of a backlash against global elites. But Trump is himself one of those global elites.
There has been no better example of elitism than the manner in which all things Trump have been dealt with during his presidency. The DOJ is stepping in to make sure poor old Paul Manafort isn't inconvenienced by staying in Riker's island; Trump blithely ignores orders from congress and orders his aides and associates to do the same. His disregard for the law is sickeningly blatant, yet virtually no one in his own party -- whether elected official, pundit, or voter, is willing to call him to account for his egregious, antisocial, and criminal behavior. It's like watching doting parents reward a seven year old for throwing a tantrum.
It's the worst example of white privilege we've ever had to endure. Why didn't Trump answer questions directly? "Because they would trap me in lies," Trump said in a recent interview. Really? The only way to be trapped in lies is by lying.
In Trumpland, no doubt, Donald is a shining paragon of greatness. To those of us who do not belong to that cult, he looks like an overbearing loudmouth with an excess of attitude, fully armed with opinion, unencumbered by facts, and completely devoid of decency.
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It’s fair to be mad and anti elite but Trump is no leader to correct the wrongs here in America and restore our standing around the world.
What Continetti says about the economy is true but he repeats the fallacy that Trump is "anti-elite". He IS an elite. He's a New York real estate billionaire, who grew up in super-luxury, attended private schools and an Ivy League college, and then got $ millions from his dad. If that isn't the definition of "elite" I don't know what is. Stop promoting fantasies!
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Orlando Sentinel editorial page speaks to several reasons why Trump doesn't deserve a second term, namely his nastiness, incompetence, chaotic and corrupt administration, lies etc.
In short voters have seen enough of this brutish buffoon to gave him anotherv term.
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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.
Even the non-elite understand that.
Trump won't benefit from his incumbency in the coming election. He destroys his accomplishments (few as they are) while distracting from his flaws (with more flaws.)
Benefiting from the (Obama) recovery? For an economy in this shape (which has crested, btw) his poll numbers clearly show that he hasn't- being that they're abysmally down. I don't dismiss the polls, even this far out. Clearly the president (rampage-firing his pollsters) doesn't either.
Don't compare Jimmy Carter to Trump. Carter faced a hostage crisis that Reagan/Bush exploited. (And he wasn't an un-indicted co-conspirator.)
The fact that the United States is not engaged in a major war appears increasingly as mere luck, with major divisions in the WH over foreign policy, the president constantly contradicting his cabinet and advisers (and actually being kept out of the loop for fear he will leak state secrets to the enemy.) I wish I were making this up, so the moderator could censor me for libel or something.
The Dow Jones and other economic indicators aren't reaching the people who needed a break, and who took a chance on Trump. They've seen how much of his promise on jobs he kept. On health care. Infrastructure. The Wall. (Even on Immigration. During his administration, due to exactly the populist, “global” movement- that you laud in this piece- the numbers of people migrating has... sky-rocketed.) They see these things, and just like in 2018... (40 house seats, 7 Governors) they will vote.
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The Democrats can neutralize this anti-elite advantage quite easily by nominating someone like Andrew Yang or Bernie Sanders. The Democratic party has a broad base to draw from - it's time to take advantage of that to match the nominee to what the times demand, which is definitely not the status quo ante Trumpum.
Trump is not a populist. He is a xenophobe. Cutting corporate taxes - his only legislative accomplishment - is not something any populist has ever clamored for. Nor is eliminating access to health care.
The fact that his “supporters “ seem unable to recognize the fact that trump is a liar, plain and simple. They lack critical thinking skills and many just don’t care as long as they have someone to blame. Will he win, I don’t know but I feel we are running towards real civil strife if not all out armed conflict as things cannot continue the way they have. Democrats seem unable to see that they cannot fight against someone who is not ashamed to lie and who has supporters who do not care. Perhaps the Democrats need a sacrificial candidate who goes on an all out mud slinging campaign that brings all of his lies to the forefront and just keeps hammering away at him just as he does to others. I don’t know, maybe it is to late already and we just need accept the fact that very dark times are coming.
It's hard to fathom Donald Trump as part of an "anti-elite surge", when he's as elite as they come.
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Donnie Deutsch on MSNBC says we need to regard the polls with skepticism, because there may be Trumpers who don’t want to admit it to a pollster.
I just had a conversation with a very nice man, met in the medical setting ,talk turned briefly to politics, he says “Trump is my boy” because “ Democrats don’t want to do anything about all the immigrants coming here” . He did not want to believe or care about a couple of the things that might adversely affect him ( e.g.loss of preexisting condition coverage). This is the kind of voter that concerns me, he seems perfectly nice and reasonable on first impression, because his opinion is fixed in stone, not concerned about the demagoguery and other shenanigans Trump has committed.
1
Trump is not an anti-elitist but an oligarch himself - though his wealth is nowhere near as great as he suggests. If the brainwashed base still wants to fantasize that he's a populist, so be it. But the educated suburbanites don't believe it anymore, nor will any new prospective voter. The con has been done, and only went so far; with the help of Russia, it got him over the edge. He's being monitored, hawk-like, on Russia, and he's bound to loose a bunch of non-fanatics. Looking forward to seeing him behind bars in two years, rather than on the golf course.
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Thecomment in this article that
“But surveys taken more than a year before Election Day are meaningless. “
Is far too extreme. They will change but that is not to say they are meaningless.
I wish media including NYT would do better job of investigating and reporting the substance behind candidates and spend less time on who is gaining or losing in latest poll.
The economy is the only issue that Mr. Trump has a chance to win, the rest what the writer writes is pure hogwash and political propaganda for Trump. One more reason why Trump may win,the democrats themselves. It has been seen that democrats may sit on their buts if their candidate does not become the nominee of the party. They are more loyal to their candidate than to the cause. This happened in 2016
Ignorance, fear and hate: trump's game remains the same.
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Just where are these great job expansions occurring? It seems weekly we're reading whiny articles from the forgotten man in the rust belt, the forgotten man in the farming community, the forgotten man in dying cities. Each month trump's job growth numbers are adjusted down by tens of thousands. Prices are going up yet wages are stagnant. The gig economy is alive and well, fewer workers are getting a forty hour workweek, job security is nonexistent. The stock market rises and falls like a demented seesaw. And gains don't outstrip the losses. The Orange Demented Nightmare is saber rattling at two countries and he recently cut a deal to have Saudi Arabia, the country behind the 9-11 attacks! build our nuclear weaponry. Not only is this shipping good paying jobs overseas, even though it is the military industrial complex, does he naively believe they won't steal this technology?
Yet, once again a conservative "think" tank is advising the Democrats on how they'll win the election. Why should we listen to a wolf in sheep's clothing.
I'm extremely concerned about his re-election chances. I'm not becoming complacent and moved by almost physical terror that this nightmare will continue 5 more years. I will do whatever is humanly possible to keep him from re-election. That's all I can do. But take advise from another right winger who tries to disguise his agenda with "helpful" advice? Thanks, but no thanks. trump's rubes are beyond help. The rest? Vote in record numbers. And vote D.
Donald Trump, a college-educated, billionaire real-estate heir/mogul/reality television star isn't an elite? I'd say he's swindled common people into believing he isn't an elite which highlights what a charlatan he is.
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By describing people who believe in democracy as “elites” the author of this article is playing into the narrative set by Steve Banyon and the new tide of neo fascists in North America and Europe of which Trump, the Five Star Movement in Italy, the Front Nationale in France, Brexit and UKIP parties in the UK , AfD in Germany among others all adhere to. Banyon began using the word “elites” to describe people with higher levels of education, those who support civil and human rights, the environment, trade unions, etc. as a way to castigate and break up civil society. Banyon and Trump and all of the above are seeking to disrupt, divide and destroy left and right of centre democratic governments, governmental institutions (e.g. the US Supreme Court) and international bodies (e.g. the EU, UN, WHO) all of whom have been labelled “elite”. They need the elite label to define the enemy as it appears Continetti does. I don’t think the author understands the multiple psychological reasons why neo fascism is on the rise. Much of the West is confronted with rapidly changing societies that are creating significant levels of uncertainty and insecurity, which produces anxiety and fear. Trump and others have exploited that fear decisively to divide people and that’s what fascism does to gain and maintain power; there always has to be an enemy and the current enemy are the fantasied elites. It is an illusion Continetti continues.
Does it not matter to Continetti that mining jobs are not coming back? That the days of coal are numbered? That native white Christian males are responsible for more mass shootings than Muslims? That immigration at Southern border were at historic lows? With an acting SecDef, that the greatest military in the history of the world is leaderless? That Trump is the least competent, stable, disciplined, decent executive ever to occupy the White House?
Truth does not matter. Winning and power do. Trumpism is conservative elites' gravytrain. Like Continetti. P.S. I hear Trump is looking for a press secretary.
By this time next year, the talentless Sociopath will either have a war or recession, perhaps both, to his credit.
China is winning friends with its ability to selectively target for tariffs US goods it can replace from other nations. The US? Save for idiotic Brexiteers and a few autocrats, Trump has no friends.
His farm-state base is already feeling economic pain, only alleviated by his subsidies we all pay. The rest of his base will feel pain soon for other goods, if his stupid unilateral approach continues.
Keep hope alive. The rage against this man and his party is not going anywhere.
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Whoever the Democrats nominate for President:
1) Vote for that person.
2) Donate money to that person's campaign.
3) Volunteer to work for that person's election.
4) Put a bumper sticker on your vehicle with that person's name on it.
5) Spread the word via social media and interpersonal contacts that this person will be a good president.
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We are still a year out...so, agree, all polls are problematic--and yes, there is a worldwide rebellion against globalization. Now, having said that, Trump enters this campaign season with little or no white house staff, a cabinet composed of incompetents at best and near criminal behavior at worse, an economic agenda designed to tank a sound economy, a real potential for a "small" war in the middle east, a President, who let us say, appears to be lapsing into some form of mental breakdown..I could go on..but, I sense the public is nervous with this man, very nervous, and, we have an entire year ahead of us to see how this clown show presidency calms a nervous nation.
The polls in 2016 were horribly wrong in state after state. Many were well outside their margins of error. The problem for the Democrats is that they have fallen under sway of politically correct Progressives. As their candidates veer far Left to win the nomination, they become unpalatable to an electoral college majority. It's a party that favors open borders, illegal immigration, and sanctuary cities. It's a party of accusation and character assassination. It's examples of governance are filthy unsafe cities filled with drug addicted homeless. They don't like America and are forever attacking men. They mock farmers and people who live in flyover country. They have a growing wing of anti-Semites they can't seem to disavow. They detest Evangelicals. They want to impose taxes and restrictions in the name of climate change. Their main focus has been on relitigating the election of 2016 with a neverending series of phony charges and dubious legal maneuvers. They took control of the House and have done exactly nothing for the people. The polls right now are not accurate at all. Who has a landline any more and who answers it? Unless the economy tanks, 2020 will be an Electoral College landslide for Trump.
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Global elitists are an incredibly arrogant bunch. It's as though their own countries aren't a big enough forum for them. They want to manage the globe. That's heady stuff and they became intoxicated.
Meanwhile back in the real world, the citizens of their own countries were stuck living with their grand ideas. Global elites are being voted out for good reason. Citizens want leaders to do the job of running their countries. That's their real job.
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The president is a reflection of all Americans;
Ignorant, and proud of it,
Lazy, selfish, insecure,
Yes, this is a reflection of you and me even though we didn’t vote for him. If he is elected again then we deserve him as president. This is what we’ve become.
It's not surprising that Mr. Continetti, editor of the Washington Free Beacon and son-in-law of Conservative political analyst William Kristol, throws out a trial balloon regarding a potential "wave" that has yet to occur because it so clearly reflects his bias and fantasy. It's as if he believes that imagining a GOP or Trump wave will make it so. Somehow, he completely ignores the Bue Wave/Tsunami of the 2018 Congressional elections.
Not to mention the overt lying the elites did via the media 20 years ago when they began shipping jobs to China . The story was we were going to become an “information” society ... all those factory workers would be retrained as “ computer programmers” I distinctly remember people like Robert Reich pitching this line not to mention a few luminaries who work for this paper...how did that work out?
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My friends laugh at the idea that Trump is anti-elitist. They point to NYT articles that show how his policies have enriched his billionaire friends. They can’t understand how his supporters believe that he is draining the swamp. I tell them to read the comment section of Fox News YouTube videos. Anti-elitist has nothing to do with who he is, where he comes from, or what he does on a policy level. People angry with the elites simply love it whenever he says something on Twitter that offends them.
By this article's account, elites are those who are disliked by Trump's base. How ridiculous and inaccurate and self-serving this is. How are DeVos and Purdue and Bernhardt, etc. not part of an elite, an elite with ties to the worst impulses and commercial interests in American life? How is Trump himself, a beneficiary of real estate shenanigans and tax fraud also not a member of a certain kind of elite?
Mr. Continetti seems to think that an interest in solving real world problems such as climate change and inequality means membership in some elitist cabal. Not so. Continetti's thinking is delusional.
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Actually Mr. Continetti, it is the anti-elitists who are insulating themselves from reality and living in a bubble. Like the woman in Grand Rapids "who only watches conservative news" and knew nothing of Trump's criminality until conservative Justin Amash told her, these folks just do not want to face the reality that they have benefited from racism, voted for the real elitists who like Trump sent their jobs abroad and think climate change is a hoax. Trumpies will bring all of us down with the planet if we let them.
Massive reality therapy is needed for Trumpies. They need to realize that just because they like Trump's comforting bigotry and ignorance doesn't mean it will bring back the pre-2007 world they believe was ideal.
Clearly the left wing of the elite establishment (the Democratic Party) needs to be taken over by non-establishment, non-elite REAL democrats. If there is a REAL non-elite candidate in the race Trump won't get 40% of the vote.
I think three not two incumbents were turned back at the polls since WWII. Ford, Carter, and Bush 1. All were also party flips.
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"Who exactly are these "elitists"? "
Elitist are influential liberals In the Democratic Party, Academia, Arts, and Journalism. There is nothing wrong in labeling them as such. Let the "non-elite" people know.
So what have the Democrats done since being swept to power by that blue wave?
Nothing .
All we hear is how bad that guy is and how we should get rid of him. Don't get me wrong. I want him in jail. Behind bars.
But when 2020 comes around and the voter says: What have you done for me lately? what will the Dems answer?
Nothing. done Nothing. Nothing to show. Not even the appearance of working on Health Care, Social net, Guns,Income inequality,Infrastructure. But barked they have Loud and fast. No bites just loud barks. No solutions. Barks.
Sure any bill they would send to the senate would be voted down or disregarded by the old order.
But then folks would say.: Hey! they are trying, they are doing their best to help.They are trying to give us Health Care, Higher wages,Safety but the other side is stopping them.
Sadly however, to an unbiased observer their promises absent action of any kind, appear as empty as those of the man in the white house.
I for one fears 2020. Barking dogs bark and an economy that keeps chugging along. When has calls to decency ever trumped bread and games?
If you're a white construction worker, unchecked illegal immigration effects you way way more than if you work at a New York City office.
White construction workers support Trump by huge margins.
Elite democrats and republicans alike, the Mitt Romney's and Chuck Schumer's of America have absolutely no desire or plan to reduce the influx of illegal immigration into the United States.
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The 0.1% who control 90% of the wealth also control the message (e.g. Murdoch >FOX; Bezos>WAPO). So long as the message they deliver is that our woes are the fault of the most vulnerable among us (asylum seekers, LGBTQ) and "uppity" congresswomen (Pelosi, AOC) then they can obscure the fact that the fruits of our labors are increasingly being funneled upwards.
As Rome burns...anger over attempts to mitigate against climate change (such as the idea of a carbon tax) might aid in the reelection of this nightmare luddite POTUS? Perhaps the human race is nearing its endpoint. If cheap fossil fuels are more important to people than the preservation of the planet...I would suggest that the planet might be better off without us.
What an interestingly narrow set of facts and events Mr. Continetti selects here. For instance, citing terrorist attacks and mass shootings only perpetrated by Muslims (who were born in the U.S. in those cases) while ignoring the many more attacks perpetrated by white Christian men.
Citing the rise of anti-elitist populism around the world while ignoring its marked anti-democratic momentum, ultra-nationalism, the scapegoating and exclusion of the 'other', and the obvious corruption happening right out in the open.
As they say, 'We've seen this movie before'. It didn't end well.
Uh, no. No one is being fooled by micro polling numbers this far out. Many, many pundits and commentators are not this time writing Trump off as an aberration.
Some commentators are predicting he will again lose the popular vote on the way to re-election.
He raises $30 million per quarter (not counting RNC),
he is completely unrestrained this time and has no concern about breaking any law to win, especially since Pelosi gave him the "get-out-of-jail-free-card,
the MSM is ready with another $2-3 billion in free air time,
"no we can't" liberals have all the non-answers as to why Democratic candidates must be ready to always give up the lunch money to the bully.
everyone will go back to just shaking their heads every time Trump says something dumb and Trump will win re-election and the Dems will lose the House because Trump psyched them out on impeachment and McConnell bottled up their "work of the people" in the Senate.
Remember, Trump's populism is not that of economic justice but of bigotry and racism.
It's not an anti-elite surge.
It's a pro-microcephalic surge.
The pin heads "think," with the likes of Trump in power, that they, the pin heads, are in charge.
The only reason Trump is the phenomenon he is today is because Rupert Murdoch is his friend and Fox news is his propaganda mouthpiece. Take away that part of the equation, loose the propaganda and Trump is sunk.
I may have overlooked it, but the author doesn't even mention the question of whether this so-called global "populist" (read: rump-white racist backlash) surge will secure Individual 1 a popular vote victory. I suppose it's a foregone conclusion to him that Trump's relentless "malevolence tempered by incompetence" will again cajole just enough white men sprinkled across a few states to win it all, while again precluding a popular vote victory (probably by much bigger margins)?
The public gets what the public wants. God help us all if this is the case. People may fault me for saying this but Hillary was right. These Trump and Trump only supporters ARE truly deplorable ... or incredibly stupid.
I would ask all readers to look into this writer’s background and judge for yourself whether or not he has an objective perspective on this phenomenon.
I will add that there is a burgeoning backlash to the backlash of radical right wing ideology the world over. In the USA, Democrats gave the radical Republican Party a hefty shellacking in 2018 whereas in Germany the AfD’s vote share dropped in the recent European election while the left Green Party greatly expanded. Many Scandinavian countries, after much wishful thinking on the right, easily re-elected their center left coalitions. France is an interesting case but the gillete jaunes (yellow vest) movement is by no means a far-right or right wing phenomenon. It is strictly apolitical and leaderless, of course that has not stopped marine le pen to try to attach herself to it.
The republicans are all ready to stuff the ballot boxes.
He’s a shoo-in.
This is absurd. Trump is a fake populist. He is a rich guy, born to riches, ensconced in riches his entire life, ill gotten though they be.
I continue to be amazed that people are so dumb they think Trump ISN'T an "elite," although he surely lacks elite talent.
Trump could win simply because the Dems are still tone deaf on immigration.
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Trump will win, again. The democrats will be apoplectic, again, and it will be a joy to behold.
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Mr. Continetti ignores the huge surge of progressives and moderate Democrats just eight months ago. The tide has turned. Trump has been unmasked as a lying con man. Most Americans are sick to death of him. 2020 will be the end of the GOP.
I did not read the article, but its premise is clearly stated in the title and subtitle. And it's wrong.
The European Parliament did not veered to the right as expected; Portugal and Spain have socialist governments; the UK, Brexit or no Brexit, will still end up having Corbyn as PM; the French National Rally is still unable to win a run-off vote; the left-wing Greens are on the rise in key nations throughout Europe; Netanyahu will likely be defeated in Israel and may go to jail; in South America, Argentina will very likely flip back to Kirchner, Evo will win a new term in Bolivia, Brazilian Bolsonaro is already on the ropes, and Maduro (as despicable as he is) kept his grip on power. And I bet that Time's Person of the Year will be the Kiwi PM, after her bold and swift action regarding gun regulations.
The list could go on and on, but to make it simple: the right-wing populist wave already crested and now is losing strength by the day.
Not buying it. Trump has not added to his "base." He won by 77,000 votes. He is chaos incorporated. Do we really think ANY person under 30 will vote for him? That anyone who voted for Hillary will now, after three years of insanity, choose to vote for him? If anything, many people who did not vote, thinking Hillary had it in the bag, are now appalled by their own apathy and its results in 2016. Don't get me wrong, we cannot afford to be complacent. However, if your base is generally old, only white, responds to racist dog whistles, is homophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-lgbtq, anti-environmental ideas, then what you've literally got is a dying constituency, a base that will continue to shrink and not one that will add anyone who values the following: science, women, education, tolerance, and diversity. I think if the Dems play their cards well, Trump will be a one term monstrosity. (Which is bad enough!)
The "global elite" are the oligarchs like Murdoch and the Kochs and their wannabes like Trump. They got the benefit of the tax con job. The ones paying the price for the exploding debt & the Republican plan to choke off SSI and Medicare? Everybody else. Let's vote smarter.
Add to that list, sky-high rents in Seattle and San Franciso, which ought to be models of liberalism. The Elites are in fantasy land. However, I am not turning to Trump. I am voting for Socialism.
Trump is the elite. He represents the business elite in America that slashes regulations for clean air and water so that he and his ilk can spend less and profit more. And like his fellow billionaires have enough money to cocoon themselves away from pollution (or so they think).
Where are the programs for job retraining, new jobs in wind and solar? Mitch is working on buying votes with Chinese money for Kentucky infrastructure. America? Not at all.
And the author is all in with banning Muslims? Oh right, only the Christian Evangelicals get to impose Sharia law in America.
That wave of hate was rejected to a certain extent in the 2018 Mid-terms. That wave will grow. Trump's won't but GOP manipulations with now welcome foreign interference might carry the day.
High taxes and open borders don't sell well no matter what country you're in. The Democrats had three years to figure that out, but doubled down on the same unpopular policies instead. They're toast and have nobody to blame but themselves.
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He’s lost too many independents this time around and many more women voters have turned against him as well. Trump’s choir has shrunk not increased ... fact ! Using a war with Iran for political purposes puts the final dagger to Trump’s 2020 election.
All need to get out and vote in 2020. He is the epitome of the Ugly American. The majority of us detest this man. We don’t want another war using our young as cannon fodder. We need reasonable healthcare, we need livable wages, we need to protect our environment. We can do this. There are more of us.
Hopefully, that waive already hit us in '16 and by 20 we have come to our senses....
Oh yeah right, Donald Trump, champion of the common man. The massive tax cut for the rich tells us that if nothing else, doesn't it? He has done incalculable harm to the long term wellbeing of this country, not to mention the world. He has done nothing good, nothing at all. There are nowhere near enough fools in this country to elect this clown a second time.