Shortly after Trump was elected, so many people told me that things "wouldn't get that bad." So many people told me that our Constitution would "save us". I told them they were wrong.
Anyone who saw the vicious, hateful rants of Trump supporters at his rallies - both before and after the 2016 election - understood what his base wanted. And they wanted exactly what Dr. Krugman describes: " ,,, an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime."
This is the America Trump voters want. An ignorant, bigoted Republic of Gilead, run by a tyrant with absolute power. And this is exactly what America is now. Today.
Don't believe me? Then consider this: After one of the most horrific hate crimes in this country (El Paso), where a white nationalist gunned down two dozen Hispanics, not one national Republican has challenged Trump about the obvious role he has played in inciting this violence. And Trump held the infant whose parents had been slaughtered with the demeanor and smile of a Saddam Hussein.
Trump voters don't want affordable health care or job retraining. Trump voters are racists and religious bigots, and this is what drives their votes, and all their actions since Trump took power.
And finally, anyone who believes we will have a free and fair election in 2020 is spectacularly naive. Trump will not go quietly. His supporters will back his consolidation of absolute power. And he will leave only at a time of his choosing.
28
For some reason, a lot of very wealthy people think they would be insulated from an authoritarian government, because they would be able to buy or bribe their way out of troublesome situations and the authoritarians would need them and their capital to keep the government in place.
Historically, of course, this has been true--right up until the moment it isn't. A lot of wealth has been confiscated, whether by authoritarians of the left or the right, and a lot of formerly wealthy people marched off to gulag or concentration camp, or just plain disappeared, if they have some characteristic or political leaning that isn't in favor.
So, for those who think their bank accounts and land holdings will protect them, and that their Calvinist/Social Darwinist leanings will find favor with nationalists or even fascists, the wind can shift direction very quickly.
There's no fool like a rich fool.
13
Hey Paul, the country is not full of racist bigots. Do you really want to insult millions of people. I hope not, as that would make you the hater.
Take a deep breath and look outside of your bubble.
15
There seems to be no end to the greed of the largest profiteers of unfettered capitalism. What will they do when most of the population cannot afford to buy their products? Who will be their doctors when education and basic science are decimated? Who will build and maintain their bridges when no one can afford to become an engineer? How can they be sure their own buildings and homes are safe when government safety regulations don't exist?
55
It's not that Elizabeth Warren will make the ultra rich a little bit poorer, it's that she'll make the middle and lower middle classes much, much poorer.
Her policies, like President Obama before her, punish the middle class to prop up the poor. After all, the ultra rich have ways to hide their wealth from the government. The rest of us are subject to her "pro-market progressive policies" (whatever that means).
14
Another simple point on the hypocrisy of trump, related to trump and many of his billionaire fossils.
Now, in a new cruelty, he will punish immigrants, whom often have paid taxes w/ no benefit at all, if they ever have depended upon any public assistance.
The utter nerve of trump, the non-tax-paying president, in saying that it is not fair that US taxpayers support immigrants.
Ok, so we need to put that rule right back to trump. He pays no taxes and reaps many benefits in the millions. Currently in his position, orchestrated by trump by design, we are bankrolling his private trump companies/resorts 24/7.
How many bankruptcies does this clown have? Yet, he is now suddenly worried about what we taxpayers are paying for - really?
The media needs to do as trump does each time. Make it about him, as the so likes.
If he complains about US taxpayer injustices then have him explain why he, himself, pays zero taxes while making millions and millions on us...
He has zero standing in the context of most of what he says b/c he is the master of ripping off the US government. He is con-man-don j trump.
When the poor white Americans realize this, he will be don j. done.
90
@KiKi- What a terrific, insightful comment!!
24
The last refuge for someone on the losing side of an argument is an ad hominem attack.
4
How easily we overlook the lessons that the past begs us to learn.
Paul Krugman's article eluded to one specific lesson which I would like to call to the attention of NYT readers. The Latino, Black, Jewish, Evangelical and other groups that are now boisterously encouraging many members of Congress to assist
and enable President Trump as he expands his role of dictatorship are not a deeply loyal nor thoughtful group.....they swing and sway with loud noises that temporarily satisfy their feelings.
So, I say to you Trump enablers in Congress, be aware. When this disasterous attempt to disolve our mighty Democratic institution resolves itself, as it ultimately will, recall the images of 1945 as Mussolini swung from the scaffold and recall the images of the shaved heads of the many women of Europe who collaborated with the the Nazis. Think history and how redily the mighty masses can and do shift positions.
21
I agree with Doctor k that people like Stephen Ross do not act consistent with enlightened self-interest. But dr. k is not much of a psychologist to say nothing of a behavioral economist. People generally do not act in accordance with their enlightened self-interest. Someone like Stephen Ross might value a photo op with Donald Trump more than he values his grandchild's future
23
I cannot imagine being so wealthy, so rich, that you have the bottomless pit of wanting even more money.
I'm happy when I can get guacamole at Chipotle.
48
The autocracy of 1930s and 1940s Germany, aka the Third Reich, did not hesitate to pillage the wealth of families it viewed as, using today's parlance, "others." Nor do *any* autocracies that run wild. One has to wonder, as Professor Krugman asks, what are wealthy "other" families thinking as they open their treasuries to Trump, a quintessential, semi-literate, autocratic bigot.
"What is the matter with the poor is Poverty
what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.”
GB Shaw
48
You write that "a fair number" of those who present themselves as rich "aren’t satisfied with being immensely wealthy; they also want adulation. They expect to be praised as heroic job creators and are enraged at any suggestion that some of their number may have behaved badly, let alone that they may have benefited from a rigged system."
Too true. Also, they are endless complainers who see themselves as victims. Why doesn't everybody "like" them? Why do the people they openly hate hate them right back? It's not fair! It's harrassment! It's a hoax to make them look bad!
This profile should sound awfully familiar to Americans.
41
Is it possible that billionaires have a better idea of their self interest than PK? Big business in 1934 Germany did quite well until Germany lost the war. Afterwards, they did fine because after all they were the only ones around who could organize to build things. There may be a level or arbitrariness in Putin’s Russia but all you have to do is continue to suck up to him and support him and you may even become a multi billionaire. Ross and others are simply doing this now with our Putin wanna be.
13
The short version of this article: "Rich or poor, if you still support Trump, you are a useful idiot."
I agree 100%
56
Useful idiots work both ways - see Trump and the GOP.
9
Trumpism is about much more than tax cuts: It’s an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime.-------What are you smoking? Is it legal in your state? Trumpism is something that the left made up to scare the people, the way the local news scares the elderly with the weather report to get them to keep watching past the 2nd commercial break. Not real folks. Make believe. Just because an idiot was elected President again, does not mean that there is any real support for him, people just hate the liberal elite and HRC. The man was a reality TV star not the Antichrist. I know it sells to talk about Trump, but dont create a straw-man and name it Trumpism.
4
Paul you have provided a very insightful and necessary critique of Emperor Trump and all overt or disguised Empires — and as the late great Jewish intellectual, Hannah Arendt, tried to warn her own German people, and all people from her numerous leading university positions and books when she emigrated from Germany, to Paris France (until Nazi Empire occupation under the single-party faux Vichy regime in 1940), and through Portugal, to America:
“Empire abroad entails tyranny at home”.
All Empire fail, “the hard way”, as Tina Turner sang.
12
I am a bit troubled by the tone of this article. Why must this billionaire be "shamed" and put down for simply having a fund raiser for Trump? America and the freedom of choice is an awesome thing; why do the Left keep trying to "bully" people into their line of thinking?
I am a conservative leaner and am fed up with Trump. Can not stand to watch him speak anymore as his rhetoric is disturbing. Have started moving L for a Presidential candidate and was hopeful Tulsi Gabbard would have made more momentum. But the onslaught of bullying by the Left can be a huge turnoff.
7
If you call this article “shaming”, what do you call Trumps words towards journalists who ask him thoughtful, and important questions? Or his words towards President Obama for years? His words towards an American judge of Mexican heritage? Or towards AOC? Or Maxine Waters? I could go on..but this reflective article asking tough questions, you call “shaming”? This is turning you back to Trump? Nice try.
55
About being Jewish. Although we may be next in line in the United States, we've mostly been first in line throughout our history - Russia, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Germany, France, Spain, and on and on. Just as German Jews thought they were "Germans," any Jew in the United States (atheist, agnostic, Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative or Orthodox) who thinks that he or she is a "real American" in the eyes of vociferous Trump supporters is not only worse than a useful idiot, but a disgrace to our heritage.
44
Sure, Trump is going to go after Jews, including his daughter and her kids.
This is just crazy.
Paul, get hold of yourself.
6
@dick west I remember trump saying something about good people on both sides after the Charlottesville violence.
Nazis are not good people. One of them killed Heather
Heyer.
As for Jared, he only worships the golden calf he received from Qatar via the murderous Mohammed bin Salman.
Jews are not considered “white” or “saved” by trump’s base.
37
However, if we care to extend the comparison with the vast Hitlerian pogrom, we cannot fail to notice that the wealthy supporters of Hitler before the last free election in Germany benefited grandly from the slave labor he later provided with Jews, critics, prisoners of war, and others, although typically the life expectancy of the slaves was a only a matter of months. Most of the corporations these wealthy men belonged to still exist. So while millions die and society crumbles, the wealthy will still come out ahead.
14
Right on brother!
4
Back in the 1930's the rich believed they could control another want to be dictator. They couldn't and the end result was the destruction of their nation along with the loss of their lives and millions of others lives. Hitler is of course who I am writing about and it was the wealthy German industrialist who laugh at him and believed they could keep him in line. It was their greed that led to their own destructions just like the greed of our wealthy will led to both theirs and our destructions if Trump is not stopped. Both Trump and the GOP seek power for the sake of power and don't care how they get it or who they harm in the process.
26
Trump as a run of the mill white nationalist loves to blame Jewish liberals for fomenting an invasion, as Trump sees it, on the US border. But Trump has a special spot for Israel. Netanyahu and the Israeli right are hard in the midst of persecuting Palestinians gets special beneficent attention from Trump. The capital is Jerusalem and the Israelis are well on the way of taking all they want on the West Bank. This fits in well with Trump's mindless hatred of Moslems. Then you have Prince Mohammed the Saudi prince in alliance with Trump and Netanyahu. But the big honcho is Sheldon Adelson who wants Iran crushed and Syria leveled to the stone age. White nationalists are all over the West. Anti-immigration is the threatening issue that propagandizes people to makes ridicules choices for leaders.
9
These billionaires are not idiots. They are working actively with Trump and his cronies to establish a moral and legal environment where those with enough money, power and connections can lie, cheat, steal, even kill, and get away with it.
18
Yes, but the point is, they are useless because they cannot even see that they will used and abused, too. Especially if from a minority group. So rather than use their wealthy to see the truth and fight it, they are blinded, and useless, in a greedy search for more.
11
The whole Trump era has been about useful idiots enabling him for either power or money.
Everyone knows he's a temperamental fool but they put that aside in their quest for one of those two things.
14
I've said since 2015: Trump and his family are the ultimate Useful Idiots. There is a world-wide network of oligarchs, including folks like the Koch Brothers, folks in Russia, Ukraine, China, etc. These folks have zero allegiance to any "country" or any "state" - but they need Useful Idiots in positions of political power around the globe to do their bidding as needed.
9
Bravo!
3
Those of us too young to have lived during the rise of Nazi Germany always wondered: How could human beings ever do something like that?
For the very first time in my life, I truly understand. An evil and immoral administration can come to power and overtake a nation. It can happen, even in a nation built upon a solid core of moral principles.
It's scary what is now happening in America. Truly scary.
31
Perhaps Ross and the rest of the billionaires realize that Trump is too stupid and chaotic to ever become an effective authoritarian and are just riding his coattails, because he is, after all, the "President."
2
These billionaires have financed the systematic destruction of our democracy. The Ross, Koch, Mercer, Adelson, Thiel, etc. corporate fascist oligarchy are not only greedy “idiots”, they are also Traitors.
24
Dr Krugman. This is my second request for you to share your thoughts on Chuck and Nancy giving 45 a clean debt ceiling vote where more Democrats voted yes than Republicans.
You can use the term "Useful Idiots" for two articles in a row.
3
Small wonder Krugman muses on the origination of the term useful idiot and
mentions Lenin as a possible source.A communist mentioning a communist,
your crowd don’t seem to be doing to well these days.As for the ever hoped for revolution
the pitch forks are owned mostly by red State residents so good luck with that.
2
So according to Krugman anyone who aspires to wealth and supports governmental policies that promote individual wealth, whether they approve of Trump or not, is a useful idiot. In other words, deplorable.
How much more name calling and polarization can we withstand? Petty, abusive politicians like Trump are the result of ideological tribalism. Why do Krugman and the Times want more of it?
"What wealth doesn’t bring is the right to let self-indulgence turn you into a useful idiot, lending aid and comfort to a movement that’s trying to destroy America as we know it."
Ah Paul -But it does!
The only thing worse than a poor useful idiot is a rich one.
They have all the same psychic deficiencies and get to play out their sociopathy on a grand scale.
No end to the damage they can do -Just look at our sociopath-in-chief.
7
Many German business leaders supported the Nazis because they feared the communists. In the end, many of them had their companies nationalized, or, if they didn't go to prison, had to sell their firms to Hermann Göring at well below market rates.
In the end, only liberal democracy can effectively protect property rights, as Russia's oligarchs and Chinese princelings understand all too well, and keep their assets and families in the US, the EU, or Canada.
9
Pitchforks. Coming soon to a town near you.
1
@Baba; Watch Nick Hanauer TED talk.
1
PK -
Good Grief! Are you kidding with that “... won’t make you significantly happier” drivel? The bigger house, the bigger jet, the bigger BIGGER ... all that is exactly what makes the people who make billions significantly happier. It's what they do it for.
Do you get that you just rang up a whole column to yell, “Hey, Rich People - guess what! Money can't buy you Happiness!”
What do you plan on teaching The Billionaires next, Paul - that true beauty comes from the inside?
1
I remember years back there was an editorial decision by this newspaper to call every man "Mr." - even the most vile of murderers or (heaven forfend) child rapists. I see that you have not followed that decision by calling the person currently serving as US president "Trump", with no "Mr."
Perhaps it is time for the NYT to reconsider its policy in this matter, at least with respect to that most despicable of criminals who now sits in the White House.
4
Trump and his enablers are doing to brown people what the Nazis did to the jews. If you doubt that please read some history books or watch the many factual documentaries about hitler and the holocaust. It can happen again.
12
You are correct there is a segment of the American Jewish population that are indeed "useful idiots". They believe that trump's support of Israeli policy is sufficient to ignore the white supremacy and overt racism. They may also believe that they too are superior to the "blacks or browns" unwashed masses. Useful Idiots, indeed, too many Germans did the same thing, but history does repeat itself.
The proof also lays in Pittsburgh. Our Synagogue has placed a new security system in place and the local police monitor the premises each and every weekend. Welcome to twenty-first-century America where we have become Nazi Germany.
9
The super-rich back Republicans and Trump because they feel their life is threatened when they make less than they think they ought to.
They're addicted to money like some are on power, dope, sex, booze, body building, base jumping and what not…
Their addiction is their ground.
Slip off the way they feel grounded from them and they simply melt and ultimately die … even when pursuing their addiction may lead them to the same demise.
Therefore they're NOT "useful idiots". Rather they are made of the same flesh than Republicans and Trump as they do not believe an instant that Trump will betray them.
Why should they ? Hitler was good to big German capitalists, and no fascist regime did any with profit and greed…
They have nothing to fear.
4
The term "useful idiot" understates the dynamic.
Perhaps more appropriate would be reference to the Non-Aggression Pact signed by Germany and the USSR on August 23, 1939.
Germany invaded Poland from the West on September 1, and the USSR invaded Poland from the East on September 17.
Perhaps Stalin was simply a useful idiot to Hitler?
In any case, we all know that Germany invaded the USSR in June of 1941 after Hitler achieved domination across Western Europe, pinned down the British on their island, and formed an alliance with Japan and Italy.
As soon as Germany could focus primarily on the USSR it invaded, and the USSR's "Polish buffer" was useless in defense.
Twenty million dead Russians is a high price to pay for being a useful idiot.
7
These billionaires, idiots or racists or both, got one thing right.
They pump money into Trump’s coffers as bribes (donations in Washington parlance) so that they can get billions in tax breaks.
The rallies, the placards, the chants?
These are for the little people whose money they are leeching off from. But don’t tell the MAGA crowd that. They are okay with paying more taxes as long as they get to chant something hateful.
8
Republicans' Putin-spiked PROPAGANDA will give Trump a second term. Because USA voters are hugely self-indulgent and myopic.
8
The relatively few Trump supporters who are minority multimillionaires aren’t the useful idiots. It’s the approximately forty percent of the country who put him in office even as their real wages,health care, environment and education decline who are the real useful idiots.
10
Trump is the useful idiot for anyone who wants a powerful proxy. He should easy to manipulate because he’s so needy. Can’t live without flattery, and cash. So anyone who flatters him enough can get him to do their bidding. Billionaires who want lower taxes, brutal dictators who want a pass (Putin, Kim, etc) it our own traitorous Republican Senator, who need him to rubber stamp their hateful, horrible agenda. They saw him coming and rubbed their grimy paws with glee. You can almost hear McConnell slobbering with delight, knowing Trump will do anything he demands, because to refuse would remove whatever protection Trump needs from McConnell. Imagine if Trump went rogue on the GOP? The fact that heavy done almost nothing useful for the country, for the people, since taking office proves the point. He’s following McConnell’s lead. Do nothing, spend nothing, deregulate everything, ignore climate breakdown, distracts the public from what The Great and Powerful Oz (Mitch) is doing behind the curtain.
7
In the 1930’s, some wealthy Jews ignored Hitler’s anti-Semitism out of fear of communism. A few even tried to form a Jewish auxiliary of the Nazi party.
Jewish conservatives in the US are lulled by Trump’s acceptance of his daughter’s conversion and her Jewish family. Some also see him as a friend of Israel.
One need only look at photos of Gestapo politely assisting Jewish children onto Kindertransport trains bound for the UK to understand the danger. While most US Christians support Israel as an ally, there are some who love Israel but don’t like Jews. As long as they can resettle themselves across the world, there are those who would have no problem with a Judenrein America. Of course, that was the original Nazi solution, before the Final Solution.
8
On February 20, 1933 Hitler met with 20 or so major industrialists. Its purpose was to raise funds for the election campaign of the Nazi Party. He told the industrialists that had a simple choice: lose everything to the Communists or support him. That evening he raised in current dollars about $11,300,000.
Those German industrialists were also useful idiots.
8
As per usual, Krugman is a little over the top in his fears. The true white nationalists, as opposed to the merely race conscious, are a very small group. This doesn't, of course, stop them from obtaining guns and killing large groups of people, but they are not about to take over the government. Stephen Ross is more a "shonda" than a useful idiot.
1
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller's poem is a required read for all Americans. Instructive in any age. There's no doubt that the useless idiot who uttered the phrase, "there were fine people on both sides" in Charlottesville will be coming for you and me next. First, it's black and brown people (including/especially those from Latin America and the Middle East). Next, it'll be Asians of all sorts. Then Jews. Then Southern Europeans, because they're not quite white, with likely African, middle eastern and other "unpure" DNA. Then they'll eat their own. Those who provided the fuel for their hatred and anger and resentment. Maybe they'll keep some as slaves, as the Germans did with some Jews during WWII. But there's no doubt where this is heading, and any billionaire who thinks money will shield him (and let's face it, it's mostly the "hims") is deluding himself. The same goes for the callous, mindless and greed fueled destruction of our planet. These billionaires - who must feel otherwise so small if they have to prove to themselves and the world what big men they are - won't be able to breathe and drink their money. Money, it seems, is wasted on the ignorant.
10
German industrialists thought well of Hitler in the beginning too. They believed they could control him to their own benefit. They found out, to their ultimate sorrow, that they couldn't. Just sayin'.
5
Lenin said about useful bourgeoisie idiots: those influenced politicians who tries to fix imperfect bourgeoisie state institutions but instead weaken them to the point of distinction. Then the time of revolution comes and the path to it cleaned and eased by those idiots.
2
There has never been a more apt person for the term "useful idiot" than the one in the White House.
Thank you Lenin or whomever coined the name.
5
Most of the "useful idiots" analysis is correct, but when you speculate that Jews are in danger of another mass persecution is a little off the mark, way off the mark.
Trump is pro-Jewish, very pro-Jewish, as pro-Jewish as you can get, short of a Bar Mitzvah or voluntary circumcision.
Kushner, Ivanka, Munchin, Miller, Greenblatt, Adelson, Wynn, Netanyahu et al are among his closest associates. Duh.
Stomping on Iran, elevating the status of Jerusalem, annexing the Golan Heights, suppressing the Palestinians, and most recently, restricting immigration to the rich. or near rich, cutting taxes, getting rid of every regulation of nature and wildlife in favor of big business. Deporting people of color. What don't you understand?
To what goal? To be declared Messiah, what could be more desirable to a psychopathic, amoral, manipulative egoist?? What??? Already, the evangelists are agreeing that he was sent by God, for God's sake!!
4
There isn't a single person that supports Donald Trump that isn't a certifiable idiot. The highest IQ of his smartest supporter is probably ~75. Which puts them about 25 points above Trump himself. I'm surprised the man has the ability to tie his own shoelaces without assistance.
"Stable genius"? More like an "Unhinged moron".
I've seen marshmallows that were sharper than Donald Trump. And loaded baby diapers that where more charming and charismatic.
6
Is it idiotic, I don't know and don't really care. It is all motivated by greed. These billionaires all have bumper stickers that read "He who has the biggest net worth wins".
4
In 1938, Hitler's "Decree for the Reporting of Jewish-Owned Property" took effect. This seemingly benign law required all Jews to register, with Hitler's government, all Jewish property/assets valued at more than about US$2,000 then (about US$34,000 today). Hitler made such a decree possible by first holding Jews responsible in 1933 for Germany’s military humiliation in World War I, and then spreading the belief nationwide that Jews grew wealthy through theft from Aryans.
This decree gave Hitler access to US$18 BILLION (US$298 BILLION today)! Hitler's government quickly appropriated (stole) all of that money from Jews, hid it all around Europe, and then used it to fund his massive war and to annihilate the Jews and others.
trump and his followers have a similar principle goal -- to Make America "Pure" Again (MAPA). They wish to remove anyone who doesn't have Christian Western-European ancestry. But first, they will take everyone else's money.
If Stephen Ross believes he, being a Jew, can ingratiate himself to racist trump, simply by raising money for him, he is truly a useful idiot!
Just as Putin put his oligarchs in jail then took their money, so too will trump mimic his Moscowvite Mentor.
6
Why is this not noted more?
Oh, and don’t say it can’t happen here. The man who prompts chants of “lock her up,” who has declared the independent media “enemies of the people,” has made it abundantly clear that he’d love to engage in politicized prosecutions of anyone who gets in his way.
Don't his supporters realize that Trump will attempt to annhilate and ruin anyone - no matter how respected or honor bound they are - if they get in his way? Doesn't that scare them?
It scares the heck out of me that they're willing to ignore or abide that.
5
Trumpism is "an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime."
Thank heavens Paul and others on these pages are finally spelling this out in plain terms.
Trump himself tells us everyday what he wants. We should take him literally and seriously.
At a recent Trump rally, a man yelled "shoot them," referring to immigrants. And Trump smiled.
7
((Howard Lutnick)), chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, was also at this event. I hope he reads this column, along with the other self-immolating Trump idolaters with Jewish backgrounds.
4
One of the ways to cause Stephen Ross anguish is by "societal shaming." Publicly, and vocally, deny him service at restaurants. Shout him down at a party. And extend the public shaming to his family. If his wife is in your book club, tell her she's no longer welcome. Trump is a nightmare that must go away... and those who support him must understand we can't embrace them.
6
People who want or need a functioning economy will vote for Trump.
As for the others, why vote for a Maduro-clone Democrat when you can get the genuine one by moving to Venezuela?
1
Paul, I am a Trump-despising Democrat. But Medicare for all in four years? Forgiving all college student loan debt?
Sanders and Warren do not have realistic plans to pay for these horrifically expensive concepts. The billionaires can pay more in taxes but middle- and working-class Americans can not.
Healthcare costs can be brought down with a gradual move toward a single-payer system, not by a guillotine that rapidly bankrupts hospitals. The holders of all that college debt deserve their interest payments. And forgiving debt does not address the costs of education.
But it is easy to blame the billionaires, just as it is easy for our fascist president to blame immigrants. Stop with the class warfare, it's exhausting.
1
Thanks for a great column. A lot of wealthy people are not supporting Trump and a lot of poor people are. I think it's all about the fear that the far right and very probably Russia has whipped up about racism and invaders at the border. Trump is using the word "regime" which to me means he's too much about himself and not about our Government and Constitution. What if we all emailed him a copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. What if we sent one to every Republican, with the words; test to follow. We are being tested right now.
3
If these monopolistic billionaires really believed in competitive capitalism, aka REAL capitalism, they would beg for Warren to make the system fairer. But, they are greedy. And their greed supplants any concern for the middle class, those workers off of whom they feed. What's ironic, and sad, is that a more democratic capitalism would enlarge the middle class and make it more secure. There would be more upward mobility enlarging it further. GDP would rise dramatically. This unemployment number of 3.7% is phony since it doesn't reflect severe underemployment. Why don't you give us an estimate of real unemployment that reflects the current low wage syndrome, Dr. Krugman? While you're at it, why don't you estimate how much more secure social security would be if the payroll tax cap were lifted or at least raised? I asked you to do so in an email, but since you're so popular, you ignored an important question. More specifically, how much more revenue would social security take in for each $10K raise in the tax cap? Is that so hard to answer? What would it take to increase the maximum payouts to, say, $3K? Wouldn't this make the middle class a whole lot more secure? Wouldn't it be worth it? Wouldn't this effectively raise GDP since a more secure middle class would feel okay about spending more?
4
“[D]on’t say it can’t happen here. The man who prompts chants of ‘lock her up,’ who has declared the independent media ‘enemies of the people,’ has made it abundantly clear that he’d love to engage in politicized prosecutions of anyone who gets in his way.”
Trump’s saving grace, if there is one, is that he’s too ignorant and inept to be a true authoritarian dictator. He is motivated not by any coherent political ideology but simply his own malignant narcissism. He is nothing but a child throwing tantrums to get his own way. The danger he poses is in paving the way for a true authoritarian to follow. As Shakespeare’s Roman citizen says of Cæsar, “I fear there will a worse come in his place.”
12
We have to remember, though, it really is not just that 1% who like Trump's tax cuts. It is that other, rather large, portion of the so wrongly named "middle class" who are not billionaires, nor millionaires (although many are), yet they have ample money and rationalize all their angst about not having any money: the vacation home; the other vehicles/boats/plane/etc.; the private schools for kids (oh, how that is a need!); and so on.
So, let's be honest and acknowledge that the population of "useful idiots" is not a small one, by any means, just like the population of "wealthy" is more like 20%. It just isn't fashionable to speak of the rich that way today.
2
On youtube Ted Talk, see Nick Hanauer “Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming”
Hanauer tells the audience he’s a .01 percent plutocrat, and wants more economic equality and rights for the average citizen. Says he’s founded 30 companies & gotten obscene rewards in business, owns multiple homes, a yacht, his own plane.
Says he’s not the smartest person, not the hardest working, was a mediocre student, not technical at all---he’s just been spectacularly lucky.
He says--- “Wake up! Growing inequality is about to push our societies into conditions resembling pre-revolutionary France.”
He wants “a dramatic increase in minimum wage that could grow the middle class, deliver economic prosperity ... and prevent a revolution.”
Says "Want to grow the economy? Tax rich people like me." Business Insider.
Paul Krugman, why don’t you use him and a few others like him for contrast to useful idiots and Trumpist billionaires? They're out there. A nice change of pace, and educational, too.
11
@Meredith
Thanks for posting these thoughts. Beyond a boosted minimum wage, I'd also make a pitch for more unionization to help set wage rates and benefits higher up the income and skills scale. I'd also eliminate state right-to-work laws that largely neuter unions and encourage a race to the bottom. I don't know if we could do it but it would probably be more productive if we could replicate the German system where workers and management work together more.
As for taxing the wealthy, Elizabeth Warren has detailed plans to use such taxes to pay for programs to help the middle and lower classes. More money in consumers' hands means increased consumer spending and a multiplier effect in local economies.
Consumers would still need help to shield them from predatory financial institutions, and that's where the CFPB can be resurrected and return to doing real good.
6
I think I've said this once or twice before but, check out Nick Hanauer's TED Talk on YouTube: "The Pitchforks are Coming."
And, oh yes, Mr. Hanauer is a billionaire.
6
You say re Ross--- "the urban fitness fanatics don't like his gyms".
Don't call them fanatics, Paul---they are more well balanced physically and mentally than many overweight and politically manipulated American voters.
The job of responsible politicians and of media columnists is to encourage such balance among the mass of US voters.
NY Times article---
"They Paid $42 for a SoulCycle Ride, Not for Trump"
On Thursday, emails from an anonymous Gmail account went out to some Equinox employees calling for a strike. “If we do not show up to work, the clubs can not function,” the email read. “We are the cleaners, the managers, the trainers, the group fitness instructors, the sales reps, the shop salespeople, the spa professions and the gatekeepers. Our collective efforts will have results.”
New York-area cardio enthusiasts will have an affordable alternative this weekend. The chief executive of the New York Sports Club fitness chain announced his facilities will waive fees for people switching gyms.
Washinton Post
Ross said he is “an outspoken champion of racial equality, inclusion, diversity, public education and environmental sustainability, and I have and will continue to support leaders on both sides of the aisle to address these challenges.”
In a joint statement Wednesday, Equinox and SoulCycle said they do not support the fundraiser and played down Ross’s role with the brands.
What's next? What color vests will we the people wear in street demonstrations?
3
I had my suspicions about people who simply adore indoor biking, and you’ve amply confirmed them.
1
What so many (white) working class Trump voters don't realize is, their struggles are identical to those of most minorities. Trump's rich friends look down on them all--they despise people of color as "the other" and they despise white workers too, only pretending to care about farmers or miners or autoworkers. In reality, Trump and his pals all stand for only one thing: their desire to see the rich get richer and the working class remain poor. (Make America great again--as in the Gilded Age when a few rich old white guys carved up the nation for themselves, much like today.) Their patriotism is veiled in the knowledge that neither they nor their family members will ever fight or die in a war--they leave that to poor urban (minority) kids and poor (white) rural kids. They don't have to worry about the rent or the mortgage--they have money in the Caymans. But, if Trump voters would realize this and align with immigrants and minorities in the U.S. we would have a true majority in America who could harness real voting power, something none of these billionaires want. Finally Americans could get livable wages, healthcare as a right, affordable higher education, a cleaner environment, a fairer society. And that is why Trump and his buddies play the race card--to keep these groups of disenfranchised voters at each others' throats, while he and his cronies continue their plunder. It's the old divide and conquer. And white American working people are falling for it.
10
I grew up on the near east side of Detroit and lived there from the early 1950s to the late 1989s. Common struggle of working class whites and minorities? I wish you would have told that to the struggljng minorities and the Democratic leadership.
1
Germany of the 1930’s tells all one needs to know about Trump, his family, and his supporters. That is why it is so,so important to turn this now explicitly white nationalist bunch out of power both in the White House and Congress.
11
Mr. Krugman at the end of this piece accuses these billionaires of conspiracy to commit treason. I agree: Impeachment and trial for all elected/appointed officials, and public shame for all those who went along. This administration and Trump himself are despicable traitors to the spirit of our nation, they must be forcefully repudiated and replaced with patriotic Americans.
4
I said to a friend, one man who acted like the recent billionaire suicide will become in the minds of racists legion (to use the biblical term).
We don't need that to happen again!
We don’t even need to be Jewish or any other target population to want that not to happen again.
Sadly, as goes the old time phrase "If wishes were horses..."
1
I said to a friend, one man who acted like the recent billionaire suicide will become in the minds of racists legion (to use the biblical term).
We don't need that to happen again!
We don’t even need to be Jewish or any other target population to want that not to happen again.
Sadly, as goes the old time phrase "If wishes were horses..."
I don’t believe the oligarchs are idiots. Nationalism is a tool they use to keep the attention of the population away from the continuing flow of wealth into their bloated coffers. It works whether you support it or are distressed by it
6
Interesting that the alt right puts Jews in the group included in the chants of "they will not replace us"......as the synagogue shooter did, on alt right social media.
Jews are 1.4% of the U.S. population.
NOT sure how that group would replace anyone.
I think Mr. Krugman gives too much credit to the likes of Mr. Ross. I don't know if he is a racist (cancelled my Equinox membership anyhow), but he is ok supporting someone, who publicly voices racist views, which is the same as being one, in my view. In other ways, I think he is simply an idiot, not a useful idiot. It may be hard to see prosecution in the future, but there is plenty of harm Trump did already. If someone sees the (lack of) abilities of Mr. Trump and many blunders he has already committed, including multiple foreign policy failures, environmental destruction, horrible economic policies etc. etc. and still supports him, he lacks intelligence and self preservation. Unfortunately intelligence and business sense are not always the same... He may be a good businessman, but not an intelligent person, unfortunately.
2
Let's fast forward to when all the immigrants have been thrown over, and the second tier of groups like the Jews and blacks and Asians and even Catholics have been scattered, and then the liberals and university professors have all been locked up or sent into hiding, and then a little time goes by and all the MAGA's realize that, in fact, the greatness never returned and their economic problems are worse than ever. What will they do after all the boogiemen are gone and the old problems remain? They will start eating each other, starting with anyone who complains that the whole thing did not seem to work. When do we storm the Bastille?
4
Here's a link to a Vanity Fair article that might explain why Stephen Ross has chosen to be "a useful idiot" -- besides avoiding taxes.
LINK: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/the-real-reason-stephen-ross-cant-quit-donald-trump
1
I come from a fairly wealthy family. During the 40's and 50's it was thought that wealth brought with it an obligation to serve and included responsibilities. During the Second World War, all my uncles and aunts served in the military, or as nurses, or in strategic, manual hands-on industries; in the 50's they all worked. Where is that sense of obligation now? We have lost something precious.
11
Good point about turnabout for the wealthy with the wrong heritage. Fair game is the term. Will Trump get reelected? Potentially yes. Will he try to extend beyond two terms? Perhaps.
3
Paul Krugman refers to the competitive motives of the super rich and I saw a perfect example in fourth grade. Many wealthy families sent their kids to the private school I attended on Central Park West in the mid 20th century. These little robber barons in training formed a club called "The 40 Foot Club". Your parents' living room had to be 40 feet or longer to become a member of the club.
When I asked them for the length of our living room my parents sent me to PS 87 so fast my head was spinning.
14
@JNK - A most insightful comment, showing how your parents of the post-war years reflected so many of our own parents across the country; those parental attributes have become road-kill in the 'Greed is God - um, er, Good' years of freed animal spirits and celebratory unregulated Vulture Capitalism.
3
"lending aid and comfort to a movement that’s trying to destroy America as we know it", aka trying to sustain (with a little help from their friend) America as they know it.
Didn't the Nazis steal everything from Germany's wealthy class?
6
@Baba
They co-opted them.
Visconti's "The Damned" does a wonderful job of showing what happened to a wealthy family in the early 30's. The love song to Helmet Berger may be the most notorious part of the film, but Helmet Griem as the distant cousin in the SS demonstrates the soulless intelligence and will of the Nazi elite, effortlessly manipulating the family until their entire corporation is under Nazi control.
Nope. Read history books. By serious historians.
The Nazi’s were enabled by big industry captains and big landlords. Does the name Krupp mean anything to you?
Only rich Jews and some rich Catholics lost their fortunes to the Nazis.
1
I checked out a few of racist websites, and they are disgusting. But I can understand the concerns and fears such websites create.
Yet, it requires a special set of circumstances for a minority group to take over. Trump and his 44%, these circumstances are not present in the US. Much criticized, the 2-party system effectively puts the breaks on a totalitarian state.
And, chin up, 30 years from now whites might find themselves in the minority.
For those on the far right, its time to make new friends.
3
The ultra rich seem to have forgotten then when Democrats are in the White House helping regular Americans they make more money since the middle and lower classes have more money to spend on the wealthy's products, if they create any. Many, however, create nothing and don't care.
3
This is particularly insightful:
"The superrich aren’t satisfied with being immensely wealthy; they also want adulation. They expect to be praised as heroic job creators and are enraged at any suggestion that some of their number may have behaved badly, let alone that they may have benefited from a rigged system.Hence the hatred for even reasonable, pro-market progressives like, say, Elizabeth Warren. It’s not just that these progressives might make billionaires a bit poorer, but that they make them feel small."
I think that many wealthy people are terrified to admit just how much their wealth comes at someone else's expense and to compound that and say that both their wealth is not because they are naturally better than the poor but because the system is rigged means that they are both harming others and dont have some special reason to do so beyond gross unfairness of larger social structures. That is a terrible thing to know about yourself and most non-highly reflective people will fight against this truth tooth and nail. I think the research question is then how to talk to rich people about the injustice of their wealth in ways that get through to them. Somewhat like the large vain of research on how to talk about climate change.
3
@Alicia H
You have to wonder just how terribly the economy and society as a whole would be impacted if hedge funds vanished suddenly from the face of the earth, and all those people found themselves real jobs.
The other day in a newspaper, I cant remember which one, there was an article about how much money the democrats in the campaign had acquired, in order to make it to the next round.
We may not like Bernie, Warren but they have not taken any corporate money. When I saw the billions that Harris, Biden ,Booker, had acquired from Wall Street and major corporations, Bernie's statement that we cant have a democracy till we get the lobbyist out of the process. Their numbers are staggering.
Reading the comments, if we dont stand up to corporations by voting corporate and GOP politicians out of office we will never get our democracy back. Everyone needs to pay attention to what is going on. Stop downloading all these apps and putting money into Zuckerberg's bank account or Amazon .
Bloomberg was a terrible mayor for poor people he only represented the rich and that is what he is trying to do once again, buying his influence in the democratic party. When he spoke at the NAACP he had rewritten history in regards to his treatment of minorities for 12 years. Stop and Frisk.
The democratic candidates should be held to account and not given our votes. We know that as soon as they were to get into office, they would not support the people but corporate America..
Bloomberg’s policies resulted in NYC thriving post 9/11 and thru the 2008 economic rout. He was a technocrat that got the city running efficiently and generating big surpluses that allowed diblasio to give away the store and buy the votes that put him In office.
2
Many of my friends, my self included, are classical musicians and perform worldwide as well as in the US. We are often invited to dine with the "donors" after concerts, sometimes in their homes. A pianist I know frequently makes them squeamish when he pointedly brings up disparity of incomes at the dinner table. The "donors" forget that our talents do not guarantee unlimited wealth. At one such dinner he announced that he struggled to make $100,000 a year. The "donors" looked as if they might vomit in their mouths. After all, the monthly flower bill alone is 25,000.00$ These people are not street smart, and really not very savvy. Most are very kind, well mannered. Just clueless, and in some cases of new money, forgetful.
14
My passport is up to date and I keep it in the same folder as my copy of the US Constitution. Question is who will take in American refugees, Jewish or not.
9
Good to keep your passport valid. I would leave the constitution behind. The place that will take you as a refuge is likely to have a better constitution not written by slave owners a few centuries ago!
2
"What wealth doesn’t bring is the right to let self-indulgence turn you into a useful idiot, lending aid and comfort to a movement that’s trying to destroy America as we know it."
This reader thinks the destroying of America, the America so many of us knew when growing up after WWII, began when labor unions were weakened, beginning in the 1970-80 timeframe. Labor unions were largely responsible for enabling so many of us to escape poverty and live with dignity. Thanks to the political activity of labor unions, we got a federal minimum wage, Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour work week, civil rights legislation, and much more.
We have great inequality in America today because workers no longer have the voice they once had, and the major interest of powerful corporations is solely focused only on shareholder value. These corporate interests have been supported primarily by Republican officeholders and their judicial appointees.
This reader grew up believing that the justice of a society could be measured by how the vulnerable and least powerful members of society were faring and being treated. That understanding of justice has gone the way of protection for endangered species--it is disappearing or already has vanished.
17
As a Jewish woman, I find it particularly egregious that a Jewish billionaire supports Trump. I know he's not the only one. Many of the ordinary people in my congregation also support him, though their reasons may differ from Ross's--or not.
Racism particularly angers me. People are pretty much alike under their skin color, though cultures may differ. Bigotry harms our society even as it makes some little poor guy feel better than someone else.
When will we learn?
9
I respectfully disagree. I am of Jewish heritage but a bit younger than Ross, Sheldon Adelson and others of that ilk, but can tell you from experience that many wealthy, and not so wealthy Jews from that generation are total racists. I had an encounter a few years back with an elderly and wealthy Jewish member of my golf club who was railing about the Obama tax hike on the wealthy in 2013. I asked him if he was going to resign from the club and sell his 2nd home in Florida because of it. The answer was, “no, I don’t need to do that.” He said he was angry because a man named Barack Hussein Obama was President when it happened. I have seen and heard this over and over, even with those who are my age. One would think that after being perhaps the most despised people in history, today’s Jews would be the most tolerant. Many are not.
16
@Howard Sheer; thank you for the insight. I have a lot of Jewish friends who are all very progressive. Albeit maybe not very rich either. So it's just a money interest thing and has nothing to do with color, religion, ethnicity, etc.
You lost me at “Trumpist,” Dr. Krugman. Just as the “Obamanot” moniker during the last administration always signaled to me that nothing worth reading would ensue in its wake.
Please restore your rhetoric to its previous level so that my respect for you can rise again accordingly.
1
Billionaires heard Trump singing the old Temptations song, Ball of Confusion:
“Vote for me and I’ll set you free!”
4
Russia and the US, once Cold War enemies, now have a lot in common.
Both have oligarchs wielding power. In Russia that's a long tradition. In the US our oligarchs contradict our Democratic ideals. They distort our elections with big money, blessed by our own Supreme Court, putting out the supreme lie that any limits on oligarch donor money in our elections is a contradiction to Free Speech per 1st Amendment.
Our high court uses our own constitution against us. We the People are muffled, and can't compete to influence our lawmaking. Citizens United is undermining our democracy, not protecting it. Most voters want to reverse it. The GOP is banking on controlling justice nominations for future, to keep our politics under big money influence.
Russia has its state media, and so does the US. The FOX News media monopoly is in close cooperation with the Trump/GOP daily propaganda messages.
Trump is pals with Putin, instead of with our European traditional allies.
Add this to Russian attacks on our voting systems, and use of fake news on the web, reaching multi millions.
Will the 2020 election withstand computer interference by Russians or by anyone else? Will Trump benefit? If Dems win, will he dispute the election results and throw America into further crisis?
5
The richest Americans have successfully bought the government, and the number 1 priority is essentially to cannibalize what remains of the country to further benefit themselves.
We have seen many 5-4 Republican Supreme Court decisions that affirm that money is for the rich, and legitimizes “vulture capitalism”.
There is little hope for the future of America as long as no one is able to combat this travesty.
10
"Behind every great fortune is a great crime" Balzac
"Beware the razor's edge of justice that protects the sleep of the rich from the sleeplessness of the poor"
6
When the real torches come out they won't be coming out for the middle class tax payers. They'll be coming out for the wealthy. Trump loves to stoke those flames of division and hatred. If Ross or any other billionaire got up at a Trump rally and espoused any notion of a cosmopolitan, urban, progressive society (like NYC, where the uber rich love to live and play) they would likely be quartered by the mob.
2
Greed is one of the biggest problems that humans face.
It is at the root most, if not all of the serious problems that we face, such as pollution and inequality,
Our economic structure rewards bad behavior.
For America to thrive, an economic structure that would neutralize the rewards of greedy behavior are needed.
The greediest in our country control many of the levers of power, and that is destroying America.
6
I once read a comparison of people who hoard newspapers and empty food cans to billionaire who hoard dollars.
The primary difference between them is when the collect newspapers, we think the are mentally ill. When they collect dollars, we worship them as if they are holy people who should be venerated.
Both in my opinion are suffering from the same affliction. Both are in need of mental health services.
6
To whom much is given, much is expected.
10
Krugman (via The New York Times) continues to push the "greed" propaganda—because it most effectively pins morality on an individual, when in fact this "greed" is a function of a powerful legal structure popularly known as a fiduciary duty.
Upon entering into these structures through binding legal contracts, these individuals are compelled by law to maximize their shareholders' return on investments; if they fail to do so, they're legally liable and will be sued for this failure.
"Greed" is the same piece of propaganda that is used worldwide by countries that want to distract their populaces from structures that create a flood of wealth from the bottom to the top.
Power will always push propaganda that focuses on the moral corruption of individuals in order to have the powerless focus their wrath on individual "bad apples" instead of focusing on the structures of the power that work mightily to ensure the powerless stay that way.
As Lenin pointed out, everyone is a “victim” of capitalism, even, in their way, the controllers if wealth.
That’s why it cannot be reformed, but must be completely dismantled.
1
Elizabeth Warren is a “reasonable, pro-market progressive?” If so, she is an extremely bad one.
Dr. Krugman, it’s obvious that you really, really want Warren to be the nominee. You should be honest and admit it.
3
Krugman is absolutely right, but too nuanced. I live in a mostly Republican area and I have not heard one neighbor who has said that they are NOT going to vote for Trump. They want the tax cuts. And calling out the billionaires - the worst of the worst by the way - surrounding Trump who are decimating protected species and our environment and communities, either seem too blind to the open grift going on in Washington or are actively participating in it.
This is Fascism, every bit of it. “Useful Idiots” they are not. It was thought out by the Bannons, The Mercers and Conways of the world who believe only an elite moneyed white class have a right to rule. They are handily destroying what Bannon calls the “administrative state” faster than the news cycle can catch its breath.
They have severely lower the bar on our president by allowing scandal after scandal to be dismissed while he and his family rake in millions by turning the White House into a money machine.
The Evangelical Right even claim Trump was elected by God (Sarah Sanders Huckabee and her father). With unlivable wages and the spread of divisive tweets to pit one group against the other, they cause and benefit from a civil war. This is not a Democratic government, it is a Banana Republic.
Yes, this is really happening. And if Trump is re-elected we will have him appoint Ivanka as Secretary of State and Don Junior as our new head of National Security and that will be the end of America, period.
10
It should be noted that there are Zionists who support Trump despite the president's support for white nationalism. Trump has already recognized the annexation of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel despite strong disagreement by those who want a fair solution to the Israel/Palestine problem. Many Zionists - including Christian Zionists who comprise Trump's base - would like the president to continue his unquestioned support of Zionism despite the USA's policy of a 2-state solution. So, despite the concerns voiced in your opinion piece, there are many U.S. Jews who strongly support Trump despite the dangers his base poses to fellow Jews and to the democratic traditions of the USA that he is destroying. Further, despite the claim of bigotry against Jews in the USA, in my personal experience, I have been professionally and socially bullied by Jews many, many times. It appears that this nation is being played by a religious group that claims to be the victims of discrimination when they practice the same behavior. The political playing of the USA by Zionists - who have built illegal settlements despite the position of the USA for a fair 2-state solution and despite all of the financial and political assistance they derive from the USA - has been noted and is NOT appreciated. And, their involvement in the erosion of the democratic traditions of the USA by their support of Trump for the gain of Zionist causes is also NOT appreciated.
4
A lot of folks here have asserted, without any evidence of course, that the economy does better under Republicans even if it doesn’t look that way. That’s because Republicans, supposedly, are busy cleaning up the messes of Democrats. That is so weird it’s actually hard to read without getting a little dizzy. For those who prefer not to be fact-free, here is a magazine called Forbes, known as “the capitalist tool,” telling us otherwise: https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/11/07/trump-is-right-about-one-thing-the-economy-does-better-under-the-democrats/amp/
3
Again mr krugman, you say it like it is.
5
What's the difference between the two?
Bravo Paul Krugman! You said it mister.
5
Even if progressive Democrats win in 2020, polarization is still bad. Take California. The deep blue state does great things, like taking the lead on environment actions and try to preserve ACA ("Obamacare"). It has weaknesses, too, like the inability to address high housing cost, regional inequality, poor public education, and miserable congestion. But it's not like the Republicans are even viable, let alone offering a better alternative.
I can't wait for the day when I can choose the party I like most, rather than the one I merely tolerate the most. If that day comes again.
3
Thank you for this long-overdue article. Class warfare is part of our shared history, but autocratic dominance has never consumed an American political party and administration to the point of allowing foreign adversaries to include their wealth in achieving power. Your point is well taken, authoritarian governments do not protect the wealthy because they are wealthy. All favor is temporary until it's determined to no longer serve.
5
Despite everything and thinking our democracy is gone, the conversation here is remarkable. We will win.
Thank you, Dr. Krugman!
5
I think what ma be really important to the ultra rich is having a gate outside the mansion and a super deluxe security system preferably with a few armed guards around. If and when the masses get riled up enough to take action against the greedy ones they will have a formidable defense to keep them relatively safe - for a while at least.
7
Since these billionaires already have everything they need, they still want to get richer because it is like a score in a game. This is a game to them. To get a higher score. While the rest of us are trying to get by and survive on less and less as inflation continues to outpace wages and our bills on everything continue to rise. The ups and downs of capitalism mixed with greedy humans, deluded people who don't see themselves as part of the inequity problem. Good lord.
8
Trump did not enact a tax cut. Congress did. Stop attributing legislative powers to the office of the president.
3
@J O'Kelly Over the years Congress has abdicated much of its power to the executive. The general feeling is that insults them when things go bad.
On the tax cut, Trump wanted it, his sycophantic Republican House and Senate passed it and he signed. It is therefore a Trump Administration tax cut.
8
@J O’Kelly,
Trump wanted tax cuts. So did the GOP Congress.
Since Trump showed no sign of vetoing them, he owns them.
4
Op ed columnists and the 24/7 cable TV pundits must focus on Trickle Up vs Trickle Down. If the media ever brings this up to big business, what is their answer?
The US rich will try to justify themselves, but our media could point to our past generations. Business was profitable even with higher taxes, more govt regulation, fewer monopolies, strong unions, rising wages, etc. The history is there to use.
The media could point to how taxes subsidized college tuition for millions and that strenghtened the middle class---which needs the same now. Grads without high tuition debt, later paid higher taxes to the states with earnings from their higher paying occupations. The history is there.
Ask the rich---how did business make profits keeping our jobs in America, instead of off shoring them to low wage countries? This is never even mentioned by TV cable news or op ed columnists. But the history is there.
Today, business fights a higher min wage. The other side says more money in workers pockets leads to more consumer demand, thus more business profits. The examples are there to use in other countries with stronger unions.
The examples abroad of affordable health care for all, not as a high profit industry, are there to use,
Force the US mega donors who dominate our politics to answer to this. The 'free' American media must do its job, essential for democacy to operate.
5
It's called "conspicuous consumption", the obsessive need not onlyto be richer than other people but to be seen as such. The phenomenon is an apparently universal human trait which anthropologists have observed in so-called "primitive" societies, including those much poorer than our own. It was discovered by the economist Thorsten Veblen in the 1920's, as I'm sure Krugman knows. I'm surprised he doesn't use that term, "conspicuous consumption". Trump himself is an extreme example of the phenomenon,
5
Those with resources will continue to be able to protect themselves until their resources attract those in power.
While I usually give Krugman some latitude to rant, I had to stop here at “ Trumpism is an attempt to end the rule of law....”. After the vigorously contested midterm elections and heading into the vigorously contested primary and general-election seasons, there is no serious evidence the US is anything less than a healthy, pluralist and rule-based democracy. Mueller dispensed with several conspiracy theories over hundreds of pages of tightly reasoned investigations. Now there is just this, throwing paint and hoping to hit something. Trump deserves defeat but this kind of elite hysteria will not help that. Au contraire.
2
Mueller stated quite plainly there was evidence of obstruction of justice, but that it was up to Congress, not him, to deal with it.
Meanwhile, only willful blindness can keep anyone from not seeing the blatant attempt to slide towards fascism.
2
Even if one doesn't subscribe to the "random walk" theory of acquiring wealth, it's pretty clear that most of the very wealthy are also very lucky. There is no measurable sign that our billionaires are particularly intelligent--they are very lucky.
But there are measurable signs that many of our wealthiest citizens are obscenely greedy, egocentric and not terribly bright. The latter characteristic is displayed for all to see in their support of Trump. Since many of these billionaires are "nouveau riche" they are eager to belong to something that properly frames their wealth, and the Republican party fills that need very nicely.
12
Paul,
As is usual for you, the sky is falling - though it seems to hit mostly the heads of Trump haters.
I can guarantee - the ski will be there tomorrow. And it will still be blue. Cheers!
2
Excellent article that does have one rather large omission. When Joe Biden gave a speech recently to big money donors he assured them that he would not "demonize" the wealthy and promised that no one's standard of living would change, nothing would fundamentally change.
Our country is in big trouble because the last 40 years have seen the explosion of wealth for the very top and contraction for almost everyone else. If the Democrats manage to retake the White House they need to seriously address this before we have a revolution. "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold..."
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/
4
@lzolatrov
How is this an omission?
Does it occur to the super rich described in this editorial that they too can bleed? Will the next atrocity we witness come from a deluded individual who decides that violence is the only response to the over reach of this wealthy class? If someone was to assassinate a billionaire and post it on FB what chaos would it cause? I shudder to think how all this can escalate.
2
Is Warren really pro market?
@Patrick She's a stated capitalists through and through. She believes in Capitalism that isn't rigged in favor of the wealthy.
10
The thing that conspiracy theories aimed at the left wing rich who are out of power lack are the very elements that are currently held by the rich right wing and our unbalanced president. That president, BTW, has stated multiple times that he expects his underlings to act thuggish and "fix" things for him. This president has full control of US law enforcement and covert assets. It has been proven many times that our government agencies can, in fact, keep secrets, when they put their minds to it.
How can anyone honestly state that the suspicion that "the fix is in" is crackpot? Of course he's doing it.
2
Aid and comfort to such a monster of a man?
Greed, over- sized egos, don't get me wrong healthy egos are good, but this is getting ridiculous. What satisfaction does a normal human achieve from witnessing the suffering of women and young children? These people need serious therapy sessions, Goodness knows they can afford the best!
2
Lenin May not have said it, but Marx talked about it in his Das Capital. He pointed out, that before patent laws existed, companies would hire half idiotic people to protect trade secrets. Same concept could be applied today with hiring the ignorant in positions where you might want to exploit for nefarious ends.
Does Rick Perry and the Department of Energy sound familiar?
6
You didn’t get invited to the party at the beach, did ya?
1
Paul, with the Dow bouncing up and down over 500 points every day, all I can relate this to in my “analogy-thinking” mind [George Lakoff] is “Sunshine Charlie” Mitchell walking onto the floor of the exchange and waving phony ‘buy orders’ from the syndicate during the Great Crash of ‘29 to manipulate the market — as Peter Kilborn noted in the NYT of Sept. 23, 1979.
Oops, I also recall your own column “The Sweet Spot” Oct, 23, 2003 and your “Looting The Future” Dec. 3, 2003, where you recounted Nobel Prize winner, George Akerlof, saying of George W. Bush’s Republic Administration:
“This is not normal economic policy, but a form of looting”.
Of course, today, in the Emperor Trump regime, we have far surpassed mere market manipulation by this Disguised Global Crony Capitalist Empire, which is only nominally HQed in, and merely ‘posing’ as, our formerly promising “experiment in democracy”, and sometimes progressive country (PKA) America.
IMHO, a very significant new ‘tool of the looters’ is not only market manipulation, but also, the scam and scheme of ‘creative destruction’ manipulated by dumping massive and well hidden ‘negative externality costs’ on ‘we the American people’, our country, our environment, our kids and grand-kids, and our entire world in order to produce the faux-profits of a modern alchemy by tuning not Gold, but financial paper, oil, WMD weapons from the “Merchants of Death”, and other con-artists into phony profits exclusively for the < 0.1% looters.
5
Make all PACS illegal and ban lobbyists. Mandatory Jail time for crooks.
8
These people should know that with a "person" like Trump, they are never safe.
" First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller
7
"More to the point, Trumpism is about much more than tax cuts: It’s an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime."
Can a NYT opinion writer write a column without using "racist" and other vile remarks. Trump says a lot of stupid things but authoritarian, white nationalist regime? I don't think so.
1
@Dan,
I do think so.
Trump’s racism and white nationalism are well documented.
Have we really become so selfish and simplistic?
The assumption that wealth equals intelligence is just that. There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. We can educate ignorance.
4
Krugman is wrong in his assessment of Trump. Trump is a sociopath who uses racism to further his narcissistic goals. He does not want to impose a white nationalist regime, because that would not serve his selfish interests. Krugman fails to distinguish the sociopath from the racist when he says:"...anyone Jewish has to be completely ignorant of history not to know that when bigotry runs free, we’re always next in line for persecution."
I believe that it is worse having a sociopath in the White House than a white supremacist, but they are two different things.
4
These two things are not mutually exclusive. one can argue that the former is a prerequisite of the other
4
The point about the Jews being next in line for persecution seems to have escaped Stephen Miller, the architect of “ zero tolerance.”
6
Anger, ego and wilful blindness to the cameras around. A good characterization of CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. Chill out Chris. Hear the first lady say Be Best? Take anger management classes or end any political ambitions.
https://www.tmz.com/2019/08/12/chris-cuomo-threatens-man-who-hurled-italian-slur-fredo-at-him/
2
"The last capitalist we hang shall be the one that sold us the rope." Karl Marx
3
Nope. Lenin’s quote. Not even accurately copied down.
1
This is making me feel literally nauseous.
1
I worked part time for some very wealthy republicans in a survival job years ago. They did not care if I was a democrat or Independent. They were very kind to me and let me take off to do plays. They did a lot of charity stuff too. I mean hands on setting up tables and arranging the center pieces and wrapping gifts to be given out. Yes they had volunteers to help with some of the hands on work of sorting the programs and place cards but even the volunteers were wealthy too. I guess one or two of them had assistants but certainly no entourage. And they really went to bat for an organization to help under privileged children. They gave money ,not huge amounts, to so many organizations, really almost anyone who asked them got a donation. They were modest and unassuming and pragmatic and sort of frugal for having such wealth. I was stunned, I had never known many republicans before this. I worked for them for many years, I cannot believe they are still republicans. I cannot believe they are part of the competitive Oligarchs. They treated all their employees with respect and helped them out of difficulties, using their legal team and other resources when needed. They were the opposite of Trump and Mitch. I do not know what to think. Great and clear opinion piece here.
6
Oh brother!
Mr. Krugman has many great points, but he unfortunately delivers a great attacking point for conservatives when he says " But let’s get real. If you’re a billionaire, you don’t need the extra money." I would be careful not to use that mentality for a "wealth tax" so often advocated by some on the far left.
The role of government should be to ensure that everyone has the minimum of what they need. There is room for honest debate as to what that incudes, but lets just say that the current levels are inadequate. The government can improve those minimum amounts through tax policy and other mechanisms. In effect, those policies could reduce the current level of economic disparity in the future, particularly if the government strengthens the rules and penalties for those who step out of bounds.
However, the government should not be in the position of telling people they "don't need the extra money" after they earned it. Taking away wealth earned by the rules then in effect and after the fact in effect smacks of the same socialist, if not communist, horrors Mr. Krugman warns could happen with a replacement theory authoritarian.
@Dr. Strangelove
[Stronger word than "nonsense" that would get my comment blocked]. That is the same old, but curiously effective, lie that's been used for over a century. The comment (of course) had nothing to do with communism. Progressive tax is not communism. You, and all the other's using the lie, are perfectly aware of that. In the mid 20th century the rich did quite well for themselves with much higher taxes than what they have today, and no one want around claiming that we were communist.
3
@Dr. Strangelove,
Very little great wealth is “earned.”
Even the government charaterizes dividends as “unearned income.”
The wealth of society is finite. The more that accumulates at the top, the less there is available at the bottom.
The US uniquely among democracies turns over its elections to the rich and corporations for financing. Our system makes politicians go where the money is. The super rich donors can finance a primary against any politician that they don't like. This is how they've set political norms. We the people come in last.
Krugman must start linking up cause and effect to get at the whole truth.
Other world democracies actually ban what is our biggest campaign expense---paid campaign advertising on the media, that needs billionaire financing here. Per wikipedia, countries ban ads to keep their political discourse from domination by special interests.
But in our over-prolonged campaigns, US media makes high profit from these ads that distort issues, and manipulate voters.
When will we see this issue discussed by TV cable news and op ed page columns? They avoid this crucial cause/effect in all the problems they discuss from guns to health care to taxes, to....whatever. They don't reflect that strong majorities of citizens and many politicians want to reverse Citizens United. Not exactly democracy in operation.
Pundits can make a good living from continual outrage over Trump & GOP, with plenty of fervent agreement, while ignoring the financial system that keeps them in power. That's the underlying blockage.
The question is---why won't most of the media grapple with this blockage, instead of just all Trump/GOP, all the time. What's going on?
5
Paul,
Actually, we don't need a study to show that the superrich are making money just to keep score. They tell us that themselves. I think I've read at least a half a dozen interviews with super wealthy people who have said exactly that.
If I might engage in a little pop psychology; I think Trump wanted to be president because he saw himself falling farther and farther behind in his race to be the world's richest man. It was bad enough that he was losing to people like Gates and Buffet, but, with each new bankruptcy, he was falling behind people he has contempt for - the Ted Turners and Mark Cubans of the world. Since he couldn't beat them in the capitalist contest, he would beat them in the political game. More money, more power - but the guy sitting in the power oval beats 'em all.
12
Seems like most of the wealthy who support Trump have already demonstrated that they could care less what happens to the rest of the country: i.e. like Trump, many already pay $0 taxes and to do so they are willing to get rid of public health care, retirement funding, education, clean air, etc. etc. so long as they can retreat to compounds like the one you show at the head of your article.
10
@DaDa
Word crimes. Its "couldn't care less". "Could care less" means that they could care less, at least a little.
1
While I disgree with Ms. Warren on a number of issues, I must say that the hatred for her noted by Dr. Krugman is reminiscent of the contempt for FDR. She must be on to something.
19
Thank you for writing this.
For Trump, it is all about the attention, of feeling that he has vanquished others in the fight for the spotlight, that he is now the ultimate center of attention. And he has been, going on three years. That's why I hesitated to read this article, because I did not want to give him more of my time here on earth. But you raise a good point, one that others are increasingly taking up: we need to call out Trump's enablers, citing the malicious effects their actions have on everyone in society, and that by giving money to Trump they are dividing our society, not strengthening it. We all know Trump is a racist. Now it's time to put that label on those who enable him.
7
tax avoidance among the rich is a competitive sport, like golf.
12
Please make this required reading everywhere --- especially in Jewish schools. It is a must and make it before it is too late.
7
@BT in FL, meanwhile talk to every Jewish voter threatening jexit or jexodus..
1
there is no use trying to shame the greedy rich with concerns about racism, even climate or pollution, an undermined press, separated children. For most of them all that counts is ever more wealth and power and the freedom to exploit, pollute, intimidate. They only hold in contempt those who care about anything else who they think are losers.
4
Thanks for this column that shows how even the rich can suffer under the kind of measures pushed by the current administration. I've long argued that Republican policies are bad for everyone, including the rich. I hope they read this and realize they must stop supporting a party that is creating a huge deficit, ruining the environment, letting the infrastructure crumble, and spreading cruelty. As you point out, Mr. Krugman, it's stupid to do so.
5
The last line is telling. It should read in his closing, America...”as we imagine it.”
1
Yes¡ you have it all: a Lear jet, 200’ plus yacht, five mansions scattered across the globe, a fabulous money making business, and people around telling continuously how fabulous you are.
The point is that’s not enough, we all need more than raw wealth, we need to be recognised and loved, and all those super wealthy are very unsecure of their position on society, and they don’t know if there’s out there someone who truly loves them.
Their escape is to show off how wealthy they’re.
2
I think what tricks or gives Trump a pass with many wealthy Jewish people, Sheldon Adelson included, is Trump's total support of Israel and Netanyahu, and the fact that his daughter is married to Jared Kushner.
However, that's certainly not thinking long term. The White Supremacists that marched in Charlottesville are a lot younger then Trump is. The seeds that have been sown, will bear poisoned fruit for years to come.
10
Either you stand with the United States with it's sincere commitment to a better life and equal justice for everyone, or you stand with Mr. Trump and his vulgar bigoted carnival and accept the consequence. Some will profit from Mr. Trump, for a while. After he leaves office the punishments will come and history will be very unkind.
6
Will someone please explain to me what the "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling had to do with "Citizens?" Or being "United?" Anybody? A clue?
8
@Robert Henry Eller
It's what the right always does, such as name a bill that increases air pollution the "Clear Skies Initiative." And people fall for it. Until they can no longer breathe.
2
@Robert,
Citizens United is a rightwing nonprofit organization.
"Purchasing power" and such yardsticks don't seem to be crucial to the Trumpionaires. What they want is permanency of the social order for themselves and their heirs. they want to look out over history's horizons and see their houses in the Hamptons and their corporations in Midtown and their great-great-great-great grandkids still very very very great, meaning, very very very rich.
Krugman's plainly wrong in insisting that "wealth doesn’t bring is the right to let self-indulgence turn you into a useful idiot, lending aid and comfort to a movement that’s trying to destroy America as we know it." He needs to take a field trip into the eating clubs and dorms at Princeton and chat with the kids who stand to inherit all this. They don't agree, and they have the money to do what they bloody well want to do.
3
The United States of America is self-destructing before our very eyes.
7
The last time US income and wealth inequality were at current levels, it took a catastrophic depression and a world war to redress the imbalance. Such disastrous, reactive "remedies" appear to be the only way the US is capable of mitigating the social injustice and instability that flow naturally from extreme income and wealth disparity.
7
We don't need just a change in thinking by billionaires, but a paradigm shift in all human thought if we want to live in a reasonable world that treats everyone with respect. While it seems unimaginable, such a shift is possible. It will take some time, but it can happen. 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, and reek havoc with all human thought. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
2
I always figured that the super wealthy voted for Republicans so they wouldn't be regulated, wouldn't be policed and if it's found out that they broke the law they just have to pay a fine. So they got Citizens United and now all of those things are true. Even "progressive" presidents hesitate to take on the money makers. The reason we have a person in office who is afraid to show his tax returns is likely because he broke the law but because we don't "police" that here we are.
The super wealthy vote for Republicans so they can remain above the law.
8
@Jenifer
Yes, you're right.
As much as we'd like to think otherwise, in a society based on consumption and capitalism, money is king. Until the wealthy can no longer purchase politicians, they will use that power to preserve their privileged status above the rest of us.
In her book, "These Truths," Jill Lepore observed that "A nation that toppled a hierarchy of birth only to erect a hierarchy of wealth will never know tranquillity."
7
When there is nothing left to buy, the only thing that gets your ya-ya's out is the exercise of power. That's what Ross et al do when they support Trump. They get to feel like power brokers for a moment. When the Empire burns to the ground, we can all take some satisfaction in watching them go down with us.
2
Watching the HBO show "Succession" has opened my eyes to the idea that those born to the super rich are mostly sociopathic nihilists. It appears to be intrinsic... A moral guide might try and teach them compassion and empathy... but those lessons will compete with the daily lessons of lording over servants and just how society views them... as lords. They simply don't have the same risk-consequence set that we do because they don't value things like we do.
I know it's just a show... and I've never been super rich, nor have I socialized anywhere near them... but I trust Adam McKay is giving it to us straight... and he does know that world.
4
Mr. Krugman, almost in an aside, has mentioned the small fact of Stephen Ross' Jewishness, a defining mark that is often ignored by those very same wealthy Jewish Americans, when a discussion of Trump's disdain and general dislike towards people of color, Hispanics, and the poor is brought up.
I worry about this inability of many wealthy Jewish people, usually men, to realize that they are in fact in the same hated category as other American minorities, as defined by white supremacists. Do people like Ross, or Stephen Miller, or say, Jared Kushner, think that their whiteness and wealth insulate them from racism and hatred, and they need not care about tackling hatred and bigotry at all, because they are part of the privileged 1%? Or because the racism is present, today, in the person of the President?
As members of such a privileged part of society, it is really sad that they cannot use their wealth and influence to address the really serious problem of racism in our society today.
5
Talleyrand is quoted as saying, "The poor resent being governed badly--the rich resent being governed."
6
After the 2014 election all the pundits knew, just knew that 2016 would be Jeb! vs. Hillary->. But as the Republican field became crowded, Bernie emerged as a serious challenger, while Trump's wild card campaign took off.
Today we have too many Democrats in silly debate formats while Trump is on auto-pilot. Where is the Republicans' Bernie, someone who will speak truth to Trump from the center-right? He is highly challengable. There are millions of Republicans who are very uncomfortable with him. OK, a current elected Republican will get 'primaried', but what about former governors, senators, etc.? What better way to set up for 2024? What about real Republican billionaires who have actually built huge businesses instead of this swindler? Gates or Allen?
Why is there no courage in the face of this crisis of the party and the presidency? Who will do the damage repair if an unchallenged Trump fails to be reelected? Have all Republicans abandoned truth and moral leadership? The Republican party still exists. Prove it.
2
when people contribute tens of thousands to have Trump and his comedy of errors government continue it makes me feel helpless and frightened...
2
Corporations are people (Citizens United). Thus, should be paying taxes. Amazon et. al.
3
Not just greed, ego and willful blindness. Not just winning in a fair competition over others.
They want to consolidate as much power over the little people, and the not-so-little people, to become "like governments" (Zuckerberg) in themselves.
In every single aspect of my consumer life, things are getting worse, much worse. Product and service quality is dropping and prices are rising everywhere I interact. The formerly venerable Vanguard Group waited until John Bogle died and is now "John Deering" (Elizabeth Warren) me. Even Vanguard management has sold its soul. Check out The Retail Equation for exploitation of power. Steve Ross is doing what he does. They got rich by exploitation, and can't stop themselves.
These billionaires and corporate managers are as power-mad and warped with delusions of grandeur as Trump. Our economy has become sociopathic. Resist!
5
It's not only people of color and people of Jewish heritage. It's Democrats. The hard right absolutely hates Democrats. Many people of color or Jewish heritage happen to be Democrats, so non-white and non-Christian people are associated with being in the "wrong party," which the right genuinely (and rabidly) believes has "ruined this country."
If you identify yourself as a heterosexual white person of Christian faith, many people automatically assume you are a Republican. Never mind that traditional Democratic platforms - e.g., the strong helping the weak, being good stewards of Creation - are actually consistent with Christian principles, many Republicans tend to think of Democrats as ungodly, indecent or otherwise misguided.
It's possible to engage Republicans on that level, however. If you discuss issues in terms of Christian (or religious) morality and faith, it gets their attention. It likely won't change their minds about who to support, but at least they calm down a little if they realize "not all Democrats are that bad." Mitigating hatred can be helpful in that regard.
2
Trump has incentive beyond ego to remain President, he may want to stay out of jail.
5
Three pieces published in today's Times deliver the same message. The rise of Bolsonaro and other extremists in Brazil via Youtube, the growth of conspiracy mongering on Twitter and the Trumpist fealty of the US ultra-rich owe to a similar force or mechanism, the pursuit of ever greater profits unchecked by any concern for the profound damage done to society.
1
Watch “The Family” on Netflix. Better yet, also read Jeff Sharlet’s books, “The Family,” and “C Street.” The pious wolves, hyenas, and foxes surrounding, abetting, defending and supporting Donald Trump are the culmination of decades of fundamentalist power worshiping religionists scheming to turn this country into what they believe is a divinely designed and mandated unregulated free-market capitalist nation ruled by authoritarian economic kings and princelings who believe that democracy is rebellion against divine will and the natural order of things.
3
Congress needs to expose sufficient legal facts to remove the nations worst president in our entire history, or the American voters better throw him out in the 2020 election. If not, I'm afraid our great democracy will be in much worse trouble than we're already experiencing!
2
"the superrich aren’t satisfied with being immensely wealthy; they also want adulation" Yes, we see this every day with museums, theaters, libraries, stadiums, etc. named after wealthy donors who never painted a masterpiece, never wrote literature worthy of a Nobel, never scored a world championship goal, or a symphony. The GOATs should be recognized for their amazing skills (see Simone Biles) with cultural monuments named in their honor. And NOT named merely for those who sit on a pile of cash.
4
Rousseau called it in French "amour propre." It is not enough to be rich, you need to deprive others." For too long we have worried about regulating the poor and fought about food stamps. We forget, in history it is the rich you need to regulate - for their greed and resentment destroys others - and as we now know - the environment.
18
Why couldn't the media carry this message back in the last election cycle instead of constantly following Trump's latest outrage? Wouldn't it have sold papers and garnered enough eyeballs then? Is it only now, that we are on the precipice that it resonates?
OK. Whatever. Two more messages:
1. Paper hand-marked ballots for election security before the 2020 election.
2. Impeachment is necessary.
9
The media did.
You wouldn’t pay attention.
1
Both the rich and the poor need the rule of law, and everyone in between, but what the billionaire class want above all is to influence the law, and they seem to stand a good chance of doing so with Trump if the play their cards right. This is an administration for the rich and by the rich, and so far has done nothing for anyone else, but created chaos and threatens to undermine the rule of law. But chaos is something some capitalist billionaires and their think tank peons think is a good thing, for out of chaos arises opportunities, especially for investment bankers. The surprising thing is that a few super rich businessmen, especially those that depend on a buoyant consumer economy, have not given their support, at least not directly.
1
When a poor or middle-class person gets rich s/he often thinks it's wonderful and shares and works to help others get prosperous, too. (Henry Ford, for instance, started out poor and eventually paid good wages to his car company employees so that they, too, could afford cars.)
On the other hand, quite often wealthy people have a singular goal: keep their money and make even more. Taxes? That's for poor people.
Capitalism can be a wonderful economic model or it can be a soul-devouring beast. It's at its best when regulated.
10
I agree with you; it does seem that when wealth comes from one's own hard work and effort, those are more open to sharing what they've developed. This is excellent argument against income inequality and reason to help level the field so that all have an opportunity to create their own wealth. Improved education opportunities, healthcare as a right, equal ability to live and work in a clean and healthy environment. With things equal there just might be more advances in our lives. As things are now, where wealth is so often inherited instead of earned, there is less development; these people don't have to earn it, they can only cheat to keep it.
3
In addition, and of course this is pure speculation, but water rises to its own level. The corrupt may find comfort in a corrupt administration. Certainly many of Trump's appointees have been proven to be corrupt.
9
Oh so true. Human cognition evolved to minimize surprise by projecting into the future. The problem is that those projections are inevitably linear. If I'm rich now I'll always be rich; if I'm poor now I'll always be poor. It's an evolved, cognitive reflex that works well for the short term. The notion that a change in the presidency might have a drastic impact on one's current level of comfort and safety is a non-linear projection that is unlikely to occur to someone wrapped up in the pleasures and tribulations of life in the fast lane (or the breakdown lane for that matter).
3
Trump's impetuous decisions have made America the supplier of last resort for many international buyers, and greedy oligarchs are determined to make us poor and dirty, again. American farmers and the rest of us are in for a rude surprise.
China has been working on their new One Belt, One Road creation for a decade, a modern Silk Road. Recently, they finished a deep water port in Gwadar, Pakistan as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. American farmers have probably lost their Chinese markets for a generation, a calamity that will impoverish rural America.
I wish Congress would amend the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 and regain their Constitutional responsibility for international trade, so they could override presidential tariffs and sustain vetoes with a simple majority.
5
Before the revolution in France the aristocracy enjoyed perks such as not having to pay taxes. Regular people paid taxes. Part of the logic is that the job creators are simply so important to the scheme of things that they should be exempt.
History shows how well it worked out for them.
I think the US was successful in its revolution (vs the French who flip-flopped for the next 100 years) because we didn't have an entrenched aristocracy yet. We had wealth, but not to the extent that they had in Europe where most individuals had no hope of owning land. Owners of extreme wealth will fight to bring the monarchy back, because for them the system is more stable. Much easier to keep the king, or any authoritarian government, happy than an ever changing Republic. No one ever believes they will end up on the short end of the authoritarian stick, so the wealthy in every country will turn a blind yet encouraging eye to authoritarian populists.
In the 20th century the only thing that kept the rich at bay was the threat of communism, and the loss of their wealth. Now that the rich can operate in a world free of that risk, the blind yet encouraging eye has returned. They no longer feel the need to throw the common folk crumbs like unions and social security to keep their wealth and power.
8
@Jen
Time to break out the torches and pitchforks.
Mr. Krugman is correct. Even a cursory study of dictators and authoritarian governments, reveals one simple fact. The dictator is usually a narcissistic individual who believes that either his ideas or his position is above everyone, regardless of how much money they have. The dictator will ensure that he has more money than they do and will ensure that they understand that he does. These billionaires supporting Trump, should know that a man who is as narcissistic As Trump, will make sure that if push comes to shove, Trump will make sure that he has more money than they do and if it takes the power of government to do it, someone such as Trump will take that opportunity. Furthermore, like a dictator such as Trujillo in a Dominican Republic, he will take every opportunity to humiliate them and the debase them in some way that will make them be beholden to Trump as dictator or authoritarian. That's the way it has always worked, whether it was with ideological dictatorships under Mao or Stalin, or more capitalistic authoritarian ones like Franco's Spain, Peron's Argentina, Trujillo's Dominican Republic, or even Hitler's Germany.
9
I was raised as a Christian, but am not religious. If it was not for my adult exposure to civil rights and my Jewish business partner of 30 yrs, I could very well have been a Trump supporter (former childhood friends are). But, the kindness of my Jewish partner and my being welcomed into his family and experiencing Jewish life (and civil rights organizations as mentioned above) saved me from that fate. Jews are known to say, "Never Again". As P.K. says, Jews will be next in line under a demagogue. With the historical persecution Jews have suffered, it is beyond me how any Jew, rich or poor, could support Trump. How can a Jewish parent, that supports Trump, look at their children, especially after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, El Paso, etc.? Demagogues target Jews, sooner or later. Wake up, my Jewish friends!
17
I just turned 71 this weekend, and I am now afraid of what the future may have in store for our family. My wife and I have been retired for several years now, having attained a modest degree of financial security. We got here by doing the right thing consistently for many years. We have lived modestly within our means, worked every day for years whether we felt like it or not, saved, paid our taxes in full, and raised our children to become productive members of our society. We have played by the rules and lived the American dream. So, what is there to fear?
In a word, the "Swamp". It has gotten much more dangerous the past couple of years. The vicious alligators are thriving to the detriment of all the other inhabitants. Scientists, scholars, and objective journalists have become targets of derision and scorn. Young adults struggle with static wages and crippling debt, no doubt due to the "Boomers". Policy by tweet has replaced policy based on fact. Immigrants and the poor have been weaponized to become scapegoats for personal failures of real "muricans". How can people who collect social security and defined benefit pensions be far behind?
14
I feel like Prof. Krugman has finally helped me understand why Trump has any interest at all in being president, when there are other things he'd obviously rather do.
It turns out he wants to one-up his billionaire buddies by showing them all that he is the biggest bully on the block, no matter which block they're talking about.
He lied his way onto Fortune's list of the ludicrously wealthy before realizing that money is inferior to raw power when it comes to asserting dominance. Now he can leapfrog them all by making their lives as miserable as ours have become under his misrule. Bhwaa ha ha, indeed.
23
I can't understand for the life of me, how any Jewish person could support Trump. He stands for everything Judaism has fought against for centuries. Trump violates every aspect of traditional Jewish law and principles on a daily basis. And worst of all, he is the hero of white supremacists who would be only too happy to send all the Jews back to Europe, or worse.
The there are the evangelicals whose only use for Jews is for them to regain control over the ancient holy lands as a necessary precursor to the return of Jesus Christ.
Mr. Krugman is correct in his assertion that it really isn't about the money they have. It's the pursuit of acquiring more that drives them on. When it comes to money, there is never enough. No matter how wealthy, they must have more. Money becomes an intoxicating pursuit that dominates their lives. It's like a fanatic religion.
Trump has given them more avenues to bathe in their pursuit of ever greater amounts of wealth. Because of this, they turn a blind eye to all of his horrific racist and discriminatory practices. They ignore his assault on the environment. I guess they think that they can always buy a bigger air conditioner.
Strip away all that money what is left? What kind of people are they? How shallow, how empty.
There is a four year old girl that close by. She is so adorable, she brings me incalculable joy when I get to see her. One smile from her and I am in heaven. No tax deduction can buy that.
11
I am having a hard time following Dr. Krugman's line of reasoning.
Ross the self-made billionaire is stupid because he doesn't know that Trump is bad for Jews despite him recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, defunding the PLO and recognizing Israeli's annexation of the Golan Heights.
Moreover, Trump's daughter and three of his grandchildren are Jewish.
2
@Eric I suppose that myopia knows no boundaries. The few token actions you cite are purely symbolic -- and it's too soon to know whether moving the embassy or recognizing the annexation will play out well in the long term. And as for Trump's Jewish relatives? One must remember that there is one, and only one, person Donald Trump cares for, and that person is Donald Trump.
In the meantime, while he's distracting people with the kind of trivial actions you raise, he demonizes immigrants (both legal and illegal), Hispanics, blacks, and any other group that isn't white; he denigrates women; and he praised the Nazis in Charlottesville as having "very fine people." Remember the closing line of Martin Niemoller's famous poem: "Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me."
9
@Eric
I suggest that you read this paper's front page article printed this past Sunday headlined 'The Global Machine Behind the Rise of Far-Right Nationalism'. The foundation of far-right nationalism noted for white supremacy is rooted in the ideology of Nazism, the concept that the ancient Aryan race is a superior race. Jews are well acquainted with the consequences to this lethal ideology.
1
@Eric You gave reasons why Trump is good for Israel (and, granted, by extension Jews) but Trump's record in our country should make any Jew nervous. Trump encourages white supremacy because it targets persons of color. But don't forget that white nationalism regards Jews as enemies of the American people. Enabling the white power movement will eventually put Jews in the crosshairs.
And giving Trump a pass because he has Jewish relatives is the same as giving George Wallace a pass because he had a black friend.
1
From an outsider perspective I'll say this, the rich in America have the measure of most Americans and are secure in their wealth. This wasn't always the case, especially when ideological battles held sway. The Carnegies, Mellons, Fords were moved by the great disparities in wealth and conscious that leftist ideologies could take root that would threaten all they'd built.
Todays billionaires have no such consideration to worry about, few people or children starve and the consensus is to worship them. One bright hope is China, seeing the rise of a power not in thrall or held in the grip of the wealthy and watching it distribute wealth equitably to create infrastructure, healthcare and educational advantages that the US lacks, while not impoverishing its citizenry with debt, might force a rethink in the US.
4
China?...You mean the benevolent Communist Party that’s about to be overthrown by angry Hong Kong residents...?
This maelstrom of emotional arguments leaves me dizzy and weak kneed, but unconvinced. I am a "Never Trumper" but because I keep my eyes and ears open, I don't fear him. Trump has shot himself in the foot so many times that if he gets a second term he will be isolated, alone, and emasculated. Trump will become the earliest lame duck in history. The day after his inauguration he will become powerless.
2
@Charles Becker
please reconsider your theory.
Trump is already a wounded and weak-minded “leader.” Some will say that he, in fact, is the “useful idiot” of those many real billionaires (he isn’t one).
However, Trump and any other president brings with them rigid ideologues that do tremendous damage to our country, to families, children, education and the overall moral foundation of America. Not to mention how the rest of the world is disgusted with us, for good reason. We must deny him and other Republicans reelection. They are traitors!
2
@Charles Becker
So powerless he’ll appoint 2-3 more Supreme Court justices and continue to pack the lower courts. We’ll suffer the blight of Trumpism for generations...just as we’re still suffering the effects of the Reagan infestation.
2
@Bucketomeat,
Trump has already had nominees turned aside by resistance from the Senate. As the lamest of lame ducks he will be unable to force an unqualified ideologue. But given the chance, the Democrats will most likely attempt personal destruction of his nominee, regardless who it may be. And so the cycle continues.
1
Great article, spot on accurate.
One other thing that these Oligarchs and billionaires want, no, they demand - inflicting pain for the pure pleasure of it. The "pornography of power".
Greed, ego, and the pornography of power. That is the Unholy Trinity of the wealthy class.
7
I think this article really epitomizes the terrible challenge this country faces from left wing zealots who project their control fantasies on Trump.
The Democrats' main focus is to create more laws that deprive conservatives of basic rights and freedoms like religion, self defense, self determination. At the same time the left wing refuses to enforce laws against their own contituents that own illegal guns, persecute the religious, and worse.
The left wing accuses Trump of being a liar when the left wing is parsing his words in order to try and move forward that narrative, which itself is a lie. The Democrats have been crying wolf for 2 years over the phony accusation of collusion with Russia regarding the last election, which actually ignored actually an effort to circumvent the election process by deep state actors which is an unprecedented level corruption not seen heretofore.
People aren't stupid, they want a country that is free and fair, not run by Socialist dictators running a tight ship under the guise of climate change and social issues.
@very sore loser
QAnon, is that you? I always figured you would be living in Florida.
The majority of Americans want to breath clean air, drink clean water, and by working hard within the law they hope to build a life for their families and friends.
Most Americans do not want a leader who lies constantly, hurts others purposely, and comes across as dumb as a rock. That, friend, is a brief description of Trump.
1
For some people, nothing can ever be "enough." In boating, (yachting) it's called "footitis". Many boaters/yachters feel they'd be happy if only they had a boat a foot longer than what they've got.
John Grisham writes about the obsession of some lawyers to own an ever larger jet--these people won't be happy until their plane is the largest. It doesn't address a real need--it's "winning" by having the biggest, best whatever of any kid on the block.
2
These guys (mostly), as others have noted, are wealthy only because of US, the folks who buy their goods either directly or indirectly.
If the general population is beggered because of faulty economic theory like Trick El Down then their businesses fail, their is no one to gamble in the stock/bond market and they too are beggered.
Some call the present attitude of Republican billionaires stupid, as does Prof. Krugman, for me it ls
Sawing on the wrong side of the branch. Chopping off the hand that feeds you. They think they are smart but too focused on the short term to see the long term consequence.
Truly, billionaire and most of society (that make modest amounts of money comparitatively) are in it together. This is so obvious.
The Tao rules.
1
@RLG In general, the wealthy are wealthy because their parents were wealthy. Staying wealthy is their motivation.
3
@Hank
I agree. Then it is fear that motivates them. In fact it is looking like "fear" motivates a lot of Americans. That is what drives Trump's political "energy".
I'm the son of a Depression Dad who volunteered for WW1, too young for WW2 or Korea, volunteered for Cold War duty (Cuban Missile Crisis at a forward SAC base). We didn't know "fear" like the following generations.
Now, split apart, with fear-laden terrorists in our grocery stores, I note the loss of freedom in the Land of the Free.
@Hank
nope, not in America.
Since you have referenced the Great Replacement I beg of you -- please do a review of The Family on Netflix, on this very subject. Absolutely blew my mind.
1
Billionaires backing Trump only need to take note of his disdain for the wealthiest of them, Jeff Bezos, to understand that wealth will not insulate them from Trump's authoritarian tendencies. As he's shown with Bezos, he's not above using the full weight of his office and his media pulpit to exact a personal vendetta and he will do the same to any of these billionaires who he believes have crossed him. It's also very evident from the way he's quickly turned on people within his own administration, that he has no loyalty to anyone, so thinking you've curried never-ending favor by hosting a fundraiser is a complete fallacy. Steve Ross and others who jump into bed with Trump are playing with fire and worse yet, could be inflicting permanent damage to the country that has allowed them to build successful businesses.
5
All true, and all moot.
When the war with Iran starts, jingoism will prevail.
3
@Bob Woods
That’s absolutely correct. Again, the minivans will be festooned with cheap (and tariffed) Chinese-made American flags that the self-righteous jingoists will fly to the point of disintegration.
@Bob Woods
Slogans control the base.
Dont think for a minute this is a republican only problem. With 20+ candidates Tom Steyer looks to buy his way into the 3rd Democratic debate, and it looks like he will succeed you know, because he is a billionaire he knows better than "normal" people. We need to reduce the power that these people have over us, and soon.
2
Competition? And who made it all about the money?
Months ago Paul Krugman said "It is only going to get worse" and sure enough, it has! The public has seemed to have become "numb" to the constant hubris, lies, incompetence, corruption, and criminality of Trumpism. The devastation of rational governance caused by Trumpism arrogance and ignorance will cast a shadow on America way into the 21st Century!
1
Throughout history, the mistakes of the rich are covered by money. The mistakes of the poor, radical left are covered by dirt.
4
Thank you for writing this. I hope it breaks through the delusion.
2
“As long as”...is that really it? As long as he cuts my taxes, guts regulation, and packs the court with right wing, anti-abortion judges, we support him? The country can be reduced to rubble, but I’m getting mine, so who cares. I’m so very proud to be an American...
3
"It’s an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime." Thank you Mr. Krugman. Finally someone spelled it out clearly.
3
Their money buys power and comtrol over the government oligarchy power that is their main aim Citicens United is the means
4
"What wealth doesn’t bring is the right to let self-indulgence turn you into a useful idiot, lending aid and comfort to a movement that’s trying to destroy America as we know it."
I am afraid sir that your tome is falling on deaf ears. The mega wealthy know more than we do, have no fear of anything impacting their personal security and lack any empathy for anyone who does. Those who would support this administration are part of a group that only see themselves in the magic mirror that tells them that they are "the grandest of them all...". The mirror is warped and those who can control the government with their money, will show no interest in letting go of that power.
In the end, their are a maybe few who are good people and who will change their minds if they take the time to step away from their mirror and actually look out the window. What it will take, I don't know, but they will never see themselves as useful idiots. Those are the people who keep them rich. The workers who are forced to accept unlivable wages, who can't unionize and who they pay to drop regulations that stop them from making more more more....
1
Hear, hear, Paul.
2
Trump is most likely not an oligarch, and that's why he won't let anyone see his taxes. He's a wannabee oligarch and he'll do anything to achieve the oligarch title. His policies have nothing to do with improving the nation.
The environment, healthcare, civil rights, tax policy, Nazis, White Nationalists, presidential threats against private companies and individuals, etc. . These are all tools being used by Trump to advance himself up the ladder.
This is the ultimate danger to our nation.
Didn't it used to be called fascism (or some variation of)?
4
Well said.
The thing that is scaring me most...and yes, fear is real across this nation, manifesting in many ways for many across demographics. The thing is that Trump and his ilk keep winning small battles and skirmishes. Sure they've been pushed back by various courts, etc. But beyond those, what has anyone, any group done to stop any of his behaviors, any of his actions - be they EO's, or the work of his appointed minions?
Skirmish after skirmish, small wounds inflicted, but still he acts with impunity.
The deplorable Kellyanne got it right when she was called out on her unethical behaviors...and replied, "Yeah, so? Arrest me!" Like a childhood taunt from a bully. "Who's gonna stop me!?"
Trump and his Den of Deplorable's taunt us everyday...and nothing has yet been done to stop them! Are the "kids" still using their private email accounts as they represent the WH? Trump keeps taking his weekend soirees at his own resorts, stuffing the registers with our money...and nothing is done. Trump Jr. and Eric are still peddling their deals while "representing" daddy, the President!
The wealthy elites know a golden goose when they see one. They might be on the opposite ideological spectrum - but the goose needs to be fed, and they are willing to feed it.
They see him getting away with everything - which is what they desire most. The real spirit of the American Dream; Wealth buys you true freedom. Not the nonsense sold to the rest of us. To buy guns and cheap clothes
2
When is the game over?
“....that train is never late.” — Chris Rock
2
I suspect that a lot of us secretly hope to one day become super rich and avoid paying taxes too! This is the only plausible explanation I have as to why a lot of voters support the GOP’s tax cuts and other programs that overwhelmingly benefit the rich. The GOP has also been brilliant at persuading their base to reflexively denigrate “other peoples” contributions—especially those in the public sector—and this hubris finds resonance with the rich who believe that they got to where they are in life because they are “smarter” than the rest of us. So, Trump with his “I alone can fix it” mantra is similar to their own belief system. I am always astonished that these useful idiots are constantly trying to bite the hand that feeds them—the poor people who buy their goods and services.
1
So, we've decided why rich people want to be rich, condemn them for it, then call them idiots for wanting to pay lower taxes. Why they want THEIR money is their business not ours to judge. And people are free to give up their iphones, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and many other products and services that made many people very rich. But you can't say that you want these things, then condemn the people who built them and made their money from providing services that people are actually willing to pay for. One can argue for higher taxes, but to condemn those people whose money you want to take as immoral, idiotic and racist is reprehensible.
"You knew I was a snake when you took me in."
6
This fine Krugman essay does not pertain only to the rich. Trump's minions think he is for them, but of course he is not; he is for THEM. His base supporters are to a large extent his "useful idiots".
4
Tilting at windmills. It seems to me futile to try to convince useful idiots to act in the best interests of the country. Probably not gonna happen.
2
This is after giving billions of dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest, after declaring bankruptcy six times to avoid paying his bills, and after paying no federal income tax for eight years while he reaped the benefits of living in America.
4
Do billionaires need massive tax cuts to get them to invest their money in profitable ventures? Why can they not use their own billions? Modest venture capitalists from the lower to middle classes have built their own version of business success from scratch.
These are the people who built the America we know and love.
2
I'm not a billionaire, but I have dealt with personally in transaction business settings (loans and M&A; not selling them planes or yachts) about five of them and even more indirectly. Taxes come up frequently and, from conservative and liberal leaning billionaires alike, the essence of their viewpoint is that they are better stewards of their money to be put to good uses through foundations and charitable organizations than the government.
It may be simply the idea that as successful as they are, they know better and the government, which is routinely ridiculed for its mistakes but not often applauded for what it does correctly, can't possibly be their equal.
I disagree with that viewpoint, but it does actually mirror a broader problem with US taxes and the general tax paying population: they (we) distrust how Washington spends our tax dollars and to what end taxes are applied. Its a huge black hole to most Americans. The billionaires simply look at the black hole and think, "I know I can do better". So tax deferral and tax reduction is logical to them, not from a score keeping or consumption viewpoint, but from efficiency and economic perspective. I think they are wrong, but they might have a point in certain circumstances.
3
@T Mo
"So tax deferral and tax reduction is logical to them, not from a score keeping or consumption viewpoint, but from efficiency and economic perspective. "
Nice. Too bad the rest of us don't have those choices and when those who find Themistocles in need of government help, can't get it, they can blame the rich. Except of course for the rich who benefit from Corp bailouts, mega farming industries, etc. They always get their "social services" from the government. And by the way, that comes out of my and 95% the rest of us who do pay taxes. Nice to have it both ways.
2
I didn't notice Dr. Krugman criticizing Jeff Bezos, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg or the Silicon Valley billionaires who support Democrats. I guess they are OK because they operate from only the purest of motives
6
@Eric How about we agree that elections ought to be publicly funded and not bought by billionaires -- whether right or left, domestic or foreign?
I'll get my Democrats who already support that to vote for it, and you can get your Republicans who oppose it to change their minds in the public interest.
Deal?
7
False equivalence. Those motives on the part of Bezos et al are clearly not to advance their personal wealth but instead relate to a belief that a more just society is best for all.
2
Eric, it’s because he didn’t refer to anyone but Ross by name. He meant all billionaires
1
Here's what I've put together. I call it A Better Way Forward:
1-Education: K-12 and beyond. Free and low cost options for post K-12 education and training will power the economy for the remainder of this century. Renovation of K-12 schooling including facilities along with community based solutions, better pay, recruitment and retention of quality teachers. As a retired teacher I've seen too many leave; for good reason.
2-An entire redesign of our national infrastructure which includes our energy grid and energy production along with transportation and public buildings. Focus on renewables. #1 above goes hand in hand with this plank. Immigration reform fits here as they are a part of labor.
3-Healthcare for all at an easily affordable price. There's lots of existing models. Let's examine them all and come with a hybrid of the best that works for us.
4-A complete overhaul of taxation and banking which provides more transparency and places the burden of taxation where it belongs--on those who profit the most. A larger and fairer share of the pie for those who create the goods and services which create our amazing abundance.
5-Term limits and campaign finance reform. 3 term limit for Senate. 16-20 year limit on SC justices. End Citizens United.
6-Election reform: Secure elections, end of gerrymandering, remove electoral college.
Whether it's seen as bipartisan or not I believe it is a much better way forward and should appeal to a vast majority of Americans.
9
@Citizen 0809
Could you please run for President? I'll vote for you. However, you do seem to be sane and balanced, and you've never been the star of a reality-TV show, so you might not have much of a chance....
Historically what drives capitalist ruling classes to support authoritarians is the fear of revolution and their expropriation, or at the very least of thoroughgoing structural reforms that weaken their wealth and power and foster the greater economic and political power of the class they exploit to gain their wealth - the working class. At present there is virtually no threat of either of these developments in the United States, and consequently no consensus among American capitalists that the installation of an authoritarian regime is necessary. What we have instead is a rump group of right-wing billionaires that support Trump and white nationalist populism, even though the bulk of their class are actually being harmed by many of Trump's economic policies, and will be likely to bring them to a stop if the pain continues. If and when there is an upsurge in labor organizing and the spread of strikes in the private sector that shifts the balance of class power even slightly away from the ruling class as a whole then we will be confronted by a ruling class more politically unified around the demand for an authoritarian state of some kind. Mr. Krugman's attempt to reason with the rump billionaires about the dangers they face from their own right-wing goons will, I suspect, have little impact on their behavior now, and will have none in the future if and when the American working class ever poses a serious threat to neoliberal capitalist power in the US.
3
Recent research by Goldman Sachs indicates that capital expenditure post-tax cuts is at a pre-tax cut level, but that stock buybacks are up significantly. Their experts are hearing "first buybacks, then investment at a later date."
So, if CapEx hasn't increased, did we need a massive tax cut?
7
Every word is spot on in this essay.
Billionaires and democracies do NOT mix.
I saw some graphs about the income distribution and gains over the last 70 - 80 years, comparing democratic administrations with republican.
When democrats have been in control everybody has done better. Every class, including those at the very top, do better in terms of real money.
In republican terms the ONLY ones who increase their wealth are those at the top; but they don't get as big an increase as during democrat terms. But they do a whole lot better than everyone else. That seems to be the point.
I don't understand how these people think they or their children are going to be able to live on islands of extreme wealth and privilege while surrounded by oceans of despair and poverty. Especially since a lot of those desperate and poor people are armed to the teeth.
9
Don’t think for a minute that the country will prosper under white nationalist rule.
It won’t. . . because it can’t.
Furthermore, we should consider the possibility that billionaire and mere multi-millionaire supporters of make-America-white-again policies and the like know it.
Why do they support it?—Because they know we’re on the threshold of an era when it will be every-man-for-himself, are given to (and very good at) me-me-me thinking, and are determined to get as much for themselves as possible now with a view to securing their own personal and their heirs’ survival to the best of their greedy ability.
(That also may a factor in the GOP’s opposition to an assaults-weapon ban, I honestly don’t know.)
But we shouldn’t underestimate any super-fat cat’s ability to think ahead and plan for the worst—plan with a view to benefiting, personally, I might add.
4
I have to correct Professor Krugman:
"And tax cuts don’t help on that dimension, since your peers get the same tax breaks you do."
Trump's tax cuts offered the most generous tax breaks to real estate developers, private jet owners, and certain categories of ownership.
My friends in life science did OK. My friends in tech did OK. My friends in real estate keep discovering easter eggs in the the tax law. My friends who sell private jets are buying Aston Martins instead of BMWs.
1
I recommend that folks, listen to the TedTalk by Seattle billionaire, Nick Hanauer . He speaks to the disparity of incomes, and the serious problem we are facing with wealth in our country. He warns in his TedTalk that the billionaire class must change or the people will rise up and change the system for them!
The Republican president, doesn’t care about everyday Americans, not one iota! For him, it’s all about power and greed.
6
It would be quite useful if Mr. Krugman pointed out that the overwhelming majority of the 0.1% are Democrat campaign contributors.
When Obama demanded that the Bush tax cuts on the "rich" be allowed to expire and shut down the government to make it so, the rich who got tax increases were single filers making $150,000 and MFJ with $200,000 in taxable income.
Buffett and Soros paid zero incremental income taxes.
When the current batch of Democrats get finished, the income level of the rich will be down to $50,000. That is the threshold for the alternative minimum tax, which Republicans finally eliminated in the last tax cuts.
3
@ebmem
Obama favored the rich? History got twisted up a bit here. Obama extended the Bush cuts as the Republican price for passing extensions of payroll tax cuts (for ordinary people) and unemployment benefits (for ordinary people). So let’s be clear on who was interested in ordinary Americans. When did tax rates on the rich go back up and under whom? In 2012, under Obama. On whom did taxes go up? Those with incomes of $450,000+. The marginal rate on the very rich went back to 39.6%. And what financed the ACA? Taxes on the very rich. Like they say, you’re entitled to your own opinions but you’re not entitled to your own facts. The marginal rate for Warren Buffett went up (although generally the rich can find ways to avoid taxes). The dead giveaway here is the use of George Soros. Republicans have been using Soros for years as a dog whistle for white nationalists. So we know where you stand on that. Finally, “the overwhelming majority of the 0.1% are Democrat campaign contributors.” Seriously? And where would you get any evidence for that “fact?” This is the Times, not Fox, and that “fact” is made up. For the record: those giving $100,000+ to politicians give equally to Republicans and Democrats. Oh, and that government shut down you mention as being about tax cuts? It was over the ACA, Ryan told Republicans not to do it, and Republicans did it anyway. I might add that it’s fine if you want to support a neofascist, but facts are still facts.
2
This is just one manifestation of why extreme concentrations of wealth and therefore power tend to be dangerous in the human experience.
The hubris that this kind of wealth brings on can lead to some bad ends. Epstein comes to mind. Trump. The Koch empire. They often but not always end up bringing harm to the individuals and larger society around them.
Yet on Fox news or business channel or whatever propaganda division of that empire that was playing in my work place break room which I was unfortunate enough to be exposed to recently, the talking head (himself likely compensated to the tune of 6 to 7 figures) was talking about "soaking the rich" when discussing higher taxation. They try to brainwash their gop-trump supporting audience that the rich pay so much of the tax burden and it's just a bunch of socialists trying to keep them down. Boo hoo.
Many statistics can be cited (1% owning 90% of the wealth etc.) detailing the concentrations of wealth that have occurred in recent decades due to Reagan era trickle down taxation policies. Sorry Fox talking head, they pay the most because they have ludicrous amounts of wealth.
We can see that their wealth is often not healthy for society and PK is right, it doesn't completely insulate them. Bad things can happen to wealthy people. Ask Mr. Epstein.
9
I don't really like the wait for the next election. I want to see what happens, see who we are.
There is a lot of talk about Trump the racist, Trump the authoritarian, Trump the whatever.
I disagree.
Trump is a guy of below average intelligence who ran for office initially as a publicity stunt for his brand. Somewhere along the way he was able to ridicule his primary opponents to such a degree that they either destroyed themselves or each other. Trump was the last man standing in the primaries because there was nothing he would not do to win. All the other primary candidates had constituencies or some other allegiance to the GOP. Trump might not be intelligent or ethical but he is brutally effective in front of his audience.
When the GOP realized Trump was the GOP nominee, they did what the GOP always does. They fell in lockstep behind their leader. From that point it was GOP business as usual. Get the GOP anointed leader to commit to large tax cuts for the wealthy and make the usual promises to for the NRA and the Christian Right to reliably vote against their own financial self interests to get the votes needed to pass the tax cuts.
The GOP is run by the wealthy for the wealthy who corral the single issue voters with cheap policies (keep your guns, no abortions, discriminate against minorities). Its worked for the GOP so far, and will continue to do so until it becomes impossible to continue the gerrymandering.
Trump has gone a bit farther for the Christians and the NRA, but the bottom line would not be much different had it been another GOP president.
19
@MrC
Yes, some GOP leaders would be as venal as Trump (although not all of them), but the key difference in my mind between the once-orthodox GOP and the nascent Trump GOP is that the nascent Trump GOP has consciously and systemically tried to shatter reality, the very foundation of a democratic, rule-of-law state. The once-orthodox GOP never really tried to attack reality itself; they just danced around it.
1
I believe you have just described succinctly our capitalist system: "Greed, ego and willful blindness at the top."
10
@Zigzag: You neglected the term, "that special kind of stupid."
Trump continues to prove, if not reaffirm, that wealth (real, or perceived) and intelligence, are hardly mutually exclusive.
His wealthy supporters tend to forget that Trump has no friends, only relatives; everyone else can and will be thrown under the bus when the time is right.
12
In the 60's we had the revolution of society's losers; women, gays, minorities. Today trump is leading the revolution of the self-defined winners; whites, wealthy, religious, straight, rural, those who consider themselves the real Americans, the righteous, salt-of-the-earth.
Except for the extreme wealthy I maintain that economics plays very little in trump's appeal.
Boiling your column down, Krugman: These billionaire folks that support Trump are just people with more money than brains. I don’t envy a one of them.
7
We have to lift our political perspective from the partisan to worldwide desire for domination by the rich oligarchs, specifically the criminal ones, leading authoritarian regimes (Putin, MBS) which Trump idolizes. It is NO longer Republican versus Democrat, except that Republicans continue to support Trump, at their own peril. Trump may sound racist and White Nationalist may think he's one of them, as do Republicans, but in the end, Scaramucci is accurate, people our just pawns on a chess board for him to manipulate and move about to win his game. Nothing personifies this more than his photo op at the hospital with the orphan baby in El Paso. He treated his wife and women in general as objects for his pleasure and when they weren't giving him pleasure tossed them aside, which is the same for his advisors and even his lawyer. If they don't stroke his ego and actually think for themselves and offer their own educated opinions, they are let go, undermined or fired. He is a one man wrecking crew, who continues to deconstruct our government, our country, human rights values around the world. Republicans better wake up to this man who is supposedly running the store but stealing from the coffers in every way he can and allowing fellow billionaires to do the same while trashing the planet. This is the pattern of his businesses, where he walks away with little consequence while everyone around him is left holding the bag. Justice must be served. The day of reckoning will come.
6
Several commenters are writing that back in the 1950s the most wealthy Americans in many cases were more concerned with the good of our nation than they are today. I was in high school during that decade, and at the school the sons and daughters of the wealthiest Chicago area families were among my fellow students. Frankly, I didn't notice much difference between them and everyone else. But now I look back at that time and realize that they lived a very different life. Their parents belonged to exclusive country clubs, for example. And by exclusive I mean all white, no Jews and no Catholics. Gays and lesbians were totally in the closet. Family problems like alcoholism and infidelity were kept secret. There was no disruption. So yes, it seemed like good times. Would I want to go back to that kind of society? No. And we must look at it as a package. We cannot select this or that good factor and ignore the rest. We have a very different society now, and one I like much better. But we do have several big problems. Let us find solutions that will work today.
3
the spawn of the truy wealthy, like President Trump himself, no longer demean themselves by going to a public scool with the likes of you. they sequester themselves in pricey and exclusive private academies, like the snooty Dalton School where AG Barr's father hired Jeff "the college dropout" Epstein to teach math to your betters. with any luck, they all failed his classes. just remember: the ultra wealthy have bought the rights to be the real Americans, and you are the help.
I think the billionaires are correct in their belief that Trump will never go after them. He is a coward who only attacks the weak. Cowards don't attack the strong. I would, however, like to ask these Trump supporting billionaires if they have children or grandchildren. Their money won't save their heirs from the ravages of pollution and climate change. They may live behind a tall gate to keep out the peasants, but it can't stop the rising tides or the more violent weather climate change is bringing.
How can they support someone who is accelerating the destruction of our planet? It's their planet too.
7
This reminds me of an article I read yesterday about so-called Evangelicals who are incensed at Trump's use of the word "g_ddamned" and how he may lose some of their support over it. That's where they draw the line? Not the lying, racism, incitements to violence, womanizing, etc. It's simply mind-boggling how relative people's morals can be when there's something in it for them.
9
@JVG
They make the outside clean.
Yes, the rich are not like the rest of us.
3
Some 2000 years ago there was one who said what good does it do to a man if he wins the whole world while his soul is injured.
2
Thank you Mr. Krugman. Greed, cloaked as "keeping score" or as "job creators" is still greed. Greed puts money and power ahead of relationships and and society. Greed is fed by the press who cover the rich, just because they are rich. Yeah, I know, the un-washed love to read stories about the rich. But as soon as we can stop worshiping the rich, we can start getting down to improving the country. We can start or end that process by over-turning the obviously wrong Citizens United SCOTUS decision that empowered money over people in public affairs. It took 50 years to over turn Plessy vs. Ferguson (separate schools for black children). How long for CU?
2
The trouble with this is that every word is true.
3
It is certain that if any Democrat wins the White House in 2020 taxes on individuals and businesses will rise. This will be bad for the economy, since productive investments are funded out of the earnings and savings of high income individuals and companies. Billionaires do not consume their excess money, they invest it. And the tax cuts that Trump implemented have caused more of the investment to flow into the USA.
As for the idea that Jews should fear a second Trump administration, I think that it is fair to say, that Israel has not had a stronger ally in the White House - ever. I recently got back from a trip to Israel, and while everyone had various issues with Trump, all agreed that he was the strongest friend that Israel had ever had in the White House.
Lastly to suggest that Trump is a racist is simply foolishness. Trump has, through the economy created by those same tax cuts, done more to help people of color than any President since Lyndon Johnson.
3
Taxes must rise, and no it won’t be bad for the economy! Trump has raised the national deficit to $22 trillion!!! The largest in our history and ALL OWED to China. This is dangerous and unsustainable!
2
@Bernd Harzog
Stop drinking the Kool-aid. Trickle down economics doesn't work. I can't think of any person of color he has helped except for Kanye West.
I still remember hearing a newsman saying years ago that his mother was charmed by Republicans. She hadn’t voted in that stripe before and thought they might have good policies.
Newsman: “Mom, do you realize they want to abolish Social Security and Medicare?”
His mother (in astonishment): “Oh, they wouldn’t do THAT, would they?”
Oh yes, they would.
6
End the Electoral College and leave the elections to New York and California. Then the Ross money won’t buy the White House.
2
Our democracy is strong, yet fragile at the same time. It rests on assumptions and principles that, once removed like one leg of a stool, the whole cannot survive without. We are tolerating Trump -- which is to say, not storming the White House and dragging him into the street as a warning to future would-be tyrants -- at great peril to the future our children will inhabit. God will not protect us, we have to do it ourselves. VOTE!!
3
1. Those billionaires don't read the Times: they have people who tell them if there is something in today's paper that they need to know about.
2. No President and no US Congress are ever going to do anything which might seriously embarrass the obscenely rich.
3. If capitalism as we know it collapses, and it probably will at some time in the not so distant future, we can be pretty sure that they are already prepared for it: if money no longer makes the world go round, control of land (in the economic sense) will take its place.
Unfortunately at least 99% of voters don't realise any of this, and will instead vote according to how sincere a candidate's smile appears to be or of course how effectively decent candidates are destroyed by abuse on social media. Whatever happens, the obscenely wealthy need only fear the mob breaking into their compound and stringing them up - and that is no longer a realistic scenario.
So, as Mr Krugman says, the best you can do is not be a "useful idiot". As a European I'm afraid I can't help you...
2
"Useful idiocy": useful expression. --As in:
President Trump:
The less chargeable he,
for conspiracy,
the more,
for useful idiocy.
1
i remember when i first heard the term "job creators", during the mc govern campaign, and thinking, wow, do they have that upside down.
1
Thanks for articulating my fears. In the simplest of terms, regardless of how safe you may feel due to your skin color, religion, or ethnicity... you are not special; just next.
2
There is a long list of very wealthy Jewish people that support trump and align themselves with Netanyahu’s policies.
There’s also a long list of not so wealthy Jewish people that are in opposition to both.
For some, this op ed should get their attention
1
Thank you very much for this column, Dr. Krugman. The relationship between control-obsessed billionaires and the whole Republican Party is a fundamental story of the last several decades. But their strategy for undermining the democracy (something that people such as the Koch Brothers have admitted in public that they oppose; this is documented by reputable sources) has led them to ally themselves with others who oppose democracy, which in this country means the radical Right because the radical Left has never been that strong here (what Rightists call the radical Left is usually barely left of center by world standards). For the billionaires, all of their so-called allies are useful idiots, but their elitism causes them to underestimate the strength and ability of those they deal with, so they're liable to be surprised at what they find themselves facing, just as Dr. Krugman indicates: they themselves are the useful idiots. I can make sense of someone like Stephen Miller being an extremist on immigration when he's very vulnerable to the hatred of white nationalism only as a sort of pre-emption: he's going to prove his "whiteness" by his very extremism. He'd be far wiser to join those of us who don't care about "whiteness" and who will accept him as long as he's willing to treat everyone decently.
"Trumpism is about much more than tax cuts: It’s an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime."
That a Nobel Prize winner can make a statement like this is horrifying, and significantly degrades the value of a Nobel Prize.
1
"...anyone Jewish has to be completely ignorant of history not to know that when bigotry runs free, we’re always next in line for persecution."
This is perhaps been the most frustrating piece of the Trump phenomenon. So many of my fellow Jews refuse to see the similarities between Trump's treatment of Hispanic immigrants and the treatment of Jews for more than 1,000 years.
So many were angry with me after the Pittsburgh attack when I talked about the rising racism in our country. They said, "Now is the time to grieve, not get political."
Others bristle at the 'concentration camp' comparison, forgetting that "never again" should apply to all vulnerable minorities, not just Jews.
It's so heartbreaking to see a Jewish guy, Stephen Miller, at the center of it all. It's almost as if he's self-hating.
5
Congratulations Dr. Krugman! Maybe the best column you've ever written!
2
Let's support our values of pluralism and diversity and compassion. They are our new values, strapped on in 1965 with the coloring of our immigration system and Civil Rights legislation for blacks and all those POC immigrants entering America since.
Please Krugman stop with the attempts to place youself on the bandwagon of the oppressed.
You're set up very nicely in a city that has a racially segregated public school system.
Based on your OP-ED pieces preaching about race one would think you would be front and center calling and working for racial desegregation of your public schools.
Your approach? Claim a spot in that ever increasing intersectional matrix of the oppressed, then hammer on the folks in flyover country.
If you want to discuss incendiary racial speech and it's affects I can arrange for you to do so with former neighbors of mine from Detroit. We woke a long time ago. But here's a warning, the narrative you'll hear won't fit neatly into your forward thinking narrative of victimology in the US. You can also bring Edsall along. He can then explain to all why those recounting their experiences are wrong according to various polls and surveys.
Now get back to hammering on the folks in flyover country.
"The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899) by Throstein Vieblen. No more need be said.
1
Paul Krugman is pure genius. I love reading his articles. Why can’t more people accept logical common sense?!
3
"Trumpism is about much more than tax cuts: It’s an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime."
No it's not.
I have a feeling your ideas on Y2K at the time were pretty cataclysmic?
Trump has no method or goal other than self-aggrandizement. His words lack any meaning, even if that upsets up, and his thoughts exist for mere moments.
Trump himself is much more likely to be the "useful idiot", the goal is to identify who is using him.
This kind of column should get reach far beyond the NYT readership. But people who struggle just to get by don't have the time to read opinions like these. How can this message be pushed out to everyday folks?
3
The evanescent marriage between the Fascists and the Capitalists will soon be complete. The Capitalists think that they can control the bucking bronco that is the Fascists, steering the bronco to their desired ends. But they will soon realize that they cannot control the Fascists, and the Fascists will swallow them too. It seems that we are doomed to repeat history.
4
"Trumpism is about much more than tax cuts: It’s an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime."
Once again we have to turn to one of the Times's "opinion" columnists to find the news reported. What Krugman says there is simply objectively so.
2
I don't think people wanting to increase their wealth well beyond what will improve their material well-being and the material well-being of anyone they care about is a matter of keeping score.
I think it's much worse than that: it's a matter of wanting to be able to tell other people what to do and what not to do to a greater and greater degree.
6
Very rich people often assume that, ipso facto, they are smarter than everyone else. That's probably the meaning of "useful idiots". Industrialists in 1930s Germany come to mind. By the time they figured out they were wrong it was too late to do anything about it - even if they'd wanted to.
13
This article is beyond the behavior of our billionaires. It is a warning that we may be repeating history. I am not saying that trump is Hitler, but despite their distaste for Hitler, he was supported and financed by some of the top business families in Germany. Families are still learning about disgusting ties their ancestors had to Hitler. Hitler needed money just like every other political leader and he knew where to get it. It isn’t just the tax cuts that are appealing, it’s having a seat at the power players table. Influencing policies that take away more worker rights or reduce worker protections, as examples. What people like Ross are guaranteeing is that we have no seat at that power table and no input in rules and laws that directly affect our lives. In Germany, there was a small chipping away of rights and liberties while most cheered, and felt that the industrial barons had to be right. They were rich, weren’t they?
14
Paul writes: "If you’re a billionaire, you don’t need the extra money. At that level, purchasing power has nothing to do with the quality of life...." Precisely!
There are a few billionaires like Warren Buffet and Tom Steyer who apparently don't think that way, and thank God for them. I think one of the reasons they are different in that regard is that they were not born rich and do not feel "entitled" like Trump and his family.
12
It also seems that many of the ultra rich in the US forgot how they got that way. The US is predominantly a consumer economy. That means that what makes it tick is lots of people buying houses, cars, furniture, TVs, etc. The more money the 99% have, the more stuff they (actually, we) buy. And they buy their stuff largely from the companies owned or financed by the ultra rich. That's why the US economy in general does better when Democrats are in office. Helping the "little people" helps everyone, AKA "trickle up" economics.
981
@Jane Scholz
then it's time for us to see how much we can do without. any company which loses sales, fails; and there's plenty of stuff none of us needs.
97
@Jane Scholz: Thank you for so succinctly reminding us that the best policy for general prosperity is a “trickle up” economy based on the well-being of ordinary Americans.
114
@Jane Scholz,
Because of various factors that cause delays in economic responses to policy changes, Democratic administrations at least largely benefit from policies enacted by precessing Republican administrations. And successive Republican administrations suffer from the policies of early Democrats. The presidency changes hands in a three minutes ceremony but it takes several years for the nation to absorb and respond to policy changes.
7
PK is pretty graphic in his description of now and tomorrow. History always repeats. It is human nature. The cycle may be long, centuries. Short, generations. Very short, decades. The existence of our country as perceived as special is ending. It has actually never reached its full potential. The possibility that the world would coalesce around our ideals is foundering because our image is so diminished. We older people know what is coming.
727
@Robert Black - do not give up yet, still a chance !
18
@Robert Black With great sadness, I have to agree. I would like to be optimistic about the future, but with our failure to provide leadership in addressing climate change, and the end of democracy as we know it (even with all its flaws), I fear a very bleak future.
72
@Ann Marie Kirchman "End of democracy as we know it": What on earth do you mean by that?
3
Well put Mr. Krugman.
I am so amazed at Jewish friends who support Trump that when they say they would vote for him again all I can do is stare in disbelief. I say "WHY"? Well....he supports Israel.
Then I return an answer of " remember Charlottesville and that there are good people on both sides" and the anti Jewish chants. How does this make you feel knowing that this is how Hitler got started. We are dealing with a racist pure and simple. My friends counter with "but his daughter and her husband are Jewish".
Yes, they are but have you heard one word from Ivanka or Jared's mouth that will help the children whose parents have been taken away and they are left to fend for themselves in what is basically a concentration camp. Where is the wonderful Ivanka when it comes to Wade V Roe? It is beyond belief that one is dealing with Jewish racists but what else can one believe?
Maybe it is a good idea if Trump is reelected that we think of leaving the country for 4 years.
8
Professor Krugman is correct; what we are witnessing is a slow-moving White wing putsch fueled by foreign authoritarian psy-opts and domestic billionaire funding.
Just as German industrialists embraced the socio-pathic Hitler as a bulwark against the Social Democrats and their trade union supporters, so too are American billionaires holding their noses and sucking up to the malignantly narcissistic trump. What German industrialists got for their money was a Germany in ashes with its name forever stained.
The German rich were useful idiots then, and American billionaires are even dumber now for ignoring the lessons of history.
13
And what about Sheldon Adelson? If all you care about is that Trump put the US Embassy in Jerusalem, then you ignore everything else. If all you care about is prohibiting abortion, then you ignore everything else. Trump has been a master at tapping into many "one issue" voters even when their issues are logically inconsistent.
As far as depending on Trump for being consistent on any position, that is idiotic. He has often publicly changed positions on one issue several times in a day. If a one issue voter chooses to depend on only Trump's positions which he states in support of that issue, those are the biggest idiots of all. The US is presently a country ruled by idiots. When Ortega y Gasset wrote the "Revolt of the Masses" today's US is exactly what he had mind.
4
Here's a toast to the real idiots, those who thought the king of conspicuous consumption, Trump, was a working class hero based on his sales pitch during the campaign. I suppose Fox News didn't show Trump, fresh out his "amazing" campaign win, promising his cohorts at Mar a Loco that they were going to get rich under his regime. The real idiots keep listening to ads paid for by the useful idiots that spread lies and conspiracies, myths, fear mongering, and thinking they're better off under Trump. Trump is nothing but a punk huckster from Queens. The danger is the real idiots.
6
Useful idiots are more interested in being right than doing the right thing. Even worst, these idiots are too ignorant to understand that they are hurting their own interests and digging their own grave.
Useful idiots that are poor and uneducated are often followers of conspiracy theories and in support of the wealthy. They think and hope that some of that wealth might trickle down to them.
The worst useful idiots are the wealthy. They are too busy and preoccupied in growing and protecting their wealth. They become completely disconnected from their communities and only socialize with their peers. Always looking for ways to impress each other and in doing so, they become more isolated, ignorant and inhumane.
If they could only stop and realize that living in luxury prisons
is not a privilege but a curse. We only know who we are and how we feel when in contact with others and diversity.
Both poor and rich useful idiots often fail to vote their interests.
The poor are under they impression that their vote helps them get closer to the wealthy and the rich vote in an effort to further distant themselves from the poor. Like on Gilligan’s Island, In the end both wind up together and Mr. Howell’s money has no value and can’t rescue him.
5
I had dinner with a rich cousin and he clearly told me he's a one issue voter. I'll vote for anyone who cuts my taxes. There's no sense of what damage that person will do to our system and to our environment.
Krugman alludes to Nazi Germany without saying the words but the comparison is apt. Many of the rich Germans fell into line just as many of our rich are falling in line.
Many of these people looked down on trump for being vulgar and now they sit at his feet throwing money at him.
11
It's quite baffling to see Jewish people support Trump, much less a fundraiser. Its dishonoring the people who died in the holocaust.
6
Just who are the "useful idiots"?
Trump goes to the Hamptons to get money. Hillary went to the Hamptons to get money. They all go to the Hamptons to get money.
Guess what?
We, the American people, are the "useful idiots". We get the worst, most crooked, politicians money can buy.
2
I thought the term “useful idiots” referred to Times Opinion columnists - Krugman being the primary example
TRUE-THAT!
But will any of the “useful idiots” even recognize that they are in that group? Let alone read this? Probably see the headline and pass on reading it.
1
As a white male non Jew, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone who is a Jew would vote for Trump.
Is Trump’s pro-Israel stance, Jewish son-in-law, and Netanyahu bromance so intoxicating to pro Trump Jews that they cannot see that Trump is a Judas, and will sell them out to his real base, the white national suprematists for just a few more votes? Trump is not anyone’s friend, including Israel’s, or American Jews.
6
Bravo!!
1
It may not be a pogrom but if Democrats keep insisting on relacing the health insurance of some 180 million Americans with Medicare whether they want it replaced or not will result in another 4 years of the disastrous Trump administration. Jeff Session was a useful idiot but Bill Barr is an evil genius and between him and Trump democracy is in mortal danger.
2
I like the idea of the veil of ignorance. Set up society in which you are not yet born. And, you are randomly born into any situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance
Paul, the actual Lenin quote is:
“Полезные идиоты - религия масс”
The usually idiomatically erudite Google Translate is inexplicably idiomatically idiotic on the return leg...
(in English)
“Useful idiots are the religion of the masses”
If you don’t believe me – fact-check it...
Translate it to Russian – and see if you don’t come out with exactly what I cited, above...
PS
To hang with the Harvard Physics department instead of the Princeton Economics department – that was a deliberate lifestyle choice...
With not-unusual unintended consequences...
Incidentally, say hi to Freeman for them – and tell him no holiday party this year...
PPS
Less seriously – you’re completely out to lunch with:
“...People who’ve studied the extremely rich argue that money, for them, is largely not about being able to buy things but is instead a way of keeping score...
Go look at where Bill Gates puts his – or Microsoft’s – money, sometimes a billion or more at a time...
The latest:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/technology/open-ai-microsoft.html
A while back:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/11/business/illumina-creating-company-to-develop-early-stage-cancer-detection-test.html
Just a couple, among a couple of dozen...
1
It is an axiom that power corrupts...Wealth is power. But having power does not mean one cannot be made a useful idiot.
Consider the useful idiots who have "served" and been humiliated in the Trump sAdministration. Useful idiots in positions of power serving, not the American people, but a royal snollygoster.
Trump is no Midas, all he touches are shamed, humiliated, disgraced and degraded. The wealthier and more powerful they are, the more opprobrium they earn.
2
The statement by Mr.r. Ross that he's known Trump for 40 yrs certainly validates. PK "...Trump makes perfect sense: You know what you’re buying. But if you’re supporting Trump not because of his racism but despite it, because you expect him to keep your taxes low, you’re being, well, an idiot..."
Mr. Ross knows his purchase...
2
It is helpful to liken the recent shootings to pograms. Thank you for that, Mr. Krugman. The targeted violence is only just beginning.
Hitler rose with the help of useful idiots, among them the Association of German National Jews. Mr. Ross might want to brush up on his history before it's too late.
3
Thank God and Paul Krugman for this Opinion. It describes the empty heads, aka the billionaire 'Idiots', contributing big-time to Trump's election campaign. As with many New Yorkers I knew of Trump's bankruptcies, braggadocios, hustles and buffoonery. His reputation was reflected in his paltry election results in NYC. We expected the worst from him: instability, abuse, dishonesty, mismanagement, racism and ignorance. We were wrong, Trump is much more dangerous than all that. This paper's front page yesterday published, 'The Global Machine Behind the Rise of Far-Right Nationalism'. In it you will read about the neo-Nazi network fueling its ideology here and around the world. It provides a realistic and alarming perspective of what Trump, Fox News and others have been spreading here. When Paul Krugman writes how evident this lethal scenario is to the Jews, he rang the bell. Among Trump's billionaire supporters are Jews, such as Steven Ross. Krugman calls them 'Useful Idiots', but I would call them collaborators with their own dark futures as white supremacy grows. Of course, everyone faces the darkness from neo-Nazism. First the black and brown people, the facts, the free-press, the government, the environment, food safety... and the whites, too, will experience darkness here as never before. Krugman rang the bell on Trump long ago, and, now, he's trying to wake us up. Thanks again, Paul Krugman.
5
I don’t know the man, but I am sure Ross has donated more to charity than Krugman has paid in income taxes, ever. The Krugman rants have always been unhinged, now they are becoming incoherent
2
Lenin most likely coined the term “useful idiots.” He also most likely is the author of the brilliant quip, “the capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with when the time comes.”
He is not the likely origin of the scorpion and frog story that ends with the scorpion killing its potential rescuer because it is “its nature,” even though that is a fable of Russian provenance.
Professor Krugman, The world is a little more complicated than economic theory. Stick to your expertise and competitive advantage as a wise economist taught us long ago.
You blew it when you supported Hillary over Bernie. I lost my respect for your intelligence then and there.
Print my comment. You need criticism as well as praise for your OpEd writers.
8:07 am NYC 8/13/19
4
4 hours and 21 minutes later....
Better than the alternative!
1
Meanwhile... a reporter asked Ken Cuccinelli if the sentiments expressed on the statue’s plaque are “still operative in the United States.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ken-cuccinelli-statue-of-liberty_n_5d51a525e4b05fa9df02e365
Top Immigration Official Grilled On Whether Statue Of Liberty Still Matters
I wonder was he hinting, kind of trying to mentally prepare us for next atrocious move on a part of this criminal gang occupying our WH.
I wouldn't put anything past them.
Would that bring us finally to the streets...
Just check Hong Kong fearless, intrepid fighters for their Democracy...
So Inspiring!!!
We know how to fight for democracy. We've done it before.
That was a headline for WAPO on Sep 4, 2018
3
If Trump loses in 2020 he can declare election fraud and have his toady Barr write a report certifying Trump must remain president until he completes his investigation. At this time Trump will assume dictatorial powers by executive order and order our armed forces to round up dissidents to be placed in new internment camps built by GEO prison co. Trump can seize control of the US Treasury appointing his daughter Ivanka money Czar. Jared will head up internal affairs with unlimited powers to enforce the will of our Dear Leader ,MAGA hats will be mandatory . Remember Trump insisted on tanks for his July 4th rally tanks are used by dictators to control their citizens . All billionaires will be Trimp's oligarchs he controls.
2
Could not agree more! Rich people who think they are safe from authoritarian rule are idiots indeed.
2
Actually, even a fascist America would be much less dangerous to Jews than Nazi Germany was. First, too many other minorities here. Second, a very small, but very heavily armed nation also keeping an eye on the anti-Semitic thing.
@Yo I think you're mistaken about the heavily armed folks. Everything I have seen up to this point is that they are right wing, and generally not fond of Jews.
Nice try.
The biggest useful idiot in the USA is Trump. While he holds his loyalty rallies and campaigns for re-coronation, the super rich and merely rich are snickering at Him, all the way to the Hedge Fund Office. Bread and Circuses are now MAGA hats (made in China) and political “Reality” TV.
VOTE them ALL out.
2
I agree with the mindless useful idiots concept but I can’t agree that Trump is the fiendishly clever puppeteer that steers them towards a master plan of authoritarianism. I think he’s just a marketing guy with reality show derived popularity who, like a weather vane turns in whichever direction from which the wind blows. Said wind direction he gets from Fox and Friends and his useful idiots. Not much more to it than that. If he gets a second term then we’re all useful idiot accomplices.
1
"A man on the rack," wrote Jonathan Swift, "was never refused the privilege of roaring as loud as he saw fit."
Which explains these many comments to The New York Times. Proceeding from Yours Truly.
The awfulness of these days. I have never seen the like. Never. And so I read the news--I read pieces like this--and "I have to roar." Scream. Say something.
I honestly don't believe Mr. Trump is a dyed-in-the-wool racist. Not the way Adolf Hitler was. For whom a cardinal point in his detestable ideology was--hatred of Jews. Exaltation of das Herrenvolk--the "master race."
BUT--
--I do think (with all my heart) Truimp will ride that racist wave as fast and as far as he can. He is ALL about "show" is he not? About "ratings." Like your billionaires, Mr. Krugman--and what a precious crew they are!--he thrives on adulation. Plaudits. Frantically waved placards.
I have read that, in the early 1930's, Hitler addressed a group of prominent German businessmen. Sakes, he was a master. Calibrating to the nth degree what would "play in Peoria"--and what wouldn't.
On this occasion, he was studiously moderate. Reasonable. The "rabble-rousing" Hitler--the fabled "carpet-chewer"--was absent. Even the Nazi insignia was absent--he wore a plain suit.
And he won them all over.
Fools!
None of them foresaw--none could POSSIBLY foresee--the smoking ruins of Germany in 1945.
Be careful whom you give your love to.
Be very careful.
1
These billionaire idiots are wrong. Their donations may help Trump spread ads more. But Americans are largely baked into their political views. The Republicans have already maxed out all the white people they can get. Asian, Latino, and African-American voters won't be swayed by Trump media. Some were in 2016, but Trump burnt those bridges.
The real battle is for the Senate. America's real useful idiots are voters in Kentucky, who elect McConnell believing he represents their interests. Now that replacement theory is mainstream, we know what it is.
2
What's happening at the Times?
Mr. Krugman has written ideas in a column that I've not been able to get published in a reader's comment.
Let's be blunt: Wealthy Jews supporting Trump are out of their minds. And no one from the Adelsons on down are going to escape the consequences of this lunacy. Sadly neither will ordinary Jews who vote as Democrats. Have we really decided to ignore our history in 1930s Germany? We cannot buy protection from dictators. All that has ever actually protected us is a society of reasonably distributed wealth, income and political equality. Trump promises to skew wealth and income more extremely, and strangle whatever political equality the US population has enjoyed. Why us? Because we'll be Trump's and White Nationalists useful idiots. As people like Stephen Ross, and even more so the Adelsons, are now.
1
The unfortunate thing is that Stephen Ross and his ilk don’t read Paul Krugman because they’re, well, idiots. There’s this myth that the mega-rich are smarter than most or have that something special, but they don’t. They’re not deep thinkers and they have the same biases and ignorance of history as does the base. In fact, they are the base but with deep pockets.
3
The trump terror era reminds me of the novel "The Winds of War".
I served over twenty years in the USAF and saw tin pot dictators and wannabes all over the world. Many were and still are our allies with the full support of George H.W. Bush and the CIA and the Congress and the Presidents and the US Military....Chiquita banana anyone?
SO you idiots think it cannot happen here?
I thought you had to be at least as smart as the trump terror. I mean that's an extremely low bar even for ya'll.
But apparently I was wrong in my opinion.
You are the trump terror trash.
Good luck with that.
Thanks for all the fish
Dave
USAF RET
1
Would you consider a columnist a useful idiot, who in 2015 , during the 2016 presidential campaign, when the last poll, showed Sanders (derailed by the DNC), wrote this
"Trump is Right on Economics"
"Sanders over the Edge"
If so, click on the links below
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/opinion/sanders-over-the-edge.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/opinion/paul-krugman-trump-is-right-on-economics.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/20/more-young-people-voted-for-bernie-sanders-than-trump-and-clinton-combined-by-a-lot/?noredirect=on
I leave the judgment to you.
2
@Woof You need to reread the Trump article. It says something different than you infer it says.
Democrats make a mistake when they target Donald Trump as the progenitor of the species of fascism that is in control of our executive branch. This branch of Republican fascism believes that being born into the right race and practicing the state’s preferred religion are the most important virtues of Americans. This makes them racists, though they blanch at the term and protest (too much). This branch of fascist Republicanism has been around forever—George Wallace, Pat Buchanan, and Sarah Palin come to mind. During the last election the adherents of this belief saw in Mr. Trump an advocate that would advance their credo. They were tired of the wish-washy compassionate conservatives who diluted their fascistic beliefs with the platitudes of truth, justice, and equality for all, and they wanted a shot of the straight stuff. Mr. Trump was willing to stand on his hind legs in front of TV cameras and advance a racist agenda that stereotyped minority groups and roused fears toward them. But Mr. Trump is not the originator of this ideology, and it will live on after he is gone, because it’s part of the fabric of our country. Jews, meanwhile, should be scared because Mr. Trump may believe in the “magic Jew”—who makes the best bean counter, tax evader, and Philadelphia lawyer—so he lays off, but the fascists in his wake will not.
2
In America, whenever some guy was shooting his mouth off, another guy would quip, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"
The underlying sentiment was that in this land of opportunity, anyone who's smart and industrious can get rich.
But looking at our semi-literate self-proclaimed billionaire President, or Elon Musk ("I'll take Tesla public") or any number of the billionaires who are planning to live on Mars after we destroy the earth, or Gwyneth Paltrow for that matter, maybe we should now ask...
"If you're so rich, why aren't you a moron?"
1
A line can be drawn from those who believe the Clintons committed murder and those who once believed Jews used Gentile blood in the baking of their matzo. Thank you Paul Krugman.
2
Are we hoping that Stephen Ross and his wealthy ilk will read this column, the scales subsequently falling from their eyes so they will no longer support Trump? That will not happen. Trump is significantly lowering their taxes, and they do care a lot about that.
Along a similar vein, will high stock market and low unemployment numbers be the major players for the election next year, despite all the problems Trump and his GOP are inflicting on the country?
I worry that we in the United States have given up on a lot of things. That includes giving up on rational and meaningful gun-control legislation. That includes accepting intermittent mass shootings (including the deaths of small children) as the new normal for our American way of life. That includes giving up on significant improvements in public education and infrastructure. That includes giving up on substantive progress with health insurance and health care. That includes putting international relations on the back burner. That includes eviscerating environmental protections and abdicating responsibility on climate change. That includes a pronounced resurgence in anti-immigrant sentiment and rhetoric and overt racism. That even includes tolerating totalitarianism.
Will average voters be satisfied with jobs that simply get the next bills paid along with the eye-candy stock market and unemployment numbers that cannot hold up?
My biggest fear is that they just might.
716
@Blue Moon
I think Trump and his pet Republicans might be so exceptionally awful that they lose in 2020.
But in answer to your bigger concern: Americans have been trained for generations to concern themselves primarily with their own economic well-being, and taught their economic well-being is intimately bound to the "health of the economy," so why wouldn't they?
The ideas of social responsibility, environmental stewardship, commitment to the common good, &c, are talking points very few people take seriously, and a lot of people, to the degree they think about them, think about them as quaint vestiges of another era.
The sad thing is that all of this is the result of not just Republican insanity, but a bipartisan shift over the past 50 years. And Dems should shoulder a great, if not equal, share of the blame.
24
@Blue Moon
We have many, many single issue voters. Take your pick, either gun control or abortion. I’m sick of those people’s limited perspective and intolerance.
33
@Shirley0401 I was with you until the last part of the last sentence. Dems are by no means blameless but... the Republican party deserves the lion's share of the blame for our current mess. So, first let us vote the Republicans out of power and then work on reforming the Democrats.
47
Ross should ask Epstein how his friendship w Trump is going,,
6
As the old saying goes “Birds of a feather flock together”. So, it should not surprise that Trump, Epstein, Ross, etc., have similar tastes and characteristics. These people have no moral ethics and they are more like powerful idiots and dangerous to the society.
3
If anybody was serious in doing the right thing here, they would politely demand the armed forces to stand aside and start placing rows of guillotines at the Mall in Washington to chop the heads of this small group of people that in the last 35 years been bankrupting financially and morally our nation..you all know whom they are. Time is up for party lines..chopping must start at once
1
I suspect that the wealthy are trying to buy protection, as well as a place at the ruling table. Trump is vicious in attacking people who don't support him, these idiots think he won't turn on them when convenient. What they don't realize is that he is terrifically jealous of them and will pivot on a dime when it suits him. Look at MBS if you want an example.
4
All white European American Judeo-Christians have the historically powerful privilege of not being physically identifiable as the heirs of a enslaved and separate and unequal black African Americans.
One-drop aka 1/32nd of black blood ancestry was enough to deny your humanity as a person and your equality as an American if your color aka race aka ethnicity aka national origin was Sub-Saharan African.
You can't physically determine the ethnicity nor national origin nor faith of any white European American.
5
@Blackmamba
That didn't stop the Nazis from deciding who was Jewish, Roma, gay, etc.
1
This article makes me remember fascism and the wealthy people who supported Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini.
Large majorities in these three countries supported the dictators and some still do after all these years.
When I picked a new country to retire from America I ruled out formerly fascist dictatorships. There is something unsettling about cultures that adored their fascist dictators.
4
Ever since trump was a candidate, I have been speaking and writing using the example of the rich leaders of industry and banking in German in the 1930's who thought they could control and use Hitler and the Nazi's to keep themselves rich and powerful. As their country fell into chaos and ruin, as the bombs fell and their families died, I have always wondered what they felt and thought. Did they understand that they had helped bring this about? And I wonder what the rich like Ross will be thinking in a few years
5
I'll summarize your article for you, Mr. Krugman.
Fascism has arrived in America!
Like the former "Jews for Hitler" there are American wealthy Jews who are trying to secure "favor" with our new fascist leader. (Although it must be kept in perspective, the minority of American Jews do see the dangers of Trump and will likely be voting for a Democrat next election.)
But why pick just on Jews?
That picture of Trump with the uncle of the El Paso orphan shows that there are Mexican Americans who will also succumb to the lure of raw power and Trump's promises of wealth. It was that grin on Trump's face and his thumbs up that still creeps me out.
And let's not forget: Trump has some Muslim "friends" too. Of course they tend to be wealthy fascists, same with the bond Trump has with Netanyahu, and as you demonstrate in your article, a minority of very wealthy Jews.
6
@Pat
Fascism is here once again. It never really left us. Ironically for many Americans, America is the birth place of fascism; the KKK and Jim Crow served as Hitler's inspiration for an Arian dominated Greater-Germany. It's woven into our DNA, just ask any Black person in the South.
“But if you’re supporting Trump not because of his racism but despite it, because you expect him to keep your taxes low, you’re being, well, an idiot.”
Perhaps, but you’re also engaging in bribery. And Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized this bribery with the Citizens United decision.
8
First they came for some of Stephen Ross’ revenue streams, and I did not speak out – because I was not a conservative Republican billionaire. Then they came to quote Stephen Ross’ own statement, and I did not speak out – because it makes no sense. Then they came to call Stephen Ross a useful idiot, and I did not speak out – because useful? Then if anyone comes for me, there is Stephen Ross left to speak for me. Not an ideal situation.
Paul Krugman has clearly laid out the possibility that under Trump et al., the fabric, cohesion & vitality of the USA are being sapped to the core as Trump et al. continue their game plan to rule. Another purpose may lurk behind this possible plan: Make the world safer for V. Putin et al. Let Russia gradually assume the mantle once held by the USA & Trump et al. will be rewarded beyond their wildest expectations.
Except that China will not be happy about the ascendance of V. Putin. China under President Xi is seeking to be the one who picks up the mantle of global power from D. Trump.
Putin will ramp up interference in the 2020 election to get his useful idiot re-elected & draw Trump et al. even deeper into Putin's personal power sphere of influence.
Does Trump care? Not at all, if his payoff is big enough. If the American oligarchy likes the idea, it will go along & provide even more dollars for Trump's continuing "influence."
Ridiculous? Not in the 21st century of global politics. If Putin wants the US weakened to the point of being an innocuous PITA, we're on the way as we are & are becoming: A ravaged society at war with itself; a wasted environment; a diminished educational establishment; compromised religion & leaders; Wall Street, Silicon Valley & the Corporate Boardroom habitues on the lookout for more money; an increasing rate of poverty as the middle- and working classes decline; a 1% of the wealth & its owners ruling the USA; a baffled military. Almost there.
1
All Trump hears are the cheers, that is his currency. Sure, he loves the opulence, rubbing shoulders with billionaires, but nothing beats those rallies. It's like a drug to him, the more outrageous his claims, the louder they chant. He is more confident than ever now in the arena of full-blown while nationalism, he has tested the waters, he has the formula,
and he knows it is working.
Giving tax cuts to billionaires and having their support takes care of his cronies, but Trump has bigger aspirations. He wants to further divide your country, stay in the White House and guarantee he has an army of white, angry men wearing their MAGA hats to keep him in there.
There are more than enough useful idiots to go around here.
4
Stephen Miller, David Brooks, and now Stephen Ross. Do they hate themselves so much that they are blind to the fact that to white supremacists they are not only NOT white, they are a despised group who will be on the first trains to the camps?
2
David Brooks does criticize the President on the PBS News Hour every Friday, on the political segment. He has become increasingly frustrated with his policies.
Seems to have disappeared from view but I was astonished (because they got caught !) to read the other day that 37 of Goldman Sachs employees in Malaysia had been arrested for channeling billions of dollars into a private, secret fund of the ex PM of Malaysia...
I'm a history loving. small 'g ' Grand Conspiracy Theorist (through the Golf of Tonkin, the Burning down of the Reichstag, Cheney and Bush's WMD justification to invade their previously supported 'useful idiot' Mr Hussain. among others) but with Epstein am moving up to the big 'G'.
Might be time to dust off my old 70's copy of 'The Illuminati' as all the stars. as this article suggests, are lining up for a replay of a certain European country in the 1930s. with plenty of rich supporters from many countries cheering them on.
It's enough to make you consider becoming a Preppie.
I'm quite glad the US is going through this round of bigotry, which we consigned to the dustbin of history with the Nazis - for INDIA has been going through this since 2014 but very little action was taken then.
And it's far worse now - the BJP is just short of bribing 19 more ministers in the upper house when they will have free reign to amend the constitution and very nature of India.
Hope those with decency will speak up and fight before it's all too late.
1
Brilliant,
But you forgot the part about pitchforks..... How quickly they forget... perhaps the rich have been eating too much cake....
2
Here's a link to a Vanity Fair article about Stephen Ross's possible motive for him to become "a useful idiot" -- besides dodging taxes.
LINK: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/the-real-reason-stephen-ross-cant-quit-donald-trump
1
@PA Voter
Very discouraging information.
Maybe Ross thinks he has to to protect his fellow Jews. Maybe this is him paying ransom to Trump for him to dial down the hate for Jews and to prevent another synagogue shooting. But he has to know that he is the real billionaire and Trump isn't. Trump will resent Ross for that. Everyone knows Trump rules by pettiness. Trump will turn against Ross for just this reason. And it won't go well for people of Jewish faith because "those good people" carrying the torches are Trump's good people. Ross's fundraiser is essentially helping to engineer another Kristallnacht. Useful and stupid.
1
Trump should be committed to a mental hospital as a danger to others.
2
@Dr. B
That's why they invented the 25th Amendment.
Even if it is all about the tax cuts, anybody who studies economics (and history) can tell you that in the short term tax cuts give a boost to the economy (and of course put more grubby dollars in the pockets of the rich), but in the long term do nothing other than damage to society and to the economy--including limiting the average person's ability to be a productive worker and consumer--which adversely impacts rich people's bottom lines.
So even if it's not about the white supremacy--even if it is about tax cuts for rich people, and nothing else--people who support Trump are idiots in this way too.
Tax cuts are supported by ignorant fools and only by ignorant fools.
2
Ross is willfully ignoring Charlottesville where they chanted "Jews will not replace us" and Trump said they were some "very nice people," Pittsburgh where one of his fanatic followers massacred eleven Jews in their synagogue because some Jews were aiding immigrants, and Poway--another gun massacre at a synagogue. Ross is like many wealthy German Jews who felt a false sense of invulnerability as my German-Jewish relatives also believed. And, then to invite Trump into his home and raise $12 million for his re-election is to ignore history that my Holocaust family made sure I'd never forget. Ross is more than a "useful idiot," he may, if Trump is re-elected be a dead one as so many already are as the "brown shirts" that Trump has already unleashed with his hate speech have made Jews their targets. It's time for all Jews to remember the lesson and say "Never Again."
2
"A rising tide raises all boats". What I will never understand is that billionaires such as Ross don't get this simple and obvious economic reality.
He may benefit from more tax cuts, but that isn't going to grow his business revenue or help him sell more of the fitness stuff that made him a billionaire.
But through out our history Republicans have tried to use the government as their personal piggy banks via avoiding taxes.
70% of GDP depends on consumer spending growth. The more money consumers have, the more new customers Ross will have.
So he is less than a "useful idiot". He is just an idiot.
2
Lenin most likely coined the term useful idiots. He also most likely is the author of the brilliant quip, “the capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with when the time comes.”
He is not the likely origin of the scorpion and frog story that ends with the scorpion killing the source of its potential salvation because it is “its nature.”
Professor Krugman, The world is a little more complicated than economic theory. Stick to your expertise and competitive advantage as a wise economist taught us.
You blew it when you supported Hillary over Bernie. I lost my respect for your intelligence then and there.
1
I don't think it's the tax cuts that billionaires want, they just want smaller government that is out of their way. The useful idiots in this case are the so-called Republicans who offer that. For a price of course.
People who hoard money like these billionaires have a mental illness:
Hoarding.
Their greed, a result of this hoarding illness is destroying America. Their egos will pin each against the other, while the masses suffer. We are now just another banana republic, rich, poor and corrupt
2
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man will be---
I personally would promptly resign from Soul Cycle and Equinox. No way they would get any of my money. Ross is another ancient decaying idiot who supports Trump. We have to let them hear our voices. Further, as a life long fitness person who has belonged to a range of clubs, Equinox is a hoity-toity full of itself place -- Why even bother?
And no I am not a socialist, and I will be voting for Biden. We all need a break from Trump and all the other super-passionate screamers and oppoutunists like Harris, Warren, Sanders, and the rest. Let's just have some peace, environmental protection, and new judges.
Worth a read, but I take issue with this: "I mean, if you’re a billionaire who also happens to be a racist, supporting Trump makes perfect sense: You know what you’re buying. But if you’re supporting Trump not because of his racism but despite it, because you expect him to keep your taxes low, you’re being, well, an idiot."
In 2019, anyone who supports Trump is complicit in supporting a blatantly racist agenda, i.e. is a racist themselves. There's no getting around it. Otherwise, on point. Billionaires, we see you.
1
Bravo! This is at last another example of a pointed editorial that "says it like it is". It appears the NYT is finally speaking truth to power after being rebuked on a headline that was just relaying what Trump declared in a speech, without taking into account his contradictory racist provocations.
Before his election when I said : People who vote for Trump - a bigot buffoon who played the role of a successful businessman on TV but wasn't even able to keep a casino out of bankruptcy - was either racist or stupid, often both, I would get censored. Now Krugman and Dowd are stating the obvious. But with over 40% approval rate and growing, I wonder if it isn't too late for America to recover its decency?
1
THE TERM USEFUL IDIOTS, it would seem, is used to refer to party members who are, unbeknownst to them, disdained by party leaders. The billionaires who support Trump think that he won't turn on them. How drastically mistaken they are! Trump will turn on anyone in a split second, if it suits his mood at any given point in time. In fact, I think it could be said of Trump that he's a useful idiot, who is a zombie president, spouting Fox News propaganda he watches in the Oval Office, because that's all he can handle mentally. Trump's anencephalic politics include treating people who are to be thrown away after being soiled by his snot. About Trump, I know of a room in NYC just vacated by his pal Jeff Epstein. Sentenced to remain there, Trump would be
1
Excuse me sir!!!!
One important point!
Russia had a radiation spike this past few days from a rocket malfunction.
Billionaires and Authoritarian governments already have a setup to escape immediate annihilation .
Luxurious bunkers scattered in global villages just for the well connected.
These idiots are smart in only one respect . Survival.
We “ worker/ slaves “ and elderly are a population nightmare for the billionaire class.
We are all expendable and these rich families are succeeding in altering reality as we have known it for 1000 of years.
Technology is working for billionaires not middle or low class worker/ slaves.
Your article has this point as foundational to discussion of power and wealth sir.
And yes this nightmare is only beginning. No new president or congress will truly undo what trumpism has wrought globally for America’s reputation as a moneyed leader. Sharing everything including our blood and treasure with the globe. Mute point for us. Only the debt serviced rich will come out of this revolution of white racist authoritarianism.
I truly am preparing my family for a civil war. But this war will be neighbor against neighbor just like 1930’s Europe . My neighbors have their Trump 2020 signs up already. And I am 30 miles up I 84 from Newtown Ct.
So journalists better get a little deeper than surface arguments about billionaires motives.
The only war that matters will be Trump’s war against he environment.
In America, whenever some guy was shooting his mouth off, another guy would quip, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"
The underlying sentiment was that in this land of opportunity, anyone who's smart and industrious can get rich.
But looking at our semi-literate self-proclaimed billionaire President, or Elon Musk ("I'll take Tesla public") or any number of the billionaires who are planning to live on Mars after we destroy the earth, or Gwyneth Paltrow for that matter, maybe we should now ask...
"If you're so rich, why aren't you an idiot?"
I like the old saying: "Most of the rich were born on third base and think they have hit a home run". In my experience most of the rich are not wise or smart, just lucky. This makes them useful idiots as you said.
With each passing day Donald Trump is peeling away any semblance of normalcy and tradition in this country. Republican legislators have become the 2019 version of Vichy France, whose leaders felt they had no choice but to acquiesce to the will of Hitler. Hitler chose to align himself with Mussolini and Hirohito. Trump has chosen to align himself with Putin and Kim. The similarities are chilling. Trump's assault on our environment and wildlife evokes Joni Mitchell's prophetic line "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." And the Republican party is paralyzed to stand up to its leader for fear of jeopardizing their political futures. The United States has become a dictatorship cloaked in a democracy.
1
I don't understand how anybody who identifies as Jewish can support Trump. Likewise, anyone of Spanish speaking heritage or anyone with skin that is other than white. Or anyone who believes in the founding principles of America. Or anyone with a conscience.
Is there any doubt that Trump would have appeased Hitler if he been President during WW2, any doubt that he would have palled around with the likes of Henry Ford and Charles Lindburgh? Would he have promoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Of course to all of the above. Mein Kampf is one of the only books he's ever been reported to have read.
Trump is not Hitler. But the language and tone and spirit of his tweets and rallies is evocative of the Nazis. He's unleashing ugly and dangerous forces in the United States and the world. He's making it ok to be openly racist and authoritarian and to lie and lie and lie and lie.
So, seriously, conservative Jews, Latinos and other non-white billionaires and millionaires; people with trust funds and allowances from Daddy; people with jobs; people without jobs; wake up! Vote for whoever the Democrat is, even if it ends up being the progressive Elizabeth Warren. You can handle four years of higher taxes. Then you all can vote in the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan and we can get back to hating each other in a normal healthy way.
The Left seems much more authoritarian than Trump. They routinely crack down on freedom of speech and assembly, while Big Tech silences conservative accounts exclusively. Meanwhile, people routinely conflate Trump with Hitler, confident in their accuracy despite the fact that they are allowed to speak freely without consequence.
1
Don't mean to be petty, but ponder this: Steven Ross owns the Miami Dolphins football team. Talk about losers.
1
Sadly ironic that those who could have owned the people to whom they have sold themselves out to remain incurious as to their own fate, especially since they devalued themselves enough to sell out to the lowest, not the highest bidder. Look up the word, 'kapo'
and draw your own conclusions.
Then vote.
Why should billionaires care what happens in the United States?
They can always board their private jet and fly off to somewhere else and use their wealth to but citizenship:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/countries-selling-citizenship/
Stephen Ross and his friends who are supporting Trump are not “useful idiots”. They are useful to Trump. But they are not idiots. They know what Trump is doing and they know they are helping him.
They should be shunned.
1
@Rita, so sad shunning and shaming is all Democrats are left with.
2
The term "useful idiots (UI)" is associated with Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin as a propaganda tool used effectively by master propagandists Willi Munzenberg and Otto Katz. The UI are groomed through the formation of Innocents Clubs, a club whose goal is hidden from the naive participants. For example, Otto Katz came to Hollywood in the 30's and started an Anti-Hitler League that recruited famous actors and screen writers. The real purpose was dissemination of information favorable to Stalin and the Communists.
Either Trotsky or Lenin said that UI were the first to be sent to the front line of the revolution and the first to be killed following the revolution, before they turned on you when they realized they had been tricked. Both Willi and Otto were hanged when Stalin purged the intellectuals.
"What wealth doesn’t bring is the right to let self-indulgence turn you into a useful idiot, lending aid and comfort to a movement that’s trying to destroy America as we know it."
Too late.
1
This column conjured up thoughts of another I read recently: "This civil rights lawyer shows 20 ways Trump is copying Hitler’s early rhetoric and policies", by Steven Rosenfeld. (See alternet.org) By the way, Trumps methods are not just coincidental. According to Ivanka, he read and studied Hitler.
correction...Ivana
Maybe Ross' gesture to Trump is not about getting lower taxes but more specifically about Ross wanting a favor from Trump for something that is important for one of his business ventures, something that only Trump (or the federal government) can grant?
There are always reasons for people's actions, despite the seeming idiocy of them. Like most American businessmen, I believe that Mr Ross is guilty of short term thinking. He's buying influence over the next 6 months or year and not considering the potential long term impact. Think about the environment and global warming or the rising national debt. Everyone can see the pending catastrophe but refuses to do anything meaningful to mitigate the outcome. We must find a way to change this dynamic.
Professor Krugman if you ever get pressed on a deadline try this:
You could use this column as a template for Trump’s Cabinet. In fact, the word billionaire could be left in or substituted with millionaire in some cases. An added plus by substituting the word millionaire would give the billionaires an ego boost.
Just an idea if you’re ever in a time crunch..
Truth be told, the Super Wealthy” do not want publicity or public exposure. They enjoy knowing that those who must take care of their needs know who they are, and act accordingly. Those who aspire to be seen as “Really Rich” are more likely to act out drawing attention to themselves. They have publicists who ensure that they are featured in the media outlets that cover the coming and going of people with money. No super wealthy individual would ever seek to run for public office. The Super wealthy are not going to become enmeshed in the public life of politics. It is rather gouache to dabble in the every affairs of life. American Capitalism depends on the “Super Wealthy” to act as governors on the affairs of the state. The question remains, what are the “Super Wealthy” prepared to do about The dabbler in the White House?
Don’t forget the rest of the dictum: “Vast wealth brings many privileges”, as Prof. Krugman says — yes, of course, but complete the thought: AS WELL AS MANY OBLIGATIONS. The ultra-wealthy want to be the new nobility (forgetting, perhaps, how often the nobility have been overthrown), but nobility has traditionally come with strings attached. “Noblesse oblige”, nobility obliges the noble to a certain code of magnanimity, benevolence toward his or her subjects, and the care of the realm. Those who understand these things, and find themselves in a position to exercise their acquired nobility, need to hold themselves and their peers very explicitly to this high standard, if they expect their lives of privilege to continue.
Each time I make use of a publicly funded path next to the harbor here, I look at the yachts tied up to docks and hauled out for service. I don't resent their presence or the people who can afford to own them. But, I do wonder whether the owners are thinking that they can, in a very real sense, use their navigation skills to skirt around the mess we're trying to rationalize or ignore because we're busy trying to survive.
There will be no true escape routes available to anyone should this long-planned effort succeed. Mr. Krugman and other specialists are sounding the alarm. It's a matter of how we work together to put out the fires before we suffer third degree burns.
@gary
Next time you're there, see if you can read their transoms, or see their flags. The DeVos clan of Michigan have their fleet of 10 yachts registered in the Cayman Islands. Apparently that's the nearest post to Grand Rapids. Or not.
https://www.newsweek.com/betsy-devos-cayman-islands-taxes-yacht-flag-foreign-donald-trump-america-1061960
It would be nice if the wealthy would want to participate in our society and help us make it healthier and fair as possible for all of us. By using wealth as leverage to keep people out it’s literally punching down and reveals an aspect that it is undeserved or wrongly gained.
People who have worked hard and made it in the average every day world don’t fear such aspects because their skills are what brings them value. We are valuable and our major fear is health and being disabled such that our value is impaired to function.
Also taxes. Us average folks pay around 40 to 50 percent of our earned income. Capital needs to get on the team and do the same. Income from my individual labor shouldn’t be charged more than capital that is created not by adding value through ones skills but simply through ownership of assets.
Start participating with the rest of us so we can create a decent future for all of us.
2
I think this is pretty serious. I have a sense of humor, however, I don't find much of this funny. This is beyond language games that I myself attempted to demonstrate. That said, I have your book, "End This Depression Now!" and have only to reference Chapter 10, beginning on pg. 171.
Something is very wrong with many of these pundits and talking heads, which I won't name because they know who they are.
Jorges Luis Borges wrote that when fascism migrated from Berlin to Buenos Aires, what he found even more abominable than its violence, cruelty and oppression was its deliberate promotion of idiocy.
Authoritarian regimes always have plutocratic and corporate backing, and Trump's is no exception. Since these useful idiots have traditionally enjoyed anonymity, it is absolutely incumbent upon us to keep exposing them on the slim chance that they are capable of shame. The definition of white supremacy can't be limited to vocal bigotry. Wads of cash can be just as violent and oppressive as a bloated military machine or a dude with an assault rifle.
"It" not only can happen here, it's happening here now. What else to call the mass ICE roundups of poultry plant workers and the disappearances and imprisonments of migrant children, but a pogrom? All minorities, really all non-rich humans, are in danger under this regime. It's not just animals that they're removing from the endangered species list. They've tacitly removed whole swathes of Homo sapiens from civil rights protections because they're viewed as sub-human.
Just look at the grotesquely grinning Trumps holding the orphaned El Paso baby and you get the sense that Trump is actually giving his occult thumbs-up to freelance violence. It is getting to feel like a real anomaly when whole days go by without another mass shooting in America.
Trump and all his enablers are making us physically and emotionally sick unto death.
5
I am a Jew. That said, Pope Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas were on to something in their categorization of what are known as the Seven Deadly Sins. These are not "sins" in the sense of behaviors, but rather attitudes about life that lead a person into committing mortal sins (the theological version of felonies). I present here the sins (thank you Hieronymus Bosch for the ordering). Note that each and every one of them is a highly accurate description of Mr. Indecency who resides in the White House when he's not spending the public's money on his visits to his golf properties.
1. Gluttony--not just eating but a lot of appetites.
2. Sloth--too lazy to understand his job.
3. Lust--need we elaborate?
4. Pride--it's all about him or it doesn't exist.
5. Anger (Wrath)--Tweety Pie.
6. Envy--nobody can be better than him.
7. Greed--There ain't no such thing as too much.
OK America, is this who you are? Is this what makes for a good leader? The time to take a stand is now.
11
The only good thing for me is that I am much younger than Trump, thus probably he will die before I do, he who dies last wins!!
Come on, Dr. Krugman: billionaires gotta stick together. They gotta scratch each others' backs. So of course they gotta fundraise for the billionaire-in-chief.
If Dumb Donny wasn't a billionaire before he got elected, he probably is now, given how much his DC hotel and other hotels are raking in from official government business. (So how about showing your tax returns now, DD? Now you can prove you're a billionaire--nothing to be ashamed of anymore.)
And just keep this in mind: billionaires are a minority, so they have a right to protection under our system, like other minorities. And since their identities basically are their money, then their billions have a right to protection from the socialist government that wants to redistribute their wealth (their selves) to the 99%.
But don't forget the millionaires! They are all wanna be-billionaires. Isn't that what the American Dream is all about? You can be given millions by your daddy and then you swindle--I mean, deal your way up to become a billionaire. From millions to billions! It doesn't alliterate like "rags to riches," but it has an internal rhyme.
Finally, at least we can boast of one thing this country is manufacturing more of than any other country: billionaires! (That really is a gross national product.)
Heady times, heady times.
The Billionaires who support Trump see him as a ‘useful idiot’ to promulgate a plutocracy that will protect their wealth for many generations. The Jewish ones also see him as a protector of Israel, and ignore the fact that Krugman is correct in pointing out that when bigotry runs free, Jews are next in line for prosecution.
History will not be kind to those who supported Trump - but those that do have their reasons, however misplaced they are.
3
Every time someone still claims that Trump is somehow anti-semitic, I just giggle and think how blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome that person obviously is.
Trump, the guy whose family is half Jewish. Whose best foreign buddy is the PM of Israel. Who appointed several Jews into his cabinet. It's just funny. There are many good reasons to hate Trump, but this is not one of them.
Trump may actually be racist towards Jews, but then it is obviously a positive racism. Hard to see how positive racism is going to lead to persecution.
1
@GS
Well, yes. There are some useful Semites. But there are also a lot of useful antisemites, who vote.
Good people on both sides.
Finally it has been said.
The king's useful fools? I would beg to differ. What is useful about destruction of democracy? Driving the population to homelessness and crime? The demise of our country is not based on the ignorance of the masses but that of our top "earners". Perhaps better called "burners" than "earners"? The wealthy idiots are dark and unable to show judgement, mercy, or compassion. Wish we could ban them from our country.
Why would Mr. Ross support a president whose base hates Mr. Ross and who would kill Mr. Ross if they could?
1
The larger question is not why the billionaires are idiots, they are simply driven by blind greedy self-interest, but why lower income citizens, who vastly outnumber the billionaires at the voting booth, are idiots in voting against their own self-interest, believing that Trump was going to give them better health care and lower the national debt.
They believe lies on Fox News, Facebook and believe the billionaire funded Trump campaign. Remember the voters who said “I don’t like Obamacare but I like the Affordable Care Act”?
Between these idiots and the incompetence of the Democratic Party, I fear we are doomed to another 4 years of Trump. The democratic candidates are numerous yet weak for a national election. The democratic party has zero skill in communication strategy: they couldn’t articulate the reasons, specifically, to support Obamacare when Obama was trying to launch it, TPP, the Iran deal, or the Paris Climate Accord. They are complete communication failures.
Then there is the trickle down useful idiot. Yesterday the Mooch was on tv lamenting the direction of the country under trump. He was afraid for the country, or so he said. The last question posed to him was if the election was tomorrow would he vote for trump or Biden? He responded trump.
1
So it would seem that Mr Ross, in order to make a buck, would sell the rope that would be used to make his noose . . . . So long it is a kosher one, he would not mind . . .
Trumps only philosophy is himself. I don't see him caring one way or the other about the nature of his political ideas- he really has none as long as he can enrich himself and stroke his ego.
The useful idiot is Trump himself- at least in terms of those who really want to impose white nationalist rule and believe in it as a political goal.
Paul is neither Voltaire nor Marx. Interesting how the rich get his goat.
How rich is too rich? Ugliest possible culture is to let the rich get richer without any social obligations in spreading their wealth.
Are American rich the ugliest moralistic people of the world?
Probably.
I'd like to contrast the Putin's oligarchs and Trump's extremely wealthy supporters.
Putin's oligarch's wealth comes mainly from outside of Russia. As so, the great income disparity between the poor and the oligarchs, in Russia, does not significantly impact the oligarchs' wealth.
Not so, here in the US. Take Stephen Ross as an example. What happens when the masses can't afford membership in Equinox and Soul Cycle?
Yes, they are idiots.
3
Paul Krugman makes a number of important points about the foolishness of Stephen Ross, a smart billionaire who supports Donald Trump and who happens to be Jewish.
The most important point is the lesson of history and logic that a persecutor of blacks and brown-skinned people, who also is a hero to white supremacists, will ultimately turn his malignant attention to Jewish Americans.
There is another reason why Mr. Ross should be concerned.
Everyone who attended the lavish fundraiser Stephen Ross hosted in the Hamptons and who also is a billionaire (there probably were not many) likes to feel special. If a billionaire’s wealth – unlike that of Donald Trump – was created by the vision and hard work of the billionaire, admiration by his or her peer group is expected and received.
As it becomes clearer that Donald Trump’s most ardent admirers are thugs with twisted minds and automatic weapons, the billionaires who are not close to Trump will assume that Ross is merely a lapdog of the racist president. Because Ross is also Jewish, it will be assumed that the lapdog is a coward.
Stephen Ross will be avoided and ridiculed behind his back. It will be a self-inflicted humiliation.
What the "useful idiot" billionaires don't seem to get is that they will finally be laid to rest in a cemetery full of Average Joes. The difference is that Joe's relatives will visit his gravesite even months after his passing whereas the relatives of the useful idiot will be fighting over his last will and testament.
1
The majority of Jews in Germany didn’t believe Hitler would hurt them until it was too late. The rest is history and, sadly, we are seeing the beginning of history to repeat itself yet again.
Many of the rich believe money can save them even from autocrats. Trump is devoid of any real ideology, which allows any group of people to see themselves and their set of beliefs in whatever he projects to the outside world.
What you can always buy more of, no matter how much money you have, is control over others. More thingees won't motivate the super rich, but more power will. And if power is your goal, fascists have developed a model and belief system just for you.
I'm glad you pointed out that Jews were on the "victim list," but not immediately. From "replacement theory" to the history of the Third Reich is not much of a stretch. "The Woman in Gold," which depicts the vitimization of a rich, "assimilated" Austrian Jewish family, "The Gold of Rome" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_of_Rome) depicting the Nazis taking gold from the Roman Jewish community, but sending them off to the camps anyway, and Himmler's proposed 1944 "deal" not to send 100,000 Hungarian Jews to the camps in exchange for 50,000 American trucks, all speak to the wisdom of not trusting bigots--especially people who don't even take the care of hiding their murderous antisemitic intent.
There was an old saying, "The rich are always with us." I guess today's rich are stupid, as stupid (an obscene) as that photograph Melania circulated of her holding the El Paso shooting orphan while her husband, whose incontinent words were put into action by the shooter, giving a thumbs-up.
Krugman is ignoring that some Jewish billionaires like Stephen Ross and Sheldon Adelson may be playing the useful idiot for Trump because of his support of a right-wing extremist like Netanyahu and his policies in Israel. Their tolerance of Trump's racism and bigotry is probably an excellent example of single-issue politics at the 0.01% level.
6
The only way the ultra wealthy will ever be brought down a peg or two will be through taxation. Sweden has the highest tax rates in the world and still has a lot of billionaires. The same is true in Japan and Denmark who also have very high tax rates. This doesn't even address the numbers of multi millionaires in these countries.
It's possible for the wealthiest to pay their fair share and still remain rich. Is it asking to much for someone who makes 500 million to make 450 million or 400 million so that others can live a decent life? It seems like a no brainer unless you are greedy, self centered, and don't care about your fellow human beings.
4
The American love affair with the rich is an old story. One of the typical arguments for supporting Trump in the last election was that he was smart , and the proof for this was that he was rich ! The idea that the rich are different, that they are smarter , more beautiful and deserve celebrity status is very much ingrained in the american psychology. This is not the case in France, Germany, Japan or any other country I can think of.
The rich of america tend to believe their own mythology, they tend to be educated in the same schools, vacation in the same places and support the same charities and rarely accept criticism from the outside of their circles. The protestant ethic that treats wealth as reward for having worked harder than anyone else is also deeply ingrained in the american way of thinking.
What the rich don't like admitting is that their wealth largely came from a team effort dependent on highly educated researchers, middle class voters willing to go along with tax cuts for the rich, workers willing to work without salary increases for the past several decades, people willing to work without health insurance and yes...immigrants willing to do jobs no one else will do. The truth is that it is not that they are smarter, but that we as americans have for too long made heroes of them, which they are clearly not and have not paid enough attention to the daily struggle that working class american endure. Hopefully the next election will see Trump as he is!
7
The support for Trump among the country's richest families will, I think, end up being a tipping point. It illustrates in stark terms just how little many rich people care about "the rest of us." So, why should OUR government be doing everything it can to make their already privileged economic position better, at the cost of the 99%? When Dems regain control, and they will, there will be a reckoning. Can't happen soon enough.
8
The history of American politics is a giant pendulum. At times is swings in small arcs from left to right. As of late though, the arcs have been wide.
How else can you explain Regan/Bush1 to Clinton to Bush2 to Obama to Trump?
The swings are what are killing us (the United States). The momentum of each swish from the arc's extreme is vicious. The speed and force alone are powerful enough to change history.
It is why Democrats need to embrace a 20+ year plan. It will slow down the swing to a point where peaks are narrower and the swings much less forceful.
I suggest that where Biden nominated and selected a good VP along with stating that he would only serve 4 years, it might set the stage for continuation in 2024. And then that president could pick as VP a candidate that could win in 2032, and so on.
While all are looking at just this next election, the long game is in fact a longer game. Let us play it and not just sit idly by watching it play itself out.
3
Trump has ordered a delay in the tariffs, but only on certain items. I guess he will wait until they pour money into his campaign and then the final decision will be made.
5
“Pro-market” candidates like Warren? What a joke. She wants to commandeer the American economy to be in line with all her misguided woke impulses. Also, all this talk of authoritarian impulses by this president are odd. When is the last time an authoritarian was pro the right to bear arms, lowered everyone’s taxes and slashed regulations thereby reducing the power of the federal government over which he supposedly seeks unilateral control. It all makes no sense unless you contort logic as is the case with this op/ed.
Good morning Bob!
Do you have anything besides Fox News talking points to contribute?
If so, I’d love to hear!
If not, why bother? We’ve heard the fact-free fantasies of Fox and Friends on endless loop since Trump descended the golden escalator.
Warren is substantially to the right of Nixon. America does not have, and has not had, any candidate for high office who could be accurately described as “left” or even very “progressive” for generations.
Yes this includes Bernie, who in his wildest honeymoon fantasies in that suite in Moscow dreamed of a Euro-style safety net which achieves measurably better health, productivity, cost, and any other market-based outcomes against which you could measure it, than the profit-first approach to those sectors currently in play here in America.
16
@Bob
Slashed regulations to reduce the power of the federal government? Trump is an avowed enemy of the free press and has called for laws against it. He is also in favor of laws against abortion, laws requiring 'biblical literacy' in the public schools, and laws against protest rights around the capital, to name only a few.
Just to clarify his position on the role of an activist government.
1
@John Killian
I don't really care where Nixon stood on issues. He's long gone. In the here and now, anyone who wants to forgive a trillion dollars in freely assumed debt thereby forcing that debt on society is out of their mind and disqualified.
People's thinking doesn't change much. Our religion and attitude is still rooted in Dickensian England. Wealthy people are afraid that the poor, especially the nonwhite poor, will mob them and take their belongings. The Trumpian poor somehow feel the same. They want security more than anything else.
2
Trump will never directly go after the wealthy other than tweeting delusions and insults about anyone he believes crosses him. I said “directly” because he actually is already acting against their business interests. If the market and economy tank, some extremist billionaires may be willing to swallow it. We’ll see where the rest come out.
All we get for enabling these people is a public sector that denies that socialism is its raison d'etre.
Jeez your right again of this swing of republican trickle down economics and racism that comes along with it. And the environmental ignorance and denial.I have never voted republican in my life having made my own judgments, as they have been on this path since the 70's so now all these groups ask for money to save the environment and stop this authoritarian rule and i say in the end with guys like Stephen Ross in bed with Donald Trump my 25 bucks might well do better in my pocket to fund my next night out.
1
"For the love of money is the root of all evil . . ."
3
We need a rebirth of the “enlightened self interest” our founders envisioned.
2
@Paul Habib
G.B. Shaw - The lack of money is the root of all evil.
Take your pick of quotes.
So you are a billionaire and you have a few million burning a hole in your pocket. You can do anything you want with it. You decide a little influence buying might amuse you. Donald Trump, give him a bunch of your money. You can trust him. He likes other people's money. Such are the sufferings of a billionaire.
7
This begs the question that if America's organized religions are too frightened or unwilling to stand up to a man who trafficks in the Seven Deadly Sins and speak out against the wreckless lies, prejudice, corruption, cruelty, racism, violence, threats, xenophobia, conspiracies, and false accusations he peddles, what are they even organized for? Cash? Power? Prestige? Seriously. If they can't even mobilize their members to demand freedom for imprisoned toddlers, it seems to me they forget to read their instruction manual.
6
@Gary McKechnie, Well said neighbor
America’s business is business. The uneducated racist white, and the hypocritical evangelicals are for the most part, trump supporters. But what about the true educated conservative republicans? Well as long as their taxes are lowered, and policies of deregulation help their businesses, then they’ll put up with his racist , divisive message. America’s business is business.
6
I wish there was a way to get more people to pay attention to Paul Krugman's opinions.
6
“It’s just money; it’s made up.
Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don’t have to kill each other just to get something to eat”
- John Tuld -
From the movie Margin Call
Where was this Krugman v2.0 four years ago when a few well placed NY Times columnists could have made all the difference in leveling the playing field of the primary race between Clinton's DNC machine and Sanders insurgent campaign?
All in for Clinton. That's where. Now you sound like a Sanders speech writer. What changed?
It's amazing Trump has so mesmerized his followers. For example: he blasts undocumented and those abusing the asylum laws, but what about those who are paying lower than minimum wage to semi-slaves? Where's the crackdown there?
3
After 45 is re-elected. Very possible the rich may be his next target. Using his faithful army to tear down their walls.
His goal is power and wealth.
Take it all and be King.
Who could stop him then?
Nobody, as He will have Law and Order to command.
Oh Come All Ye Faithful.
3
A letter I had intended to send to Prime Minister Netanyahu after Trump’s election victory in 2016, but never got around to sending,
which I think now might have been better addressed to a number of Jewish American billionaires:
Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu,
As an American who for the last 60 years has prepared for bed by saying a prayer for America and Israel, please allow me to extend some advice to you concerning your relationship with America’s newly elected President.
According to what I read in the newspapers, you and the President have a close relationship and have reached some understandings regarding the next steps to be taken in attempting to secure a final peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Prime Ministers of Israel -- an endangered country if there ever was one; and Jews around the world -- an endangered people if there ever was one -- have little choice but to seek the support and approval of American Presidents.
This is all to the good, but it also has me worried.
A friendly real estate magnate, snake-oil salesman and reality TV star who achieved his Presidency by non-stop lying to the American people is hardly a man who can be trusted.
One has to assume that much the same treatment he has accorded to the American people is now lying in wait for you and the people of Israel.
Please act accordingly.
With great admiration and best thanks for your devoted efforts on behalf of Israel and America.
Stanton
2
Dr. K seems to be pleading directly to the 1%ers themselves to change, to stop being useful idiots for their own benefit. But a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush to the Big Dogs.
You can't teach old dogs new tricks. And we have little or no power over their personal attitudes and behaviors. A NYTimes column won't have much impact either, no matter how well-written or true.
We do, however, have a democratically elected government, the best tool in the toolkit for improving our lives somewhat.
We need more efficient, effective, intelligent, and ethical governance at all levels. Good laws, consistently enforced, make for a decent, healthy society.
Human nature may be inherently corrupt or corruptible, but it can be controlled for everyone's benefit. We have allowed our nation too much slack, too much latitude. Our ideals are hight, but we've taken a bad path. We'll never get where we want to go this way.
Consequently, money and power and vanity rule the day. Notice, if you will, the arrogance in Mr. Ross' face; you can't teach that -- or ignore it. He's got juice, and he knows it. You don't, Jane Q. Citizen, and you should know it.
Sane goals for society can best be achieved by a strong, sound government, not by allowing more freedom to get away with murder in the marketplace and in the forum. This freedom to be cunning and rapacious is killing us. There ought to be a law against this.
3
amusing to read billionaires becoming a bit 'poorer'.....
classic 'all things are relative', i guess.
1
Terrific. Good to hear some more alarm bells ringing. It is not a false sense of concern. Dr. Krugman; I had a thought today about why Trump hates immigrants of so many ethnic groups and I think I reasoned it out, and it is close to what you are writing here. Consider Trump's origin as a Billionaire in New York and his likely herd he ran with. The rich of course. An important player in this is Kellyanne Conway who once consulted for former County Executive Steve Levy on Long Island where Levy began a crusade against immigrants claiming they were a burden on County finance. Following that, bigotry grew on Long Island and a Hispanic man was murdered by a gang of white youths, followed now by a police focus on MS13 that was disproportionately advertised nationally. Now that the Trump Wall st Administration has given massive tax cuts to his class of wealthy he still hobnobs with as late as Friday, I believe his entire anti-immigrant hatred is a ploy to reduce the total population of poor people in our nation because their burden on programs, which was a long term complaint of the useful idiots is reducing the wealth of Americans thus reducing profits of the wealthy. they don't like taxes that pay for their defense and services the little people pay for and they don't want their taxes raised again because of the burdens of supporting immigrants of all kinds. It is institutionalized bigotry with dollar signs. The rich like America wealthy. That is "The Wall".
1
Note to NYT and other legitimate media sources in the run up to the 2020 election: The free press is in serious jeopardy from Trumpism. Promote false equivalence to advance the perception of being balanced, or reach for eyeballs by creating a horse race, at your peril.
4
Since the 1980s there is an alliance between those millionnaires (or Big Business) and the Religious Right which is now controlling the Republican Party. The millionnaires provide the money and the Religious Right provide the votes. In exchange when the Religious Right through the Republican Party are in power they provide to those millionnaires what they want: deregulation, tax cuts, pro Big Business judges,... In exchange Big Business look the other way when the Republican are implementing their theocratic agenda: anti-abortion laws, bathroom laws against transgenders, money through voucher to religious schools, weakening protection against minorities,...
And it is working just fine for both side. Of course there is the ugly side, racism, anti Semitism ("Globalists" being the code word for Jews as "cosmopolitan" was the code word in the USSR of Joseph Stalin). But who cares? It is all about the money.
2
Terrific. Good to hear some more alarm bells ringing. It is not a false sense of concern.
Dr. Krugman; I had a thought today about why Trump hates immigrants of so many ethnic groups and I think I reasoned it out, and it is close to what you are writing here.
Consider Trump's origin as a Billionaire in New York and his likely herd he ran with. The rich of course. An important player in this is Kellyanne Conway who once consulted for former County Executive Steve Levy on Long Island where Levy began a crusade against immigrants claiming they were a burden on County finance. Following that, bigotry grew on Long Island and a Hispanic man was murdered by a gang of white youths, followed now by a police focus on MS13 that was disproportionately advertised nationally.
Now that the Trump Wall st Administration has given massive tax cuts to his class of wealthy he still hobnobs with as late as Friday, I believe his entire anti-immigrant hatred is a ploy to reduce the total population of poor people in our nation because their burden on programs, which was a long term complaint of the useful idiots is reducing the per capita wealth of Americans thus reducing profits of the wealthy. they don't like taxes that pay for their defense and services the little people pay for and they don't want their taxes raised again because of the burdens of supporting immigrants of all kinds. It is institutionalized bigotry with dollar signs. The rich like America wealthy. That is "The Wall".
1
This may be the most important column ever by this author.
3
The difference with before is that the ultra rich can just buy passports and property in many places. Want to live in any of the 28 (soon 27) EU? Buy a Maltese passport for $1.3 million (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/business/dealbook/malta-offers-citizenship-and-all-its-perks-for-a-price.html), same with Caribbean “investment” passports etc.
They can just pack up and go when the country falls apart because of hate propaganda and destructive policies.
Or when climate change makes it unbearable.
These are the last people who should be running our country. And yet here we are, at the mercy of what the GOP financiers want next.
3
It is possible that all this anxiety about Trump's penchant for authoritarian rule is just a "chicken little" phase we are going through.
If it were true, members of various law enforcement entities would be behaving badly. You could imagine children being stripped from their parents' arms and kept in cages. Some would even die. That is such a ridiculous thought.
If it were true, you could imagine our Justice Department engaged in supporting and enabling authoritarian rules being passed down from the President. Ha!
If it were true, the White House would simply ignore requests for information about all manner of issues from Congress. Can you imagine?
So, stop with the all the hyperbole please!!!!
(excuse me, someone is knocking on the door)...
3
I hate to call a Nobel Prize winning/deserving economist "naive," but Dr. Krugman is being overly generous in his supposition of the motives of wealthy Jews who support Trump. After the Epstein affair and Putin's well known M.O. for turning people to his own uses, we have to re-evaluate everything. We should be very suspicious of any Jew, any African-American, any Latino or any woman who openly supports Trump. Anyone that self-hating is probably in the same position as Epsteins young masseuses. Used and abused. Organized crime is not known for discussing issues on the merits.
2
Your observations about the rich are well said, a lot of this is money as a yardstick, and yes, they want to be adored as these brilliant "job creators", even though with their wealth being based in stock price they decimate jobs in the name of shareholder value more than create new jobs. There is something else, though, 233 years ago the founders of this country threw out the landed aristocracy, and in the time since the rich have been trying to recreate it. The ante bellum south was a de facto aristocracy, the 19th century robber barons certainly saw themselves as the equivalent of the Lord and Ladies set, and with the rise of the Ayn Rand/Koch brothers right it is clearly evident. Not only do they want adoriation, but they want a world where any benefits the rest of us receive come from them, not the government, where they decide who is worthy of their help and support, where they decide who flourishes and who doesn't. The 'useful idiots' of Trumps base, the blue collar doofuses, support this view, that business is the answer, that the rich are rich because they are smart, they deserve their rewards because "they create jobs" (yeah, in china and for robots...) and any attempt to tax them, any attempt to reign in the greed or their power, is 'class warfare' or 'socialism'. Not that they really understand noblesse oblige, though, Carnegie spent the last years of his life trying to give his money away, Kochs et all give a little away, but continue to concentrate it.
1
Pf. Krugman - Thank You. As always you make this newspaper whole.
2
I read your column all the time. The use of the Orwellian language is striking, menacing.
1
@Rothman (who thinks Bernie’s time passed when it ya sufficient to look at a donor map the Times printed last week to see he MAY be mistaken :-))
I am delighted to hear your irrefutable prognosis.
I just want to ask, who do you think you are?
And to point you to the map indicating the dominance of the number of Bernie’s donors over anyone else running in the Democratic ticket the Times printed recently. It was painted blue (except two tiny areas around South Bend and El Paso). Didn’t look like Bernie’s time has passed. Maybe the time of people who think like you (with no ideas of their own whatsoever) is passed. What do you think?
1
you've bit the nail on the head..!
2
As a Jewish American I want to thank you Dr. Krugman for being straight forward and unafraid to call out Mr. Ross, and other Jews who are obviously blind to their own history. I find Mr. Ross’s financial support appallingly selfish, short sighted and a danger to Jews everywhere. I am personally embarrassed by his actions as I am regularly by Secretary Mnuchin’s.
In street terms...there ain’t nothin worse than someone who forgets where they came from. Shame on them!
4
To the rich behaving greedily and selfishly: Dr. Carl Sagan, the American scientist put it best. We individual humans, on an astronomical time scale, we are born, live out our fleeting lives like fruit flies, and then vanish forever. Is it worth sacrificing your honor and good name so you can temporarily bestride your tiny fraction of a tiny cosmic dot?
1
The US pharmaceutical industry comes up with a cure for Ebola no thanks to Elizabeth Warren.
1
Your comments on how little impact Republican tax cuts actually have on the lifestyle of a billionaire reminded me of this famous exchange between Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes and John Huston's evil Noah Cross:
Jake Gittes : How much are you worth?
Noah Cross : I have no idea. How much do you want?
Jake Gittes : I just wanna know what you're worth. More than 10 million?
Noah Cross : Oh my, yes!
Jake Gittes : Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What could you buy that you can't already afford?
Noah Cross : The future, Mr. Gittes! The future.
1
Let's be fair. The wealthy (even if they are also idiots of sort) at least have a rational belief behind their support of Trump. They will feed their neurotic need to be wealthier yet. But Trump won't be elected on the basis of the wealthiest voting for him. He may be elected because the very people who stand to lose the most, including some or all of those who receive their Medicare and Social Security will indeed vote for for him. That likely fact is far more mind boggling than billionaires supporting him. Not enough of us want to acknowledge that many of our very own friends, relatives and neighbors will make the actual difference if Trump is re elected.
Yes indeed, the people known as the Middle Class will ultimately decide their own fate and that of the country. The billionaires will, of course, use their influence , once again, to persuade the MC to vote against itself. It's worked well to this point, why not again?
2
Speaking of petty, this article embodies the term. The threat to America is not some kook with a gun and a cheap theory that embarrasses people to admit to. The heyday of racist group action is long gone in the US, as Sanders likes to point out; America Nazis once held a rally in front of an image of Washington not in Berlin, but in a filled to capacity Madison Square Garden. How quickly we forget just how far we have come.
The threat to America is what is too easily taken as normal: people believing the cable news and the various malarkey tossed around by the major papers on both sides. And speaking for my Liberal side, you have to have never heard of the 50s 60s 70s & 80s (or the CIA) to buy into the cable news parade of rotating Generals and high falutin Intelligence Org employees brought aboard as experts, to tell us about how Russia is the enemy and Venezuela's elected president is a dictator, this as the NYT dares Americans to not stand up for people like Clapper & Mueller. I suggest people read Tim Weiner's Pulitzer winning "Legacy of Ashes" (2007) and see just how consistently wrong entities like the CIA have been - for decades.
What threatens America is not some few radicals with really ugly minds, it's the mass conformity to the manufacturing of consent by big institutions. This article is a classic of maintaining the status quo by distraction, as Thomas Pynchon said, "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers."
1
Amen, amen! So tired of the uber wealthy wanting to have their cake and eat it too with regards to Trump. They are driven by utter selfishness, willing to look the other way with regard to all of Trump's utter disregard for anything truly presidential in manner or deed. How many times can they pat their overstuffed wallets and take solace that it is worth supporting this horrid man?
Not to mention, the destruction of our planet by Trump and cronies! EPA : useless! Endangered Species : Gone! Global Warming : Rampant!
3
Krugman might be right, or maybe not. Possible benefits of supporting autocrats are hard to determine. Industrialists and scientists did well in their association with Hitler. Many rocket scientists found excellent jobs after the war, Werner Von Braun, for example. Porsche, Farber and many other industrialists did just fine. Being close to immense power can provide a huge advantage in business and over rich peers. It’s the status advantage some people gain through climbing mountains; how does one top, “Well that’s impressive, but I summited Everest.” Jews rarely do well in associations with autocrats. Too many Jews in 1930’s Germany wrongly felt their wealth and social position protected them from the onslaught. Trump having no loyalty to anyone should make any of his collaborators nervous.
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Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.
They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.
--FSF
"We've hired him!"
Franz von Papen, after Hitler became chancellor.
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It's time the wealthy take their turn in the barrel. We launch scorn -- deservedly so -- upon the MAGA hats for voting against their own interests. Many are driven by anger and fear, some seem to be driven by racism, others are lashing out over their current life situation over which they seem to have no control. Some just bought the lies they were sold.
But the obscenely wealthy would still be obscenely wealthy even if a Democratic president levied a massive tax hike upon them. Instead, they got in bed with a racist, admitted sexual abuser, climate change denier and aspiring dictator, so they could hoard money they don't even need. Without a single concern for the consequences their actions have on anyone else, including the planet itself.
Sociopaths.
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On power: 20 years ago I had a front row seat watching a power-driven zealot--a multi-lingual CEO with the "right" breeding--take down a 50,000 employee, global company in less than 90 days. His guiding principle was GET ME TO DAVOS with no other plan or platform. And so, he was played by a bigger company, who led him on and then cut bait. And it all played out on the front pages of the NYT and WSJ. With apologies to Thomas More: "It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for DAVOS?"
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These Trumpian times are exasperating and so depressing. The sooner Mother Earth reverts back to the plants and animals, the better Mother Earth will be. Enough!
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"Orc" Krugman, conspiracy theorist?
As Jonah Goldberg pointed out awhile back, our current president isn't disciplined enough to conspire.
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And don't forget or ignore, Mr. Krugman, the "useful idiots" now in ascendancy in our federal courts, from the U.S. Supreme Court on down. The one thing that the Roberts Court has been very consistent on is its "pro business" and "anti individual rights" holdings.
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I usually agree with Professor Krugman but this time I think he got it backwards. I think Ross and his billionaire friends view Trump as the useful idiot, feeding his working class worshipers the rantings and ravings of that crazy uncle that shows up at Thanksgiving and frightens the children, so that his acolytes happily support policies that hurt them but help the billionaires.
And, in this case, I'd have to agree with Ross. While Trump might dearly love to be an authoritarian dictator, he's got the attention span of a confused gerbil, so implementation of any grand schemes will be difficult. Of course, we should all be worried with the confused gerbil's finger on the nuclear button but I guess Ross believes there are enough fail-safes in place to protect us. But should the unthinkable happen, Mr. Ross's billions will not likely protect him. Cold comfort.
The phrase “useful idiots” belongs to Stalin who exploited the naive idealism of well-heeled Westerners to carry out his genocidal policies. People like the liberal journalists in 1933 who refused to publish reports of the man-made famine in Ukraine for fear it would tarnish the image of the socialist utopia were definitely “useful idiots”. I don’t support Trump but Prof. Krugman’s use of this phrase has the unfortunate consequence of evoking the ideological blindness of the left. And I disagree that Elizabeth Warren is a “reasonable” pro-market, pro-capitalism candidate. She may have started this way but listening to her “soak the rich” rhetoric in the debates, I hear echoes of some of the worst periods in human history. Politics, as Prof. Krugman is no doubt aware, is as much about rhetoric and language of persuasion as it is about specific proposals. The rhetoric coming from the Democratic Party today recalls those “useful idiots” of the last century.
There is no independent media Paul.
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If you look into history, Paul, you find that those people ALWAYS get what's coming to them. The majority are willing to put up with the gap between classes but only so far and for so long. When the "useless idiots" wake up to the realization that their future has been stolen and handed over to the superrich, there will be a reckoning. And no one will be protected from it.
Paul, I think you are right to call them useful idiots. But also the billionaires, even with their tax cut gifts, still have the most to lose under an incompetent , failed businessman like Trump. When has Trump been right in business? How many 5 time bankrupt businessman would you make CEO of your own company? W was also a failed businessman and in the end he nearly destroyed the global economy after 7 years in office (deregulation of Wall Street and the Banks, tax cuts x2 and deficit funded Wars x2). Give Trump 4yrs more to try and destroy the global economy and he may succeed where W failed. The billionaires should look back to 2008 when the Dow lost 44% thanks to the republicans and the rich trusting a loser as president.
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Apparent self interest may explain billionaires reveling in the latest tax cuts but the larger problem is millions of useful less than wealthy idiots voting against theirs. How do you look at Trump’s policies on labor, health care, the environment, tariffs and taxes and conclude he’s helping you if you’re not wealthy? Can people really be so uninformed that they believe that Consumer protection is a bad idea? Sadly the answer is yes.
Now, don’t get me started on the useful idiots in churches across the country supporting the least Christian leader we have ever had.
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excellent. thank you.
Many Germans in the 1930`s thought that Hitler was an unhinged clown . But holding their noses they voted him into power because they were afraid of the communists and wanted a stronger and more assertive Germany . I am a Cuban American that came into this Country in the 1960`s after Castro took power . Many Cuban Americans support Trump . The explanation according to a good Cuban American friend is the trauma of Castro . The lesson they took from their traumatic experiences was not the damage that an autocrat like Castro did to their homeland . The lesson they took apparently is that anyone that opposes Trump is a communist sympathizer . One of my in-laws is an Austrian born Jew that left Austria as a young child because of Hitler . Years ago I made a commentary to him about how much I liked an Austrian restaurant in New York I had just visited . He told me that he did not know anything about Austria because he left as a child and would be dead if he had remained there . I felt a little embarrassed at the time . You guessed it , he also supports Trump .
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@Bernardo Izaguirre MD, Cuban Americans in Miami have always voted Republican. Most were elites fleeing Cuba after Castro—the poor stayed behind because they were poor and wanted to make a better world—and are as devoted to their money now as they were then.
Cuba was corrupted by American domination before Castro. Organized crime, gambling, smuggling, leaving the poor, well, poor. Same old same old. Rich get richer on the backs of the poor. The wannabe-rich mimic the rich thinking they’ll get richer. It never works.
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@EarthlingThe way you paint Cuba before Fidel Castro is an oversimplification . The many Cubans that left the island , some by rowing in the hight seas , were not all part of an economic elite .
Putin supports whiteness, has disdain for gays and women. Those who want to make America white again, to keep suppression in place, want to emulate him. It is why so many are cozying up to Putin. He is their role model. And you are right that they are not using any part of their cerebral cortex.
It has been amazing to learn how many really bad people there are, and that have crawled out from under their rocks.
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I have always had the idea that if the Jews in Germany had organized into armed militias Hitler might never been Fuhrer.
And yet my Jewish friends think I’m odd because I own a firearm - which I bought after Trump’s first year in office.
Better to have one and not need it than need it and not have one.
Mr Krugman's reminder that Jew's either defend their belief in human dignity by standing shoulder to shoulder with the powerless our invite yet another epic disaster befalling themselves and their progeny is timely. Secular or not, willingly or not, knowingly or not, wealthy Jews (like Mr Ross) who aren't agents in the moral cause of building a world that's safe for all human beings regardless of their skin colour, creed, or material success, are beneath contempt.
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Well said, sir.
Right now I am very sad and don't like the human race very much.
You don't vote, you don't get.
Republican hatred destroys our past. Republican greed destroys our future.
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Agree with everything said here. I would recommend that whenever djt's sir name is used that it be preceded by the adjective republican. To do otherwise separates the racist djt from the racist republicans. The republican southern strategy certainly needs to be expressed on a regular, repetitive basis.
Vote against republicans in 2020.
I think that the billionaires believe that if we do get to a full fascist state they will be able to flee to their private island or other offshore sanctuary.
So they just don't care.
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That there are Jews who support Trump is among the more heartbreaking realities of this moment.
There is no shortage of idiots, useful or otherwise. There is a huge shortage of leaders with a plan to correct the many inequities built in to the way our government works and the people who the government actually works for.
There is one exception, however, and that is Elizabeth Warren. She has plans for fixing the structure of government, which are clear and specific and she knows who the government should be working for. And it is not the useful idiots that surround Trump and support him, financially and otherwise.
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Hear hear, Paul! Read "When Democracies Die" for the case histories on this. The rich and powerful cozy up to dictators in the hope that they can tame them and use them for their own purposes. But the dictators turn the tables on them. Both Hitler and Mussolini were basically invited into power by establishment conservative forces (the Junkers for Hitler, the King of Italy for Mussolini).
And when it comes to anti-Semitism, don't forget the prescient words of Chris Rock in one of his stand-up comedy specials. He was talking about anti-Muslim sentiment and pointed out that anti-Jewish sentiment would not be far behind: "That's a train that always runs on time!"
I'm old enough to know these people have always been around. Remember Scrooge McDuck and Tiny Tim? Those weren't stories that cropped up because the rich had a conscience. The difference has been that they kept quiet because they were ashamed. The rich threw crumbs to the poor because they knew it was a way to keep themselves in power. In essence they were silent and kept to themselves.
Now people flaunt everything and the rich are no different. They've got to be out there exposing their gratuitous wealth and poor taste. Donald Trump is the king of stupid and tacky. He'e embarrassing but he's perfect for a country as acquisitional as the US. He's a our mascot.
We need to remember our values.
With the decimation of the middle class I have no idea how that is going to happen.
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I think his billionaire financiers regard Trump as their useful idiot, easily manipulated to do what they want as long as they massage his ever-thirsty ego. It'll take a stock market crash to make them realize that they too have been idiots. As for those Midwest farmers who can no longer sell their corn and soybeans to China, they mystify me. Farm bankruptcies are up by 50% in some states and still they support Trump's tariffs and trade wars.
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@Christy, bingo! He’s easy to manipulate and they saw him coming. He’s a total wimp where it matters ... foreign policy, economy, human rights, taxes. A useful idiot indeed, being used by any and all who can turn his head with flattery. Think Miller, Bannon, Mulvaney (a real devil), McConnell (devil incarnate), anyone from Fox, most of the Senate, and brutal dictators like Putin, Orban, Duterte, MBS, and so on. He hates our allies because they won’t kiss up to him and lick his boots. The currency that buys Trump is flattery and cash, but those who want to control him have plenty of both. He’s endlessly needy and greedy. An irresistible target for those who need a powerful proxy.
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Beautiful piece! I have asked my wife, who is Jewish, why some wealthy Jews seem so determined to provide “ammunition” for the anti-Semitic fringe of the right wing. All I can conclude is that these individuals feel “bulletproof”, either because of their money, and/or because they think the public will come to their defense in the face of an anti-Semitic threat. Both are reasonable assumptions, except, as we saw in Nazi Germany, where wealth meant little in the face of a public encouraged to hate.
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And therein lies the rub - PK may brand them as useful idiots, but they know what they are doing. The only way to keep the oligarch and by extension, the Republican agenda politically viable is to get a subset of the lower-income voting populace worked up about everything else except their own economic self-interest.
Trump is useful in this regard because he has no ethics or morals of any kind - if God purposefully set out to build a horrible human being, this is what he'd come up with. Unless this becomes a fight becomes us versus the oligarchs, we lose. Hillary was right in this respect - they are the "deplorables" and beyond redemption, the sooner we stop counting on them, the quicker we can overthrow this rotten oligarchy and the rigged economic system that sustains them.
While I agree on all points, Krugman overlooks the viscous feedback loop between politicians, the electorate and mass social media that has occupied the right-wing political sphere. This alone insulates the cult of greed, ego and ignorance that sustains a drone class of "useful idiots", rich and poor.
"Useful idiot," an accurate description of our Stable Genius. Putin and Kim have been taking advantage of this idiot and have made him very useful for their plans. Putin wanted to put the free world ,especially NATO, into disarray, and did his part to push Trump into the presidency. The resulting global chaos now encompasses trade, military alliances, trust between allies---all now lacking the strength and union of pre-Trump. Kim of North Korea has also been playing Trump so that he has been enabled to improve his nuclear weaponry and is looking forward to removal of sanctions.
Best column by Krugman that I have ever read!
If you have billionaire parents and they're raising millions of dollars for Trump, you should make your parents choose between bankrolling white supremacy and seeing their grandkids. Harsh but necessary.
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I am not sure you don't have it backward. Trump may be the useful idiot. Trump is an anomaly. He is not really a Republican, and that begs the question, why do Republicans support him? Trump had become a master huckster and media manipulator starting with John Baron fooling journalists the lie that he had billions. He kept his name everywhere, Apprentice, and persistent propaganda. The Republicans had become the party of the Neo-Aristocracy in policy but the Xenophobes and racist populists for the volume of votes. So, here comes Trump with a magic formula to get working class men to vote for him as Alpha and a chief Xenophobe. The Oligarchs must have loved this, one of their own, not a paid off fraud like Paul Ryan who loved "Atlas Shrugged", but could only aspire to be an Oligarch, or Mitch McConnell, a willing traitor to democracy. Citizens United and further rightward movement of the Supreme Court to rule for, well OK anti-abortion, but mainly to keep the oligarchs in power, ruling against worker rights etc.
I feel foolish because this reasoning is like a conspiracy theory, and I can't prove any of it, and I suspect neither can you. But the question is there, especially if you read the reference from The Atlantic that you provided. If true there may be no way to stop this slide until demographics change, or Journalism is freed from the Oligarchs.
Witness how the citizens of Hong Kong, who have long enjoyed a democracy under British rule, are responding to authoritarianism.
Now extrapolate that scenario to an America of over 300 million people when the Trump oligarchs usurp our democracy.
Let’s hope that by November 2020 all the “ useful idiots” come to their senses.
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Where's the sign saying "Welcome masters of the universe & owners of America"?
Trump's "useful idiots" and certainly humankind's most expensive idiots running the world into a polluted unlivable spinning cinder. When they're done they'll simply compare ill-gotten wealth score cards with the cheatin'-Don.
That extra 5,000sf of mansion at someone else's expense and livelihood makes Donald very happy.
Paul, don't forget, like the Russian oligarchs who live in London, wealthy American oligarchs can live in Monaco or their own island to keep their distance from the trump - like my former boss who thinks it's OK to steal my earnings, cheat on his tax obligations, bankrupt a 150+ year old AMEX listed corp, is listed in the Paradise Papers and lives a life of luxury in Monaco, London and his wife's vineyard in Bordeaux. Like him, they can still continue to exploit America with trump's blessings from afar.
"a fair number of the super-rich aren’t satisfied with being immensely wealthy" Indeed! They collude with trump to further subjugate an entire people based on ancient religious dogma; they actively destroy the world by polluting it to death; to impose their right-wing fascists ideals on everyone; and until recently, one even trafficked underage girls doing wicked things to them. These individuals have way too much wealth to spare to commit evil - and all this corrupting wealth is all around us and easy to see, dedicated to exploiting and undermining societies around the globe.
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Don’t forget the Hispanic immigrants afraid to leave their homes for fear of being deported because of Trump’s policies. And still Mr. Ross, et. al. chooses to support this man’s reelection for four more years. For what it’s worth the Krupp’s created “the Hitler Fund” in 1933 to help him make Germany great again. Anne Frank must be rolling over in her grave.
They have money already. In fact, the richest got even richer during the Obama years. So why support this racist idiot?
Paul says it's about "keeping score". So if you are #42 on the list of Forbes richest you are trying to get to #38? I am not buying that.
I think it's about the thrill of actually buying and owning a president, and the access that provides.
Rich guys already own congressmen and senators--easy. But they are only one of many. Trump--a president-- will take their call and do their bidding if they give enough money and sycophancy. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian practically have Trump on speed-dial. Trump can't be bothered with a host of world problems, but he'll get on the phone to Sweden to try to get come rapper who is a friend of West released from jail.
Rich guys like to own things. Once you own houses around the world, the best cars, yachts and planes, and you've got your name on hospital wings, museums and parks, what's the next great vanity purchase? What better than a president?
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Yes, if the only way to persuade billioniaires and zillinaires that Trump isn't good for them is to remind them of history and their self interest--Jews will not fare well--let's remind them of it loud and clear.
Wealth is bestowed by god upon the righteous.
One of the unarticulated founding principles of the USA.
And here you are.
Some day the chickens will come home to roost. And lets not forget these folks are also the ones behind climate change resistance and gun laws. We all pay a price.
Some day they will be held to account. It may be via massive taxes. Trials. Dunno, but they will be held to account. If they had half a brain they would gladly get behind Warren just to let the pressure go down.
But they resist and what they will ultimately get will be the left's version of Sarah Palin. And they will have nobody to blame but themselves......
I found it amusing that the photographer who took the photo of the Billionaire's driveway is named "Moneymaker".
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You end your essay by suggesting that Trump and the current government is destroying America “as we know it.”
What is the America that we know?
Is it the America that stole the land from the people it belonged to and stuck them in “reservations” if they were still alive?
Is it the America of slave owning, part-time Constitution writing politicians?
Is it the America who did not let “freed” slaves ride next to them in busses, use the same latrines as they did until the 60s?
Is it the America of robber barons who bought indulgence papers by donating to museums, universities and hospitals that sometimes are named after them?
Is it the America that interned Japanese-Americans as potential traitors in the Second World War?
Is it the America who imposed quotas on bright Jewish kids and now does the same for bright Asian kids?
Which America are you talking about?
FDR was a President who took exception. Bernie or Liz would be two others.
Vote Democrat. Vote Sanders or Warren in November 2020 and beyond.
Otherwise Lenin’s other dictum will hold: the Capitalist will sell the rope to hang them with when the time for a revolution comes.
Have a nice Tuesday.
8:24am NYC
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"It’s an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime." If you want the full scope and scale of how this is being done, read KILLING DEMOCRACY. It's relatively short and can be found only on Amazon. Warning: you won't sleep well after you read it.
Do not pretend to know what lies within minds of the donor class super wealthy. Trump is the effect not the cause of the status quo. Somewhere in the recesses of their minds a mass of contradictions must be colliding at warp speed. Trump began his candidacy a national embarrassment. Since election he broadened his reach to elevate himself to an international embarrassment. No reason to insult anyone by chronicling all the available evidence to support the conclusion.
Winding your Rolex or favorite expensive designer watch backwards can result in damaging the mechanical magic of the watch. Support for Trump reflects a desire to rewind to money controlling of the levers of power. The empty vessel or useful idiot being Trump. The technique complicated a super fragile ego.
The super rich waltz around issues like is he a racist, bigot, dumb as a rock, aging groper whatever. In a narrow sense it is about raw power. Stroke Trump by ignoring his excesses or lack of principle and hold power. Four more years might prove sufficient for the wealthy to really rig the system.
Hold the Senate and if Warren wins run the four corners offense hold the ball until the next election. Power is the name of the game.
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As Paul Krugman notes, Trump has cut taxes on the wealthy. And guess what? We have the lowest unemployment rate since 1969. Krugman might have used the opportunity presented by this column to explain this anomaly. Maybe, just maybe, the interests of poor and rich are not inevitably opposed?).
But instead Krugman uses this space for a psychotic episode. He offers insane and deranged prophecies about what Trump will do to America. Trump will end the rule of law!!! Trump will impose a white nationalist regime!!! That will inevitably be followed (as history teaches) by anti-Jewish pogroms!!!
How do we know Trump believes that whites are victims of a vast conspiracy? Krugman has an easy answer: The conspiracy theorists think so. Hey anything those nutters say, you can take to the bank!!!
Then there is Krugman's target du jour, Stephen Ross. After playing the race card and the billionaire card, Krugman plays the Jewish card. Ross is a bad Jew because his support for Trump is a betrayal of his co-religionists -- it will usher in an era of Jewish persecution. Indeed, Ross has betrayed his fellow billionaires, because, under Trump, even billionaires will be vulnerable.
As usual in Krugman's fairy tales, people who disagree with him don't have arguments that deserve to be taken seriously. They act "mindlessly out of a combination of greed and ego."
Really, every time Krugman opens his laptop, the quality of our nation's political discourse sinks to a new low.
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"What wealth doesn’t bring is the right to let self-indulgence turn you into a useful idiot, lending aid and comfort to a movement that’s trying to destroy America as we know it."
"WEALTH does bring the means to let self-indulgence turn you into a useful idiot..."
The joy the 99% gets from a new iPhone is shared by the .1% when they upgrade a G-5 to a G-7. Don't underestimate the power of greed.
“It was only when my hands were bound and my neck was in the guillotine that I realized, being rich was just as good a life as being even richer.”
But vast wealth turns into vast power. An idiot in power is vastly more destructive than one with relatively modest means. The only way to counter the current wealth-power imbalance is for the people to learn how to use their power instead of fragmenting into warring camps
Ross and his billionaire buddies cannot let their quest for more wealth blind them to certain historical realities. At some point the many at the bottom of the money tree will reach the point of maximum frustration. Then cometh the revolution. Wealth was confiscated during the Russian revolution. The Nazis confiscated Jewish wealth. There is no escape from the wrath of the masses.Mr.Ross and his friends best remember the lessons of history and show some enlightment.
I'm a Hispanic immigrant, and I don't understand why Jewish Americans support Trump. The tax cuts and the Israeli policy isn't enough. White nationalists don't consider Jews to be white. Just go to their web sites, and you will read for yourself: they want a white country, and in that white country, Jews do not belong because they are not white.
Yep, useful idiots and Trumpist billionaire enablers are--of course--one and the same. And like Trump, out-of-touch with reality. Money, and the power money implies, won't be enough to spare the well off from the coming effects of climate change. The planet is having a melt-down and unless we work together to address the associated life-threatening challenges--all the protections money can buy won't be enough.
@JackConnolly your comment brought to my mind that little story with a camel, the eye of a needle, a rich man and a far away kingdom.
Climate catastrophe in very short order will come for us all, rich and poor. Read Falter by Bill McKibben if if you don’t believe me. Oil companies and other climate change deniers costs us ten years of delay to address this problem. Republicans are going to cost us another ten year delay. Game over for society as we know it. Time to grieve our stupidity and short-sightedness.
WE ARE THE ENDANGERED SPICES!
What Mr. Krugman seems to be talking about is how we judge 'wealth'. Is wealth just a bunch of numbers to be thrown around or is it the power some feel they get when throwing those numbers at others? The concept of money is a tool that we use to regulate our society, but it is not what human beings are at least according to our declaration of independence.
Dr. Martin Luther King pointed out how we judge each other by the color of our skins, but along with this we seem to judge others by the size of their wallets. And it is this that the 'useful idiots' don't understand about Trump, that he judges you on both of these points and if you are 'deficient' on either you just do not count except as a number that may vote for him.
There's only a handful of these useful idiots. Sadly, SCOTUS has given voice to their money and their money multiplies their numbers and influence by a quantum degree.
If Trump is left to continue infecting this country, billionaires beware. The one thing he knows is the power of money to memes in the media. Trump if friendless. Everyone close to him withers and fades away. If Trump remains in office, he will have many arrested. Those who actually threaten him will disappear. If he's unsure of what to do, he'll call Vlad. The narcissists among the investor class supporting Trump will never figure any of this out. They'll not be missed.
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Based on the lead phrase "useful idiots" I was expecting yet another slam of Trump supporters, such as farmers, coal miners, or white rural voters. But no - this was about the mega-rich, who are just as idiotic as the working poor. Except that they can do much, much more damage to democracy. It's keeping up the Jones' on steroids. But you - brave consumer - don't have to support them. Hit them wear it hurts - in the pocketbook. (And buy a spinning bike, put it in your apartment, and spin to your heart's content.)
Think about what a jam Democratic candidates would be in if the tax cuts for the rich and corporations did result in an up tick in salaries, good paying jobs and better benefits. The Republicans would be in the cat bird seat in the next election and many to follow. All they needed to do was part with a small percentage of their unearned windfall and the Democrats would be out of power until the bills came due. The thing that tripped them up, what always trips them up, is that they are not just "useful idiots", they are "greedy useful idiots".
I suspect that some of the super wealthy want more control, to have more people beholden to them for the things that they want and need. If they believe that Trump will give them more ability to control the resources that other people need, they will support him.
I don't know any super wealthy people, and I resist making blanket assumptions about them or any other group, but I'm willing to bet that many wealthy Trumpistas support him because they believe that he will give them more of what they want in spite of any collateral damage he might to do the rest of the country.
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Remember the Dutch economist from a few months ago who called out the super rich at Davos--which has grown into a farcical, big party for them, about raising taxes on the rich? Obviously he won't get invited again. But Bono is probably available.
He correctly pointed out their hypocrisy while attending talks on the environment, when all of them flew in on private jets.
Around a year or so ago, I was listening to an author on income inequality on C-Span Book-TV, and he made a good point about the philanthropy of billionaires-- which he didn't have a problem with per se, but he said something along the lines that if Bill Gates suddenly found Jesus, would all of his wealth get redirected to his church?
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Well said. It is frightening how so many can ignore this drift toward authoritarianism accompanied by rising inequality. Even more frightening is that this authoritarianism is accompanied by Trump’s most visible policy imperative: cruelty.
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One of the thoughts in Prof Krugman’s column bemused me. Trump promised all a tax cut; well that wasn’t true for ‘all’ of us. No, my wife and I aren’t in the millionaire class but we are among the FEW who probably ‘could’ live out the remainder of our years on our savings - assuming that there is no total economic collapse or global war or disintegration due to what we have done to the environment or perhaps the inability to adjust to vast, rapid automation. And, we had a tax increase (mainly because of SALT and medical deductions). So, when the professor says a dem in the WH will likely raise our taxes ours will go up once again. Let me be VERY clear. I would gladly pay ‘fair’ taxes with two qualifications: the uber rich pay their true portion; our taxes are dedicated to the benefit of mankind!
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@Gordon Silverman. YES!!!!
Due to a side hustle, I have entered into the periphery of 3 billionaire households. Behind the curtain, I thought there would be busy people, serving on boards, living their best life. What I actually see is paranoia, pajamas and parsimony. And - not a lot of “job creating” happening thanks to that paranoia, just loads of self absorption and life in tiny orbits. All three fams are big supporters of conservative causes. Making the rich richer seems a pointless exercise to me.
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I don't understand how Krugman, normally pretty on top of things, it seems to me, can use the term "a bit poorer" to describe Ross or any of the other billionaires. Less rich might be more appropriate, or even immeasurable less rich could also work, or perhaps whiningly less rich. But please don't give them any unmerited talking points or legs to stand on by using the term poor or poorer with respect to anyone who counts their dollars in the thousands of millions. They don't need even the whisper of empowerment.
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There is a direct threat to wealth due to Trump; something that Ross should understand. I am referring, of course, to our enormous budget deficits which have the potential to ultimately sink the economy and, ... Mr. Ross. It's not that we should spend less. It's Mr. Ross' beloved tax cut that weds him to Agent Orange and welds the U.S. to economic disaster,
By rights the current economy should be called the "Obama Miracle" given the hand he was dealt when he came into office. Yet, we are nearing the end of the economic cycle. U.S. debt service is going to add to the pain due to less money available for government stimulus.
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It is an economic game that has been played since the beginning of society - the plutocrats/aristocrats against the democrats (defined as supporting the interest of common people). The rules of the game change according to who is in power.
The last historical equivalent was the rise of the US industrialists in the 19th century - Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, etc.
Their excesses were evident in their big homes in New York City.
Drive on US-1A in Palm Beach, FL to see today's equivalents of excess (specially on your way to Mar-A-Lago)
Numerous reforms came later as a result of their bullying of government and desire to monopolize the American economy. Sound familiar?
Can any of the democratic candidates become the Teddy Roosevelt of today?
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Historians (possibly in Holland, where some will have fled) are going to ask what exactly were Americans doing and thinking in the summer of 2019 when Trump might still have been stopped if Democrats had only found an electable candidate. "Well there was talk about 'The Squad' and Jeffery Epstein and of course the two days of mass shootings." "Kamala Harris (she was a candidate at the time) got some attention for a week or two. Yes, we were aware that Trump was already ignoring laws and that we were only a Supreme Court justice away from one-party rule.
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I have several friends who are mega multi-millionaires, who had huge issues with accepting Trump in the beginning. His comments about the disabled reporter, the constant lies, and the anti-Semitic suggestions were distasteful.
However, I saw these same friends switch to STAUNCH Trump supporters after they got their huge tax cut, while being dismissive of the increase in taxes I saw in my meager income as I continue to work to survive now that I'm in my seventies.
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All that "camel through the eye of a needle" stuff was early recognition of Wealth Narcissism - "there is no such thing as too much for ME' - which is an actual mental aberration. No wonder there is functional blindness in the superwealthy.
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It sounds like wealthy people are a lot like Trump, children with no sense of seeing the rest of us as peers. If seeing the rest of us as peers is a problem you shouldn’t be in leadership of any kind.
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Paul thank you so much for giving voice to what I've been thinking for months. Specifically: "Don’t say it can’t happen here. The man who prompts chants of “lock her up,” who has declared the independent media “enemies of the people,” has made it abundantly clear that he’d love to engage in politicized prosecutions of anyone who gets in his way."
I keep telling people that Gitmo is still open - and will remain open. There is a reason for that and it's not the 50 or so old men who are still imprisoned there. tRump has plans for Gitmo and it involves the "Enemies of the people" which, by his definition, could describe millions of us.
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To paraphrase Chris Hedges, 'These corporations, the richest, the powerful, know only one word, and that's 'more.' ' If history is any metric in matters of vast inequality and how the Democrats will behave if they gain all three branches then we will surely be heading for more than a revolution of words.
Neoliberalism has gutted the balancing power progressivism once served against the crushing weight of laissez faire capitalism. That check, that balance, is gone and in its place we see the rise of White Nationalism as an anecdote to the suffering of the vast majority of Americans - it's so misguided that it's disorienting to even consider and yet it's true.
It's also true that this economy and our government mostly serve the rich and all those unwilling to be honest about the Democratic Party's complicit role, since Reagan, are fueling the hatred Authoritarians thrive on.
"Trumpism is about much more than tax cuts: It’s an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime." Yep, and the counterweight, if there's still time, is to aggressively assault wealth and income inequality.
Those of you who are inclined to vote for a 'centrist' in 2020 in order to win the Presidency will likely win the battle and lose the war. Is a true progressive a sure thing? No. But, the time for half measures is dead and gone. Some Trump voters
embrace a future via the route of dystopia but many simply want greater equality and economic security. Reach them
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@Chris Koz
Well said.
Perhaps, with your reach and your articulate presentation, you will have better success than I have had when warning others about the slippery slope of authoritarian demagoguery and fascism.
In my experience, nine in ten listeners--whether red or blue, rich or poor, dull or sharp--dismiss the notion as impossible. "Not here in America," they intone confidently, as if some 16th century personalities had inoculated the republic against such a fate. The other ten percent accept the possibility, and they feel powerless to take preventative action due to the apathy of the other 90%.
American exceptionalism may be real, in the way that certain athletes or musicians are exceptional when compared to their peers. Those people are still human, however, and can contract a deadly disease. So too America.
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Don't ever, ever believe it can't happen here. What I thought improbable and totally impossible has already happened. I never realized we had such a huge number of closed minded and uninformed citizens.
While Americans let their guard down trump and republicans (enemies of the 99%) are working overtime.
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