I am pleased to see a point I've been arguing for years finally gaining some currency... I have long suggested that it is beyond ludicrous to suggest that the middle ground between a center-left Democratic Party and a far-right, radical extremist Republican party can, in any sense, be called "moderate." Here's a link to an essay I published about this in early 2016:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/20/1488548/-The-false-promise-of-political-realism-in-a-time-of-right-wing-radical-extremism?_=2019-10-08T12:59:40.312-07:00
16
Once upon a time, at least in The Northeast, we had moderate Republicans, often labeled as RINOs - Republicans in name only - by those on the right fringe of the party. The the National Party was dominated by that fringe and a Massachusetts Republican like Charlie Baker or a Vermont Republican like Phil Scott seems to have no place in a Trumpist party. I think we need a responsible right of center party that will not be an international joke. Then maybe we can have fanatical centrists.
5
Remember when everyone thought Rush was funny?
5
When he starts ranting about his “precious bodily fluids” maybe then Republicans will start to worry?
6
The so-called left in america is just less Fascist than the Rs. Both will sell the country out, just to a different party. And the Ds will so it more smoothly, while proffering democracy propaganda.
1
True enough--but it doesn't really go far enough. There are other centrist villains: all those who supported the Iraq war (including many Democrats) and those whose deregulations of the financial sector (with Bill Clinton leading the way) helped usher in the devastation of 2008 and what followed. Check out Samuel Moyn in the Guardian and Andrew Bacevich in TomDispatch.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/26/impeachment-america-political-crisis-donald-trump-centrists
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176613/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_high_crimes_and_misdemeanors_of_the_fading_american_century/#more
11
Well, when Wilson and Deukmejian were governors of California, in the wake of Reagan's career, and when Davis' disastrous Democratic interregnum as governor was succeeded by Arnold Schwarzenegger, few people foresaw the re-election of Jerry Brown and the solid Democratic control of California that followed in the wake of all that racism and meanness.
Trump's time, and the Republicans', will end. If not in removal from office, then when his ill-advised economic war with China ends as badly as Hitler's invasion of the USSR.
7
the republican party and hence america has been moving in the direction of fascism for the last 20 years. now hitler gave fascism a bad name, but if you look at the political and economic attributes of fascism you get one party or dictatorial rule (republican america for most of the last 20 years) and collusion between the state and the wealthy to transfer additional wealth from the lower economic levels to the top level (growing income and wealth inequality). trump however has gone one step further down the road of despotism. with trump, america has entered an era of stalinism. because the soviet union was on the winning side in ww2 Stalin was able to write his own history and so hitler's germany has been made to be the epitome of evil. but in fact the soviet union under stalin was much much worse, and not just because stalin had many more people killed than hitler. so how is trump channeling stalinism even if he has not yet ordered the deaths of millions of americans. even in fascist germany the truth, facts and not fictions counted for something. in a stalinist regime the truth no longer counts. the only thing that matter is political expediency. thus if you were accused of a crime it did not matter if you were innocent. you still went to the gulag. this is where we are with trump and his supporters. the truth does not matter. the only thing that counts is political expediency. we have entered the era of stalinism in america.
10
Now we see how you won a Nobel Prize. Dr. Krugman. We are living a classic novelistic paradigm: the settlers and the gunslingers. There will be a need for the land to be cleansed and prepared for a new and ethical multicultural majority. But this will require a cadre of unflinching political operatives who can finally drive a stake through the heart of the Republican vampire that sucks the blood out of democracy. The process of deTrumpification will be ugly and necessary, and yes critical to our survival to be sure that this faction of anti-Constitutionalist racist fascists can never be allowed to again weld power in the US, no matte what the cost.
4
A key enabler of this has been the corporate media. In order to maintain ratings and therefore revenue and to deny that it has a liberal bias, it has bent over backwards not to call one side or the other wrong on an issue. It has strained for what it calls fairness, for each side to have its say. However, this has been at the sacrifice of the truth, the facts, like when Republicans are continually allowed by uncritical journalists to spew distortions.
15
Paul, you have been there and so correct for so long. Republicans are win at all costs no matter what they have done to the country, be it political, too long a list, or existential, climate change. One can only imagine the innumerable advantages that would have been front and center had the Supremes and the other biased players not robbed the 2000 election from Al Gore. Through the rabid Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich tactics, war was declared on Democrats, which went unnoticed by most, as you so astutely knew. Won’t even dignify the propaganda network run by the deplorable Murdoch family. I still can’t understand, though, why citizens who were born and raised with our great American freedoms are so quick to throw it all away for a dictatorship of republican and religious fanatics. Thanks so much for your column.
25
Trump's authoritarian impulse now extends to threatening arrest and execution as traitors for his political opponents. That is in and of itself a mandatory impeachment offense. There is no reason to think he will resign or leave office voluntarily without compulsion by arrest and incarceration. The question really is can Trump be removed peacefully given his threats to call his militia supporters into the streets? They are publishing pictures of field encampments where they are training and have announced they are ready to be called into Federal Service to prevent a liberal coup. It looks to me like the US Army will be needed to prevent a fascist coup d'etat. Will the Army act or stand aside and allow it?
6
I'm waiting for the 1%ers to dump Trump. His trade war is wrecking their fabulous income. Their stocks are sinking. If they own a business their supply chain is being strangled and their input costs are soaring. Their global customers aren't buying. Long term those buyers, especially the vast and growing Chinese market, are lost to them. There is no end in sight. Everytime he says the Chinese want a deal he pulls the rug out from under the negotiator's feet and the talks end in a pile of huffing Chinese. It's not just the Chinese taking a hit, Europe was already limping and it is sinking further. Trump is tanking the world and if the Chinese make this an endurance test it will become obvious "easy to win"was always a lie made up on a whim while trying to look like a big man.
104
I will take Krugman's point about what has become of the Republican Party. I fear for the honest governance of our nation, and Trump and his sycophants are leading us to Hades.
That said, I could never bring myself to be a Democrat. The reason is that their answer to everything is a another plan or program that will employ armies of bureaucrats whose good intentions at the start fast dissolve into its own misuse of power at the public's expense. Further, the "progressive" policies that its louder voices propose foresee a nation that I would find dystopian in its micromanagement of my life on every level. From identity politics to speech codes to bicycle lanes to sugary soda bans, the Democratic party minions cannot seem to learn to mind their own business, instead salivating over what rule they can impose on everyone else.
We face a crisis. Politicians like AOC, Tlaib. Omar, and Pressley just need to put a lid on themselves. Our system of checks and balances is at risk, and what do they do? They call the majority leader of the house a racist. If Nancy Pelosi is a racist, we all are!
The Democratic party needs to put progressive politics to the side until we get through either impeachment or the 2020 elections. Focus on free and fair elections, and stop telling everyone else how to live down to each detail. Remember that the FREEDOM of the individual was one of our founding principles.
All else is unimportant. Remember that, and work to make sure that it is not taken away.
32
@D I Shaw AOC, Tlaib. Omar, and Pressley never called Pelosi a racist.
>Dems tellling everyone else how to live? Are you kidding? A Republican Party voting to make internet gambling illegal, trying to make abortion illegal, trying to prevent me from vacationing in Cuba, keeping pot illegal in states and punishable with prison in states where they have control.
74
@D I Shaw Bicycle lanes, really? Having lanes for people who ride bicycles is a hallmark of progressive overreach to you?
77
Krugman is conflating political policy moderation (centrism) with tolerance of Trump. I think he's guilty of the false dichotomy fallacy in that one can both be a "centrist" Democrat and despise Trump 101%. I kinda know this because that is exactly how I feel. You don't have to embrace the foolishness of AOC and the Squad to hate Donald Trump- the two things are distinct and parallel.
The reason why both parties have gone to extremes is that our system of government is reaching the natural end of its useful life. Because of the executive system he have, it is close to ‘winner take all’ system, and only two parties are possible - the one in power and the one seeking power.
The two major political parties have 100% switched places over the past 150 years, one social/economic/ethnic/geographic group at a time. In the Civil War, the Democrats were pro-slavery and the Republicans were abolitionists (look it up if you doubt). There are no more switches from one side to the other to be made.
Instead of continuing down this winner take all, us vs them mentality, maybe it’s just time to end this ‘experiment in democracy’, admit its limitations, and break up the country into a few pieces, each one fairly uniform in its own politics. as few as three, as many as six, in the mainland 48 states, could be viable. It’s a very radical idea, but it’s a lot better than a second civil war in two years, or in three generations. I don’t see, in today’s hyper- partisan media world, how two groups of people with so much disdain for each other can live together peacefully in the long term.
I’m in my 50s, my parents are still alive. They say the mood today is much more divided than in the 60s, and that we are almost like two or more separate countries occupying the same ground.
Think about it, maybe a national divorce is what we need to prevent much worse from happening.
2
The sad thing is, I don't think Repubs even mind being compared to Orban in Hungary; if you watch Fox News, they literally portray the Fidesz Party as a patriotic front against the amorphous threat of the always out-to-get you illegal immigrant. They see the world through an entirely different lens. As Krugman put it, they see their opposition as illegitimate. How do you reason with such people? America has changed while they have not. This means they that to them, diversity is an existential threat. This can be traced back to the post-civil rights era, when the Republican Party became a fringe as minorities flocked to the Dems, and Dixiecrats flocked to the Repubs. Then enter Gingrich; then enter the Tea Party; enter Trump. Krugman is spot-on; however, I must ask, how do you fix this? Do we try to reason with them the best we can, or do we fight like Republicans? I don't know the answer.
4
Not to forget the ferocious attacks on Al Gore ( who could have got things moving on climate change) and the Swift- boating of John Kerry (no Iraq invasion).
What massive wasted opportunities and all down to exactly what Paul Krugman so clearly lays out.
7
Over the course of my life there have always been disturbing echoes of the past in the Republican Party. Birchers, birthers and blabbers.
But there was a core of statesmen (always men) in the GOP who worked for compromise with Democrats.
Those days are over. All we can hope for is an absolute drubbing at the polls and the return to some semblance of normal governance.
5
Paul Krugman
Your column today is a travesty of objectivity and fairness. You need to take off, at least temporarily, your progressive spectacles, in order to consider alternative explanations for, say, Joe Biden's comments about Republicans. You are familiar, after all, with the principle of charity, namely give the best most coherent explanation of an opponent's view before subjecting it to withering criticism. Isn't it the old adage, namely specialized knowledge in one domain is not transferable to other fields of inquiry: in your case, being a professor of economics and also being a political pundit. It is obvious that you have refrained from gentle, let alone serious criticism of the two Savonarolas of the Democratic party, namely Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Yet Bernie Sanders is waging a two front moralistic crusade against not only Trump but also the Democratic Party establishment! It has been obvious for time that policy wonk Elizabeth Warren is your favored candidate. For me Warren's notable lack of political acumen became apparent when she advocated reparations to Native Americans and the elimination of private insurance. Why has your silence about these topics been deafening? The real bone of contention between you and Biden is that you reject his strategy of appealing to Republicans who are disaffected with Trump in order to forge a coalition which can decisively defeat Trump. Very recent polls show that 20% of Republicans support Trump's impeachment
3
Republicans denounced FDR and the New Deal as socialism and the Truman Administration as infiltrated by Communists. JFK, LBJ, and Carterwere attacked as unpatriotic by the Birchers and Golwater Reaganites who became the face of the GOP. Bush Sr. won election painting his Democratic opponent as soft on crime by blacks, and Bush Jr. famously staged a constitutional coup through which his father's appointees on the Supreme Court gave him the presidency. The sex life of Bill Clinton was considered fit to bring him down - but not the flamboyantly predatory and plausibly criminal conduct of Trump before and after 2016. The Republican Party has been, since the 1920s, the party of right reaction and the oligarchy. In the last twenty years, it became the voice of the unholy alliance of the gun and oil lobbies, Evangelical fanatics, and billionaires out to strip the middle-class and poor of access to health care, social security, and environmental, consumer, and financial protection. Most recently, the GOP has become the enabler of Russian interference in American politics with senators and representatives (McConnell, Graham, Jordan, Johnson, Gaetz, Nunes) actively intervening to confuse the public, attack government agencies and civil servants, and block follow-up to punish illegality in the 2016 election or hold an apparently criminal president to account.
11
Excellent and long overdue column. Somebody tell David Brooks to read this and take notes. Mr. Krugman, Thank you!
11
Us versus them. Democrats versus Republicans. Rich versus poor. Woke versus ?notwoke?. Progressive versus conservative. Don't you see that we are being divided by lines that only exist in our imagination. There is no us and them. It is only we. And if we don't realize that soon, we will be sitting in the ruins of our civilization wondering what happened. Stop with the vitriol and fighting already. It is only making it worse.
Like patients who refuses to listen to the doctor that tells them they have cancer, so goes the centralist and progressives. The country may be dying, but they refuse to heed any sign that the Republican party is a cancer on democracy.
The media also does a good job of normalizing the effects of this cancer. So Trump may be right when he calls them the 'enemy of the people.'
1
We are living in those interesting times that we are sometimes threatened with. Biden is being chided for being a gentleman and a canny politician. We have a Republican president who isn’t your typical Republican, but has taken over all the State party leadership, which hangs reelection over these hapless fools like a dagger. I can’t help thinking that those meek and mild Republicans realize that they have gotten themselves into a morass with no easy out. They thought they would control him, but instead he punched them in the gut and dared them to do anything about it.
1
I just finished reading How Democracies dies, written in 2017 by Harvard professors Steen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both experts in the history of democracies. I highly recommend the book for its broad perspective. They believe that polarization of the political system and the authoritarian trend among Republicans has developed over the past 20 years, not just with this president. They also believe that Trump demonstrates the four key indicators of authoritarian behavior. It is critical for all genuine patriots to work together to restore Democratic norms. Democracies can and do fail, usually through the actions of an elected leader who becomes a tyrant.
9
What are those of us who are strongly liberal on social issues like abortion, gay rights, decriminalization of drugs, healthcare, and are at the same time conservative on economic issues and national defense. We cannot endorse either R or D platforms, and we have to accept candidates who are in line with some of our values and out of step with others. Being 'Centrist' or, more properly, Independent is our only choice.
For a long time I’ve disliked almost everything Republicans
Stand for and attempt to shove down our throat.I say almost
Because I can’t keep up with all of it.Then came Trump and
Republican enablers through silence, secret meetings never
Talked about and then forgotten by me and us ,the public
Because we were living our lives and wrongly believing
Congress was watching the country.Some are in great need of
Retirement, others should never have been elected .Our schools
Must begin to teach the constitution ,and bill of rights, not once.
Every year through high school and the meaning of freedom of
MIND and body.Maybe we don’t have time ,however those of us who can think ,will find a way to push the authoritarians out
And make Trump the nightmare he was from day one.No one
From now on ,can be elected without a complete physical, to be made public .There must be a group of Psychologists to provide
Questions to be answered by candidates and to be made public.The Gold water rule should never have been law.Humanity needs to protect ourselves from lunatics like
Trump and self -aggrandizing congress people like McConnell and The rest.There are many.
2
My father was a WWII veteran and whenever I doubted the fairness of our citizens he would point to that time and what he saw as a generosity and fairness to America. Maybe so then ,... though I suspect there is rose coloring going on and of course he was a straight white man, but we are now in a time that pits two visions of America starkly against one another. The grand plan of the republicans has never been to represent a majority but to allow a minority to control the narrative of this country -a white cis male straight narrative. And it has been done brilliantly from the work in the state capitols in gerrymandering and voter suppression to the trickle nonsense promulgated by well paid shills of the plutocrats . In a sense Trump is right we are fighting for the soul of the country will it be a backwater inward thinking haven of bigotry , racism, thievery and myopia or will we be a great society . Stay tuned it is happening now !
4
Paul Krugman
Your column's argument is a red herring. You need to take off, at least temporarily, your progressive spectacles, in order to consider alternative explanations for, say, Joe Biden's comments about Republicans. You are surely familiar with the principle of charity, namely give the best most coherent explanation of an opponent's view before subjecting it to withering criticism. Isn't it the old adage, namely specialized knowledge in one domain is not readily transferable to other fields of inquiry: in your case, being a professor of economics and also being a political pundit. It is obvious that you have refrained from gentle, let alone serious criticism of the two Savonarolas of the Democratic party, namely Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Yet Bernie Sanders is waging a two front moralistic crusade against not only Trump but also the Democratic Party establishment! It has been obvious for time that policy wonk Elizabeth Warren is your favored candidate. For me Warren's notable lack of political acumen became apparent when she advocated reparations to Native Americans and the elimination of private insurance. Why has your silence about these topics been deafening? The real rather than ostensible bone of contention between you and Biden is that you reject his strategy of appealing to Republicans who are disaffected with Trump in order to forge a coalition which can decisively defeat Trump. Recent polls show that 20% of Republicans support Trump's impeachment
2
I think you are mistaking what centrism actually is. I'm a pretty centrist person for the most part, which means I have voted Democratic my whole life.
I was 24 when the Gingrich revolution happened and nothing in the Republican party since has led me to believe there is any place for moderation there.
Amy Klobuchar is a moderate. These "centrists" you speak of are only "centrists" because the goalpost have moved to far.
I suppose we need to distinguish between being moderate and being centrist in our current political environment.
1
I wish I disagreed with Mr. Krugman. Unfortunately he has correctly assessed the corruption of the Republican party.
10
War under false pretenses? I did not support the war and did not vote for George W. Bush. But I see no reason to doubt the sincerity of his belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. He did the best he could. He worked to improve America. Often he didn't succeed; he wasn't a good President. However, character wise, George W. Bush is light years ahead of the Orange Man.
1
@Doug
Which truly is not saying much at all.
3
It seems to me that the republican party has become the party of conformists and people who like to be told what to think. The democrats have turned into the party of "everyone else," which is why their platform is all over the place.
The GOP built in this filter system that has been slowly squeezing out free-thinking republicans like Bill Kristol and Joe Scarborough. McCain kept calling himself a republican but he had been squeezed out. Romney has been squeezed out. And Flake. Anyone who asks too many questions has to go.
It no longer seems to be about any agenda or policy position. It's faith-based. Do you have blind faith in your leaders? Stand here. Do you retain your right to question your leaders? Stand here. I do think that Sanders tapped into some of that on the left. The Sanders supporters I know all became very hostile, very quickly to liberals that didn't support him. Like one friend on facebook: "Anyone who doesn't support Bernie Sanders please unfriend me right now!" This is why I'm dead-set against Sanders.
4
As has been said before:
Republicans do not want to govern.
They want to rule.
16
Funnily enough, though I dislike their politics, I thInk that Grassley and Ernst may lead the way to 20 Republicans voting yes to impeachment.
The GOP would still be - and has been since Nixon, and particularly since Reagan, the party of while wealth and money - but I think we can beat that party now that Trump has shown us all where that leadership takes out nation and people.
As for Biden, he is just another centrist/opportunist member of the white boys club, no hope there.
54
@Bill Wilson We could beat them in a fair election. What about gerrymandering? What about voter suppression? What about Midwestern farmers and industrial workers undermining their own interests? It's going to take a (tidal) wave election
16
I am glad Mr Krugman brought up Bush and the invasion of Iraq. I believe history will judge W Bush more harshly than our current Republican president because almost everything Trump has done so far can be undone, much of it rather quickly if the Dems take back power. The damage of Bush's invasion of Iraq will haunt the Western World for many decades. The greatest strategic blunder since Vietnam.
9
"No, Trump isn’t an aberration. He’s unusually blatant and gaudily corrupt, but at a basic level he’s the culmination of where his party has been going for decades. And U.S. political life won’t begin to recover until centrists face up to that uncomfortable reality."
This will be the core challenge of our nation over the coming decades. There is no party in the US today that represents honest conservative values. That must change quickly or we will soon see the end of the American experiment.
3
The Moderates, that's who Democrats placate. The Joe Liebermans and their supporters. The people who aren't unabashedly racists, but like the political order the way it is or was, favoring whites, men, and Christianity, the folks who have lots of black "friends," just never invite them to their houses. The folks who luckily have health insurance through their jobs (for now), and sort of feel sorry for the dozens of millions who can't see a doctor, but not that sorry that they're willing to be inconvenienced by trying a new way that might actually save the desperate children of the poor. They're the folks who live in those states who always seem to get to vote first, what a coincidence, so they can have disproportionate influence on who our candidates will be. They're those folks in the suburbs who got their job through a friend of their father's. They're the folks in the cities who have really good jobs but have rent-controlled apartments anyway. They're one notch below Conservative and they want Joe Biden. They're the ones who have made the Democrats considerably more like Republicans, and make the Democratic Party not sure what it stands for. They are a pox on progress and inequality. And they have a lot more in common with the Republican Party than you might think, and give that party a type of legitimacy it wouldn't otherwise have.
7
Very well said.
1
Paul Krugman's opinion is spot on. Biden has made more than the one mistake of being naive in his assessment of the Republicans. He could and ought to have avoided his current dispute with Trump. Ukraine was an inflamed country when he was vice-president and he should have advised and insisted that that his son stay away from any business in that country as long as he was vice-president in order to avoid any future criticism for potential conflict of interest. It was really dumb that he didn't.
3
45 is the leader republicans deserve even if he embarrasses them. Both hurt all Americans (we all breathe same air) although the richest get what they believe they need in terms of tax cuts and gov. Welfare.
2
I guess I am an old man now, born during WWII. As a result, I read everything growing up that came to my attention concerning Hitler and Mussolini. The America I grew up in also scared me with "iron curtains" and "duck and cover" and Communism. So, those things and life itself convinced me that centrism was equally far away from both Fascism and Communism. Voila - I learned I was centrist! Like my father before me I joined the Navy to serve the country and people that I loved. After four years, I got out and other interesting things happened to me. Not only did I grow up in California but also I ended up selling American designed and built high-tech products around the world, living abroad several times and traversing both the Pacific and the Atlantic dozens of times. So, the second great thing that I learned is that we, all of us on earth, are the same. We cry at the same things, we laugh at the same things, and we work hard for our families. There are both good and bad in all societies, so you choose who you are over and over again in the relationships you build around you. It's as simple as that.
Given all that, in the summer of 2016 I watched and listened in horror as Trump gave his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention - as he not only said the things he said, but he also took on the persona of Mussolini when he raised his chin high and looked down at the crowd. He spoke like a fascist, he took on the persona and he shows us daily who his friends are.
317
@cma
Being moderate isn't the same as what Krugman is talking about as a "centrist". Moderates are totally fine on an absolute scale. The issue with "centrism" is that you firmly plant yourself between 2 parties who aren't equally far to either side. If Republicans go as far to the right as possible, those who instinctively think that each party has their merits will be drawn towards extremism too as long as the Democrats are not on the extreme left wing (they aren't. Sanders is what most of the world sees as center left and he's to the left of where the Democrats generally are).
It's just a distinction between absolute left vs right and relative left vs right. Otherwise, what you've said makes perfect sense.
16
@cma Thank you for your insight from one who has lived through what I have only read about. Valuable information.
15
I don't disagree with anything that Krugman says here, but writing about "centrists" risks painting with an overly broad brush. The Republicans were clearly first off the cliff, and their sustained assault on our democratic norms and institutions paved the way for our current crisis. But the dynamic in the Democratic Party is deeply troubling in its own right, with liberal "centrist" institutionalists, like Schumer and Pelosi, having trouble standing up to their own party's illiberal, anti-institutionalist wing. Yes, we can say that Trump is cynically exploiting that division, but that doesn't change the fact that the party's grownups are fighting on two fronts.
Indeed. Republicans stepped onto this path with Goldwater in 1964, committed to it with Nixon in 1968, and have been sliding down it ever since.
3
In the words of George Jefferson to Archie Bunker: "So let me get this straight, you're saying that you shouldn't condemn a whole group of people for the actions of a few?" I happen to be a fanatical centrist who has no use for our current president, but fail to see how anyone could not classify a party that is promoting reparations, free college, forgiveness of college debt, free universal health care, abolishing the electoral college and packing the Supreme Court to favor of the left, can be described as anything but left wing extremism. This radical centrist did not vote for either candidate last time because they were both bad. I may sit out this next election if the democrats don't get their act together and nominate someone who believes in fiscal discipline, as Bill Clinton did, and speaks for the whole nation not just for the right or left.
It is just this sort of demonization of anyone who is not enlightened enough, in your opinion, to take the liberal kool-aid, that turns moderates off. I am sorry but I know a lot of republicans who are not right wing extremists. I also know a lot of democrats who are not socialists. The parties are equivalent in this way, neither is in touch with the lives of ordinary working people and neither cares about anything but being in power and will stoop to any level to acquire it.
2
Thank you for your clear explanation. It is very true, and it is why the Democrats and those who vote with the Democrats need to be thinking not only of the Presidency, but also of Congress. Without Congress, Obama was stymied at every turn. And with Congress, Trump has sailed through most of his presidency untouched. To really bring about change, one needs both seats of power.
2
Trump is the culmination of Republican evolution. it is a problem with Biden's view of his would-be presidency. I don't think his response to the slander has been all that wobbly.
1
"Anyone startled by Republican embrace of wild conspiracy theories about the deep state must have slept through the Clinton years"
The vast right wing conspiracy notwithstanding, Mr. Krugman?
1
Biden's unfailingly naïve centrist view will not serve him well, I'm afraid. Republicans have clearly given up any pretense of moderation and for years have been working non-stop to erode our democratic system at all levels. From court disruption to gerrymandering to voter suppression and general malfeasance, they have steadfastly corroded their party down to one over-arching principle: money. Instead of public service they ask "How much will you pay me?" and have shown themselves to do anything, anything, to remain in power. Absolutely sickening. They are beyond redemption now. Why would they move against Trump? He is the very face of their party: corrupt, racist and self-serving.
5
Can the Democrats finally admit what they have become?
2
Alright Elyssa I’ll bite, what have they become?
Sure, and when democrats try to buy votes with free giveaways by taking money from others, that's just good leadership?
No, this country is going the way of others who cannot handle liberty and equal protection. No, they must create more laws and more regulations and more restrictions and more demands of others because authoritarianism is the norm, one that America was shaking free from, but is the focus on both leftists and rightists.
1
@David Well, at this point leadership, however misplaced, might be good. Tax policy and regulation equals authoritarianism? Not sure about that. And please drop the trope that taxes for the common good is stealing and giving to others, which is a distraction.
6
@David
When a person makes a lot of money in this nation, it is often for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons that some third world countries can never get ahead (despite very low taxes) is due to the lack of adequate infrastructure, education, security, and laws that protect private property.
Few business want to go there and set up shop under these poor an perilous conditions with an illiterate workforce, and if they do, they may pay such low wages that there is little wealth to tax and therefore education and infrastructure never seem to improve.
Thus, many business thrive in the United States due to the things our government provides through taxation, such as an educated workforce, infrastructure, security, justice system, etc
The idea that the government is taking away just to give to others is absurd. The truth is that without all these things the government provides, a wealthy person would have far, fewer investment (stocks and real estate) and business opportunities in the first place. In addition, when a business person makes a profit, through perhaps mass production, in reality, the employee may be making less, so someone else may profit.
This low paid, employee, perhaps can't afford to pay a lot in taxes or pay for healthcare and college. Since the business relies on what gov provides, educated workforce, infrastructure, security, those who profit should logically pay more in taxes, when their employees cannot.
6
Trump is hardly an aberration. While he is definitively a problem unto himself, he is also a consequence of years, decades of politics where the public good was far from elected official's focus. Trump supporters are not the only ones sick of decades of 'politics-as-usual,' ready to support nearly anyone who will challenge the status quo.
For example, you can't undermine public education for decades, then complain when people "educated" under that system believe wild conspiracy theories, don't know what the Constitution actually says and means, and can't suss out fact from lies- or even think about turning the channel to see what someone outside of Faux "news" might say on the subject.
While no one took Gerrymandering to the scientific geographical acrobatics Reps have done across the country, Dems used this system here and there to try and gain advantages. The differences are in the scope, how far they bent the rules, and how systematic its been applied. And it is a profound difference, but hardly a difference the above under-educated have a chance of grasping.
Finally, how many elections must go by where a candidate wins by the popular vote, but loses due to the Electoral College until the Dems put getting rid of this outdated system a priority?
3
Completely agree - very well said
It’s going to take a very skilled Progressive to find any common ground with trump being his awful, criminal, abusive & racist self. Take for example Obamacare: originally a conservative idea first implemented by Romney. Did any republicans help? No. Instead, they lost their minds in a racist backlash denouncing deficits while opposing the idea of health insurance coverage for more Americans.
I have hoped for awhile now that The Clean Energy Revolution could unite rural & urban America with a healthy, economic boost for all as well as a renewed national purpose.
Alas ...
2
So how do you communicate this to the average American who doesn't follow the news? Or gets her news from propaganda outlets? The media will have to step up and stop treating the Republican Party as normal. Public schools will have to teach the radicalization of the GOP for future generations to make wise voting decisions, if it's too late for adults now who have been thoroughly brainwashed. I'm not optimistic. We live in an age when an ignorant person thinks he knows just as much, if not more, than an expert. I see the problem only getting worse, and the country declining even more.
3
Mr. Krugman:
Thank you.
As always, you speak for me.
1
Democrats must stop kidding themselves: Republicans must be fought as the neo-fascists they are. No more bipartisan, kumbaya nonsense - look where it got Obama. After 2020, when, hopefully, Democrats regain power, there must be no more bygones be bygones, forgive and forget or new beginnings. Moral hazard in our politics must be restored. There must be commissions, Grand Juries, indictments, trials and JAIL for Republican criminals. All of them: from Trump down through the Congress, through the state and local level. They must be utterly, completely and finally removed from American political life and sent to jail where most of them have long, long belonged.
4
Well said Mr. Krugman! I have long thought the republican party was "an authoritarian regime in waiting" and when I watched their ruthless tactics I feared they would succeed in their mission. After SCOTUS put Bush in the WH I decided to leave the US and managed to do it in 2009 - right before Obama's inauguration. I wondered then if I'd made the right decision, but now I know I have. Watching the republicans turn fake news into real news and now fighting corruption into corruption itself is so very disheartening! I don't know if the Democrats will be able to overcome all of this while staying within the law. I'm very worried...
3
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
1
I grew up a Young Republican in the seventies and eighties in rural-slash-small-town Wisconsin when local main-street Republicans were in the Lion's Club and Chamber of Commerce and still believed in the public good.
That seems a world away.
As I grew up and saw more of the world I realized that there is much more nuance. I voted for Democratic candidates basically since 1992 onward, but still consider(ed?) myself Centrist.
Republicans have moved toward the right and I held out hope that they would shift back. What a fool! They are hell-bent on their death march to Armageddon and have rejected not only temperance but tolerance, abandoned what I saw as their defense of freedom for narrow pursuit of freedom from taxes, and kicked stewardship of our public good to the curb for a quick buck. They gleefully reject both facts and the defense of democratic institutions ("institutionalists?" Pha!) so they can wave the flag and roll coal.
The Lions Club is not coming back. The scales have fallen from my eyes. Thanks for the essay.
5
George W. Bush’s taking us to war against Iraq was worse than anything Don Trump has done, so far.
1
Centrism = Acceptance of Corporate Control of Govt.
2
Krugman has nailed it.
The Republican party is in fact the Tea Party. It allowed those crazies to primary Tea Party candidates and then fell under the sway of the Tea Party caucus.
The Tea Party is the Koch party - no taxes for the 0.1%.
The current dust up over Trump's policy of abandoning Kurdish fighters to destruction by Turkey may be the crack that breaks the party. (Recall McCarthy attacking the army ended his reign of terror.)
Big money supporting GOP candidates could decide the issue. If big money walks on Impeachment and the Syria/Kurds blunder, then Trump is under the GOP bus. But the GOP will still be the Tea Party - just without Trump.
If big money sticks with the GOP, then the voters will put the GOP out of its misery in the next election.
4
And I think — I hope — that those who have spent years denying this reality are finally coming around.
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Bob Dylan
Oh, the ragman draws circles
Up and down the block
I'd ask him what the matter was
But I know that he don't talk
And the ladies treat me kindly
And they furnish me with tape
But deep inside my heart
I know I can't escape
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Mobile with the
Memphis blues again
1
Thank you for bringing up the Bush administration's treasonous false rationale for the Iraq War. It deserves to be brought up whenever possible, especially when considering that nobody was ever held accountable for the murder of 3,000+ of our brave men and women in the armed forces.
4
All this "navel staring and lamenting" misses the bleeding obvious. Half of the population agrees and votes accordingly, just as half voted to secede once upon a time.
Trump did not create the wave he's surfing on it just as all those other politicians before them.
And this wave is not going anywhere, has never gone and will be there in future.
It is just a wave. Like you are just a drop. We all are.
Apparently the Democrats have a problem with the current climate of peace and prosperity despite the ever-present storm clouds. Now unsure of their chances in 2020 an”impeachment inquiry” is begun without a formal vote mere political Kabuki without substance. Let the people’s decide next year maybe the Dems will field a viable candidate Instead of lunatic left-wing scold
2
I am frankly not so sanguine. Years of practiced stupidity don't die so easily. All those years of art education replaced by Chinese and artificial intelligence may come back to haunt us. I mean we have an electorate that is pretty brainwashed. Even the educated ones. I am medium afraid that the Friday Night Lights crowd is going to be coming for us. It's happened before.
1
Dr K, I've been saying this, a few times in the Times comment section, for many years now (going back to the Clinton era)...
The GOP today is what the government of the Confederate States of America would gave looked like had it been given a chance to "mature". It would have been by, for, and about the plantation owners, who would have kept poor whites, who fought and died for it, and slaves, in their place with a heady mix of racism, religion, and brutality. Sound familiar?
3
We are one election away from becoming an anti democratic fascist dictatorship. This has been building since Goldwater's defeat in 1964 and if not for t rump's obvious caricature of a tin pot despot these last couple of years we might be there already. t rump's evil is impossible not to see and as such it has become blatantly obvious that his party is no different that he.
I blame, as does Krugman in this piece, the bothsidesism that has plagued the 4th Estate since Reagan.
We saw 8 years of news shows and reporting that went something like this: Obama said that the Nation is recovering from the almost depression of '07; while McConnell says that Obama is not digging the Nation out of the depression; You decide who is right.
Reporters might be remembering that in a fascist state they are generally out of work, and in prison. Or worse.
2
What is truly amazing is the Lefts ability to COMPLETELY ignore their own fanatics (see Paul Krugman). Who clearly and succinctly point out the flaws in the GOP on a consistent drum beat all the while ignoring the FACT the the DNC is now run by fanatic, bombastic ideologues. Paul... it might be the appropriate time to pull the plank out of your own eye.
2
Superb, Paul!
4
I really no longer can figure out what is worse. Trump and sycophants; who are merely a byproduct of the fanatical Neo-Con movement that began their rabid neo-liberal fascist agenda in 1980 under the likes of Reagan and Thatcher; or the pathetic self delusional fools who could not see what has been right in their face all along. Mr. Krugman says he began warning of all this in 2003. Some of us have been screaming about this for longer than that. However; now that Trumpocracy has finally shown what was there all along; and the systematic assault on all things democratic ever since; I can only hope and pray that the dam has indeed burst; the Fanatical Centrists are finally waking up; and this whole Alice in Wonderland/ Wizard of Oz insanity is about to come crashing down. Something that should have happened a very long time ago.
3
Dear Paul Krugman, you have been a guiding light over these past few years. However, you may have underestimated the Trump-McConnell axis and where they are taking the US and the world. Trump is not just a fool; he’s an inspired fool
Thank you! I read Mann and Ornstein's book and it's sagaciously prescient.
I only care about the answers to two questions vis-a-vis the Democratic nomination. In order of importance, they are:
1. How will your administration combat Climate Change?
2. How will you help dismantle the Republican party?
Plainly, I see the Republican party as just a little bit less of an existential threat than Climate Change.
160
@Andrew Roberts do you propose that in the name of a good cause the Democrats should do exactly what Trump literally just did to touch of this firestorm?
Change in the Republican party has to come from within, probably in response to repudiation at the polls. You can't go around destroying your political rivals, no matter how vile, in a free society.
13
@Andrew Roberts
I think your question about the Republican party is crucial because the Republican party has obstructed in any way possible efforts to slow climate change. We don't have a smidgen of a chance of addressing climate change if Republicans continue to hold power in this country.
14
@Andrew Roberts
To put it more correctly, the first order of business is to restore real democracy in the United States. A country that is ruled by a president who lost the popular vote, by a Senate that is wildly skewed towards rural and out-of-touch states, a House that is often gerrymandered into giving majority power to a population that is actually a minority by a long shot, and by a culture of legalized political bribery and blatant propaganda posing as news, is not in fact a democracy. If the Republican party permanently loses power because we re-establish democracy, then that will not have happened not because we have it in for Republicans, but because they are on the wrong side of what is right.
Climate change reform will be thrown out by the Supreme Court. We have to reform the political system in order to make anything stick.
17
Those of us who are middle-age or older grew up in a unique time of bipartisan agreement on basic values. The country had come through two world wars and a great depression. Rich and poor alike had fought and died, and the horrors of Hitler's right-wing extremism and Stalin's left-wing extremism were still living memories. Liberals and conservatives might disagree on specific public policies, especially on race and civil rights, but there was no cause to question the other sides' commitment to basic democratic principles.
Over the past several decades the Berlin Wall has fallen and most of the remaining fascist regimes have crumbled or softened. But fueled by an explosion of private wealth, a new model has emerged, that of a kleptocratic plutocracy overlaid with a thin veneer of democracy. Russia is the best example of that and it is no accident that right-wing rhetoric--and our own president--have become so admiring of Putin's Russia. That is where America's oligarchs want us to go and the Republican Party has become their vehicle.
It took me a long time to realize that the post-WWII world I grew up in was gone, and that we've entered a "brave new world" where the old assumptions are not valid. Thankfully there are prominent columnists like Prof Krugman who see this change clearly and have the guts to say it.
4
I long for the days when authoritarianism was a fringe concept in America, and the one thing everyone could agree on was that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
4
The USA is going through difficult political times. No doubt about that. Can the USA survive as a constitutional democracy in spite of these developments? I doubt it. As Trump is showing everyone our laws are not as tight and applicable to the uppermost layers of society as they have been advertised. All one needs are sufficient good lawyers paid by the taxes which the populace pays. I believe that most Republicans will henceforth apply these tactics to all political arguments and maintain a new type of democratic rule which will barely resemble the current political and legal system we are used to.
3
A childhood friend joined the militia and moved to Eastern Oregon. Oregon is where eleven GOP state senators hid themselves out of state to prevent passage of a widely popular cap-n-trade climate bill, and the militia warned any state trooper sent to look for them that it would defend those state senators 'at any cost'. Indeed, the state troopers association recommended the state capitol be closed because the threat of violence was so high.
This is what the GOP means by 'Second Amendment Solutions'. They are 'solutions' against the exercise of the First Amendment. They are 'solutions' against the proper functioning of our Democracy. Oregonians, today, suffer under 'taxation without representation', enforced by their 'Three Percenter' militia without a trace of irony.
7
This all really started in Lyndon Johnson's administration. Why? Because he pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Southern Democrats and other racists knew they could never again be part of the Democratic party. So the racists took over the Republican party, and that's exactly what it became: racist to the core.
208
@Sam D
I think religion is the wider part of the GOP base. If there was no abortion issue, there would be no GOP, because in all reality, most all of their other policy positions tend to represent the antithesis of Christian moral values.
28
@Sam D It is equally valid to say that the Republican Party was hovering like vultures to swoop up all of those Dixiecrats. They were joined in their racism, although some republicans were probably more opportunistic than racist. Soulless all of them.
15
@Meg - you may be right about that. Although maybe if there were no abortion issue, there would surely be a gay marriage issue and many others (and you are right, there are a whole lot of issues they seem to support which are definitely the antitheses of those values). A gigantic paradox.
14
It's important to distinguish Republican voters from elected officials on this argument. Krugman is 100% right about elected officals (especially at the national level), but centrist, compromise-friendly Republican voters absolutely do exist.
They just have no electoral clout given the outsize importance of primaries, and are not (yet?) willing to vote against Republicans when (due to confirmation bias, media bubbles, and other much more understandable-if-unfortunate reasons) it's easy for them to be convinced that Democrats are just as dangerous to democracy and are the greater of two evils.
2
Judging from the hundreds if not thousands of comments I've read over the last couple of years, few remember Karl Rove's goal of a "permanent Republican majority. " The present situation is just a culmination.
5
Paul Krugman is absolutely correct in his assessment of the GOP's long standing attack on democracy. But, his view of centrists or centrism is not quite right. Centrists are in three groups: members of the public who have checked out and speak in uninformed platitudes about both sides being equally bad; or, members of the informed elite and politicians who feel some measure of statesmanship for being above the fray (David Brooks and Joe Biden, are you listening?); or those who pretend to be in the center for political survival (Susan Collins, how is that Kavanaugh thing going to work out when the Supreme Court reverses recent precedent on abortion?)
3
Here in Dallas, at the time of the Reagan revolution business, all the business leaders were "staunchly conservative". Then, as Dallas shifted, quite quickly in fact, into a blue area, the business community was suddenly "staunchly Liberal". What gives? The business community sees political or ideological leanings as PR.
This is the essence of "centrism" in my opinion. It's become a code word for "business friendly" or "neoliberal" or anything what we are led to believe it means.
Even though Hillary, for example, is continually attacked as "Liberal", she's actually more of a neoliberal or conservative Dem. Hence, suddenly she's "centrist".
In a way, this is in tandem with the business world's odd ability to get between the US government and the American people. Now, the government is something to be alienated from. Now, those with no financial interest in the government outside of economic fairness have been pulled into this anti-government bit that libertarians who pretend to be conservatives are pushing.
I think education is key. Too bad it costs so much to get the tools to overthrow the fools.
3
Wow, your thoughts hit the nail on the head. Business has gotten between “the people and government”. What a tragic and brilliant way to erode democracy.
Obviously, there are those in the hierarchy of business, government, and money policy that feel “we the people” are unable to handle the process of direct democracy, and perhaps they are right if this is the end result. If it can be contorted into what we are not witnessing, by a small but effective group - well, this is what we end up with. My heart is broken for our nation.
3
Great column. Trump is the culmination of years of the hollowing out of American values.
3
"No, Trump isn’t an aberration. He’s unusually blatant and gaudily corrupt, but at a basic level he’s the culmination of where his party has been going for decades."
True.
And, the place the Republican Party has gone is the culmination of the unholy affair America has always had with unbridled capitalism and even worse, cronyism.
FDR did a lot to ameliorate the viciousness of American capitalism. But corporations and the wealthy always find a corrupt way to assert their own interests -- the interest of wealthy capitalists. They have destroyed our democracy by bribing our politicians to do so.
Not until Americans learn that capitalism is very corrupting, very anti-human, anti-democratic, anti-environment and just plain evil will politics and government improve in America.
The Republican Party is the party of extreme capitalism. And we no see what it has become and it has resulted in the ascendency of the fear-mongering, greedy, self-interested Trump.
Capitalism may well be a necessary evil, but it is evil nonetheless. It must be very carefully regulated and controlled and it must be tempered with more generous social programs to protect humans, democracy and the environment from it's viciousness.
Failure to rigorously control capitalism and temper it with more generous social programs (socialist programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, unemployment insurance, etc.) will allow this viciousness to continue.
9
With all due respect to Mr. Krugman, this piece is fine as far as it goes.
But the crucial question, left unanswered is, how are we to engage politically with a Republican party that sounds "ever more authoritarian and violat[es] more and more democratic norms"?
4
Trump brings out all that is ugly and dirty in the GOP, maybe in politics in general. On top of that, he demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of diplomacy, race relations (or doesn't care?), economy and many other areas of traditional concern to our leaders. I'm not a Republican, but I hope he will turn out to be the straw that broke the party's back and led it to a new understanding of its role in American politics and policy.
3
Far more than anything else, it's been the "radical centrist" narrative in mainstream news coverage over the past 3-4 years that have made me question my grip on sanity. From coverage that implied Hillary Clinton's "flaws" were remotely comparable to those of Donald Trump; anticipation that Trump would "grow into the Presidency" despite everything we'd seen and heard from him over the previous 30 years as a bloviating public figure; to focusing on and denouncing of the "uncivil" language used by some who were outraged by the child separation policy, as though the use of expletives was remotely as consequential as the policy itself; to Bret Stephens stating that the testimonies of Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford were equally compelling and "a wash"; to arguments that Trump's voters support him for any number of reasons other than that they like exactly who is is and what he's seeking to accomplish. I'm all for appreciating complexity and nuance, but this inability to clearly recognize Trump and the Republican party as extreme authoritarians has seemed like willful blindness. Thank you Paul Krugman.
7
@Ashleigh
The GOP have been hiding behind the abortion issue to gain the support of the religious right while they have been lining their own pockets and those of their donors.
I have talked to some evangelicals who think Trump is repulsive, but who have been convinced by religious leaders that he has, as Pat Roberson put it, the "mandate of heaven" largely due to things like the abortion issue.
So, I felt a pang of hope today when I heard that Pat Robertson warned that Trump was ‘in danger of losing the mandate of heaven’ over the Syria decision.
Without the religious right, the GOP would largely disappear, thus any serious sign of waning support can open the door for removal of Trump should the House impeach.
5
@Meg
I felt a similar hope when the family separation story first broke and there seems to be broad condemnation that notably included some on the religious right. Almost a year and half later, hundreds of children are still separated from their parents and evangelical support of Trump is solid. I'd like to believe that Pat Robertson's latest statement is grounds for optimism that evangelical support for Trump will weaken, but I won't hold my breath.
As an aside, I've been to Arizona twice (I'd visit every year if I could), and I love it. It is in my opinion one of the most beautiful places in the world. Cheers! :)
2
@Ashleigh
Yes, it is a lovely. I went hiking in Sedona a few days ago.
2
All accurate. But we're in an endless diagnosis phase. When does the necessary, aggressive treatment plan start?
3
I'm one of those centrists (on the Democratic side) and I still think that Paul Krugman is "shrill if not deranged". The fact that he has been that way for years doesn't mean that he was right - then or now. This country is, at last, girding its loins and may get rid of that excrescence Donald Trump. If it does so, it will be thanks to the centrists, in Congress and among the public, not the extremes. I resent Paul Krugman's attempt to take credit for this in advance. He has nothing to do with it.
2
I agree with most of this, and would add that a coup is actually going on--not a coup against a leader, so to speak (because Trump is hardly a leader), but a coup against our democratic institutions. And, as Prof. Krugman points out, it's nothing new.
It truly began with the Gingrich-era 'Contract on America' (yes, I know that it was 'for'), and then got a major boost with the Hastert rule. It began to reach critical mass in 2016, when McConnell refused to bring Merrick Garland's nomination to a confirmation vote.
And now, with Trump in the Oval Office, it's accelerated, tearing down the EPA, refusing to honor lawful subpoenas, and on and on. The only question we need to ask ourselves at this point is whether or not it's too late to reverse the damage of the GOP Coup of American democracy.
4
@Tim My apologies--I didn't remember something correctly. It was the 'Contract With America', not 'for'.
1
Any Democrat who hopes to be elected President in 2020 ought to consider that the Senate will have approximately 50 Republicans in it. Even if they're the minority, they will still need to be dealt with. We can at least leave open the possibility that the better angels of their nature show up.
2
Any Democrat who hopes to be elected President in 2020 ought to consider that the Senate will have approximately 50 Republicans in it. Even if they're the minority, they will still need to be dealt with. We can at least leave open the possibility that the better angels of their nature show up.
@Lindershaw - to "leave open the possibility that their better natures will show up," assf you put it, is to cling to hope against all evidence and against any rational view of the historical precedent of the last 25 years.
2
Any Democrat who hopes to be elected President in 2020 ought to consider that the Senate will have approximately 50 Republicans in it. Even if they're the minority, they will still need to be dealt with. We can at least leave open the possibility that the better angels of their nature show up.
1
Mr. Krugman concludes his column by saying "And U.S. political life won't begin to recover until centrists face up to that uncomfortable reality."
Question: "Face up to that uncomfortable reality" and do what?
3
Well, according to Gallup:
31% of voters are registered Democrats
29% Republicans
38% Independents
We know that Trump as an 85% favorable rating among republicans.
We know that democrats are vowing to vote blue no matter who.
So, who will decide the election in the critical swing states?
Independents - moderates
Thus, I don't fault Joe Biden for catering to moderates, some who may have once been Republicans. He wants to win, he wants to pull the independents who may have voted for Trump last time causing Trump to win the swing states
Biden has been polling way ahead of Trump in swing states, whereas Warren and Sanders have peen polling close to the margin for error.
This seems to suggest that the independents in these states are more moderate, like Joe
Far-left candidates like Warren or Sanders do not do quite as well in swing states. Perhaps this is due to Medicare for all.
The moderate candidates propose a buy-in which polls much better.
Bernie had been criticized, in the last primary, for not being realistic about how he would pay for Medicare for All, but at least he comes up with half the needed 32 trillion in his plan.
Warren's 2 cent tax raises less than 3 trillion. I simply don't understand why she is being treated so differently than Bernie was by the media.
Why are they ignoring the "elephant in the room" Medicare for all?
The GOP in swing states will push the issue in the GE and since she is close to the margin for error already, she could lose.
4
@Meg
It might even be more extreme. The last polls I saw had independent and non-affiliated voters at just under 50%, and Democrats and Republican each at around a 25%.
2
@Meg
The Gallup poll asks:
"In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?"
So, I need to make a correction above, these are the parties that people "identify" themselves as being affiliated with - rather than being "registered as."
1
@carl bumba
My poll is from Sept 3-15
Gallup seems to publish them every 2 weeks.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
Hear! Hear! Prof. Krugman.
Any individuals who watched the endless obstructionism and stonewalling by Conservatives of Barack Obama’s attempts to govern democratically, and their unconscionable attacks that included blatant racist elements, including burning a Black President in effigy, and openly threatening sedition and paramilitary violence against opponents, fail to comprehend the authoritarian extremism of the current Republican Party.
The election of Donald Trump is a personification of that mindset. Complete with its double standard of “we legitimately do what our opponents have no right to do,” this Republican Party has one intent and that’s the subversion of what they perceive to be our flawed Constitution. Trump may still abet them and pull it off.
6
It has been pointed out by many liberal pundits that the Republican Party *has* to lie, almost all the time. To admit their true goals, "we want to give more money and power to the already rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else", is a complete non-starter in a system that requires that you pass an electoral hurdle every once in a while.
The problem with lying all the time, is that your system is unable to weed out and remove pathological liars, because they blend right in. The loud mouths who actually believe and retransmit the party propaganda, once thought to be useful tools, now start to take over the party. The very next step, not too far off in the future, is that they will march the country right of a cliff of violent insanity. Fascism leads inevitably to violence, war, and atrocities.
5
@Jim K
Yes, that seems to be happening right now with Trump!
You post is the reason why I used to post this analogy here during the 2016 election
Dr Frankenstein : Monster :: GOP : Trump
The GOP has created the conditions that has then created the ability for the monster to exist and now it is the monster who is in charge.
4
Thank you. I believe you have said it all. Let's hope America gets it.
2
I couldn’t agree more with this piece. The good news for centrists and people that believe true democracy is the best system of government, is that the authoritarian overthrow of America is being led by the most incompetent dictator wannabe on the planet.
5
Who was the supreme centrentist in 2016? It’s rich to read this column from the man who would not support Senator Sanders because he was too left of center. If Bernie had been the nominee in 2016 we would not have a Trump presidency. The Republican Party would have had to hew center because there would have been nowhere else for them to go.
1
@Lisa Calef - "If Bernie had been the nominee in 2016 we would not have a Trump presidency". You don't know that and I do not believe that.
5
@Marc
True there is no evidence that Bernie would have won. Hillary won the 'primary' against Bernie by over 2 million votes - huge!
So although Bernie may have done slightly better in the primary in a couple of swing states, since Democrats make up less than 1/3 of all voters and republicans make up less than 1/3 of voters, as well, this means that independents would likely have been the largest voting block to break a close tie in the swing states.
So, the primary was not necessarily an indicator for Bernie in those states.
Independents tend to be more moderate on average or they would probably pick a "team." They may also be more varied on issues (liberal on some and more conservative on others).
Thus, since less than 1/3 of voters are Democrats and since more than half of Democrats identify as moderates (55%)...then add in the more moderate Independents who about 40% of all voters - well it is not likely at all that Sanders would have won. Unless he won the primary because he is male, it is not likely he won because he was more liberal.
Instead of the email controversy, Trump would have found a controversy to manufature for Sanders as well (like he is doing now against Biden and did against Hillary).
3
What is also important here is that this Republican Party is in no way a conservative party. It has become a party of radical Reactionaries, those who wish and pine for the return of the Ancient Regime. This fact is not insignificant as the label conservative means that you conserve the status quo, conserve the Constitution and its institutions whose employees take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution, not the Presidency. Reactionaries want to tear down those institutions and break down the wall that separates the coequal branches of government.
What we are witnessing now is a reverse coup by those who really feel a need to return to an imagined past making
America Great again ?
5
I agree with much of this, but in fairness to Sen. Biden, I don't think he's naive. I believe he is using the hostage negotiator's technique of giving Republicans an out, reminding them that how they're acting at this moment isn't the totality of who they are and who they can be.
I was once faced with an armed assailant on the subway. His pummeled victim was bleeding from his face behind me while the assailant was in front of me, shirt smoothed to show me a gun handle protruding from his waistband. The assailant said at one point, ''I'm not a violent man.'' Absurd, yes, but I didn't dispute it. I used that conception of himself to build upon, and talked him off the train.
I might vote for Warren, but please respect Biden's intelligence and that he knows what he's doing when coaxing Republicans onto a better path.
107
@Erik Baard Sorry, but Biden’s responses have been lame. He looks like someone seriously thinking about retirement.
14
@Erik Baard The point is, you could argue that centrists have been attempting to coax Republicans onto a better path for decades, and it hasn't worked. Obama spent most of his first year in office reaching out to Republicans, only to find his hand bitten.
In fact, Republicans have been moving rightward for quite some time now, to the point where the center itself has moved right. This is how Dems have been played, and until they show some spine & a willingness to lead instead of follow, it'll likely stay that way, or get even worse.
26
@Erik Baard The Republican party as it's evolved to now, cannot be coaxed onto a better path. They're too enmeshed with the current direction now.
13
There is absolutely nothing stopping any Democrat or progressive or centrist from donating a sum in excess of their net federal tax to the US Treasury. Nothing. It’s right there on the return. Likewise, there is nothing stopping the same group from donating to or creating a charity organization that fulfills their definition of a safety net. If they works like to see low wage workers paid more, they can provide them with a top whenever they are served by those workers. If they own or manage a business, they have every right to pay a wage and provide benefits far in excess of what the law requires. Yet, they insist in forcing everyone to effectively donate to their preferred issues. They believe that every imbalance, every wrong or slight, each issue dujour is a definable problem, that government is the only solution and that all will be well if only we direct more money that way. This same group refuses to tell anyone “No!” They want to bubble wrap the whole world because they do not have the stomach for the brutal nature of capitalism.
2
@From Where I Sit
Laws and regulations are a necessary part of what is The Social Contract. Children no longer work in mines,or factories; industrial waste can no longer be dumped into waterways (McConnell's Kentucky excepted); sewage no longer runs through public roads or sidewalks; householders no longer dump buckets of waste from windows; factory smokestacks can no longer spew mercury into the sir; autos no longer emit carbon dioxide from exhaust pipes; traffic is controlled by lights and signage; education through high school is funded and supported; public health is protected from plagues and viral diseases by government Agencies; animals are protected from abuse, as are children. The reason we have laws and regulations in place is because capitalism can be brutal, even feral, if unchecked. Perhaps you have the stomach for a brutal form of capitalism; if that is the case, there are countries which provide that, e.g. Nigeria, Somalia, and parts of the world where Sharia law and Wahabism rule. The civilized world prefers humane treatment for humans and animals.
Washington D.C. is dominated by the centrist view. Political analysts on PBS’ Newshour routinely call Senators and presidential candidates Sanders and Warren “far left”, and glibly say “congress hasn’t done any legislating in the last two years”, when, in fact, Sanders is slightly left of the true democratic center and Warren is squarely in the center and the Democrat dominated House has passed some very good bills that were then stopped by Moscow Mitch in the Senate. McConnell’s corruption has been masked and protected by lies of commission and omission by the mainstream television media. Radio is even worse.
3
A good left swing for the political pendulum will make being a centrist back in vogue. We are just passing through an extreme political time. I would like to see third political party formed to represent the center because I for one see very little that is appealing on each of the radical sides. Another four years of destruction under Warren and maybe we will see the power come to rest in the center again.
1
@RAD61 fantastic quote and one that we should reread every day. Which is why they are attacking education, rewriting history, and facilitating the dumbing-down of America. Trump said it out loud to the nation "I love the poorly educated".
4
Agree wholeheartedly. It's sad how short our memories are even in the media. The rejection of science, the support of the idea of the President as holding supreme power, and other on American ideas were advanced during the Bush Administration. and yet the media coverage has indicated from time to time that these are ideas exclusive to the Trump Administration.
And running unqualified entertainers for office goes back to Reagan. This truly is the culmination of the Reagan Devolution.
4
You can't say that this scandal is different, because it's "simple enough to understand".
Trump telling Lester Holt that he fired Comey to end the Russia investigation was also an on-camera confession to crime, and pretty simple to understand.
Trump's emoluments with the hotel stays and the Mar-a-Lago fees being doubled were also simple enough to understand.
I have to go with "The Intercept" - try being a whole news site that is ignored as "shrill, even deranged" for treating the Iraq War as a war crime - for the reason on this one:
Trump went after somebody who looked like them; he went after the leader of that "centrist" (hah) wing of the party.
Just about everybody becomes much more concerned with crime when the house next door gets broken into.
So, don't get your hopes up; this is more about self-protection than protecting the rest of us.
3
Thank you, Mr. Krugman. I'm terrified at what's happening. And I am also stymied by the fact the true patriots, who genuinely believe in our 'old' system of government, aren't storming Washington. When will someone with a public position and a large following begin to organize a siege of Washington D.C. to stop this dangerous and illegal administration?
15
@Concerned
Dear Concerned for decades the Republicans have taken the Dems abuse which is on full display here. What you resent is the pushback and stalwart support of a President and their intention to go down swinging regardless of the consequences we owe the Founders no less.
@Concerned
When, and if, the GOP in the Senate fail to uphold their Oath to the Constitution, is when we may see the "storming," as you describe it.
I think while there is a glimmer of hope, we will simply sit wide mouthed and horrified, but still wonder - will they actually abandon their Oath?
At this point, obstruction of justice is very clear, and it can't be denied.
4
@Fred C. Dobbs
We no longer have legal slavery; we no longer deny the vote to those who do not own property, or to women. We support a Federal government through taxation which also guarantees representation in Congress. The Federal government is how we address what is needed to provide safety and security for all. The Judicial system is how we protect the civil rights of citizens and those who live within our borders. The Coast Guard protects our waterways off shore. The military protects our national borders. National Guard troops, police and sheriffs keep domestic order and peace. All of the above exist through hard fought for rights and responsibilities we all have to keep a just and peaceful society.
"Will they finally admit what the G.O.P. has become?" No.
9
YES! This is what I keep saying!!!!!
Another phrase for self-awareness is moral compass, as Daniel Goleman and other experts in emotional intelligence have said.
Self-awareness is the very foundation of emotional intelligence. When people aren't emotionally self-aware, they are self-righteous. They view LGBTQ people and many others who fall outside of their limited worldview as moral decay. When you lack empathy toward a particular person or group of people, you are able to justify actions and inactions that would otherwise be viewed as unethical, immoral, and possibly illegal.
People without moral compasses have taken over our government because they were elected and appointed by people without moral compasses.
The United States Supreme Court has been controlled by Republican appointees (conservatives) for over fifty years, with the exception being the vacancy the Republican-controlled Senate wouldn't allow Obama to fill following Antonin Scalia's death. The difference now is that all of the Republican appointees currently on the Supreme Court lack emotional self-awareness.
If you look up the role of the Supreme Court as set forth on uscourts.gov, you will see that the current conservatives on that court don't agree with its actual role.
Don’t expect such people to stop supporting and defending Trump because they can’t - they lack the moral compass to know right from wrong.
Empathy is about understanding and I understand all too much all too well.
7
I went to Trump's campaign website and looked at the apparel. There are three size categories: Men, Women, and Youth. I then went to Joe Biden's and Amy Klobuchar's site, and there are two size categories: Women and Unisex. As for Warren's and Buttigieg's, they have only one: Unisex.
If Trump wins reelection, mightn't part of the reason be that he had a Men's option? And the GOP is what it is because, not in spite, of democracy. The evolution of conservative media over the past thirty years, and now the dominance of the Internet, has created a horde of anti-liberal whites whose sole focus is impeding liberalism's advance.
If liberalism will advance if too many blacks are allowed to vote, then the GOP will fight to prevent that happening, and in so doing will be "antidemocratic." Nonetheless, such behavior is ultimately because of what the demos wants them to do -- or at least that part of the demos that votes Republican.
As to the column, what is its objective? What do you want non-progressives to do, feign that Democrats aren't moving left, or just shut up and accept it? Voters want conspicuous distinctions between the candidates, and the push to distinguish oneself as sharply as possible from the Enemy necessitates extremism.
Is Trump a racist? Nominate Wokey the Bear. Is Trump cutting taxes on the wealthy? Raise them to 80%. Is he separating families? Open the border. ... It's hard to see how we Make America Sane Again, but it'd be nice if we could manage it.
@David L, Jr.
Interesting. Democrats would be better served if they moved left with respect to economics and economic class justice, not social justice which just divides people and would improve best by getting economic justice (as MLK came to appreciate).
2
Dr. Krugman's last paragraph sums up the reason Trump decided to run as a Republican. It was apparent to him that the Republican religion adhering to the belief that an R after someone's name makes them "the one," despite child molestation, domestic abuse, voter tampering, treason. So since they happily accept white supremacists, voodoo economics, an unending war entered into under false pretenses, surely his tawdry story of failed casinos, tax evasion and red lining wouldn't bother them -- the Republican party was made for Donald Trump, and he climbed on board, added the magic R after his name and voila: the logical Republican thing happened. He's an R, they love him.
5
How to turn the United States into a one-Party Republican fiefdom:
1. Control the majority on the Supreme Court -- done.
2. Make sure lower courts are dominated by Party loyalists hungry for advancement -- done.
3. Block any legislation from Democrats which diminish control of courts and election system -- ongoing.
4. If impeached, attack. If impeachment proven, call it a witch hunt.
5. If the other Party gets control of Congress, ignore them.
6. Have an information stream to keep motivated voters believing you work for them and only them -- fully done.
7. Lie. All the time. Obviously.
9
So called "independents," "moderates," and "centrists" in the intellectually muddled middle generally have no political philosophy. Therefore, they have no principles, ethics or values to guide their decisions other than expedience and "gut feelings. (Beer anyone?)
Consequently, "centrists" are like rudderless boats that float wherever the political winds and currents take them.
In human society, emotions are the strongest forces and fear is the most powerful emotion of all. It is only when there are no bogeymen current in the popular imagination that "centrists" open to reason, facts and morality.
Throughout American history, demagogues, racists and chauvinists have found it surprisingly easy to fear-monger cognitively unanchored "centrists" toward the right. There is no reason to believe that our ruling Russian-Republicans will not be able to continue scaring the low information civic sloths in the "center" to vote for fraudulent protectors such as Trump.
Professor Krugman - whom I greatly admire - naively lives among civilized people who bear little or no resemblance to the typical modern Republican savage or typical sheep cowering in the middle of the human herd.
Smart Americans will emigrate before the ruling Russian-Republican tyranny shuts the borders going both ways.
2
And ... Always need a recommendation or an opinion about what action is needed, don't you think?
1
Class warfare? I am ready. Bring it on.
2
Actually, most of the “centrists” in the GOP have already headed for the exits—people Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and Dave Trott of Michigan. What’s left are people like Susan Collins, who is a walking parody of a centrist: making all kinds of worried noises during the Kavanaugh hearings, but who, when the chips are down, can be expected to buckle to the right wing. What’s also left are unelected paragons of civic virtue and selflessness such Mick Mulvaney and Rudy Giuliani and William Barr. No need to worry about policy or responsibility (so long Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson). The adults have also left the room. Heaven help us!
4
What is worse is that so many millions do not care.
A nation gets the government it deserves.
5
@Cassandra - Actually, our government is set up for rule by the minority, and as population shifts more and more from rural to urban and suburban areas, that leaves the rural areas with proportionately more power.
In 2016, Hillary won almost 3 million more votes but lost because of the outdated electoral college. Senate Democrats got 20 million more votes than Senate Republicans, yet Republicans kept the majority, thanks to the founders unwise compromise that allocated 2 Senators per state, regardless of population.
House Democrats got 3 million more votes than House Republicans, yet Republicans kept a 23 seat majority, thanks to gerrymandering and voter suppression. So no, we do NOT get the government we vote for or the government we deserve. The problem is that I don't know if the situation is fixable. That means we'll grow ever more polarized and divided until civil unrest becomes a common fixture of our lives.
3
Centrists in Democrats=Moderates believing in bipartisanship.
Centrists in Republicans=Loyalty to boss & bickering for partisan politics with MAGA madness. Phytoist.
2
As usual, Paul Krugman is one of the clearest thinkers and writers of our time.
This column's message is particularly depressing, but correct.
If the Trump goes, we are still stuck with the Trump Party, and it is not only antithetical to democracy, but truly malevolent as well.
Democratic candidates for president are not paying attention to this horrifying reality.
260
@Jim Remington Your comments are spot on and thank you. We the People must realize what you have said is the TRUTH! Help for our beloved and beleaguered country that most of us truly love. At eighty I am really sad and depressed at our lack of moral courage.
25
@Jim Remington And what is your solution?
3
@Jim Remington Exclusion of the Republican Party and its members, as you suggest, is in itself antithetical to democracy.
We all forget, and Paul Krugman conveniently fails to mention, that Trump was a Democrat until as recently as 2009.
1
It's import to understand that the "classic" Republican voter from years ago is more than likely an registered Independent today (registered Republicans only make up 24% of the electorate). As a whole, they tend to be affiliated more with the business community, so it stands to reason that the play for Democratic candidates is to craft strategies that are appealing to them. Current Republican politicians have done very little for small business owners as they have allowed the "Party of Business" to become the "Party of Monkey Business". The fact that 6-10 million skilled jobs are going unfilled in America right now should be something that Democrat's develop proposals around, it should be a main talking point for every presidential candidate. If Democrat's started to propose free training for these unfilled jobs they would take a page from the old school Republican playbook and make it their own. Training for many of these jobs amounts to a few thousand dollars which would be offset by the increased taxes that newly trained workers would pay because of the elevated salaries these "living wage jobs" would provide them with. Again a lot of Independent voters own or work for small businesses. Imagine if the party that not only took care of the average worker took care of the average business owner? This would make the crackpot fringe Republican party of today irrelevant, and could quite possibly be an invitation for former moderates to re-up and save "The Party of Lincoln".
6
'the central problem of U.S. politics was a G.O.P. that was not just extreme but “dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”'
Wouldn't “dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” be just as accurate a description of the Left? Of this very article?
Now even the centrists are labeled fanatical. Is that not itself fanaticism?
The real problem is that our society has become polarized into camps that delegitimize each other. If that's the result of the Russians sowing discord, kudos, they've done a great job. Can't we all come to our senses and see each other as imperfect but human, and try to find common ground?
1
@Michael - The problem with today's Republicans is that they've become the party of no compromise, ever. That's in part because so many Republicans are convinced government is the enemy. They have no interest in making government work. In fact, they're happiest when they can prove it doesn't work. Democrats, on the other hand, are the party of good government. They ARE interested in making government work, which is why they're willing to compromise for the greater good. Example: The ACA was the Republican solution initially, developed by the rightwing Heritage Foundation and implemented by Mitt Romney in MA. Democrats in general would have preferred something closer to single payer, but Democratic leadership went with what was originally the Republican proposal. And then, because the idea was proposed by Obama and Democrats, not one Republican would vote for it.
2
@MegWright
From this example you have concluded that all Republicans are categorically all bad all of the time.
My point exactly.
Yes, this is all very true. However the question that must be asked is: What will we do if Trump is not removed from office through impeachment and is (Heaven forbid!) narrowly re-elected? What kind of hope can we have for the Republic with another four years of an unrestrained madman and a fully compliant and complicit GOP dominated Senate?
5
Its become painfully obvious at this point that we have the Best government money can Buy..thanks to the good old party of No!
The only fix is to show up in massive numbers and vote to correct it.
1
I have seen this coming for years as the Koch Bros, the Thiels, and the Mercer’s worked to establish a completely authoritarian government totally under the control of oligarchs. Putin saw it too and leveraged those plans to his advantage. The Republicans never cared for the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. We now live in a daily nightmare of chaos and corruption just like Russia.
6
@Marianne P Cohen - You're exactly right. I recommend Nancy MacLean's "Democracy in Chains" for the history of how libertarian billionaires worked for decades to take control of our government. They've almost completely succeeded, and the current incarnation of the GOP was shaped by years of propaganda from these billionaires, whose ultimate goal is a country made up of a handful of fabulously wealthy and powerful men, while the rest of us live in what amounts to a third world country.
As far as I'm concerned, hard centrist do not exit. Everyone needs some sort of "regulated" freedom.
Many states have disinvested heavily in education in the last few decades and you are now paying the price with a hard core of non educated citizens looking for strong people using a language they understand to channel frustrations (i.e. populism). The GOP found its niche with these people and related tycoons. Your republic is at risk and from a canadian perspective this is very concerning!
3
So what will the future hold, if after all that will likely happen (impeachment by the house and a close, but no cigar vote to convict in the senate) Trump is reelected? His supporters are steadfast and spread throughout prime electoral states.
The Democrats need a plan. Pick 2-3 candidates to keep running while folding in some of the other candidate's ideas. Set up get out the vote campaigns in the prime electoral states. Start/continue appealing to women voters.
By nature, a centrist usually doesn't take a strong stand, but empathizes with some points on both sides. Sometimes the issue is not that important to them. They are usually the last to stand up on a controversial issue. The more radical lead the charge for change with success never guaranteed.
Removing Trump to protect our democracy is a process much like a train. We radicals are in the engine room stoking the fire to arrive at our destination. Centrists are roaming through the passenger cars and Republicans are standing on the caboose platform yelling that we'll never get where we're going.
Best Krugman Op Ed ever.
4
Maybe we could start with Colin Powell - dog and pony show maestro Iraq invasion.
2
If you are a racist, Trump affirms that your racism is patriotism.
If you are sexist, Trump is your role model.
If you are a religious bigot, Trump affirms that you are a true
American.
If you are uninformed, Trump compares you favorably with the over-educated elites.
Take each person's favorite prejudice and congratulate them for it. It is a simple tactic, but it works brilliantly. It's no longer necessary for Republicans to pretend concern about personal morality or fiscal responsibility.
It's going to take more than mere reality to separate Trump from the MAGA masses.
269
@writeon1 Very well-stated. You have described exactly what kind of cunning tactics Trump is using, and how easy it has been for him to captivate those various groupings, including Republican politicians in DC. You are also correct, it will take more than mere reality to convince Trump voters how mistaken they have been to continue to be wed to his cult.
26
@writeon1 it is not just Trump that does what you describe. It is to a large degree many or most of the GOP. They in many cases are just a little more circumspect.
5
Biden is weak tea, no doubt. The burning question is can Elizabeth Warren (the other likely nominee) beat Trump. We just don't know.
This is the only legitimate question as our country lurches dangerously towards authoritarianism. Who is the candidate most likely to beat Trump and preserve our democracy. All other issues are subordinate to this one.
6
Mr. Krugman, have you talked to the editors of the paper that publishes your column about this? They're a prime example of both-sides-do-it thinking.
1
Thank you
2
And further, turning away from Trump, in the event that it happens, isn't the same as rejecting the thinking that gave him to us.
2
“They [the New York Times and the “far left”] want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure … .” Bill O’Reilly to John McCain, 2007.
To prop up the “white, male, Christian power structure” – still the GOP mission.
2
Wow. Paul Krugman has just written the most important and profound editorial I have ever read.
4
If you have no passion, you can always take up politics. It's pretty straightforward. Red or blue, donkey or elephant. You pick one and then shut your mind off and ride the outrage and delight. That's pretty much my view of politics and NYT isn't above it. Neither am I. I've written our Senator Gardner asking for his take on the early madness of the lies about the inauguration, then later to ask that he commit to opposing Trump when he makes his power grab. I'm basically a kook now and shut out the news for the sake of my nervous system. So it's hard to read an article like this without considering the source. Is it really a special awfulness this time? I'm happy to say I don't really care. I'm told I live in the greatest country to ever exist yet simultaneously subjected to a demon of a leader at his worst. I get text after text from Nancy Pelosi claiming everything hinges on my two dollar donation and Republicans are vile is the motivator. What would the Democrats do without the Republican scapegoat, what would the Republicans do without the immigrant scapegoat. Where are all the humans? Did they all die in the towers? Were they the last humans and all we have left are republicans and democrats?
1
Yes! Amazing, Republicans keep getting worse! If they had kept the Majority in the House, piece of cr-p, right wing, lying, Republican partisan hack Jim Jordan wanted to be (and might have been) the next Speaker!!!
1
Krugman and his NYTimes ilk should stop beating around the bush. What political authoritarians hate is equality of participation in government; equality of government protection, and most of all they hate equality in opportunity. The idea of a more perfect union for these people is a more perfectly class-stratified one wherein any egalitatian ideals or values are stigmatized as subversively communistic/socialist collective.
5
Trump and the Republicans have normalized corruption, crony capitalism, white supremacy and treason for their donors and voters. That is an outstanding achievement. You are hoping that it will not be seen as normal for the rest of Americans. I hope so to. Otherwise we sink to fascism.
2
First lets point out that those radical centrists always appear to be white male and well off.
Next that the NYT hires more of them than any other institution. That they are the Times bread and butter. That this is where the Times goes when they want to promote an elite white agenda. The agenda of the Times and its ownership.
Paul Krugman is like a democrat on Fox News. And like Fox News I have watched for decades for the NYT to discover a diverse nation worth supporting over rich white men. And it is a paper that has decided that the idea of being woke is a problem, regardless of the issues of basic decency, equality, and living on a common planet that need to be addressed.
Frankly, The White Rich Male Fanatical Moderates at the NYT have been doubling down. Too busy trying to get together to Never Warren than actually deal with the Republican problem at hand. They still draw a line between Trump and McConnell that does not exist. They still find women and minorities worse. They still will protect their wealth and privilege over democracy or the environment.
And like the Republicans they aren't going anywhere, because there will be rich white men to hire them. Fanatical Moderate is the definition of the Times.
2
RIGHT ON !!
Not for nothing did they give you a Nobel prize.
2
Paul you’re half way to the truth. It is a segment of the American people who support the Republican agenda that is okay with dashing democracy on the rocks and bringing on authoritarian rule. These folks are why Republicanism has left the democratic barn willing to move toward autocracy. Ethics, equality and rights be damned, control and righteous indignation are the meals the want to eat.
1
Sorry to say it, but the Republican Party has been this way for many many decades; it's just taken this long for it to manifest. It was created in 1854 from basically 3 factions: the remnants fo the old Whig party ("only the wealthy deserve to be looked after"), the Know-Nothings or American Nationalist Party (Anti-Immigrant and anti-Catholic), and the Radical Abolitionists (who today would be labeled raging Leftists). The first 2 managed finally during the 1960s to fully purge any liberalism remaining, and today's party is what was always at its core. Anyone who was paying attention would have noticed. Trump is a result of the current Republican party, not the other way around.
5
There is nothing conservative about Trump's GOP
they are radical reacationaries who do not believe
in separation of powers or checks and balances.
See Article 1 is there just to take up space
nonsense nonsense nonsense
2
Its certainly true that Republicans have been more outrageous than Democrats. Just remember the Southern Strategy. And its also true that Republicans have gotten worse with Trump in power. What do they stand for? What have they stood for for decades? My neighbor has an American flag hanging from his porch and buntings wrapped around his house. Every time I see these symbols, I'm reminded of the unpatriotic positions these emblems have come to represent. They are the antithesis of the Statue of Liberty. Yet Democrats, even dare I say Obama, did not hold true to our welcoming NY Harbor Lady. His deportation policy is not any better than some Republican policies. So although Republican positions are certainly worse, the Democrats have not held true to what they claim to stand for either.
2
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” —Abraham Lincoln
“I, in my great and unmatched wisdom...” —Donald J. Trump
Dear God, please save us from ourselves.
6
Bravo, Paul! Dare I think that our country might possibly be finally headed in the right direction? You have beautifully written what many of us realize could actually be happening. The disgusting behavior of that man whom I now mute every time he is on the television screen and — among many other things —will never forgive for putting that bully, Kavanaugh in a seat he does not deserve, may finally be getting what he deserves. The sooner he is gone from the highest seat in our land, the better.
2
Politicians tend to exaggerate things in their favor. But the Republicans, with Trump and with this Joe Biden thing, have moved into open lying.
The lies are so bald-faced, I can't stand to watch them make their statements on TV anymore.
It's as if reality and real life doesn't matter anymore—just the fantasy they can create for their base.
3
Thank you, thank you Mr. Krugman. You have eloquently expressed the opinions that I have held for quite some time. The Republican party is not about what is best for our country but what leads to their control of government. Yet when they get the game ball after their victories they scantly know what to do with it.
1
While I agree with the conclusion that the Republican Party as a whole are betraying this country by its cowardly silence and the unavoidable damage they are wreaking on our democracy, I dislike the soaring terms used by the media in describing Trump's actions. In several articles, I frequently see the terms "bold", "loyal", "unprecedented", among other hyperbolic terms that in equal measure insult but also reek of incredulous awe for Trump who is better depicted as a bumbling crook. Make no mistake, he is a mediocre tycoon-wannabe who simply treats the executive branch as though it were the backdoor boardroom of [t]rump inc. Republicans will have to deal with the consequences of their weak-willed complicity, cowering in the shadows, seeking scraps for survival.
1
For a minority party, ideologically based on a shrinking white privilege segment and without capacity to grow and change with demographics, the only card to play is anti-democratic. Republicans are akin to monarchists in this sense. The fanatical Centrists refuse to recognize the harm of including this morally empty and increasingly corrupt bunch. Their idealism holds that democracy is a market place of ideas: let the voters choose. They want to believe there are good people on both sides (!). I, myself have a sibling who is an evangelical preacher and cousins who are all in with Trump. It is much easier for me to live thinking they aren't so bad and deserve to be heard. But they are unreachable. A centrist approach will preserve the corruption in our government and continue to deprive society of the tools and policies we sorely need.
4
Trump is the "culmination of where his party has been going for decades." The GOP has long been a snake oil operation where the rubes are misled into supporting policies which work to their disadvantage as a way to get support for the actual GOP plans to increase the wealth of party insiders. BUT, the party was always clever enough to never promise the mainstream supporters much more than getting government off their backs, and lately sticking it to the establishment. The threat to the party was that someone would turn the herd by offering more direct support for populist ideas, "Build the Wall", "Drain the swamp" along with much louder dog whistles about race, misogyny, etc. It was bound to happen. Trump just got there first.
I’m old enough to remember the shock of saint Ronnie being elected President. I knew then that something was very wrong with the Republican Party, and with the gullibility of the electorate. Decades of decent politicians being replaced by corrupt for hire stooges, hate radio, Fox News, and fealty to right wing “positions”, has brought us to where we are today. We are standing over a precipice, time to back away from the cliff and get on solid ground. The quickest way to do that, is for 23 republicans in the Senate to recognize the danger we are in, and to vote to convict and remove trump. That’s only if McConnell actually allows a real trial.
2
Professor Krugman correctly writes that:
"No, Trump isn’t an aberration. He’s unusually blatant and gaudily corrupt, but at a basic level he’s the culmination of where his party has been going for decades."
As a native of Germany I feel that the Republican party has marched in goose-step to the arch-right for many years and has finally arrived at the abyss of fascism.
It seems that by now the US is more akin to the Weimar Republic in its last breath, having put an autocrat who promised manna from heaven at the top of the government, one who - just like the Austrian paperhanger - was elected by slightly over a third of all eligible voters.
3
Strange how the oligarchs who fund the GOP's move to transform the USA into an authoritarian state seem unaware that authoritarian states are not usually places where the rich park their money. How many oligarchs are rushing to put their money in Russia? China? Poland? Hungary? North Korea?
If the USA becomes another lawless authoritarian state, where do they think they're going to keep their bank accounts?
1
Um, Panama? Switzerland? Cayman? Hong Kong?
The conservative movement manipulates voters by appealing to them on a visceral level, rather than an intellectual one. They prey on the most powerful negative human emotions, such as fear, anger, hatred, paranoia, and bigotry because they figured out that people respond more to those strong feelings than they do to logic and reason. When combined with appeals to patriotism and religion, it creates the toxic ideological environment in which modern conservatism thrives and American ideals suffer.
1
Well said, except your assertion that the Bush administration was the first to take the US to war under false pretenses. It’s been done before. Remember the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. There is always precedent for the Government’s misdeeds.
1
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wasn't elected by an off the rails GOP congress. He sits in that Oval Office because enough voters were so disillusioned with America that they decided to believe the promises and try something different. They got the short end of the stick, but they were willing to take that chance because they saw boarded up main streets and working class jobs in decline. This is supposed to be the bread and butter Democrat voter, right, so what happened?
HRC simply wasn't electable and, unlike her husband, couldn't connect with those above mentioned disillusioned voters. She was too busy carving her message up into carefully crafted slices for 'identity groups' who were considered essential for election.
My belief (and I'm a centrist) is this country has been doing two steps forward, one step back for quite some time. I find it interesting that Obama is now being criticized by his own party for a mostly mediocre performance. What the heck?
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is the catalyst that was necessary to light a fire under the American public and actually change things. I'm thinking this is another post-Watergate scenario. The Dems could have run Goofy for President and won that election. Let's hope that if that happens this Goofy is as benign as Carter.
Of course if the Dems once again nominate someone who can't connect with the public, they'll have another loss, a la Al Gore or HRC.
1
@B Dawson
Unfair to call Gore a loss, as Bush was “elected” by SCOTUS.
2
While I get your point, I think you miss the point:
The problem is not the centrists. The hard lefts push of worthy but fringe issues like lgbt bathrooms while millions of others were being financially dispossessed is what has given rise to lots of anger and voice to the extreme right
1
Perhaps Donald Trump's "base" will understand this analogy.
Donald Trump is a fake Rolex they bought on a street in New York City. It looks like a Rolex, it weighs the same as a Rolex, it has shiny "diamonds" all over it like a Rolex but it never tells the truth; not even twice a day. As much as they like wearing it around their friends and thinking that it is as good as real when they look it in the face they know it lies.
It seems to me that what is at stake is not "only" democracy, it is the very idea of civilization. We are told about "post truth" or "post reality" times, which make these aberrations look as some kind of progress compared to old fashioned search for facts and truth.
But what lies behind is a rejection of the concept of civilization. If one refuses to distinguish between true and false, then there is no way one can draw limits and sort out what is acceptable from what is unacceptable. And this distinction is the basis of civilizartion.
It is, I suppose, very much amusing to come back to good old times, when brutal force, thick stupidity, active ignorance, racism and sexism were dominant values. Simple and nice, it seems. By comparison, civilization is a source of complications, and of painful intellectual efforts.
It is very sad though, that in Europe as in America, many seem to have forgotten that good old times ended most tragically .
" the central problem of U.S. politics was a G.O.P. that was not just extreme but “dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”"
The GOP is not the only party that does this, and they weren't the first. In the 1970s the Democrats ridiculed critics of Roe vs Wade as too stupid to understand constitutional law. ( In fact they understood it perfectly well -- the Supreme Court had invented a new Constitution right and used it as a justification to strike down laws that "violated" it), They also said that the involvement of religious leaders in the opposition made it an illegitimate "religious issue". Nobody had worried about this ten years before when religious leaders were involved in the civil rights revolution.
M. Scott Peck wrote that evil originates in laziness. Certainly, such sloth has been displayed daily in Trump's tweets filled with ad hominem attacks against those who disagree with his policies and methods. Why address the issue when you can attack the messenger?
However, as you point out, Paul, such methods have been the first choice of GOP politicians going back at least as far as Richard Nixon's attacks on Sen. Helen Gahagan Douglas and the ordeals of the Hollywood Ten. In true cinema fashion, our Republican brethren learned long ago that every great melodrama needs a villain.
Richard Hofstadter examined the radical right phenomenon over 50 years ago. He reported that paranoia was a unifying force as well as the source of a consistently shrill message that, alas, centrists who don't do their due diligence might very well begin to believe, citing the theory that where there is smoke there must be fire.
Clearly, there would be no point in the GOP behaving the way it does were the centrists not open to anything yelled loud enough in their faces. However, blaming the GOP for behaving this way would be like blaming porn producers for creating kinkiness that the public demands.
So, the more the GOP has careered off the rails, the more insistent has been its message that the other guys, the ones who want the EPA legislation Nixon signed to remain in force, are the radicals, while the GOP is the guardian of American values like mass murder and apple pie.
A sucker is born ...
1
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Ever since Reagan claimed that government "is the problem", that is to say that government per se is some foreign entity estranged from the people, some festering ulcer full of poisonous pus threatening our collective lives, the Republicans who embodied this metaphor under Nixon and Chuck Coleson, oozing down into the very tissue of our leadership, have been the problem and not the solution. Only the (wo)man on the street has refused to open her/his eyes to consider the absurdity of such a stance.
At the very founding of our republic stand the words: "We the people..." - which is the short definition of government To deny this is to deny history, to deny society, to deny our community of humans beings who can only survive in some form of togetherness.
For no one human alone can produce anything that we need to live in a hostile environment - not a chair, nor a meal, nor shelter, nor defense against disease and predator animals or wind and weather. Together we stand - and govern ourselves.
2
Agreed, except U.S. political life won’t begin to recover until these monsters start going to jail. We need a return to justice. As well as a return to sanity.
1
Regarding the GOP, you can't reason someone out of a position they haven't reasoned themselves into. The only solution is November 2020.
2
Never give up hope. There is a very good chance Donald will do something else that is truly tragic or destructive or stupid or militaristic enough to sway Republican fence-sitters.
Leaving Donald with unchecked power is the biggest threat to this nation. Perhaps, even a Republican senator will see that.
And if they all stick together, like kindergarten kids on a walk, Donald can't possibly hurt them.
Who knows? After he is out of office, Twitter may cancel his account.
1
I see that Krugman is "dismissive of the legitimacy of [the Democrats'] political opposition".
Currently, centrists are more concerned with what the left has become and running to the GOP.
1
The GOP has been adopting the backward looking political detritus of our democratic republic since not long after Eisenhower exited the White House.
Segregationists, misogynists, fundamentalist CINOs (Christians in name only), xenophobes, social darwinists (google it), closet authoritarians, and all manner of immoral anti-science conspiracy theory loving crackpots.
Make no mistake, their goal is to destroy every bit of progress for the middle and working classes from the last 100+ years: labor unions, the social safety net built by FDR and buttressed by LBJ, civil rights legislation, the ACA, legal protections for workers, women, LGBT Americans, minorities. And in the last 40 years they've already done heavy damage.
Basically when the wealthy and powerful are exploiting the little guy, their knee-jerk reaction is to protect the wealthy and powerful.
2
The problem is that perhaps 35-40% of Americans hate; (no, too weak a word, despise) the other 60% whom they consider to be foreigners, a motley mixture of blacks, Hispanics, other non-whites, non Christians, and liberals, in other words not Anglo Saxons. The question is, with the world in crisis, with climate change threatening, with sustainability depending mostly on science, with diminishing resources and rising expectation, when will the other shoe fall and the haters find themselves unable to cope?
1
Yes, but Paul Krugman is not talking about your parents. He is not talking about hard right supporters. He is talking about people who still claim to be “moderate” and pretend to see equivalency on both sides. For the sake of our country and our democracy It is time for them to get off the fence and call out wrong when they see it.
Amen. Now all we can do is hope it's not already too late.
You snuck in a cheap shot on Biden. He's not soft about the Ukraine deal. And he's absolutely right that the attempt must be made to try to work with congressional Republicans. Sure, they're the party of dirty tricks and aways will be, but in a
constitutional democracy you ignore the opposition at your peril. Pragmatism is not weakness.
It's time that you and other Times' opinion writers get a little less oblique and a little more practical. To use one of your favorite turns of phase, here's the thing: Biden's the only Democratic Party presidential candidate who has a prayer of winning the Midwest. And without a win there it's four more years of Trump. C'mon, Paul, get out of the library and into the subway.
1
Prof. Krugman must remember John Hightower of Texas who remarked,"the only things left in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos."
1
Way to set the course for a more reasonable Democratic political conversation in the pages of the Times. I only hope Friedman and Bruni are paying attention to this.
This is one of the best op-ed's of Krugman's career.
1
It's genetic.
I tend to agree with the spirit here.
But I have many problems with the column.
1) It's possible to be a centrist and not hold Republicans and Democrats in false equivalency. In other words, I'm a centrist but I believe that Republicans pose a greater threat to our democracy than do Democrats for various reasons.
2) It's possible to believe that Democrats should not be venerated as perfect or granted immunity from criticism simply because "Republicans are worse."
3) It's possible to support Democrat's policy positions (go Warren!) and also believe that the extreme left is a major problem (that "wokeness" and identity politics and the popular narratives of group oppression are more harmful than helpful).
4) From his ivory tower, Krugman's blind ideological partisanship to the liberal left is emblematic of the main problem facing America today: political polarization. Can Krugman legitimately claim to relate to folks from middle America? Does he want to understand their problems? Does he want to find common ground? Or does he just want someone to hate, someone to delegitimize, someone to talk down to?
@DK
Where do you see hate in this opinion piece?
2
The democratic party has always been socialist and I am not talking just recently. From FDR who thought people couldn't be trusted to save for their own retirement to Johnson who thought the government should make decisions for citizens on healthcare. Bernie Sanders is a socialist who only declares democrat when he is running for president and Elizabeth Warren is trying to out socialist him. Combined they poll enough to win the nomination so when one drops the other will get it. A socialist never states that they will cling to power once their policies fail. But that's always the way it ends up. The democrats have always wanted to nominate a socialist but are afraid they can't win with one. Now with Trump they have their chance and will show their true intentions which have always been there.
@Blair A Miller
It is even more difficult today to “save for one’s own retirement” with interest rates so low and Trumpie manipulating the market.
2
GOP delenda est.
The Republican Party has spent decades undermining public education at all levels, public trust in the free press, racial progress and voting rights, and has systematically used loopholes and outright illegalities to gerrymander districts, stack courts and usher dark money into elections. They've cynically and knowingly played on ignorant or racist peoples' worst instincts. Their plan goes back at least to Atwater, Gingrich, Rove and Ailes, if not earlier.
These bad men have managed to suck everyone down with them, throughout the decades. Their evil plans, combined with the general moral cowardice and spinelessness of the rank and file GOP, has produced Trump and the pathetic cowards now running the GOP.
May their party disappear, never to return. They absolutely deserve what they get.
5
Most Americans want to believe that people are not evil, that their politicians by and large want to do what is right for the most people. To believe otherwise is to lose that faith that holds society together. That is the prime motivator for centrists. But these are times in history "when the best lack all conviction and worst are full of passionate intensity" and it looks like we have arrived at that inflection point.
Paul, do you remember sandbagging Bernie in 2016? You are hardly innocent of the sins you (correctly) accuse Biden of. The same was true of Obama who kept looking for the "Grand Bargain" and who failed to fight back when a Supreme Court pick was denied to him. The failure to recognize the fascist nature of the new Republican Party included both centrist Democrats AND centrist pundits. Look in the mirror.
4
@DK In VT
Bravo~!!!
Truth to power.
Republicans welcome a democracy of a sort:
1 man
1 vote
1 time
2
interesting opinion. based on krugman thinking you are either a republican or a fanatic centrist. the only "good" people are the ones that think like krugman. maybe one day this country will realize the two party system does not work unless you are like krugman and believe people are either good or evil.
All true points.
1
Education? Republicans? Learning? Reason?
1
I have an ugly sense that a lot of the repulsive party have awoken but no one wants to be first nor do they want to be last. They may all show up at the door of the white house, en mass. I'm always hopeful.
What Krugman says is true. The Republican party and particularly large portions of its base is sympathetic to authoritarianism. Of course they won't explicitly state it. However authoritarians have won many honest elections, including Hitler. Even Hitler was lauded with the German economic recovery. (I am not comparing Republicans to Hitler, but these are verifiable facts). So...if Americans are given the choice of an open authoritarian who employs slogans effectively, particularly when it comes to maintaining orderly immigration, and someone whose very own messaging suggests he/she could be characterized as an "open borders socialist", Americans may lawfully vote in the authoritarian.
A boiler plate Krugman attack on Biden who cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called a fanatical centrist.
@John
Correct, he isn't a fanatical centrist. He's a moderate Republican.
2
Dr. Krugman lacks a fundamental grasp of the Modern Era.
Oh yes, well versed he is .... in the political arrangements of yesteryear.
Sadly.....as Firesign Theater used to proclaim...."Everything He Knows is Wrong".
#1....there is no GOP anymore. Its dead. Shattered. Doesnt Exist.
As for Dr. Krugman's obsession with Income Taxes and Capital Gains Taxes. That is so regressively 1930s style Keynsian Economics, its hard to know where to begin.
We live in an Era of Electronic Commerce....commerce that completely avoids income tax and capital gains.
The real reason why the Press Corps(largely owned by Internet Robber Barons these days) rails against the evils of Brexit.....is because in the current status quo.... Ireland is the Tax Haven for huge, obscene, ill-gotten, internet profits!!
Why is Dr. Krugman obsessed with squeezing more tax revenue out of a shrinking income base??
Brexit, just like Trumps well engineered USMCA(aka the new NAFTA), charts a very positive path into the future of Trade Networks that can compete with China's fast evolving Global Trade Network.
Dr. Krugman seems to ignore all those new parameters...instead choosing to beat a dead Keynsian Economic Theory.
John Mitchell, er, uh, William Barr, is Trump's Chief Sheriff. The White House and Main Justice have long since put "Smokey and the Bandit" on infinite replay mode on their respective internal communication centers, and Jackie Gleason fan clubs are forming in D.C.! Even Michele Bachman is running about Minnesota, trying to adjust her paper Gleason mask, sporting a rubber sumo suit, pool cue in hand, in search of a twenty four hour billiards hall, unaware of Paul Newman's passing. And, sadly, local Chiefs of Police are bunkered-in a short distance away at Trump Washington, ready for photo ops, giggles, autographed red hats, and of course, not-so-subtle grins at the prospect of banging suspects' heads on patrol car door jams. Burt Reynolds, revisit us from Heaven, dawn a football suit, and take on the guards in a game of football...
It started with Nixon’s Southern Strategy, using racism as a national political stratagey. Then we went to Reagan’s “Cadillac driving wealfare queens”. And the obvious racism that fueled the Obama opposition. Trump is the obvious next step in that dispicable behavior. That you, Paul, for speaking obvious truth.
1
Bush, Bushie, Trumpie: the manifest destiny of the GOP.
Trump is the embodiment of the GOP wrapped in faux gold chintz.
3
Paul have you read Blowout by Rachel Maddow? Republicans want to be Putin. Big money. Big power. White power. White nationalism with corruption keeping them in power.
End of democracy
1
And the worst is yet to come....
“They [the New York Times and the “far left”] want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure … .” Fox's Bill O’Reilly to John McCain, 2007.
To prop up the “white, male, Christian power structure” – still the GOP mission.
1
I’be been saying this for years. “This is what you get when you vote Republican.”
Finally! Now the New York Times and NPR will recognize that David Brooks‘s opinions represent no one (not even his own). Oh, I’m sorry. Mr. Krugman must have been talking about someone at the Post...
1
as to Joe Biden..... he is merely continuing the faulty thinking of obama..... when he grosslyunderestimated the forces arrayed against him. no surprise. Biden thinks he can run on Obama's coat tails..... problem? there are no coat tails. obamas was a one off for better or for worse. there is no obama legacy just more confusion.
We fanatical centrists – all of 4% of us, according to Michelle – are fanatically consistent...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/opinion/trump-government-shutdown.html
...and will not be dissuaded by your toxic ivy sweet-talking:
W in the Middle
NY State
Jan. 15
Somewhen, had mumbled to one of your colleagues there’re two simple steps to this...
1. Pence agrees not to run in 2024
2. The Senate GOP agrees to Romney as VP
...there still are
PS
Somewhen, Mitch Daniels will be smiling...
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/us/politics/republicans-concerned-over-state-focus-on-social-issues.html
“...Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, a Republican who created a stir a couple of years ago with his suggestion for a “truce” on social issues, said in an interview that such issues are best handled at the state and local levels. They become more polarizing, he said, when people try to settle them nationally...
“...If we don’t address soon what I believe are the lethal threats of our debts, our unaffordable commitments, our slow-growth economy, and so forth, every other problem will seem small,” said Mr. Daniels...
Somewhen, he’d already become president of something...
Winning a Nobel Prize can skew a man’s thinking. Linus Pauling became a Vitamin C charlatan. And Paul Krugman has become a political charlatan.
Nobody in his right mind would declare impeachment a near certainty considering the paucity of evidence that Congress has yet received. Battles over subpoenas lie ahead. And more fundamentally, there is no possibility of securing evidence from the Ukrainians — the same problem Mueller faced with the Russians.
You should know that government corruption in Ukraine is pervasive. And it is unlikely that Zelensky was an innocent victim here. Ukrainian leaders are well-schooled in fraud and are not easily manipulated.
We know a lot less than half the story. And the part we don’t know will forever be out of reach. If you believe that impeachment is a near certainty, you have fallen for the skewed views of a Nobel Prize winning charlatan.
Oh. Groan. Fanatical Centrists had their perfect candidate in Hillary Clinton. And if they were too obtuse to know it then, why hope they can learn anything now?
3
The Know Nothings died. The modern day version is in its death throws. The Village is the last to know.
1
I can see it now: the Democratic circular firing squad executes Biden, then nominates Warren or Mayor Whatsisname, and once again goes down the road of McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry. Except this time the consequences are disastrous.
If Mitt Romney were actually opposed to Trump's destruction of American values, he'd stand up and shout, "Have you no decency?" He'd go on Fox and explain why Trump's actions are a crime and how ridiculous it is to expect every speaker of the English language doesn't understand, "We've been very good to you...it's not reciprocal ... I'd like you to do me a favor."
I’d love to believe that the center is breaking to the left. But after a phone call today with my parents, I’m not feeling particularly confident.
Me: “What do you think of everything happening with Trump?”
Them: “This is payback from the Dems for Clinton’s impeachment”
“Did you read the transcript of the call?”
“Some of it”
“Do you think that’s legal?”
“I don’t know... If Joe Biden did something wrong we should investigate it”
“So you think it’s a coincidence that the only American he’s investigating is his primary political opponent. And you do know the entire western alliance wanted that prosecutor gone.”
“Well we should know what Hunter Biden was up to”
“And what of Jared and Ivanka... and the tens of millions they’ve raked in?”
“Everyone on both sides is corrupt”
It was preposterous. And despite “everyone” being corrupt, they’re still going to vote for Trump “if they’re forced to.” Whatever that means. Sorry Mr Krugman, I’m not optimistic
1
People "violating more and more democratic norms."
You mean the poitical bright lights, who promised: "You can keep your doctor"; threw no donor insider in prison after the bailout; or urged Hillary Clinton in 2008 to go to Wall Street and blame U.S. homeowners for the mortgage crisis.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
There will be no more Reagan/Tip O’Neill moments. The Republicans no longer need to negotiate. They’ve found the formula. They’ve marketed a culture war for the masses with the front facing portion of the party. “Liberals ave waged war on your guns and Christmas. They are socialist, Marxists
that want to replace your shopping malls and Walmart’s with breadlines. Hollywood elitists are looking down at you with their coastal values destroying your way of life. They’re going to take your freedom. They want to open the borders and give your jobs to foreigners...” However, in the back room the Republicans are taking their marching orders from the plutocracy, who are the de facto policy makers in this privatized, billionaire owned America.
1
Ultimately, what is happening with the republican party and the country is all about money. Pull the right thread and it leads to money. Principle is a fine talking point,but that's all it is,a useful talking point. Look hard and the withdrawal from Syria will lead to money. Ukraine,money. Trump,Putin,and Russia,money. As Kenan Thompson would say,"Ain't nothin gonna happen",without money involved.
1
I wonder if Krugman would consider me a "fanatical centrist".
I mostly agree with him about the Republicans. But I also think the solution has to be, in the long term, the de-polarization of US politics.
That doesn't mean tolerating what is essentially treason. But it does mean having an ideological stance that caters to more than just one's political base.
1
I'm a centrist who shares Krugman's view of the GOP and have for decades. They're obviously extreme and accordingly, I vote Democrat. I suspect there are millions like me. Why, then, does Krugman insists on using the 'centrist' to describe those who ascribe false equivalency? Is it sloppy thinking or an attempt to smear all of us who fail to be swayed by leftist ideology?
3
I'm so tired of hearing that we always need to "look at both sides." This mentality leads us not only to believe that both sides are of equal value and of some shared historic legitimacy, but that any intelligent person who seeks to ascend tribalism must find solace in the "middle." This is why centrism is considered the "elite" opinion.
Choosing the middle for the sake of seeming intelligent is just as narrow minded as believing that there are only two possible opinions you can have on politics. No issue ever has only two sides to it, and in this case, choosing the middle is not the elevated and enlightened thing to do but demonstrating a lack of objective evaluation of our political climate.
2
Impeachment has scholarly and civic procedural value, but does not help the republic. Trump stays and gets re-elected by outraged “centrists.” Mr. Krugman may not see them now as they keep their heads down, but they haven’t gone anywhere.
1
If they are outraged by the impeachment process, they’re not centrist.
1
Finally, someone is saying what needs to be said, and in a straightforward manner.
Luckily, trump's overreach was SO extreme that it was impossible to not have this come to light.
Thank you, Mr. Krugman, for this important piece.
3
One thing that has become clear to this reader is: It is not possible to put Republican and patriotic together in the same sentence. Loyalty to Trump rather than the values enshrined in our Constitution has become the priority of what I now call the Trump-Putin party--it is certainly no longer the party of Lincoln. Senator Romney is the exception, as rightly noted by PK.
3
As a centrist I reject and resent the notion that I’m a fence sitter who can’t tell the difference between Democrat governance and the Gingrich-esque “Governance As War Doctrine” maintained by Republicans.
@Mark
Great! So where do you stand now? Have you seen enough to realize where Trump is going? Are you in the center between a constitutional democratic Republic and an authoritarian regime? Maybe your centrism will give us a nation that is really solely governed by an executive branch that calls the shoots and a Congress that obediently does what ever the great leader says? Or does your centrism insist on a real constitutional democratic republic?
So where do you stand: Is there a center left to occupy between democracy and dictatorship?
1
Well said. Centrism shouldn't be about splitting the difference on everything; it should be about pragmatism. I consider myself a centrist, but I'm not pretending the two parties are equivalent. We need to start calling out the Repubs for their faux patriotism -- not abandoning patriotism.
1
Every 30 or 40 years, there is a paradigm shift in American politics. The election of Reagan in 1980 brought in a Republican Party that was more extreme but also more popular than the old corporate, 'East Coast' GOP of the post-war years. They became a dominant political party for the next 20 years or so, gaining control over Congress in 1994 and not letting it go until now.
But, we have to remember that it wasn't always so. Prior to FDR's election in 1932, the Republicans were the majority party, winning election after election. But, FDR changed all that and the Democrats were the dominant party until the 1970s.
I think we are on the verge of another paradigm shift. The Republicans have become so extreme that they have alienated a sizable proportion of their traditional base (a good 20% or so). With the 2020 election, we may see the emergence of a new Democratic majority in both houses of Congress and the election of a Democratic President. If Trump is actually removed before then, that will only accelerate the process. And the Republicans, rather than seeking to re-capture the middle, will simply self-destruct even more.
3
@MVT2216 Hoover won 40% of the vote in 1932, which is probably where Trump will end up in 2020. If he makes it that far.
2
Totally agree. However, it would be helpful to understand better why so many in the middle class both in the US and Europe, are increasingly supporting far-right authoritarians. It’s not just racism (those who are racist now, were racist before). We may want to look at how, not just politics, but capitalism itself has shifted since the 1970s. Postwar US & Europe managed capitalism so as to share the benefits of growth far more equitably amongst owners of capital & employees. Europe understood how despondent people who feel put-upon and voiceless, can search for leaders,any leaders,who are “strongmen”-to be their advocate.
Since the ‘70s, there’s been a persistent push to weaken labor protection laws, lower employee wages (to the benefit of capital owners),and weaken or even silence (often via shame or equating employees joining together to help each other fight for living wages as somehow “socialist”).This lessening of employee power & influence, has shifted political influence toward corporations & the wealthy. This shift is championed by the Republicans. Democrats, over time,realized that to compete with the huge, monied influence of these groups, they must shift center(away from average middle class Americans)-in order to win Office at all.
Trump must go.But we’re growing the next crop of the voiceless, put-upon class: gig economy workers (piece work; no benefits, no protections), debt-drowning students as the new poor, who will elect Trump 2.0. It’s not just politics.
3
Starting with Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has moved toward becoming the Know Nothing Party with its members increasing rejection of education and science. The John Birch Society and its successors have essentially taken over the Republican Party. You almost can't be a Republican unless you are white, preferably Anglo-Saxon, and an evangelical Christian.
Of my wife's family, that includes 7 brothers and sisters, all but one has left the Republican Party over the past 10 to 15 years. These were all Orange County Republicans. Even the one hold out, isn't too happy with the mess Trump has made of our agriculture export market.
Too many Republican think their opponents have no legitimate basis for existence, so anything they do to advance their agenda is okay, even if it means voter fraud, suppression of voter turnout, and gerrymandering to exclude them for the political process. Anything is okay, even if its illegal, simply because your opponents simply aren't fit to govern.
Exactly Mr. Krugman, exactly. It is the reason I will not vote for Biden in the primaries. If we want things to change for the better, we'll need someone not afraid to rock the boat so we can break free of the ice.
4
I remember where I was on Colesville Rd driving up to University Blvd in my ‘68 olds cutlass in the 70’s when I realized that my conservative relatives did not accept any lifestyle but their own as valid. I saw the fanaticism grow even as I stuck with the Republican Party through the 80’s. Ketchup and relish as vegetables in school lunches finally did me in. I am appalled at what I’ve seen over the past 27 years. No this isn’t sudden. Read up on the 30’s to see what to expect.
2
As someone who spent the last 36 years of my life involved with both fundamentalist Jewish and Christian groups, I would like to educate Prof. Krugman about why the GOP has become as he so poignantly describes.
The GOP consists of many groups, but I believe the evangelical/fundamentalist bloc is its most important constituent part. These people do not believe in American democracy. They aspire to install a theocracy. They lobby the government to enforce as law ideas that they have not persuaded the majority of Americans to accept (eg a total ban on abortion).
Their crying about loss of religious liberty is incredible given the clear evidence of their mounting theocractic attack on American values.
They cannot respect the opposition because they are taught in their churches that Democrats are either evil or deluded. Their religious convictions make it impossible for them to grant the other side any form of legitimacy.
Their church ideologues constantly engage in historical revisionism attempting to portray the American Founders as fundamentalist Christians like themselves. They ignore the manifold evidence that the Founders were mainly Deists, Atheists or Free Masons.
They ignore the fact that John Wesley, whose Methodist movement comprises the single largest Protestant denomination in America today, withdrew all his ministers from the Colonies when war broke out, calling it an ungodly rebellion against the biblical principle of submitting to ruling authorities.
5
@Mevashir The Repubs, under control of their fundamentalist bloc, aspire to install a tyrannical theocracy. What they have failed to persuade the majority of Americans to accept (eg, a total ban on abortion) they call on government to forcibly impose upon the non-fundamentalist majority.
They are taught in their churches that the democratic opposition is either evil or deluded and thus unworthy of respect or cooperation.
They are taught that Jesus revered the rich and despised the poor by twisting his parables out of context and by ignoring the fact that the first Jewish followers of Jesus lived in socialist communes as described in Acts Chapters 2&4.
They are totally captured by wealthy and corrupt Republican donors who savagely promote the Capitalist agenda as part of biblical ideology.
Unfortunately I believe they will continue to debase American life simply due to the fact that the Democrats have no real ideology and seem to content themselves to put out brush fires lit by the Republicans, who tell a simple narrative that appeals to people marginalized by the economy and fearful of the changes sweeping the globe.
The Democrats have no narrative apart from crying foul and denouncing the Republicans. The Democrats play entirely on defense, while the Republicans mount a powerful offense and control the political narrative.
Thus I predict they will increase their power and influence. And I dare say Trump will win a landslide victory.
I agree with the professor that the GOP is an “authoritarian regime in waiting” and will remain so even if soundly defeated in 2020. A clearly fascistic force has achieved institutional legitimacy within our Republic. The dangers are manifold. Resist.
1
The concept of a political spectrum that ranges from left-to- moderate- to right is very slippery and it's all relative.
In 1988, I interviewed a conservative activist near the end of the Reagan administration. As a life-long activist pushing for purist economic capitalism and cultural conservatism since his youth, he was feeling wistful as he talked about his lifelong pursuit of ideological conservatism. He sighed and remarked it was so nice now in the Reagan years to be "in the middle of the mainstream." He was proud that, through a lot of hard work over the years, the conservative-right-wing-libertarians had convinced enough voters to shift the country away from political moderation to the right.
What had been considered extremist, fringe political views during the liberal-left 1960s had been discredited, and right-wing politics was now "normalized," and "mainstreamed" by the Reaganites.
Post Reagan, we had some moderate political presidencies (Carter, Clinton, Obama) listing somewhat to the right culturally and economically.
But now, the US is far further to the extreme right (spurred by the likes of the big donor economic libertarians Kochs, Mercers et al, Mitch McConnell, evangelicals, Donald Trump).
Trump has done his darnedest to normalize politics and political practices that are not normal, not democratic, and not even lawful. And Donald and his supporters (including white supremacists and bigots) are delighted that they are now "the mainstream."
3
When will we wake up and see that Trump is aiding and abetting the enemy—Russia and Mr. Putin? That should be the first and foremost charge in his impeachment.
By denying the Russian interference in our elections and now the WAR that Putin is actively fighting to destabilize the West, Trump is supporting the enemy in its clandestine operations and failing to defend the US against this enemy.
Time to charge him with TREASON, plain and simple.
4
Maybe Democrats will eventually appreciate the presidential legacy that the republicans will have left when trump is defeated. The new presidential norm will be a ruler who is unconstrained by the rule of law, who owns the justice department, and is largely unaccountable to congress. In this environment A democratic president, such as Elizabeth Warren, using the new found tools of the presidency, will be able to implement an entirely new agenda and put us back on the path to a government that functions for all of the people not just the wealthy. Careful what you wish for republicans...
5
I do think there are decent people who vote Republican. But I also believe, like Mr Krugman, that the Republican Party as a political force has been attempting to derail America since Goldwater grabbed the microphone at the Republican Convention way back when. Other notable figures have driven more and more nails into the coffin since then.
Likely, many Republicans believe they are trying to restore the deep, conservative values of the country at its best -- but those in power are swimming in oil, basking in tax-sheltered investments, and striving to promote greed capitalism through any means at their disposal, disposing of natural resources at will.
The straight white male Christian that is the Republican in charge is using up the earth, and is using up America, and has now used up any good will of any non-Republican that might have remained. Myopia and short-term gain will keep a Trump and McConnell in power for a while. Even if the former wins 2020 -- America has already lost.
1
But as the piece last Sunday on Clinton Arkansas demonstrated, Donald Trump, admitted scammer with gold plated toilets, is seen as "fiscally responsible". Whereas everything Democrats propose "is going to cost *me* money". Not sure how to get thru to this type of mindset that the entire system is rigged against them. Unclear now with Bernie Sanders' recent health issues, But I believe Bernie with his direct to the point approach and his ability to match Donald Trump rally for rally and decibel for decibel, would have the best chance of reaching them.
1
The GOP has done what the lead up to the Civil War did in America. They have managed to force their members and followers to categorize anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest as extremists, preferably extreme liberals. In so doing they have shut down communications between themselves and the rest of the country that doesn't go along with them. They are responsible for the logjam in all levels of government. They are the ones refusing to compromise, to communicate, to work with and for America.
The treasonous letter they sent to Iran while Obama was negotiating with them is one example. Another was their refusal to perform their duty to advise and consent in the Senate when it came to Scalia's replacement. Most of all, their continued obstruction of Obama after both elections demonstrated a profound lack of respect for the voters choice and for him as president. He wasn't a Republican or a white male: too bad. He was the duly elected president. The lack of respect and waste of 8 years is disturbing.
Trump is not an aberration. He is the logical result of years of not so subtle racism, bigotry, and misogyny from the GOP and its various sects. He is the result of their insatiable thirst for absolute power and the corruption that comes with it. The GOP and Trump deserve each other and deserve to go down with each other. However, I'd like to think that we, as a nation, deserve better.
6
Trump and the Republican Party are bent on dismantling democracy, i.e. the United States government. Why?Because they refuse to accept the reality that the demographics of the US are changing. They will not pass democracy to a new black/brown majority. Their goal is to "burn the country down" to force the new majority to rebuild. As a caucasian I am very sad that we have abandoned our country's values because of race.
3
John Dean, a man who was made famous during the watergate scandal, wrote a book called conservatives without conscience back in 2006. If you read that book today it seems like you're reading the origin story of a multi-headed evil villain.
The cabal of hypocritical right wing leaders that decry today's attempts at a "coup against a duly elected president" are the same ones who foamed when Bill Clinton took Ms. Lewinsky behind closed doors.
The right wing leaders of the NC GOP will happily carry the cross and wrap themselves in the flag whilst they rail against a man kneeling during the national anthem. Then they turn right around and sneak in an unscheduled vote on 9/11 of all days.
Krugman, Dean, etc. were all correct in the early and mid 2000's when they called out the right wing for what they are. In fact, the only thing that they were mistaken about was when this transition happened. The transition started with Reagan, was continued with G.H.W. Bush, and started to actually go off the rails with G.W. Bush. All those men who came before Trump were able to hold the veil over the true form of their ideologies. Trump merely dropped the veil and basked in the glory of his parties natural form.
And yet, the greatest enemy of the progressive is the progressive voter. Every pro-life zealot, every gun nut, every "taxation is theft" freeloader, every white nationalist, and natural born authoritarian will come out to vote. The question is... will we do the same?
2
I’m confused. In today’s column, Paul Krugman takes fanatical centrists to task, while claiming that he has for years sounded the warning against the Republican menace and why centrists were misguided. But all through 2016, when the Democratic Party had a real choice, between a centrist candidate who was basically in the same mold as Obama and the rest of the third-way, neoliberal gang and a real progressive candidate who was clear-eyed about Republican (and Republican-lite) ideas, he forcefully endorsed the centrist and told us that anyone who thought otherwise was chasing unicorns and rainbows. Guess where that got us. Now the surging Democratic candidate in 2019 isn’t the centrist Joe Biden, but this year’s unabashed progressive who is promoting the very policies that the “unicorns and rainbows” candidate was running on in 2016. I realize that Professor Krugman is an economist, but were he a historian, I’d accuse him of writing revisionist history.
1
This is exactly why I left the Republican Party when Trump was nominated.
You cannot be intellectually honest and a Republican anymore.
I voted for Mitt Romney and John McCain, and I will also advocate for a strong foreign policy, a strong military, and compassionate conservatism that gives people a hand up rather than a handout. I guess that makes me a fanatical centrist. But I saw the writing on the wall — the Republican Party has no room for people like me anymore. Why would anybody stay where they’re not wanted? I think these people must be gluttons for punishment.
Joe Biden is my guy now. In fact, he’s a lot of people’s “guy” because people aren’t as stupid as Trumpist Republicans seem to think. Look at Jimmy Carter with his black eye (repping that Braves cap!) and tell me that a moderate Democrat who actually cares about people isn’t more appealing to fanatical centrists than the nightmare that the Republican Party has become.
7
Thank you. My parents saw this coming like you did, but the obvious alarms fell on the deaf ears of the comfortably numb centrist neoliberal establishment.
Sorry Mr. Krugman, your observations are correct, but fall short. The NYT and all other media are guilty of false equivalence every time they use the word, "polarization." Polarization infers that both sides contribute to the bifurcation, when in fact the Republicans have soley travelled far from the ideal of American democracy.
McConnell denied a sitting POTUS his right to nominate a Supreme Court justice, and that was, oh, an example of polarization?
This isn't polarization. Listen to Fox News sometime to see why 40% still believe in Trump's great and unmatched wisdom, and that the national media is all lies.
1
This constant mention that those who find the Republican ethos an aberration, are part of the deep state, is quite puzzling. If anything the past few weeks has indicated that the deep state actually resides in the President's and Guiliani's actions, and Bill Barr going outside the country to gin up charges to take down opponents of the President. The deep state? C'est toi, Monsieur le President!
Paul, sorry to tell you but they aren't changing. Did you see Meet The Press this weekend. A U.S. Senator, Ron Johnson, kowtowing to Trump and citing conspiracies within the FBI and CIA against Trump.
1
We must face the fact that Trump is only a symptom. The disease is the 40% bedrock of joyful enthusiasm for him, his antics, and the rot he represents. That cancer will be with us after the happy day on which Trump is gone. We have to learn to deal with it.
1
And now we have a U.S. President who declares a sudden and ill-advised military reversal by tweet, adding that if the Turks do anything he considers "off limits," he'll utilize his "great and unmatched wisdom" to "destroy their economy." Isn't it time we unpack the amendment that allows us to remove a seriously deranged POTUS?
1
Professor Krugman is wrong as usual. The advocacy of taxing wealth, redistributing income, and superimposing a national health plan without constitutional amendments is an unconstitutional power grab—by the left. The concept of open borders and the importation of an unlimited number of impoverished, unassimilable inhabitants of the third world constitutes another attempt to destroy our polity, economy, and our cultural identity—by the left. The seditious “squad” does its dirty work on the left.
All of the above pushes me rightward.
@J.Jones
None of the Democratic candidates support open borders. That is right-wing propaganda.
1
"Will they finally admit what the G.O.P. has become?"
I'd like to quibble with the grammar of that sentence.
"Will they finally admit to what the GOP has been since reagan?"
They will never admit anything regardless of whatever it is, no matter how reprehensible, illegal, or just plain dumb.
They will never admit anything regardless of whatever it is, no matter how reprehensible, illegal, or just plain dumb.
Trump laid bare what normally could only be heard behind closed doors. And it seems he has a following. Please save me!
A party that can rationalize all the things you describe can rationalize just about anything. Taking away voting rights and looking the other way as citizens mass murder their fellow Americans in the name of gun rights are but two examples. Like Trump they won't stop at those kinds of things. This is a party that can easily find a way to reintroduce slavery and take a way a woman's voting rights. For example....could you imagine the Republicans passing a law that says if you have an abortion, or perhaps use birth control, , you give up your right to vote? I certainly could. People need to remind themselves these Republicans will go as far as you let them. And we need to say NO to them.
Apparently, Dr. Krugman has been reading my mail.
Seriously, what a pleasure it is to hear the plain unwarnished truth said out loud and forcefully by someone with his authority.
1. James Baker, Ronald Reagan's mentor and soothsayer, gladly voted for Donald Trump.
2. Dick Cheney, and now his daughter Liz, clearly favor an authoritarian executive branch that can control everything including the press and the Department of Justice.
3. Fox News is the brainchild of Roger Ailes, a Republican operative who always believed he could, and now has, prevent a second Watergate. St. Ronnie wasn't smart enough to want to destroy the Fairness Doctrine. Was Ailes the one who put the bug in his ear?
4. Despite the above, the real problem isn't even the Republican leaders, it's their base. The ones who wore Purple Heart bandaids to protest John Kerries Vietnam medals and who now call John McCain a traitor. The Conservative electorate has been corrupted by thirty years of right-wing propaganda. That is the real problem, and it is an existential one for our country.
1
I am not a soldier... but I will be a fierce warrior in defense of our very unique American democracy.
And I want to ask: where are all the voices who can and should be shouting to the heavens about the malfeasance going on in our national political arena?
"... Off the record many republican senators are saying..." is THE most pusillanimous position imaginable.
As the song says, "...You never know you you've got 'til it's gone..." I lived in China for 12 years and from that experience I know how precious our American democracy is.
To all the silent voices: please speak out NOW!
1
I wish it didn't take a Nobel laureate to say these things loud and clear.
I wish all self-styled op-ed philosophers from the right and Never-Trumpers had written these words a long time ago.
I wish alleged both-siders commentators had given up camouflaging the Ugliest American's coarseness, vulgarity and troglodyte brutality to make it look like subtle communication strategy and tactical mastering of the media.
I wish they simply came clean and recognize they have been had.
1
Republicans know that on a fair playing field their cause is a lost one. They can not compete in an honest contest of ideas and they know it. Why else would they eviscerate Article II? Why the voter suppression and gerrymandering? Why the kowtowing and obeisance to a delusional wannabe dictator in possession of self described "unmatched wisdom".
For them, the only way to achieve their ends is to destroy the rules of the game. Even if it means their own destruction. Like the scorpion, it's just their nature.
1
Politicians are fair game. But when you start chopping off heads of ordinary people claiming they are collaborators, it's time to retire your sword, Paul.
The GOP is a crime family whose primary goal is keeping Trump and clan out of prison while all of them loot the nation.
They will be drowning in indictments the day he leaves office.
Paul,
I usually don't read you because you are so all or none when you argue politics. I suppose the excuses are that 1.) You are trying to present the left position; 2.) No one will listen if you espouse moderate ideas; 3.) Readership and the NYT stock price have risen on the pounding of Trump.
All three rationales are legit, but someone like you should rise above the hysteria and irrationality---on both sides---and try to find a middle ground. That's what we centrists want----to avoid what well could become the next civil war. Hysterical ideation? Ray Dalio doesn't think so and he has been an intuitive, long term, successful thinker.
You're welcome, here are some ways fanatical centrists can navigate the schism between a citizen-centered Dem party and an oligarch-centered GOP:
Pick one minority group to sacrifice: we can't support both Central/South American immigrants AND oppose summary police execution of black Americans. Let's throw one group under the bus for sake of the greater good.
Environment: Let's meet in the middle and let half of USA-produced autos "roll coal". Sure, Libs will "be owned", and the world will end, but let's reach across the aisle.
The Law: Can we, at long last, agree that either the CIA or the FBI is not an organization of dedicated civil servants but a lawless anti-American "Gotcha" squad? Let's criminalize one of these agencies and prosecute their staff.
NATO, Russia, Saudi Arabia, et al: Can we finally admit that the lingua franca of the USA is bulletdollars, and become mercenaries? Think of the films: Rambo X -- To The Highest Bidder.
Elections: Right now, our MOTUS has solicited election interference from multiple countries. Can we narrow this process down with a "The Bachelor"-like reality TV contest in which Trump gives a rose to a representative suitor of a single foreign power? Think of the ratings.
As Steve Goodman said: "good night America, how are ya?"
1
Once Republican members of the Senate realize they can flush down the toilet a man who has humiliated, marginalized, bullied, and emasculated each one of them who has tried and failed to stand up to him, they will vote to regain their self respect and esteem.
If I were Lindsay Graham, Little Marco Rubio, Jeff Sessions, and all the other Republicans who have spent their careers in service to this republic and who have been un-manned by this president, I'd think conviction after impeachment followed by incarceration for the appropriate number of years after criminal conviction would be appropriate.
They could transition their legacies from tobins to statesmen.
Well said.
No reconciliation without truth.
Pelosi 2019!
There are never were any 'fanatical centrist Republicans'.
The Republican Party has been the preferred partisan political choice of the white European American Judeo-Christian majority in Presidential elections since 1964.
McCain/Palin won 57% of the white voting majority in 2008.
Romney/Ryan won 59% of the white voting majority in 2012.
Trump/Pence won 58% of the white voting majority in 2016.
Donald Trump is the resurrection of Ronald Reagan without any of the acting, governing and political experience and talent. Trump is Reagan without the gift of rhetorical white supremacist prejudiced bigoted euphemism.
Reagan began in his rise in Philadelphia Mississippi where three civil right workers were lynched talking about states rights. Reagan devolved into attacking a Cadillac driving Chicago welfare queen and a strapping young buck standing in line at the grocery store with food stamps waiting to buy T-Bone steak and wondering if Dr. King was a communist.
1
The word “centrism,” when used to describe a political attitude that has served this country well, is nevertheless inaccurate. It presumes a political spectrum, between “right” and “left,” which presumably has a “center.”
The more accurate distinction is between pragmatists, those who attempt to solve problems, and ideologists, whether of some imagined “left” or “right,” who are concerned with furthering an agenda. This is a distinction between true believers and problem solvers, not some “left” and “right.” Solvers realize they need to figure out what the problem is in the first place. Ideologists see any problem only in terms of their ideological agenda.
Mr. Krugman knows this, but, as a public communicator, he’s saddled with the misleading distinctions used by the larger public. It’s time to start reading between the lines and understanding nuance. It’s time for us, in the public, to stop talking in terms inherited from and commanded by the ideologists. We should be listening primarily to problem solvers.
Krugman is one. And, note, his observation that there are few “centrists,” especially in the (so-called) Republican Party, is not an endorsement of some “left.” By the end of the column the term “centrist” has changed. He’s in favor of those who solve problems.
1
After reading the first 100 or so comments on this op-ed. I'm convinced that the America I was born in and got a PhD in the history of, is doomed. If only because there's no Lincoln (Joe Biden? Give me break!) around to preserve it. But then maybe it's no longer worth preserving!
Well, Krugman is about 3 years too late. I made the same arguments almost 3 years ago.....
https://josephurban.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/trump-is-the-gop/
Joe Biden's ridiculous statement that Trump was an aberration and that once he's gone Republicans could be worked with again immediately disqualified him as someone I could support. His statement, quite frankly, was just as deranged as what comes out of Trump's mouth every day.
3
“As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)”
How shall we define madness? Shall we attach a little mustache to his face and pretend, as 80 years ago, that all is well?
Paul also coined the term "false equivalency" to describe the phony comparison of the two parties. The GOP has been using the race card since 1968. Let's be honest about it!
A powerful version of this argument on (yep) MSNBC last night from the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower: Bannon and Breitbart have been on a campaign to radicalize a segment of the population. And they have succeeded.
1
Krugman should go further. Basically, the GOP has become an Orwellian feed-back loop. The lines between its propaganda arm (Fox), its blowhard politicians (Tea-Party) and its voting block (maga) are now blurred by a self-perpetuating maelstrom of lies.
1
Republicans are like those greedy scientists in the Jurassic Park movies. They created the monster who is about to devour them. When that happened in the films, the audience cheered.
1
Republican disdain for democracy happened the decade after WWII when Eisenhower and Nixon fully embraced the French attempt to reclaim their Indochina colonies of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. McCarthy took their contempt of democracy to heart, and with their backing, destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of patriotic Americans. Eisenhower helped orchestrate coups in Guatemala and Iran to overthrow democratically elected governments as Nixon did in Chile 20 years later. The French puppet government moved into southern Vietnam during the French withdrawal and refused to participate in in 1956 election stipulated in the French surrender. Eisenhower opposed Vietnamese national elections derisively saying all the Vietnamese would have voted for the Communists, anyway. The Republican clarion call for freedom is just another word for corporate and colonial control of people, a position FDR hated when he told his son our boys wouldn't be dying in Asia if it wasn't for French, British, and Dutch greed. Americans would do well to heed the contempt FDR had for oligarchs trying to fleece our national treasury and impose economic sanctions against nations trading with people Trump and his sycophants dislike, a modern form of colonialism equally disastrous as FDR warned his son about. Republican voter suppression, as an old minister I grew up with in the 1960's said, has always been in their wheelhouse along with racist Democrats of old.
1
How right you are.
I’ve known trump was a con man and crook for decades. It’s both amazing and pathetic that millions of Americans still support this lying criminal. Not to mention Moscow Mitch mcCONnell and the rest of the soulless, spineless, morally bankrupt G O Party OVER Country. The sooner they are all gone the better the USA and world will be.
Thank you! We need to keep reminding people of this fact. And it is a fact, one based on a quantitative analysis of a broad range of political parties across the world. See this article from the NYT from earlier this year: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html
Long story short, by global standards, the Democrats are a center-left party, but the Republicans are as far right as parties - like France's National Front - that can legitimately be described as fascist.
What GOP is getting away with is Liberal news media unwillingness to call out false claims by extreme voices. Liberal's did not take Conservative view as at war with Liberal changes. Liberal's unwillingness to fight for social changes, fixation over punctuation marks.
Well stated.
It seems to me that Paul Krugman has been right more often than almost any opinion writer or pundit out there. Yet at the same time, Very Serious People have kept shaking their heads and saying, "But he's far too strident and extreme in his views."
When the plain obvious undeniable truth is completely outside the boundaries of politically acceptable discourse, then your country is very very sick.
I hope at long last we will see this very sober and centrist form of blithering insanity go away, because otherwise we will soon be living in Hungary or Poland, where proto-fascist minorities have cemented their grip on power for the long term.
Thanks Paul! Spot on!
It's time to remember Benjamin Franklin's answer to citizens asking him about what sort of government he and his fellow constitutional conventioners had created: "A republic, if you can keep it."
Let's not forget Reagan/Bush with its Iran-Contra disaster, thee subsequent cover up pardons, the Savings and Loan swindle, and the first phony Iraq War.
1
You. Don't. Get. It. The extreme leftists with their multi-trillion dollar ideas and "nationalizing of essential elements of the economy," rightly or wrongly, scare many people more than Trump and many will vote for him and his party for that reason alone no matter what he does. There is no "fanatical center." There are fanatical extremes leaving the rest of us saddened no matter how we vote because there are no good choices: A treasonous, incompetent lunatic, or soft-racist pseudo-Marxists. Something stinks in American politics: Everything.
Spot on Paul; however, I was disappointed that you didn't name names of those prominen talking heads - too many at the NYT - who have been members of the both sides are to blame click.
1
Paul, I suggest that you change the title of the column to "The Education of ^Unethical and Unprincipled^ Centrists.
Otherwise, I agree 100% and keep up the good fight.
I never felt that Republicans only saw America as a business opportunity, and the looting of America as the number 1 goal.
1
Oh dear. But at least this article won't change the opinions of the Republicans on the subject of Professor Krugman - their continued hatred is assured. The worst thing for a bigot is truth presented in an unequivocal manner and in words which are, if not of one syllable, clear and comprehensible to all.
Mystery to me why main stream media still use the word “conservative” to describe Republican personalities or positions. For example, the Times and other publications use “conservative” to describe the five Republicans on the Supreme Court. The proper word is “radical,” or if you prefer “reactionary.” Republicans left conservative principles in the dirt a long time ago.
1
In the recent past (and sometimes still today) this is called "High Broderism" after Post columnist David Broder (who died 8 years ago) who spent the modern era up until his passing of the Republican march off the right side of the world vaporing about how the Democrats should reach and meet the Republicans half-way (the reverse was never called for some odd reason). And that both sides were equally responsible for every problem, and all ideas have equal merit.
The same column week after week for 30 years.
The problem with Krugman here, is that he defines "centrist" as far right, or, the " anyone to the right of me is a fascist " meme if you will
Thank you! " If it walks like a duck...."
Americans are very conservative philosophically.
To the point that they won't even publish a comment that just expresses that.
Somewhere in Nietzsche's notebooks he wrote:"If you are not a bird, be careful not to camp above an abyss." Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham at al. might find this wise advice.
"the centre cannot hold" - William Butler Yeats
The truth shall set you free.
If you stand in the middle of the road,
you get run over by both sides.
Mr Krugman is correct. Centrism is not a political philosophy.
It is the inability to take any principled stand on any issue.
It is characterized by timidity, fecklessness, and equivocation.
It has infected both parties, and accomplished nothing.
Sometimes you have to make a decision.
Voters who identify themselves as moderate centrists will have to decide between progressivism, and authoritarianism.
1
@ExPDXer
I choose progressivism. Progress is better than regress.
Democracy and inter-governmental cooperation is a threat to corporate domination. Right wing think tanks work not only to gain political power, but actively engage in efforts to demolish our political system ( as well as The European Union and other bodies that work for universal rules). Government by majority rule places limits on what corporations are allowed to do to society and our life-giving environment. The greedy and short-sighted view these constraints as unfair to their pursuit of profits at all costs and seek to destroy any government that would hinder them.
1
Romney took his time to speak up. The only credible Republican is Amash, who left the GOP after he declared that Trump should be impeached. He had no choice to leave the Party as they immediately started seeking Republicans to run against him in Michigan. I hope the good people in Amash's District remember that he is the only honorable man running for re-election.
And hats off to Bill Weld former Republican Governor of Massachusetts for being the first Republican to challenge Trump in his bid for President in 2020.
All this said, the only road left to us is the Impeachment of Trump and the jailing of him and his cronies for inviting interference in our Elections by asking Russia and now the Ukraine for help in re-electing Trump,
And thank you to the Whistleblower, who hopefully is not destroyed by his willingness to cite chapter and verse of what Trump and his cronies Barr, Giuliani and and others are up to.
How the White House and the DOJ can refuse to send witnesses and documents asked for is unbelievable. Apparently they think they can defy Congress and get away with it. So far they are getting away with it.
But not for much longer, unless of course the Supreme Court allows this to continue by ruling not by law, but by favor.
The best gift to this Country is that all these non-patriots are gone by December 25th. Including Pence. Pelosi will make a good interim President. She , a woman, will bring everyone of these males to knee. No pardons for anyone.
1
well all's i can say is we are in a world of hurt. m.krugman is right. it occurred to me this morning, after reading about the LGBT case before the supreme court, that these "conservatives" are actually dividing the country with their attack on people who do not resemble them, agree with them or who present a more inclusive view of our nation. it's obvious how we got here, what we need to do is motivate all people of good heart to vote in the 2020 election. only a groundswell of support with drive these folks from office and then we can try to reclaim our nation and our values
1
@susan mc
We will also need to pry out the worms burrowing into the body politic before they have a chance to destroy the democracy from within.
This is a false framing of centrism in terms of political parties. Few people call themselves centrists. Instead it is a term of political theater brandished by pundits and partisans.
Centrism is usually meant to signal that a person or group does not toe the line on one political party's entire platform and does not jump into line as shiny new things become the hot topic. Those labeled "centrist" are more likely to take skeptical view of promises and accusations.
4
I agree. When I read the headline, I got angry, but I basically agreed with the opinion in the article. Krugman is talking about political moderates who still believe today’s Republican Party has anything of value to provide to America. When I hear the term, centrist, I think of someone in the center on policy arguments. For example, Democratic efforts to improve our lives that involve increased spending are generally positive efforts, but somebody needs to keep them from going overboard. Long ago the Republican Party served this purpose, but since Reagan, they have become the party that creates the huge deficits by shoving money into their own pockets via outrageous tax cut legislation. The idea of fiscal responsibility still exists, even if the Republicans themselves have become fiscally irresponsible, and anybody who believes in the idea can still be called a centrist. We need to get rid of Republicans, Paul, not centrists.
@tew Centrism is propaganda that the GOP uses to legitimise their extreme political positions and curb opposition.
I might try to argue that there is no such thing now as a centrist Republican -- I don't even know what to call them and I refuse to go with Trumpettes -- they were there long before Trump. Centrist Democrats are what were 50s Republicans; and what is called Left-wing Democrats are what was more or less what used to be Centrist. There is a period of adjustment before we become habituated to new ways of thinking (e.g. Obama and gay marriage)- the shock of the new.
Yes, all roads led to Trump when the Democrat presidents began to accommodate to Reagan and Gingrich dug in with the party of NO. And as of a couple of days later we are now into Trump forbidding various person to testify before Congress... Now we are IMO into some entirely else. Trump may actually set himself up to be impeached and then....
1
Short of Romney and those republicans who have decided not to run for another term, exactly who is a centrist in the GOP?
Answer: No one.
Is there even a worthy foundation on which rebuild the GOP once Trump is history?
Answer: There is no republican party anymore, no foundation, no single person or group to lead the GOP back to credibility and value as a party. Trump has decimated the GOP and it will never recover.
1
Isn't it better that Trump does his thing whether the cameras are rolling or not? His private persona seems very consistent with his public one. (Though his political positions vary greatly, for better or for worse, depending on the negotiation status.) Isn't this what we need in our politicians for democracy to work? What we vote for is what we should get.
I defend him even though I disagree with most of his positions because he is constantly attacked my the media establishment. (Believing that Fox News represents the media establishment is delusional.)
Likewise, I defend Trump supporters because they, too, are attacked by the establishment. They are marginalized, labeled and dehumanized in these media-led forums. The retort by half the readers of this will be, 'we don't have to dehumanize them, they are already....' When I try to explain that Trump voters are not as bad as projected here because the media selects non-representative samples from his rallies to highlight and the rallies themselves are non-representative of Trump voters (e.g. more metropolitan, affluent and politically driven) - and that such sampling bias is multiplied, not added - Trumps opponents are NOT relieved. They don't believe it and, more importantly, they don't WANT to believe it. They don't want to believe that there are fewer racist and bigoted Americans than projected by the media. If they themselves were truly victims of such oppression they would surely find this good news.
1
@carl bumba Trump's supporters marginalize and attack everybody else and attempt to force me by law to believe in their heretical religion. No thank you. And Trump should be attacked by the media.
@The Hawk
Marginalization BY Trump supporters has been depicted for us by mainstream media. On the other hand, I witness the marginalization OF Trump supporters, first hand, all the time in this forum alone.
Their heretical religion? You are mixing up Pence supporters with Trump supporters, who are not particularly religious or even reverential. Many are not Republicans. We'll need to keep these things straight if we want to win in 2020.
The Republican Party expends tremendous amounts of money, time, and energy trying to undo the progress our nation has made. They don't do anything to advance U.S. interests in order to keep up with - much less lead - a rapidly changing and rapidly shrinking (via technology) world. They direct energy and resources to repealing the ACA, curbing or eliminating reproductive freedom, and destroying Medicare, while offering no new ideas. They have made it clear that they oppose American democracy by distorting or ignoring constitutional norms. They manipulate elections through gerrymandering, foreign interference, voter suppression, and shady election practices. They stack the government and the courts with people who are hostile to American institutions, laws, customs, and traditions. And they do all of these things while wrapping themselves in the stars and stripes, calling themselves "patriots", and waving the Bible. They have thus duped a large part of the electorate into believing that the half of the country who sees them for what they are and don't adhere to their radical authoritarian ideology are "enemies of the state".
I believe there is nothing more un-American in this country right now than the modern conservative movement. It has become a radical ideology that has swept up many good citizens in its madness. I have reluctantly come to believe that modern conservatism poses an existential threat to the United States.
13
Besides The New Yorker's David Remnick's column the day after election day 2016, this is the best article I've read about the sad state of our nation. Thank you, Mr. Krugman.
4
Joe Biden's refusal to see what the GOP actually are is astonishing. It's certainly a case against decades of experience, if he really thinks we can go back.
2
@Barb
Especially after he witnessed first-hand the completely un-Constitutional and unprecedented way the Merrick Garland nomination was stuffed.
He was in the Senate with these people for a long time and he knows them personally, but they are actively destroying our democracy. The word 'enabler' comes to mind.
1
@Barb
Biden is delusional if he thinks the republicans will work with him. They will work to destroy him because the GOP are totalitarian apparatchik.
1
Fanatical Centrists are exactly the same as most hospice patients; they would rather maintain the status quo than prepare for change, particularly change they have to make decision on. Its human nature.
2
Well written, Mr Krugman! The GOP began this destructive descent in 1964 and became so rabidly 'right wing' that in later years even Barry Goldwater disavowed the extremists, evangelicals, corporatists, etc denounced them. And then when AZ GOP denounced him and tried to remove his name from the state GOP headquarters, I knew the GOP had gone well over the edge. But the true decline into authoritarianism and anti-
Americanism began in the 1980s under you-know-who and shifted into high gear from then on. We're in serious trouble.
6
I'm thinking that the changes that occurred or better yet were forced in the past like the minority's right to vote, getting us out of Vietnam happened because people were out in the streets forcing "our"representatives to make the tough votes and behave in the interest of the "people" rather than the monied interests.
If you read the polls a large majority want gun regulation, medical insurance for all, but it won't happen until people get out in the streets and demand it.
I guess the founding fathers would be surprised to see how the republic they set up for us is "working". Of course they thought we'd have an informed citizenry to track our representatives votes and making sure their votes are in our interests and if not on to the streets and demand it.
2
The most radical centrists may be the mainstream media with their false equivalency which they use under the guise of being fair and balanced. And I'm not talking about fox news which doesn't even pretend to live up to its motto.
3
Trump has shown how important it is to begin seriously considering psychological testing for those seeking the presidency, much like astronauts undergo. Also it should be mandatory for all presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns. This would solve so many problems that Trump has exposed, since the last three years have been dominated by two issues - what his taxes might show about his sources of income and his fitness for office.
2
Krugman is not only brilliant, he is also totally correct about the Republican Party. And to think that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican...we have seen incredible changes in the party, as well as in our entire national politics.
Thank you, Mr. Krugman!
RMG Fontana
3
The use of the term "Centrist" simply describes someone who is middle of the road, not right leaning as this column portrays it. This piece should have been titled "The Education of Fanatical Soft Right"
1
Not only is Trump not an aberration, but who is to say at this point that what comes after Trump in the GOP is even worse than Trump, much worse? Just look at the Republicans in the House, any number of them would be worse IMO than Trump. Remember, these are the same Republicans who purged John Boehner and Paul Ryan as not being extreme enough.
I believe the next GOP leader, or more accurately, cult of personality will be more Trumpian than Trump. Just wait until we have a President Lou Dobbs or President Laura Ingraham. The GOP is nowhere near the bottom, yet.
1
In my job I meet a lot of people. I can guarantee you that I can identify a persons political leanings in less than 5 minutes.
GOP followers value loyalty to the party above all else, follow their beliefs regardless of the facts, are Machiavellian in the extreme and have no empathy whatsoever for others.
The others are Democrats.
6
Yes, thank you for this. Trump isn’t the aberration, he’s the culmination. From Nixon, to Regan (Iran-Contra), to all the Bushes, including Jeb if you are actually familiar with how he ran Florida. My question is though, how does an obvious grifter and con man like Donald Trump manage to float to the top of the New York real estate world and god help us, the presidency, without ever being prosecuted for anything? Not his tax evasion, phony foundations, money laundering, and all the rest? Is it because this is just how American commerce operates?
3
It's time to stop paying the bills Americans. I cannot be governed by a President like Donald Trump. It's that simple now.
1
I'm going to put myself in the "radical centrist" camp, and I'm going to use that useful label from now on.
I do believe that many, if not, most Republicans in this country are upstanding citizens. They want to do the right thing, but Fox News and Russian Facebook meddling have unmoored them from their traditional values. Republicans were once for small government, open trade policies, a strong military, minimal government regulation, and puritan values. I believe most of them would still agree with that list of priorities.
The problem is that Trump and crew don't believe in this list. They believe in an authoritarian state, closed trade policies, a strong-looking military, government regulation on people who aren't campaign donors, and Trump's warped personal and business values that seem to have only his survival as the core.
I'll admit that things don't look good for those right-of-center suburban and business class Republicans who once worked well with left-of-center people like me. Many of them are now calling themselves "independents" and moving toward the Democratic Party.
So, don't chase them off by suggesting they don't exist. Give them space to hide out in the Democratic Party until the Republican Party returns to its senses.
Right now is an aberration--if we can get those right-leading centrists to move over to the Democratic Party for at least a couple years. If they don't, we will have a much bigger problem on our hands.
3
I totally agree and this is a reason why lowering the expectations to compromise is the worse strategy for the democrats.
2
Biden is wobbly because what can he say when asked about his son's extraordinary compensation? "George W used parental influence while his father was Vice-President and President ... All the adult Trump kids and son-in-law are riding on coat-tails." "They all do it" is an unattractive argument. But this is America. Soon this will be forgotten, Trump will be involved in a new outrage and the Democratic electorate will be looking for its "moderate-centrist" despite Paul Krugman's arguments to the contrary.
1
The GOP wants to rule, not govern.
From gerrymandering to denying the democrats a Supreme Court justice, they do not support democracy. They can't, fewer and fewer people share their belief system anymore.
7
So, what direction should one take to make the 53% who disapprove of Trump plus at least some of the 4-6% who profess to be unsure to vote him out of office? It seems to me that a majority of Americans are more conservative than any of the top tier candidates except Biden. It seems to me that many Democrats are still under the illusion that they can defeat Trump and pull the country to the left simultaneously. This seems like a dangerous gamble.
It makes me think of second tier candidates, but trying to get their electability up to speed also seems like a dangerous gamble.
The 2020 election is looking more and more to me like a contest between reality tv and a party that refuses to face reality.
3
I agree with nearly all of this--but unfortunately, when the Bush administration "took us to war on false pretenses," it was neither the first time that had happened in American history, nor a misdeed perpetrated solely by Republicans.
As a Democrat, I'd like to believe that my party wouldn't repeat the mistakes (or crimes?) of the Johnson administration more than 50 years ago. Maybe they've even learned from that--though the substantial Dem support for the second Iraq War calls that conclusion into question. But we have to face our history with eyes open.
1
The problem isn't the center. The Republican party is a far right nationalist party relying on the dogma of patriotism to hold the center.
The Democrats last two Presidents were 2 term centrist. The country prospered under both of them.
The problem is the Democratic party, a minority party, just like the Republican party is likely to nominate Warren who is far to the left of most US voters.
I will vote for her because I'm an anything but Trump voter. Sadly I still think Hillary Clinton is head and shoulders better than any Democrat running. After the last fiasco I can't believe the Democrats can't find a centrist candidate who can unite this country. Obviously Biden isn't the person to do it. The question is can who can?
3
@HL Yes. Hillary would have been an excellent President. The Republican majority in Congress would have been as much of a problem as it was for Obama. I wonder if there would have been the same result in the 2018 election. Orangeboy has been so awful that his actions really got the Democrats motivated. Voters may have not have turned out so much.
@HL: There is nobody who is centrist in all axes of the political Hilbert space.
The voice of one that crieth in the wilderness. I've been saying roughly the same thing for almost as long, and yes, people have mostly seemed to think I was "shrill, if not deranged." Now I hope there's some chance that You're right.
1
Lindon Johnson was more right than he knew. Civil rights legislation lost the South to the GOP, but it lasted more than a generation. Part of what made that congeniality possible that Biden recalls with fond nostalgia was that conservatives, liberals, and moderates were spread across both parties. In the Democratic Party, the conservatives were mostly white Southerners who just couldn't bring themselves to be part of the party of Lincoln. But they could easily find common ground with GOP conservatives on various issues. However, they still had the (D) after their names, so they'd go along with their own party as well on other issues.
All the Blue Dogs here in GA switched parties not long after our last Democratic governor committed political suicide by removing the Stars and Bars from the State flag. And they've been steadily dismantling the remnants of decades of decades of Democratic control. We didn't have much of an education system, welfare state, or infrastructure before, but we're rapidly marching across that bridge to the 19th Century.
1
@crankyoldman: Should we fear for Massachusetts now that the sword on its state flag has come into question?
1
@crankyoldman Oof! I need to proofread more. Lyndon, not Lindon, and one of those "of decades" is redundant.
1
A wise psychologist once told me "Don't listen to their words. Watch their feet."
Jeff Flake spoke great words, but it was the other senator from Arizona who acted. When a Republican actually votes with the Democrats, then and only then will I be a believer.
4
To go back a bit further....let us not forget the political decision fo the Supreme Court itself in the 2000 election of Gore vs Bush. It has been gradual, but that was a pivotal moment in the end of any semblance of our democracy.
7
@A & R yes, and there are several very interesting books out about the implications and results of what the Supreme Court did in 2000. Some of the justices sold their integrity to put Bush into the White House. As we can see now, the results have been nothing short of disastrous for our democracy and our ability to trust the government.
1
@A & R: We are all subjected to the conduct of the most corrupted states under the failure of the federal government to establish a uniform federal election process.
3
Mr. Krugman. Your truthful and bold analysis is the reason I am still paying NY Times subscription. Your say "Some of us have been pushing back against that worldview for many years, arguing that today’s Republican Party is a radical force increasingly opposed to democracy. " This is such an accurate and perfect description that I applaud you. This is the best column I have read in a lot of years. Thank you.
7
@Talal
Yes! Thank goodness for these columns.
I don't really accept Prof. Krugman's definition of "Centrist," though.
For me, a centrist is someone who believes in capitalism—but well-regulated capitalism with a robust safety net; but is not a socialist. (E.g., in healthcare, that a Medicare option should be AVAILABLE for all, but NOT in outlawing private insurance.)
In foreign policy, a centrist is someone who, while believing that the military option should never be the first option, it should still be available as an option (which means maintaining a ready and effective military).
The Democratic Party still does have centrists. For the GOP, though... Seems to me like most of their centrists are now FORMER members of the GOP and current MSNBC hosts and contributors. :)
4
@sjepstein: Taxation and spending is socialism. The Republicans have made a mess of the public sector for failure to understand that.
2
@sjepstein You have to admit that the actions of private insurance companies, the denials of claims, high costs, etc. have earned the penalty of being largely put out of business. They have been terrible.
While my initially reaction to this column was "Finally they're getting it," I suspect this column, too, will fall on the "politically correct" deaf ears of the political middle-of-the-road. Moderates seem incapable of sounding even slightly ticked off for fear they will appear (or be labeled) "liberal" - and rendered irrelevant to fellow moderates.
These politically faceless arbiters of "reasoned, neutral debate" embrace politically correct neutrality as a child clings to a worn but favored stuffed toy. It is the moderates equivalent of the right's bubble-verse; an alternative reality where no one is hurt or allowed to hurt another, providing a comfortable retreat into an alternative universe of mythical scholarly Athenian debate. Meanwhile, the real American world experiences new Trumpian lows on a daily basis.
I'm not as hopeful as Professor Krugman. The politically moderate didn't face up to Nixon's treachery and abuse of power. He walked placidly into the sunset only to be resurrected as a respected "elder statesman." Moderates meekly agreed with President Ford "moderation" that the country "needed to heal" rather than prosecute Nixon for his crimes.
That "moderation" revealed an unspoken truth. There are 2-tiers of justice; one for the politically connected (who rarely suffer the consequences of their transgressions), and another for the rest of us. Imagine how different subsequent history would have been if Nixon had to pay for his crimes.
6
@John Bush should have had actions taken against him for the conspiracy of lies that were used to start a war against Iraq.
@John: Liberals liberate. Conservatives conserve. Revanchists demand restoration of a bygone time that never was. Centrists twist their own necks into rope.
@Michael Edwards,
Imagine Nixon is tried and convicted for even some of his crimes, then has to do even a small time in federal prison.
Now fast forward to Reagan and the beginnings of Iran-Contra. Can you imagine that moving forward with the example of Nixon's jail time hanging over Reagan's head?
Fast forward to W. Would he have been so sanguine about outsourcing foreign policy to Dick Cheney if the image of Nixon in an orange jump suit was still vivid in his mind?
They say "Elections have consequences."
I say, "So do prison terms."
Since I was 18 years old, I have registered as an independent. I preferred to let individual ideas and policies speak for themselves, rather than follow a rigid party line.
For years, it has served me fairly well (though obviously members to the left and right of me will disagree, often vehemently). I think, in a vacuum, that my approach would serve our country well.
Sadly, we don't live in such a sterile, academic place. Our reality is that Donald Trump runs the Republican Party. It is impossible for me to hold onto my ideology of balancing ideas when the current Republic party has dismissed all pretense of independent thought and is marching lock-step with a man whose own tweets condemn him far more than I ever could in a NYT comment, whose "infinite wisdom" is at face value is about as deep as Don Quixote's.
So this fall, I registered as a Democrat.
Yes Mr. Krugman, me and my centrist ilk are rapidly collapsing. I worry about about the cost: can our country survive without unfettered political discourse, when charismatic (or simply well connected) leaders replace a marketplace of sound ideas? But the Republican Party has made the price of staying in the middle far too high. "By the people, for Donald Trump, at all cost" is an form of government that no reasonable person should be able to support.
Put differently: Republicans, we are your constituents, too. You have failed us, soundly. Did you truly expect a different outcome?
7
@htg: The parliamentary system of government embraces the tendency of people to self-organize into like-minded groups. This brings negotiation of political coalitions into public view. Independents don't influence others because they don't self-organize.
2
@Steve Bolger
When our like-mindedness is to listen to all points of view, then act and vote freely after due consideration, what is there to organize? Does that fluidity make it right? Wrong? Ineffective? On a personal level? Local? National?
My take, formed over the years, is that our philosophy is far better suited to a true democracy, rather than a republic. Because of that, I do not believe independents have a large impact in the national arena; that is obvious. But on personal and local level, I have found my position has been very persuasive. Great example: it is far easier to argue climate change to deniers when your position is both "I've actually read the studies" and "I didn't automatically vote for Al Gore." I've actually convinced people of the cause for concern.
Conversely, parties have a large influence on national and state-level politics, but their current divisions makes it highly difficult for individuals of opposing parties to have reasonable discussions on a personal level, much less convince either side.
We need independents, or at the very least a way for individuals to retain their individuality in politics. It's not all about congress or parties. For most Americans, the greatest chance to inspire change starts at the Thanksgiving table or your kids' school board.
I digress. The point remains that the Republican Party is making that nearly impossible at the moment. They've drawn a line, and I can't cross it.
The central point here is that the two political parties are not equivalent For all its many faults, the Democratic party embraces people of all faiths, non-faiths, races, sexual orientations, and so on, while basing its core policy goals on facts (i.e. emissions standards lead to both cleaner air and mitigate the build up of carbon in the atmosphere).
The Republican party on the other hand, has branded itself the party by and for white, Christians who are the self appointed guardians of "family values," while basing it core public policy goals on advancing the short term financial interests of powerful industries-- (i.e. there is no need to regulate air pollution because...umm, well, why exactly?
39
@Amir Flesher
There's no need to regulate air pollution because "Jesus is coming..."
A related issue is the conflation of conservatism with “right wing” or Republican. There are few Republican elected officials who stand for conserving anything except their exercise of power and authority.
8
I'm a Centrist. I will vote blue in 2020. I have no illusions about Trump. Trump is a danger to our democracy and needs to go.
That said, in addition to his own threat, one of the reasons I want to see Trump go is the way he has emboldened the worst of the far left, who use him as a bogeyman to push their agenda.
We are talking about Marxism in ways I thought was unimaginable ten years ago.
"Intersectionality" has gone from an academic concept to a religion in many educated and professional circles, a religion that you publically dissent from at your social and professional peril.
The conversation on the issue of transgenderism has been truncated, as we have gone from "should men with gender dysphoria who present as women use women's bathrooms, and vice versa" (sure, no problem) to the absurdity that a "Transwoman is a woman" being dogma, and anyone who objects to this denial of reality, to boys in wigs running girl's track and making a mockery of Title IX, to legalized sex work, or who dares speak of their womanhood in an embodied way, is "deplatformed" with screams of "No Debate!" and then gaslit by being told that we are bigots, a "tiny minority" (we aren't) and that our mere acknowledgement of reality "does violence" and "denies people's existence". Parents are told children will commit suicide if they don't poison their bodies with hormones, and DCF is sent after them for dissent.
This is how abusers and totalitarian regimes work.
It's not just Trump.
4
@AF
That’s a lot of quotes in one comment considering there’s not a single citation of who supposedly said those things.
An honest question- Why, exactly, do you care so much about which gender another human being identifies as?
Also, why do you imagine that you know more about what is like to be transgender than the people who actually are transgender and the experts who have have studied this topic their entire professional lives?
How can you have "fanatical" centrists? By definition centrists are the middle of the political spectrum. Phooey.
1
Before 2016 there were many claims that the GOP had lost its mojo, it had lost the plot. It wasn’t attracting the “new voters”. It was heading towards political oblivion. The Obama coalition was going to spell trouble for GOP electorally. People then ignored the capture by the GOP of the state legislatures, financed by the big businesses and the oligarchs. They then gerrymandered the constituencies, thereby neutralising the “Obama coalition”. Case after case the conservative courts support the gerrymandering, with the odd outlawing. Still, that meant the GOP was able to capture senate seats with gerrymandered constituencies and control the Senate. The GOP is fundamentally aware it faces a dreadful future because it wasn’t “playing straight”. That disposed it to undertake the Faustian bargain which, shockingly, was bought in by its core - the evangelicals, and supported Trump. Since then the party has been, as all parties facing their death knell had before, prepared to unload ALL its core and centralist beliefs and values in order to enjoy a last hurrah under the sun. Typically its leaders indulge in rationalising away its ideology and ethos unashamedly. Just listen to what Senator Lindsey Graham has been saying since 2016. You will get a sense of the impending doom. When party leaders surrender their political soul, in such a Faustian bargain, it tells you the end is nigh. Trump will take it down when he is gone. There will be nothing left in the GOP.
5
I have been supporting Krugman's focus on Republican extremism for years. This column is one of his best. Only one suggestion: instead of focusing on lying us into the Iraq war, the prize example of attempts to undermine basic constitutional values should be the use of the 9-11 attack to promulgate and legitimize the use of torture. That was very Republican.
7
I think we should take Trumps calls for the arrest or outright destruction of anyone who opposes him seriously. Not ravings that will be ignored because 'obviously', no sane American would act on such crazy stuff.
Trump means what he says and the fact that the entire Republican organization makes no objection at all should be taken to mean, not that they are spineless, but that they agree wholeheartedly and are just holding their collective tongues until they think all the pieces are in place, and then they will in fact, act. There will be a purge.
The Republican base is armed to the teeth and the Liberal base is self-disarmed and thinks the system still can get the upper hand and sanity will win out. That is not what is going to happen. We are going to have a national lynching. An actual coup. It is, in fact, underway.
5
Professor Krugman, you have used an infelicitous phrase "the education of fanatical centrists" to communicate in hundreds and hundreds of words what W. B. Yeats communicated poetically in fewer than 50 words. "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is lost.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”
7
I agree with Krugman’s analysis, but the paradox is: by doing so, am I not “dismissive of the legitimacy of [the] political opposition?” Perhaps the deeper plot/tendency of antidemocratic forces worldwide is to get rid of the “United” in front of the “States”. We can’t play into their hands.
Keep in mind Upton Sinclair's note: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
4
When I read the headline of Paul Krugman's article, I was thinking of Democrats, particularly the Dem. House members (centrists) who flipped GOP seats last November. They were very reluctant to support impeachment initially, but--thankfully--have come around. What's frustrating is that a number of their constituents are not supportive of impeachment. Hard to believe since Mafia-Don's crimes are blatant--there really is not a gray area. He is (and has been) abusing power and obstructing justice. Going forward with impeachment is the only way to state, "Democracy, we desperately want you back!"
1
The aberration is in the generation that was named for its selfishness - the "Me" Generation aka: baby boomers.
It went from the idealism of the 60s to full acceptance of the notion that winning is everything and all winners cheat.
The entire effort in the arms for made-up-dirt from Ukraine was part of a near year long plan to cheat in the 2020 campaign by slandering Joe Biden and his son.
People wonder how this will end and what its effects will be in the long term. Let me say we came from Bedford Falls but it is looking a lot like Pottersville coming up.
2
And what happens if the GOP legitimately collapses in the voting booths? Or #45 is somehow impeached by the Senate?
Will #45's and his minions accept it? No.
Dire straits these are, dire straits.
3
It must must be exhausting to be a member of the GOP today especially if you are a relatively young and have children still living at home.
I can’t imagine how a GOP member of Congress, explains to children that there is no such thing as climate change as more and more species are heading toward extinction; that caging migrant children is sound policy; that diminishing the rights of any human being based on sexual orientation is humane all the time crossing their fingers that their child will not grow up to be a member of the LBGTQ community. When once parents told daughters they can grow up to be anything they want, now GOP men need to explain to their daughters how men now have sovereignty over their bodies,
And lastly, as these GOP members send their young ones off to school each morning, they know they didn’t do enough to protect them from a person with a grudge and an AK47; because because campaigns are really expensive.
Oh, and remember when all parents told children it was wrong to bully? Now GOP parents must defend a President who mimics people with disabilities and debases people because of their religious beliefs. How does that dinner conversation go?
I sure hope that these GOP parents have lots of money stocked away because it is only a matter of time before their kids realize what an absolute mess their parents, stewards of this planet did.
Therapy will be very costly.
4
An old Hindu proverb: For every finger you point, three fingers point at you.
Krugman refers to “a powerful faction in U.S. public life... whose refusal to accept facts at odds with its prejudices has long been a major source of political dysfunction.” What he’s referring to is that “Trump isn’t an aberration... he’s the culmination of where his party has been going for decades. And U.S. political life won’t begin to recover until centrists face up to that uncomfortable reality.”
Ironically, however, the Democrats are equally in denial about a basic ”uncomfortable reality.” A central reason why “nearly half of our citizens - Trump voters - want an authoritarian regime” (@Nicholas Rush) is that the blue collar families of Trump’s current core were betrayed by the Democratic party’s turn to identity politics in the 1970’s. And until the Democrats, and Krugman, face up to the fact that it was they who created the space that Trump moved into, politics in this country will continue to be seriously distorted. (An inconvenient truth: in 1970, membership of the Democratic party was over 82% blue collar; the current figure is around 27%.)
1
There still are people around that think shows like "Father Knows Best" reflected reality.
2
Thanks, Paul - except you forget the Republican Party has almost eliminated its center, and kicked the imaginary center so far to the right that people who believe the parties “equal” are backing a mad right-wing government.
2
Good on you, Paul. Now who's going to bell the cat? Who's going to have Thomas and Kavanaugh impeached? Who's going to make sure that Trump and acolytes are not merely neutralized while in office, but indicted, convicted and jailed once removed? Who's going to not play it like Al Gore any more?
1
How true! And it should be obvious to all, including the Republican establishment types who now voice their opposition to Trump via the liberal media. The Republican Party paved the way for Trump - tho he needed lots of Russian help to get over the finish line.
1
We need more centrists.
People are tried of, yes, the Paul Krugmans of the world. No matter how smart Paul is, how good an economist, he's willing to write columns like "If Trump is elected, the economy will crash".
The economy didn't crash. You were wrong. And here we are, 3 years later, and you're writing the same tired, angry, didactic stuff. I say time to get some new material. Come join us centrists.
I hate Trump. I didn't vote for him, I'll never vote for him, but I also don't think the ends justify the means. With every one of these irritatingly transparently partisan columns you are betraying people like me, and this is a significant part of what drives people to Trump: the blatant hypocrisy of the elite.
1
Oh, too hopeful! Denial of reality is oxygen for centrists. Maybe some will give in to reality a little bit for a short while this time, but that is an unstable position for them: They must must must piously deliver bothsidesism idiocy in order to feel good about themselves. It is about who they are. And they will continue to be treated as useful fools by the rabid gang -- the Republicans.
1
I am no Trump supporter, but the whole Biden connection with Ukraine smells. In my view, the Democrat narrative that there was an investigation that cleared them is suspect. Democrats are looking away from an uncomfortable reality and closing ranks in denial of that reality. In the blizzard of Trumpian lies, there is a kernel of truth as regards the Bidens.
1
"No, Trump isn’t an aberration. He’s unusually blatant and gaudily corrupt, but at a basic level he’s the culmination of where his party has been going for decades. And U.S. political life won’t begin to recover until centrists face up to that uncomfortable reality."
Yes and thank you. Trump and the bootlickers who support him ARE the GOP. May I also suggest the NYT start interviewing "real" Americans who loathe Trump in the Midwest? There are plenty of us here but all the NYT does is focus on his supporters.
2
As a liberal, I would be pleased to have a responsible, rational Republican President in place of loony-tunes Trump, but please, no bigoted evangelical zealots. Mainstream religions are OK. Science is truth while faith is wishful thinking.
Really comforting to hear that the denial of the decade long process behind the Trumpian culmination
Delighted to read this column in the Times. It’s not just Trump. He is just the hidden meaning of the unitary executive that Republicans promote. He is the “John Galt” of the sophomoric Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” , the“anti-Christ” messiah of selfishness promoted by “Catholic” Paul Ryan. Trump has sanctified Reagan’s distrust in government and Senator Ron Johnson, after emerging from the Trump “wood shed”ranted about his distrust of the CIA and FBI. It’s the entire Republican Party that has been exposed by Trump and the parroting Senators and Congressmen who protect Trump and their way to final victory. They are anti democracy pro plutocracy anti Americans and they don’t care what the Constitution or our Laws or Treaties say.
2
Years of Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression have come home to roost.
1
Brainwashing a public to believe things without substantiation obviously tends to make a nation ungovernable.
1
You're right, this isn't new. I realized the Republicans were extreme (as well as mean-spirited) when Vince Foster, deputy White House Counsel in Bill Clinton's first administration, committed suicide in 1993. Clinton had been president only six months and the Republican already hated him so much that they spun out a conspiracy theory: Vince Foster was murdered and the Clintons were involved. Really? I thought it was crazy but there were FIVE official investigations. The conclusion? The poor guy was depressed and killed himself.
What I want to know is why and how this happened. When did the party head down this path? Was there a turning point? Why has it gotten so extreme? Someone please explain.
Nixon
Pick a side, and only one has good people on it.
2
The Republican party can not be trusted to govern at any level.
2
Trump is a racist, authoritarian, misogynist with a devoted base of 40+% of American voters, 90% of Republicans. This is America, and Democratic candidates for President need an analysis and strategy to not unify the country, which is impossible, but first win the election by inspiring young people, women, and minorities. Then reach out to rural white Christian Trump supporters with investments in jobs, health, internet connectivity, and education.
2
The people who warned against Bush’s invasion of Iraq based on lies were mocked and called unpatriotic.
The people who warned of the looming “great recession” under Bush were mocked.
The people who warned against a Trump Presidency were mocked.
America has a problem.
2
Of course our current state of affairs did not materialize out of thin air in 2016. Point taken. However, this fiasco could easily have been averted had it not been for pouting Bernie supporters, waffling "undecided" voters who didn't like Hillary's "baggage" and opted out altogether, and foolish green party candidates who always have to insert themselves into every race and siphon democratic votes.
I credit conservative voters this: they all held hands and jumped in together. Blue collar Dems were that way. The lefties who remain in the party today are too smart for their own good. We have thrown perfectly good Democratic politicians overboard in the midst of unproven #metoo allegations to no good end whatsoever. Meanwhile...Brett Kavanaugh. If we listen to Trump about anything, try some loyalty instead of flaking on somebody because they can't make all your liberal dreams come true.
Otherwise these Republicans will be in power forever.
2
If Trump is reelected or is not impeached we can all pretty much figure climate change temperatures will make the world less inhabitable and our children and grandchildren will be the ones who suffer.
1
The tragedy in all this is that so many people still buy the media-fed false equivalence that "both parties do it," and therefore they are equally bad. I first heard complaints from middle class people that neither party cared about their interests over 40 years ago. While that is not true, as the Republicans have proven they only care about the 1% while the Democrats do care about the rest of us, they can't get anything done. They just come in to clean up disasters caused by Republican administrations--most vividly shown by Bill Clinton
's turnaround of the first Bush economy, and Barack Obama's "pulling it back from the cliff." after Dubya tanked it mercilessly. But as long as the right wing propaganda machine is not defeated, and masses of people believe government is the problem, we'll keep running in place endlessly.
2
The difference now is that conspiracy theories have seeped into the minds of formerly mainstream Republicans. Once those theories were considered extreme and even crazy. Now they are embraced by Republicans in power. I, unlike Krugman, still embrace centrism. I have friends in both parties and can vouch that there are sane Republicans who can be pragmatic and logical about issues, who can agree with Democrats, and who are never-Trumpers. They problem is they aren't in power.
1
Of course Trump isn't an aberration. If he was there would be no trouble removing him from office. But in the real world he is protected by like-minded politicians like Moscow Mitch, and cabinet officials who pretend not to see early symptoms of Alzheimers and thus refuse to evoke the 25th amendment.
2
Thank you. Now for how to educate those "centrists" who think that the government will heal itself without their help. Organize and get people, particularly the young, to vote.
2
Across the spectrum of issues, there are two sides. This problem of treating them as equal, like sides of a coin, pervades everywhere. Arguments for the health benefits of vaccines are treated as equal to the arguments for the health risks of vaccines. Arguments for the greenhouse-gas model are treated as equal to the arguments against.
Krugman is right. There are always two sides in the US political debates, but the two sides are not equally wrong. The republicans are wildly wrong. The democrats are only mildly wrong.
2
When confronted with those who said R and D were no different, I immediately stopped them ...there is a stark difference between the parties.
Thanks for this column.
3
Interesting parallels between this piece and a recent one by Jennifer Rubin in WaPo on 'The Media Begin to Get It, Just In the Nick of Time.'
Both pieces point to how the most recent actions of Trump have destroyed any semblance or pretense of 'normality' that many in politics and the media have tried to maintain, with great futility.
It's as if Frankenstein's monster was loosed, but the response from huge segments of society has not been one of terror, but of trying to normalize and justify the monstrosity. Still the monster continues to behave in monstrous ways, until all pretense otherwise is blown away and exposed as the dissembling it has always been.
Lo and behold, the Monster really IS as monstrous as those who refuse pretense have been saying he is all along.
2
The "center" now is not Democrats or Republicans; it is voters who want leadership that will help them to lead better lives. This is what nearly every candidate for office has ever promised.
2
It appears that halloween has come early to washington, and Trump is trying to question the legitimacy of the american democratic process with ramblings about an other-worldly deep state. We should be scared but not surprised as republicans continue to gather around the ghost of George Wallace , taking their cues from him, an avowed racist and once Democrat and original challenger of the legitimacy of Washington.
It is hard to imagine today but in 1968 the core republican strategy that Nixon saw as the writing on the wall was to integrate the politics of George Wallace into the republican platform. A strategy that Republicans to this day depend on to win elections. When Trump says "deep state" he really means democrats responsible for civil rights, medicare, women's reproductive rights, climate protection, environment protections. Republicans participating in these reforms, as far as he is concerned are just a part of the democratic cabal ..in fact he sees them as hidden democrats.
As in the era of George Wallace , the game has been to question the right of washington to govern by means of faire elections and laws. For a while centrists could deny the ghost of George Wallace hovering over Trump but in many ways both do not believe in the American Democracy and does this trouble centrists? If it doesn't, it should because the unity of this nation depends on trust in our central government , without which we could become just another banana republic !
2
The mainstream media needs to continue selling the fiction that we have a two party system and everyone shares a belief in democracy.
Republicans don’t believe their opposition is legitimate and believe they are duty bound to steal elections to stay in power, for the good of our Christian souls.
Joe Biden is an empty suit. It is fitting that he would be the first known victim of Trump’s foreign election meddling. He’s stupid enough to believe that Republicans are not Trump. They are owned by Trump because he is the culmination of all their plans to rig elections and hold power regardless of popularity.
We need someone like Elizabeth Warren, who is under no such illusions about who she if facing. She will look right through Trump like the Terminator on a mission.
5
Insurgencies are by definition minorities and they've been known, in virtually every instance of regime change, to win.
He's being exposed as the naked lunch, sure, but that doesn't mean Republicans are about to lose. It could just mean that US luck is about to run out.
1
Centrism is what happens when you don't like a square and instead begin to call it a circle. It is hardly surprising that centrists converged to their erroneous opinions and now find themselves unable to plan an extraction.
2
Thanks, Professor. You have given me a day off from writing to your republican op ed colleagues when they wistfully speak of the good old days when they were such fine fellows and where did this Trump guy come from, anyway.
4
The most accurate Republican criticism of the s-c-president comes from Joe Walsh, of the TEA party, who probably represents the people most enthralled by the #PLIC.
The Republican party, as we all know, has convinced the working class that it represents their interests. Probably because they have pandered to their prejudices, while making believe they care about their economic interests.
Maybe Mr. Walsh can persuade them of the truth.
1
It's interesting how the comments here are more about gop leadership than about the centrists Paul is talking about here who are the bulwark behind which the gop protects itself with.
We all have just shook our head and said nothing at the false equivalence people who say dems are just as corrupt as the gop just to not have Thanksgiving dinner from blowing up in flames.
Well, now it's not just North Korea, Saudi Arabia, the South American countries from which refugees are fleeing not to mention Mexico, the Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and China that he's both attacking and appealing to to bail him out with dirt on Biden . . . and that's just the big stuff.
Can we continue to just keep shaking our heads to keep the peace at dinner when it's disturbing the peace across the globe?
No, we cannot. It's our small minded passivity that allowed the gop to play us. It must stop now.
3
One hundred percent agree! Republicans have long hated democracy and they are laser-focused on maintaining the levers of power regardless of what the majority desires.
2
Thank you for stating what many of us have been saying for years, the Reagan years to be exact. The GOP does not and has not for some time, had a claim to any of the principles it claims as its bedrock ethos. Family? They literally prefer the leadership of adulterers, Newt Gingrich for example, to the solid family values of Barack Obama. Faith? Is there a grifting Christian they haven't embraced? The Falwells? The Robertsons? Fiscal prudence? Pffftt. Too many offenses to mention. Respect for the law? The Roberts court may be their idea of their shining moment but history will not judge it kindly.
How any thinking person could believe what the GOP has been peddling is the mystery of our times. Trump has stripped away the mask they barely hid behind. And it is about time. This may hurt but the GOP is a cancer this country needs to be cured of.
2
There is a reason Trump chose to be a republican when he ran for president after being life-long democrat. He knew they had no values other than greed and false piety, so he took full advantage.
2
The thing that will flummox me until the day that I die is how working class people who were absolutely rocked by the Great Recession could ever vote for a Republican. After Iraq and the loss of millions of jobs and homes it’s just baffling that anyone would fall for that schtick. But I guess racism and the illusion of “liberty” are powerful motivators for the angry.
We really need to get rid of the electoral college. It’s not just hampering progress, it’s encouraging the downfall of our country. It’s fine if you want to underfund your schools and embrace stupidity but don’t drag the rest of us down with you.
5
The fool withdrawing from Syria might change Republican minds. Too bad we don't practice total war anymore. Many people that voted for Trump and Obama wanted this war to end which leads me to believe we need to start changing our political definitions. People on the right and left traditionally agree on many things but are to dumb or to stuck up to see it. Do you think Mike Wormtongue Morell plans for invasion Iran were foiled when Hillary lost?
Is it possible that trump is just winding up the press and the House? I wouldn't put it past him. He's such a sociopath. He thinks this is all a game and he's the pitcher.
Well said. And how did we let it happen? Republicans built a coalition of the religious right, the fearful, the racists, and the greedy rich, and they all walked in lock step. Democrats always had the voters, but not the votes. We didn't lose to Republicans, we lost to complacency, apathy, and political purity. Can we say, "never again"?
2
It doesn't matter, Republican party is dying as young people have pretty much abandoned them and treated Republicans as an aliens from space, that they have preached values like white supremacy, Male domination, hatred against immigrants, anti-diversity , global warming and health care for all.
Republican party is at the moment under trump is the remnant of once great political party, before it disappears from the national politics into the sunset...
Too bad for the party of Lincoln but like the dinosaurs, it will remain as a lesson for the future generations...
1
I’m not all clear on what happens next, if it should ever come to pass that Trump is convicted in the Senate. Do we tolerate a President Pence who is also under a cloud? Do we remove all those appointed by Trump to positions of authority and responsibility, including two on the SCOTUS? It seems to me that detrumpifucation of the US body politic is as crucial to our survival as the denazification of postwar Germany was to theirs.
1
You make some good points. But, when you noted that a Republican “administration took us to war on false pretenses” you failed to point out that it was a Democrat administration that “took us to war on false pretenses” in Vietnam. As a Vietnam veteran, I early on thought we might have learned something from that; but obviously that is not so. Regardless of administrations (and the fool in the Oval Office today), I have little reason to think that either party will steer us clear of more wars built on lies.
"Yes, Trump has invited foreign powers to intervene in U.S. politics on his behalf; he’s even done it on camera. Yes, he has claimed that his domestic political opponents are committing treason by exercising their constitutional rights of oversight, and he is clearly itching to use the justice system to criminalize criticism."
A year or so ago I reread Orwell's Animal Farm. The similarities between Trump and Napoleon were striking. But, I said to myself, Trump doesn't have Napoleon's dogs yet. The Department of Justice and the FBI seemed to be maintaining their independence. Then Bill Barr showed his true colors. I doubt that American democracy has ever faced an internal threat as menacing as the one Trump has thrust upon us.
1
It's telling the so called self styled Republican moderate and candidate Iowa Senator Joni Ernst - who made a big deal about castrating little pigs when campaigning though she refuses to take the proverbial razor to the biggest out of control Wild Hog in presidential history- when challenged about Trump's illegal actions at a Town Hall backed into "we must fight corruption where ever we find it" sequing into Trump's hair brained assertion of uncovering Joe Biden's alleged "corruption' in the Ukraine. It was subtle enough that most in that Town Hall might have not understood she was pushing the Trump Party Line even though she was. I agree with Dr. Krugman that expecting any decency out of this Republican Party is the triumph of hope over experience.
2
Why are we talking about this? Since modern times the GOP has never supported the 99% and the dems since LBJ. The elephant in the room is big money, Citizens United, plutocracy.
The people that supported the Occupy Wall Street movement knew what was going on. Where did those smart truly 'with it' people go? Time to wake up America.
Nixon Regan Clinton Bush Trump
Clinton was really more centrist republican than democrat not to mention a few other problems with him
The Republican party, for decades, has been anemic ideologically--there only platform has been lowering taxes, deregulation, and the cultural issue of the day---that's it. Every four years they roll the dice on someone who can craft together a combination of dirty tricks and the cultural issue of the day to win an election. For the most part they have been successful at this strategy---However, that strategy was running out of gas--big time---just think we had an African American win the Presidency twice---and then Trump showed up--finally, someone to fill up the tank. Of course the problem, Trump, left the gas hose in the tank to get some snacks, and now that gasoline is running all over the station.
1
I regret that I have to agree with your assessment of the Republican Party.
If they still supported this form of government, they would be vociferously objecting to this administration’s blanket snubbing of subpoenas to testify before Congress.
Trump has his towers in Istanbul. One call from Erdoğan, and he dumps a trusting US ally to the mercy of Turkey which showed no mercy in the past to that ally.
Again using his official position for personal gain?
The GOP does not recognize the Democrat to be tellurian in nature and part of of the same Earth as a Republican. They despise Democratic politics and a liberal Democracy. That will be the cause of their inevitable downfall.
1
Those in Democratic strong-holds miss the depth and darkness of the true conservative movement.
While I love The New York Times and Paul Krugman, I seem to recall a lot of support from both for centrists like Clinton and Obama and a rejection of progressives like Bernie Sanders, who has been talking about the right-wing cabal for years while being ignored by those who believed in 'reaching across the aisle'. Sounds like Paul has 'seen the light'.
1
The following expands on the Mann/Ornstein 2012 comment, and captures the modern GOP perfectly:
"The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html
Yup. That's why this former independent just spent the evening at a meeting of the local Democratic Party committee.
During the reign of terror associated with Senator Joseph R. McCarthy -- circa 1950-1954 -- a group of Republican senators joined with the Democratic majority. Their vehicle was a motion to censure their nemesis.
Among the Republican who joined the Democratic majority were such well known senators: Irving Ives (NY), Norris Cotton (NH), Ralph Flanders (VT), Charles Potter (MI), Leverett Saltonstall (MA), Margaret Chase Smith (ME).
History remembers these Republican senators for the courage of their conviction.
Will we hear, in 2019-2020 the names of Alexander, Collins, Cornyn, Ernst, Graham, McSalley, Murkowski, Portman, T. Scott, and Sasse, voting YEA, among others, during the prospective Senate trial of Donald Trump?
2
I cringe when I hear Biden talk about working across the aisle. Does he not remember what the Republicans did to Obama? What they did to the Clintons? Thank you for this column.
We should just go our own ways, each side trying to control the other isn’t working. The disintegration of the south, Appalachia and the mid west is not my fault or problem and I am tired of subsidizing their crumbling economy.
1
Some Evangelicals, to take one aspect of the GOP base, believe that they are meant to rule; that scripture orders them to rule. The Right is fine with a Caesar as long as he is one of theirs.
The Republican Party is clearly concerned only about maintaining power at any cost. Our system, electoral college and two Senators for each state regardless of population, allows them to keep power. They are able to play on the fears of an uninformed electorate to convince, mostly rural, people to vote against their best interests. People are, unfortunately, willing to believe their religion is under attack plus issues like guns, abortion, equal rights for all and immigrants threaten their way of life. Society is changing but people need to accept change not cower in fear hoping for “good old days” that are largely fantasy and will never return. Unless Congress reclaims its power as a co-equal branch of government, curtails executive power and reforms the system to eliminate unequal representation for low population states the American experiment is doomed.
No. No they won't. The best that we can hope for is they go quiet and fade into the background where they belong.
Gaggle of Plutocrats.... all about $$$.
Thank you, Mr Krugman! I've been saying the same thing for years, with my moderate friends in utter denial. I hope you are right that finally, some of them are waking up.
Are there any centrists? Anyone still identifying as a Republican is not a centrist. No one can be a centrist while supporting Trump. Perhaps the Democrats who resist a national health system or resist massive tax increases on the obscenely wealthy can be considered centrists. But no Republican is anything but a right wing extremist. Are they oblivious? No, they love what Trump stands for.
1
Joe Biden is a Republican leaning democrat. His son Hunter Biden was appointed to Amtrak board by President Bush. His role as chairman of judicial and foreign relations committees has Republican flavor. He is one of those who believes that it would not matter which party becomes into power, nothing changes. Just get along without taking a stand. True, what Trump doing is putting the Republican party’s dirty laundry in public view that has accumulated over a period decades. At least 10% of Republicans do not support Trump, then what is wrong with centrists? There aren’t real centrists, they are either democratic leaning or Republican leaning centrists who cannot see right and wrong, everything is gray area, a group that cannot understand the social responsibility.
The Trump GOP is as you suggest, a blight upon us. His ouster by impeachment or election is critical for our future. And I am very concerned now that the Left will embrace his tactics once they are in power. Politics is after all a competition for power by people with huge egos. Disparaging the other side, running negative campaigns, spinning messages etc. are all part of the process. Like sports, politics is a copycat game. The precedents he has set to disparage institutions, stonewall investigations, and manipulate a very manipulate-able media will not be forgotten. Virtue is what's lacking in politics today and policy proposals are carrots for the electorate and the base, not necessarily virtue.
1
@HPower: Monkeys see, monkeys do. Are we all just monkeys?
Fair enough, Republicans are a mess and Trump's a symptom, not the cause of the incoherent slouch to authoritarianism that typifies GOP politics. The problem is, from this independent progressive's perspective, is that while the Democrats might be better on multiple policy fronts, they are beset by their own internal failures that have eroded the voting public's confidence in the party in general.
I realize the point of this article is to expose the shortcomings of the GOP, which is all well and good. But, it would be awfully nice to see the Democrats start with cleaning their own house and presenting a viable narrative to the American public that is more compelling than 'we hate Trump, vote for us.' Nothing wrong with being anti-Trump, but that alone won't win an election.
2
@Jedidiah Paschall: The Democrats should be explaining why the Republicans are without any competence whatsoever to manage a public sector of a mixed economy.
1
@Jedidiah Paschall You don't understand thing one about this article, or our present circumstances. This is an emergency of historical proportions, and you want to talk about "house cleaning"? What's the point of cleaning house while the house is burning down???
"No, Trump isn’t an aberration. He’s unusually blatant and gaudily corrupt, but at a basic level he’s the culmination of where his party has been going for decades."
YUP! The redistribution of wealth separating those with the most from those with the least, stealing from those who have yet to have a say with tax breaks for the wealthy and debt for posterity.
Blatant corruption until the golden goose is dead or a progressive income tax is restored which will restrain federal and household debt.
I would put part of the blame on Obama, who thought he could deal with Republicans in a reasonable way, and never seemed to appreciate the efforts made to destroy him. He became president because he could, not because he was ready for the job. He had not been brutalized, as Hillary had for so many years. If Hillary had won that fight, our subsequent political history would be different.
All of this is absolutely true.
The base of the Republican Party has been waiting for decades for a person like Trump to be their President.
The Republican Congress has also been waiting for decades to have a president like Trump.
They have nominated and seated reactionary judges of limited intellect to Federal benches across the country and to the Supreme Court. They have lowered taxes on corporations, the 1% and removed constraints on guns, pollution and toxins.
Gerrymandered states and reduced access to voting all with the approval of the SCOTUS.
The AG is openly pursuing conspiracy theories across the world to bolster Trump's re election.
The list goes on.
Only a Blue tidal wave in 2020 will the country slough off the rot that the Republican Party has placed on the body politic.
2
Media’s ethos in re. Trump, impeachment, Trump’s abhorrent policies, Russia, Trump’s corruption: Decry moderates for equivocation and cowardice.
Media’s ethos in re. Medicare for All, higher minimum wage, getting money out of politics, progressive policies in general: Praise moderates for their temperance in shunning such radicalism. Insist only they can win the election.
People either have political courage or don’t.
@Jen Well, you're talking about television "journalists", not people.
What you overlook is that in spite of all his obnoxious bombast, Trump is a centrist. He is the president & is pretty much maintaining the status quo which has produced wide prosperity over the last 50 years. Compare that with Warren, who is advocating a radical upheaval of that status quo and is the leading Democratic candidate. The GOP has turned into the moderate party because the Democrats have been consumed by an absurd idealism of the sort that destroyed Russia 100 years ago.
@Charles Woods
What is "centrist" to you about kidnapping and jailing the children of refugees?
Is it "centrist" to you that Trump openly receives cash bribes from foreign governments through his hotels and resorts, and then makes foreign policy accordingly?
Do you find rank corruption, cruelty, and dishonesty to be "centrist"?
"No, Trump isn’t an aberration. He’s unusually blatant and gaudily corrupt, but at a basic level he’s the culmination of where his party has been going for decades."
Trump supporters praise him as the chosen one who has done so much for radical right wing causes. But it seems to me that much of what he does is just Republican party policy that would have been implemented by any Republican president with control of government.
I suspect that what the base is really seeing and liking in Trump, over and above the normal Republican policy, is the overt racism, nationalism, hatred, and the "strongman" willing to spit in the faces of the decent people fighting for a fairer and more equitable society. There seems to be a shrill bloodlust expressed by his base whenever tried-and-accepted norms are stomped on by Trump in pursuit of his ego-boosting power.
Independents are the swing voters and will determine who wins in the general election. And, they are more likely to moderate candidate rather than one on either the far-left or far-right.
Biden knows this and is certainly not naive when it comes to Republican intransigence and dirty tricks. I think he believes stayng in the center lane will garner more votes from Independents and Republicans who are never-Trumpers.
As an Independent and a centrist, this piece by Dr. Krugman was a bracing glass of cold water thrown in my face. I have long held to the perhaps quaint and naive notion that the two parties still can hammer out consensus and compromise, as evidenced by the Problem Solvers Caucus on Capitol Hill and the efforts of non-partisan groups like No Labels which seek to restore functionality to government.
How silly of me.
Well spoken and shockingly accurate. However, there's still a problem. We can't simply write Democrats a blank check. Every time Democrats feel their support is assured, they take voters for granted and follow their own worst instincts.
The 2016 election was an exercise in mutually assured presumption. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders are still off in la-la land about issues like education, health care, and climate change. Newsflash: Climate change is urgent, college is killing us, and relying on employers for health insurance is bad. You think Nancy Pelosi's stewardship is going to address any of these issues willingly?
We've once again highlighted the inherent problem with a 2-party system. Politicians need political vulnerability in order to respond to democratic initiatives. However, if you only have 2 parties where one is authoritarian, how do you appropriately pressure the only alternative to follow progressive policy? A de facto ruling party is inherently conservative.
Rock meet hard place. Republicans are banished to the wilderness but Democrats still have their own demons. What's the alternative to the alternative? The United States doesn't have one. That's why Republicans are largely successful in their authoritarian machinations.
1
Well, I'm not sure what to think of this kind of lashing towards some unknown, nebulous group of people. Maybe it's the group that follows David Brooks.
You can't bully people into changing their minds, so I don't see this column as all that helpful.
I think the two party system is corrupt by nature. A person doesn't have to claim equivelency to claim they're both corrupt, just in differing degrees. Each has it's authoritarian tendencies. Republicans tend to believe in single-party, crony dominance, while Democrats tend to believe in using foreign trade to keep the cronies in check. In both cases the people lose. Undeniably.
We need more parties and a better election system.
Anyway, nobody should be making political calculations about the outcome of a Senate trial. That's something only the evil algorithm would do. The evil algorithm could be our undoing if people behave according to it.
Republicans, including the centrists Krugman cites, are not united by any ideology or person.
They are united by their disdain for progressives, whom they regard as anti-faith, smug and too willing to accept the gradual demise of white privilege.
By turning against Trump they would be, in their fevered imaginations, turning toward those they disdain.
Don't hold your breath.
Absolutely correct. The Republican party has been completely taken over by groveling sycophants, willing to do or say anything to maintain their offices. They know that they can't remain in power unless they cheat, so they gerrymander and suppress votes. None seems to believe in democracy. It would do the country good for them to go the way of the Whigs, relegated to the scrap heap.
No, the GOP and Trump are not aberrations: they are the culmination of decades devoted to status quo two-party politics in which the good ole boys always win. The wealthy, the corporations that our legal system treats as an individual, the stupidity all result from the unchallenged rule of money. The two-party system has permitted the monstrosity we know as the 45th president. What revolutionary forces will it take to dislodge him and the system that created him?
1
While I believe Krugman is right (even as a centrist) that the Republicans have been governing in bad faith, I do think it’s important Democrats running for president play this cautiously. Grouping a large portion of Americans in the “basket of deplorables” seems like a good way to alienate votes when trying to defeat President Trump (and that should be mission #1). If that means saying he is an aberration so my center right brethren are more willing to vote for a Democrat, then I’m for it.
1
Centrists are more awake than Krugman thinks. I am a centrist and certainly have no illusions about the GOP. They are right-wing maniacs, way off the scale.
This centrist believes that Medicare-for-all is a mistake, that immigration needs to be controlled, that the demonization of white men is wrong, that national defense is very important, that abortion is problematic but should stay legal, that the environment is the most important issue, that the market economy, for all its faults, is better than the alternatives, and that President Trump is a clear and present danger to democracy.
There are tens of millions of us out here, maybe a hundred million of us. We just wish the Democrats would listen.
3
@vbering Sure. Let's have the Democrats listen while the GOP holds the White House and the Senate. That will fix everything.
@vbering
But we aren't twenty year old undergrads shouting slogans on Twitter, and therefore we don't really count.
To some on the left, we are an even worse enemy than Trump us.
Centrists are more awake than Krugman thinks. I am a centrist and certainly have no illusions about the GOP. They are right-wing maniacs, way off the scale.
This centrist believes that Medicare-for-all is a mistake, that immigration needs to be controlled, that the demonization of white men is wrong, that national defense is very important, that abortion is problematic but should stay legal, that the environment is the most important issue, that the market economy, for all its faults, is better than the alternatives, and that President Trump is a clear and present danger to democracy.
There are tens of millions of us out here, maybe a hundred million of us. We just wish the Democrats would listen.
Thank you Professor Krugman. This has been painfully obvious for so many years. Trump is not an aberration. He is the culmination of a Republican Party that has been operating as criminal enterprise since Reagan.
How do we rid ourselves of an entire political party with a massive media propaganda machine and a corrupted federal judiciary. Only something massively disruptive will be able to break this. My fear is that we are paralleling 1920-1930s Germany.
"...one whose refusal to accept facts at odds with its prejudices has long been a major source of political dysfunction." Krugman's sentence excellently describes the raison d'être of Trump and his sycophants within the Administration. This refusal is propelled forward by their own political and financial gain, self interest, a disregard for polled national interests, a constant need to lie, in Trump's case seemingly genetic. Nearly three years have gone by without any movement made on issues dear to the heart of Americans. Instead the citizenry has been treated 24/7 to an ongoing cheap melodrama of inept mean spiritedness. Years earlier we were glued to our TV's and reading newspapers when a huge sea change in policy was being argued, legislated and finally realized - The Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare. Outside of his repetitive name calling we the people have nothing substantial before us. The baby in the high chair cannot even grasp what the word "ally" signifies. If Kurds are slaughtered no one but Trump and his enablers will be to blame, yet another foreign policy failure which lays great shame on our shoulders.
1
An eye opener for me were the 2016 election primary debates when not one of a stage full of Republican candidates thought it good politics to attack the front runner Trump on the birther nonsense. Every one of those candidates considered if electoral suicide to try to lead the Republican electorate away from racist nonsense. A healthy party with at least a strong centrist component would never have allowed Trump on the stage on the grounds that he is as vile as David Duke. But the party leadership feared Trump would make a third party run so they put party before country and opened the door for Trump's malevolence to dominate the party.
1
Yes, Dr. Krugman, it has been with us since the writing of our Constitution.
The Constitution "all men are created equal" was not representative of our leaders. They were white, rich, landowners, Christian, and many were slave owners.
They had expectations that only people of those qualifications would run the country. Women, slaves, and non-landowners were simply not members of the self appointed Oligarchy. Those lesser folks were simply not "men that are created equal."
It took nearly 100 years to make the token freeing of slaves, and about 140 years before women got to vote and had token equality attributed to them too. Real equality for those groups is still a work in progress.
That White, Sexist, Supremacy conspiracy has continued to exist in the lifeblood of the present Republican Party. Women, people of color (blacks, Latino, Asians, native Americans, Muslims) simply need not apply for admission.
That White conspiracy is terrified because minority demographics will, very soon, put the White Supremacists into a minority from which they will not recover.
The Republicans will do absolutely anything -- legal, illegal, un-Constitutional -- to maintain their Supremacy. And they are losing; they are afraid.
1
Bill Weld is a prominent Republican politician, albeit not currently in office. He has been far more consistent than Mitt Romney has been, in denouncing Trump’s malfeasance.
1
What a binary world view. One doesn’t have to be a Progressive to reject Trump and the current iteration of the Republican Party. I loathe them both, but that doesn’t mean I want to see unfettered Democratic rule. We benefit from a loyal opposition, and I hope to see one develop soon. Does that make me a fanatic?
1
Look at the history of so-called democracy in the US. It’s not what I thought in grade school. First only white male landowners could vote. And that’s what the GOP is harking back to. Let those smart rich white men make the decisions. Only later did regular white men get a shot. Then other men, of color. Then, quite recently really, women. Thus started the ways to claw back to the early rules. Citizens United (anything but), discouraging certain voters, etc etc. Trump voices it, and maybe now this anti-democratic trend, and Trump, can be purged. I hope.
Years before the possibility of Trump as president existed, I used to say what I feared most was the Republican Party getting hold of all the elected branches government -- the presidency, the House and the Senate -- all at once.
This thought terrified me because I knew that with that much concentrated power, the GOP would move aggressively to complete their coup d'etat and we'd lose democracy.
The GOP would do it by continuing the brazenly undemocratic, corrupt and authoritarian tactics that they've been succeeding at for decades like more blatant voter suppression, gerrymandering, then rigging the Census, and (the lynchpin) appointing more corrupt judges to the highest courts who'll continue to weaken campaign finance laws until the people's voice is silenced. They will even tamper with elections outcomes directly (by rigging voting machines and/or final vote counts as they do in Georgia. And of course they will expand their propaganda outlets masquerading as news
You rightly say that Joe Biden is one of these "radical centrists" (I might say, clueless centrists instead). He's one of my least favorite choices among Dems because he still holds onto the fantasy that he can, through the force of his personality and the long-term relationships he's built with Republicans, get things done by working with them.
No Joe. You have to DEFEAT THEM, and SIDELINE them. You can not work with them. That's a recipe for failure. Another radical centrist: Ruth Bader Ginsburg!
I'm praying people will stuff the "I have to vote my principles! She has to EARN my vote!" nonsense that lost us the last election, and stand together to vote for the Democratic nominee, no matter who is chosen.
If we do not, say hello to another four years of Trump.
1
Paul, there are really no centrists left in the Republican Party. Yes, there may be slight degrees of how each member supports or rejects certain policies. But they are of the same ilk, you see. I believe that they are like MAGA supporters in general. They are just quieter. They agree with nativism; they agree that America should remain Christian and White. They agree that universal health care is socialism, that refugees and immigrants of brown or black skin are not equal to them, are just "leeches" looking for hand-outs. They believe that our land, air, and water are for their use to exploit and abuse, greed being the motivating force. Trump will be impeached in the House, and he deserves the same in the Senate. But those Republican Senators want to stay in power. They'll do what their voters want them to do. You think Utah wants to see the end of Trump? I doubt it, and so does Mitt Romney who may talk the talk but will not walk the walk.
I believe that the Republicans have used Trump as a Trojan Horse to try to distract from all the other horrible things they do in Congress, the Judiciary, and at the state level.
There are enough false pretenses to cover an array of imperial wars. Lyndon Johnson took us into one in 1964. When he tried to walk it back Dick Nixon undermined him by soliciting foreign collaboration. Between the two of them, the polity still has not recovered.
I quibble with your time-line as well as your faith in the 'centrist'. This modern era monarchical thinking started with the Powell Memorandum in the early 1970's and was given weapons and financial strength by the Kochs support of the 'federalist society' and other institutions of authoritarian thought.
These elite, wealthy troglodytes have done a remarkable job of dismantling our democratic republican in a few short decades with a banter that appealed to an uneducated, fearful lower middle class white man who needed someone to blame for the obvious decline in income that their families were subject to in the 80's and 90's.
That need for a scapegoat continues. The republican party cult has mastered the new art of propaganda and is blaring it through the new social media and fox news.
No, we are in a battle for the soul of America and it will be close. The only way to victory is to organize, register to vote and take a friend or two to the voting booth in November of 2020.
An impeachment investigation is the only way to get the facts before the public, but we need the public to get to the polls to crush these unpatriotic republicans.
True Conservatives feel trapped. They may not like Trump, but the social agenda on the left (one that has become exponentially more dogmatic over the past three years) frightens them.
And they’re not alone.
Bear in mind that, as your own recent reporting from Erie underscores, many of those who voted for Trump were Obama voters a cycle before.
Instead of decrying the reluctance of the real center to abandon Trump, perhaps it would be wise to consider why they don’t. And suggesting it’s because they’re all would-be authoritarian fascists isn’t really all that sound.
In modern terms, Centrist is just the name for a racist that doesn’t want to be CALLED a racist. They will never admit what the GOP has become, because honestly they don’t have any issue with what the GOP has become. In secret and behind closed doors, they’ll admit to supporting a great deal of what Trump does. They just wish he would quit saying the quiet part out loud, and being so obvious about the agenda.
So much centrist bashing and open hate. Do any of you REALLY think that "Us good, them bad." is in any way valid given the tens of thousands of individual issues out there? We have two parties and they are both crooked and wrong in many ways. Only a fool blindly follows either. The Dems may be the great hope to rid ourselves of the awful Trump NOW but what happens after? Many of us who reject blindly following a party line are concerned that the backlash against the current president will bring a different set of evils down the road. Just because you disagree does not make me a coward or spineless or whatever awful thing others have said here. The true ignorance lies in the pure destructive tribalism of "Those who do not fully agree with us are bad people." They are not. You are for viewing millions of your fellow Americans through such a lens.
1
Yes, Trump, McConnell, Barr and company have taught us the folly of fairness. Obama and Reid played fair when the Senate had a chance to bully through appointing Obama's Supreme Court nominee, a centrist, fair-minded pick by a too fair president. Mueller threw all his investigation into the dumpster by trying to act fair, by not issuing an absolute condemnation of Trump's collusion with foreign powers. One cannot accuse Trump, McConnell, and Barr of having a shred of fairness in their bones; they know that fairness wouldn't get you an ultra-conservative Supreme Court, lower taxes for the wealthy, and the rest.
"Conviction in the Senate remains a long shot, but not as long as it once seemed."
Dear Republican Senator;
I know that you are afraid that, if you get on Donald Trump's bad side, he may support a primary opponent against you.
Please be aware that a Donald Trump, who is convicted in the Senate for committing a high crime and/or misdemeanor, and who will be the first person removed from the office of the Presidency, will be too weak to negatively affect your re-election. Get together with 19 of your buddies and end the destruction of the United States while increasing your chances of re-election.
Yours Truly,
A concerned American.
1
On this I agree 100%. As you have been saying and as Chomsky has been saying, the Republican Party started peddling fear decades ago and then got really corrupt, eventually becoming the most dangerous group on Earth as Chomsky puts it. Americans need to start seeing this accurately.
Dr Paul, you aren't seeing the rapid collapse of right wing extremism under Donald Trump. Just a couple of renegade Republican pols -- presidential wannabes -- who've dared the trumpian wrath for calling out our colossally unfit president.
Facts: Trump has invited foreign countries to meddle in US politics on his behalf, has called out Democratic Congressmen as treasonable for exercising their constitutional oversight and initiating impeachment against him.
Trump isn't an aberration, just an unusually corrupt president. Americans in favour of Donald Trump's presidency will be anathema as soon as he is impeached and removed from office. Whether in 1 year or 5 more years. Sooner or later.
While I have long held great respect for Paul Krugman, I cannot agree with his fundamental premise that the GOP is an authoritarian regime in the waiting, outside of Trumpism. His evidence is weak - Bush's war, allusions to the right-wing uprising of fundamentalism and the Tea Party. Any party that was willing to put forth Trump as its nominee is flawed, and I am deeply disappointed in our GOP legislators at the national and state level who fail to condemn actions that are unconstitutional and put our national security at risk.
We've seen this before. Politicians en banc have strayed far outside of the lines and failed to represent the people who've bestowed the privilege of governance upon them. But the will of the people is at the core of our country, and when that will is strong enough, things WILL change. Perhaps the GOP is beyond repair; I seem to recall a similar fate for the Whig party.
There must be consequences for politicians who fail to heed their constituents' needs and fail to put our country ahead of partisanship. Those consequences are money, polls, and votes.
Angry about the failure of leadership within the GOP? Donate money to "purple" races, the ACLU, the DCCC. Closely participate and watch your local and state elections. Democracy requires active participation to survive. Most of all, exercise your right to vote - in ALL elections, not just 2020, or presidential primaries - next month too! Inaction breeds tyranny.
The Republican Party under Trump is now the Anti-Constitutional Party. It's first, and most blatant, act occurred even before Trump was elected when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to honor his Constitutional commitment to provide its required "advice and consent" to former President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. That set the stage for the autocratic "rule of Trump" that has defied all Constitutional restraints on Executive power as McConnell's Senate and Paul Ryan's House were "willing accomplices" in allowing Trump to do so. Now the reckoning has arrived with the House in Democratic hands, an impeachment underway for a crime that even a third grader can understand with more and more witnesses coming forward. Will the Republicans, mostly from the states of the Old Confederacy, continue to stand with the Trump tyranny and exonerate him from his obvious malfeasance and high crimes or will they finally realize that a verdict of "not guilty" will lead to their impeachment at the ballot box? With Trump seemingly rushing to complete Putin's agenda as his unilateral withdrawal from Syria indicates along with his deranged remarks about it, Republicans now really have no choice but to unite to convict him and pray for some forgiveness.
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@Paul Wortman: Sorry; Republicans do have a choice, and I expect that they'll make it: they'll simply deny the reality as they have all along. They'll add, that even if it's true, Obama was worse -- see Jake's reply to your comment.
29
@Paul Wortman It started long before Moscow Mitch. Frankly, we could trace what's happening right now in the Republican party at least as far back as Tricky Dick, the plumbers, and the race-baiting strategy that enabled that administration. But don't forget that before Merrick Garland was denied a Senate vote, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court put W. in office with a completely unjustifiable decision which even they said could not be taken as a precedent. Logically, any Supreme Court decision should be able to stand on its merits, but the Supremes who voted for Bush in Bush v. Gore inherently knew what they were doing was so flawed that their decision could not stand. That decision allowed W. to put Alito on the court. The conservative packing of the Supreme Court has been going on in slow motion for many years. We are now in a world of hurt as a result.
55
@Bayou Bengal the Nixon appointees did so much damage to public education through a series of cases that people don’t seem to know about. We’re in a world of hurt in many ways, but the courts are Exhibit A.
18
When precisely no one in the "center" called out the stonewalling of Merrick Garland for the outrage that is was, I lost hope that they'd ever get around to facing facts. I'm not counting my chickens now.
803
@David Dyte Thank you David. I could not agree with you more. That was the watershed moment where Mitch McConnell betrayed this country and the Constitution. He should be in prison for the rest of his miserable life. It was a Constitutional coup and when looked around and saw that the Democrats just let it happen, all restraint was lost. The Democrats assumed that Hillary would win and the issue would become moot. Obviously that was in error, but the error was in turning a blind eye to the most egregious usurpation of power since King George III. At least when South Carolina felt they could no longer abide by the Constitution, they had the common decency to secede from the Union. The Garland affair should have been the moment where Democrats shut down government, barricaded themselves to their desks, laid down in the street and self immolated if necessary. After they let that opportunity pass to stand by the Constitution, they have been rail-roaded again and again. I doubt they will find their footing any time soon.
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@Louis
Amen to the column and both of these comments.
We really do have to out-organise and out-fund this ant-democratic opposition in the next election. Our equivalent of shutting down the government and chaining selves to the desks and lying down in the streets and picketing the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court is to win the election. Period. We cannot fail.
14
Yes. Not sure what P. Krugman is looking at, but I see no evidence of this centrist change he writes about.
7
I think that what you heard when Speaker Pelosi said, of our Republic, "we've got to keep it," was the sound of an entire citizenry coming through the wall of denial and confused dismay. It's really that simple and that hard to wrap your mind around--we're fighting to keep our democracy.
529
@teach
"An entire citizenry coming through the wall of denial and confused dismay"? In our dreams.
40-45% of voters, ignoring reality, believe that Trump is doing a fabulous job and will never, ever, under any circumstances change their minds. Endless excellent articles have been written about this, including in The Times this past week. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/opinion/sunday/trump-arkansas.html.
We cannot change Republican minds. What we can -- and must -- do, is get out the vote in November 2020.
32
@teach That’s exactly the problem; a strong segment of our ruling class and electorate no longer want democracy. To add another example to Mr. Krugman’s list: Despite the fact that we have laws that protect whistleblowers, there are lawmakers and a President who, if they find out who s/he is, they will break the law, reveal the name and either charge the whistleblower with treason or hope that person meets a violent end.
17
@teach It's time for someone, Michael Moore or Oprah or George Clooney or someone of that ilk and reach, to organize a true siege of Washington D.C. Millions of true patriots need to park our tushes on the mall and stay until this dangerous president is perp walked out of the White House.
10
Pretty low swipe at Biden.
I agree that many media commentators--probably the majority--have tried to maintain a false equivalency between the two parties in order to sustain their career as a talking head, but to lump Biden in with that group is unfair and untrue.
So, yes, let's hope the false equivalency media members have realized the dire situation we are all in and that the Republican Party has become an authoritarian gang using the shell of the Constitution to cover their deeds.
But you are wrong if the only person you name and stone you throw is at Biden, a Democrat with a long history of working for Democrats and to pursue causes we all believe in.
2
This argument would be a lot more convincing if Paul had cited -- or perhaps better, could cite -- even one "fanatical centrist" who's seen the light.
4
@Gary : I have one for you - Colin Powell. Quote: Trump's foreign policy "is in shambles" and says the Republican party must "get a grip on itself;" "this is not the way the country's supposed to run." Prof. Krugman is right, it is time for "centerists" to realize that the center actually lies somewhere in the middle of the Democratic party and that the Republicans have strayed so far right as to be unrecognizable to people such as Eisenhower republicans.
1
The only way this war is won is by more and more people picking a side and standing up and speaking out. If people can’t speak openly about the candidates and the policies they support then they shouldn’t be supporting them.
2
@Stephen V But authoritarian fascists never admit to being against the will of the people if they want a following. They lie about their objectives and who they are benefiting so no one actually picks sides.
@Stephen V
That's hard to do in room full of rabid Trump supporters -- your extended family at Christmas. Sometimes silence is golden.
The Republican Party is the party that has tried to undermine the ACA at every step and continues to deny people in red states the Medicaid expansion. I have little faith 20 Republicans in the Senate will uphold the Constitution by removing Trump.
637
@Sebastian Cremmington If all the Republican senators who have been threatened by Trump vote to impeach, you could be right. The impeachment, btw, is inevitable.
3
@Sebastian Cremmington this is probably true, but the Republican Party has lost support since nominating Trump. He would not have won if it had not been for third party candidates. Support has only dwindled the past three years. Sure, they have big money donors, but average people? I know tons of people who voted for Trump and who are now embarrassed by him and just want him to go away.
7
@Corrie yet another slew of third party candidates may yet again dilute the opposition to Trump in 2020. That combined with the fools who sit on their hands because their primary choice was not the eventual Democratic candidate. The Democratic Party is not any sort of monolithic organization. Rather, it is a loose agglomeration of interest groups who each think theirs is the most important. That quality leads many to sit on their hands, and leads to confusing and conflicting messages to the vast number of people who are too busy trying to make a living to pay much attention to politics. The Right has it much easier because all they have to do is sell fear of change and the Other with the protection from both being provided by the Republican Party.
15
The GOP is fueled by the resentment of large segments of the white population who feel that their position at the top rung of what was, effectively, a caste system in the US where white Protestant men were on top and minorities were at the bottom is being threatened. Unable to come to terms with the new reality that minorities can attain ranks that would have been unthinkable decades before - as Barack Obama proved - has caused them to want to do anything, even abandoning democratic norms, to maintain their favored status.
As David Frum famously said,
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism, they will abandon democracy”.
10
@DABman Frum wasn't reading tea leaves. His prediction was a groundswell even as he made it--the point of the Krugman column.
1
Its mostly about protecting the status quo. They stonewalled Obama because they preferred no legislation to liberal legislation, and Obama was a moderate.
The wealthy Republicans dont mind Trump's lunacy too much because they believe they can insulate themselves from it.
Once they realize it threatens them too, they will make adjustments.
But there is already talk of how they will try to undermine Warren if she gets the nomination.
It is class warfare, and people need to wake up.
1068
It has ALWAYS been class warfare. With racism thrown in to distract people from their own interests.
126
@Renegator The Democrats goal needs to be the gain of at least five Senate seats Otherwise any Democratically elected president will face the same obtructionist politics from the GOP.
26
@Renegator
Yes, President Obama was/is a moderate, yet he would have been considered only centre left in all other advanced countries, if not even smack in the middle of the political spectrum.
Republicans did their best by smeared him of being a Manchurian candidate trying to turn this country into a socialist heaven, if not even a commie one.
19
Most so-called conservatives that I know have little knowledge of the Constitution and the importance of abiding by it. It has been this way for a long time. So, I agree with Dr. Krugman. The GOP simply does not understand the Constitution or Representative Democracy and this is not a new trend.
9
According to Socrates, tyranny follows democracy as the wealthy exert their power to to expand and defend their money and influence. Perhaps he was right.
12
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
15
It should be obvious that the Republicans have become a party of absolute lines in the sand. There is no compromise. Give them an inch and they will move the line in the sand one inch further towards their goal. The process has been going on now since Reagan, whose Presidency should be seen as the one that set this disaster we are now facing in motion. It introduced neoliberal economic policy more properly known as laissez-faire consumer capitalism, it set in motion a dangerous and overly rapid advance against Russia, giving us Putin, it removed the pro-choice republican wing, and it spawned Constitutional originalism, through which the return to the good old days can be legally effected. You know what we used to do to people like them! The cheers erupt and the banners wave.
Trump is Reagan on logical steroids.
12
@Roger C Who could ever forget Bush 43's "You're either with us or against us," and the Coalition of the Willing. The proverbial canary in the coal mine is when our policies are anathema to our closest allies. For all that Trump is (and isn't), look at his relationships and effects on our allies. We are like the American diplomat's wife driving on the wrong side of the road - killing an innocent bystander and then hiding behind our government, saying "Nothing to see here, nothing wrong." This is very, very wrong.
1
@Roger C - "Trump is Reagan on logical steroids."
Excellent, Roger! Thanks. The same delusional self-absorption w/o the mask of amiability. Reagan watched his old B-movies to see the Self he had imagined, Spanky watches Fox.
"Take all your overgrown infants away, somewhere,
and build them a home - a little place of their own. The Fletcher Memorial Home for incurable tyrants and kings.
They can appear to themselves every day on closed circuit TV, to make sure they're still real. It's the only connection they feel…
Did they expect us to treat them with any respect?
They can polish their medals and sharpen their
smiles, and amuse themselves playing games for a while.
'Boom boom, bang bang, lie down you're dead.'
Safe in the permanent gaze of a cold glass eye with their favourite toys - they'll be good girls and boys,
in the Fletcher Memorial Home for colonial
wasters of life and limb…"
Pink Floyd, "The Final Cut".
I don't think we'll see many Republicans begin to condemn Trump unless and/or until it becomes clear that having him on top of the 2020 ticket will cost them the Senate. Yes, they'd like to keep the White House, too, but as long as they have the Senate they can stonewall judicial and other appointments, keep us out of treaties they don't like, etc.; like what they did during the Obama years.
1209
@Art Kraus and sadly, the ridiculous “It’S a RePuBlIc NoT a DeMoCrAcY!” crowd (coupled with the framers themselves) ensures they will never lose the senate.
23
@Art Kraus
I heard an interesting idea on CNN last night. The panel were discussing the fact that many Republicans in Congress are afraid to speak out against Dear Leader because of fear of retribution but these same people do talk privately and when the revolt comes, it will be a large group acting together.
I hope they were right
31
@Art Kraus -
The Trump apologists in the Senate realize what the 16 other Republican candidates in 2016 found out. They cannot touch Donald Trump because they are him and he is them. He is just much better at being them than they are. Donald Trump, in all his loud proud vapidity, is their king.
17
Whether 'centrists' actually exist is not so important. Rather we need members of both parties that are pragmatists willing to compromise towards the center, even if they would like something more extreme.
9
@mo I agree whole-heartedly. One of the biggest shifts, exacerbated by McConnell and the Tea Party movement during Obama's administration, is equating compromise with weakness. While I think Krugman is right about the rightward drift of the GOP, the Dems have also moved closer to the fringe (though not nearly as far, so please don't accuse me of false equivalency!). Calling for the abolition of ICE or "free" healthcare, college, etc. is, in my opinion, not tenable in the current climate. While I'd prefer a pragmatist like Buttigieg, and some of Warren's policies unnerve me, I'd totally vote for her (or anyone that is not Trump, for that matter!) in the hopes that she would effect significant change without necessarily blowing the whole thing up.
2
"And anyone shocked by Republican acceptance of the idea that it’s fine to seek domestic political aid from foreign regimes has forgotten (like all too many people) that the Bush administration took us to war on false pretenses..."
The same people who stood on the street corners in my town supporting Bush and his war years after it was known to be a fraud are the very same people now supporting Trump with equal vigor. Now, of course, those same people will deny they ever supported Bush. Republicans are concerned only with getting and maintaining power using whatever means necessary.
28
@Henry Crawford - And a goodly portion of 'em claim to believe in an Invisible Sky Daddy, who will give 'em a new car after they "die" and go to sit on His lap in "heaven" (wherever that might be).
People have forgotten history and what the parties represent. Look at the number of so-called "Independents." There is one message that must be repeated everywhere right up to the 2020 election: "Vote the straight Democratic ticket."
31
Your comments beg a question: What is the unifying concept behind these events, low taxes for wealthy, unlimited wealth, restrict protections and benefits for the lower income groups, voter restriction for perpetual power, encouraging political division, discouraging democratic processes and even precedent, refusal to accept consensus or even compromise, disinformation and blatant propaganda etc? The easy answer is "wealth and power", but for whom, those that aspire or those that already have. And why disdain those that work until they die in mean lives? And why wealth that is unlimited? Why is a government that aspires to give its people National Parks wasteful for not just giving drilling rights to the Billionaires?
It doesn't make sense until you watch the whole "Downton Abbey" series and realize that a two class system is much better for the rich. Aristocracy is what comes after wealth and power. You become "gods" above mere mortal men, better than them. Trump is unfiltered and is the best example, but not alone. Ayn Rand spoke to Paul Ryan, like God spoke to Moses. Devin Nunes once said, if we lose Trump, "all this goes away", an odd choice of words, no?, unless the juggernaught of a two class system.
26
Trump said himself that he is “The Chosen One,” as he gazed up to the sky.
@William Trainor Very well put. The only thing I might add is that it is driven to manipulate just enough to "think" that "white privilege" is reason enough to support these con artists.
Not sure what a 'centrist' really is. We've become so unequal, such a plutocracy, with liberal help, too. Our world climate suffers so much and now the reckoning has begun. Liberals created this, too.
So, how much change is anyone really wanting? The wealthy are certainly more happy and safe than most of us. I see few leaders really talking about helping the homeless, the poor, the struggling, the low-wage Americans. We're complicit in our country's cruelty. The 'more perfect Union' is a sham.
No time for centrists, now.
7
@ttrumbo I disagree. Isn't it time to seek leaders who can unite our country instead of divide it? I can never support Medicare-for-All given the astronomical cost to our budget and our economy. A more moderate position, like Medicare-for-All-Who-Want-It or expanded ACA, is reasonable, feasible, and gets us closer to where we need to be.
I am a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. I support social safety nets, but not as they exist now (Social Security, I'm looking at you). I ascribe to Adam Smith's 5 Principles of Tax Effectiveness but that doesn't preclude a truly progressive tax policy (in taxation, and in government benefits). To those of privilege, much has been given, and much is expected, and that includes a larger part of the tax burden. But I don't support subsidies for farmers or homeowners. I disagree with the "Space Force." I fail to understand why we pay our Congress hundreds of thousands of dollars when they spend millions to get the jobs.
In the past I've been a conservative Democrat and a liberal Republican. I'd register independent but doing so means I cannot vote in primaries in my state, or hold local office.
I believe that government must aim to support basic human rights - food, clothing, shelter, education, freedom, healthcare, clean water & air. I believe in a hand up, not a hand out, and that programs like Food Stamps are some of the most effective tools to help.
I am a centrist, a moderate - and proud of it. Yet no party speaks to me.
Of course Krugman is correct. The corruption of the Republican Party has been plain to see for decades. The GOP simply mistrusts democracy. If the cornerstone of democracy is the citizens’ right to vote, then the Republicans have been radically opposed to that very principle.
The GOP has only won the popular vote on the national stage once since 1988 and yet has held the presidency for going-on twelve years during that time. At every level—local, state, and national—when voter turnout is low in a general election, the Republican candidate always wins. What does that say about the legitimacy of a party? It succeeds when people DON’T vote!
Add to the mix the blatant attempts at voter suppression, radical gerrymandering, resistance to election security, flagrant voter fraud (hello, North Carolina), hostility to basic ethics (hello, Georgia), and the open embrace of foreign interference in our elections (hello, President Trump), and the reality of the GOP is unavoidable. After all, even Watergate started with a Republican break-in at the Democratic election headquarters.
Americans need to wake up to the obvious. The a Republican Party has long been the enemy of democracy in this country. The issues are irrelevant. Our democracy and freedom are at stake.
51
@Jim In KY - "The GOP simply mistrusts democracy."
You bet! And the reason is that democracy might let some of Those People into the halls of power. Eeeek!
It is the authoritarian portion of the GOP that is the most worrying.
Imagine a US government where the president is absolute and above/over congress and the supreme court. Those other organizations are second rate and can be overridden to by the president.
That is my worry....
6
There is no non-authoritarian part of the GOP.
The "End of History" is ending.
In the 1990s, after the defeat of Soviet communism and with the explosive growth in information technology and the emergence of a truly global economy, many believed we had entered a long period of peace, tolerance, and universal prosperity. Today's centrists are those in the professional and entrepreneurial classes who thrived in this end of history world.
But under the placid surface, violent currents were churning. Our technology and economic system, while creating an exceptionally high quality of life for millions, were also destroying our environment, generating huge wealth inequities, driving increasing economic insecurity among the income-dependent working classes, and devastating communities as the jobs around which they grow became ever more tenuous.
The centrists now cling to their delusion that utopia was upon us and can easily be restored if we just act sensibly. Everyone else is falling into two camps. The dominant camp is the dystopian right—those who want to retreat into fascistic isolation, lashing out at all who are different and seen only as threats and competitors for a finite and shrinking pie. The other camp are the young (or young at heart) optimists who hope for a radical restructuring of the world's economy through a global green new deal.
Resistant to radical change, the centrists attack the optimists and therefore enable the fascists, who are likely to prevail. History, I'm afraid, has returned with a vengeance.
23
@617to416 f Nicely said, Areacodeperson. What is dispiriting is how little one can do to turn the tide. Donations, yes, working actively to retain what is left of the environment, yes, going door-to-door canvassing, yes. But the enormous influence of digital media allows for distortions on a grand scale, as well as the wildly unprecedented erosion of our privacy. Not until now has a proto-totalitarian government had such tools at its disposal, and its going to end in tears.
9
@Ambroisine We all do what we can to make our corner of our world better, to educate ourselves on the issues, to push for a better future for our future generations. We participate in our local and state parties. We vote, even when it's only for the local school board and library leadership, because every vote matters, and there is a downstream effect.
And for many of us, we disengage from 24-hour news cycles, from social media, from reactionism. We fight back by purging our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts by limiting our use of Google and avoiding chat apps that are mostly owned by FB.
Try Duck Duck Go - an excellent search engine that doesn't track or sell your information or location, and returns results better than Google. Restrict your information. It may seem pointless, but it is like starfish on the beach - throwing them back does matter, at least to that starfish.
Yes, the GOP is not captured by Trump. It has since the New Deal been the party willing to distort American values for its own selfish goals by persuading ordinary Americans that it had them in mind as it mendaciously accused Democrats of being Reds. This began even before the New Deal with the reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution. Fascism starts with an attempt to protect wealth from so-called Reds. The GOP, with the one exception of Eisenhower, has followed this plan for one hundred years. Read Sean Wilentz's recent article in the New York Review of Books; much of what Paul Krugman is writing today.
17
Krugman was talking about Democratic centrists like Biden, not flaming rightwing reactionaries emboldened by Trump. Remember the first Democratic debate, where Trump's name or policies hardly cane up at all? The Democratic candidates acted like their political opponents were going to contest the 2020 election according to established laws and rules.
Surprise! Dems must adjust their rhetoric and tactics to counter the lawlessness of Republican attacks. Why don't Dems pass a new, much-needed law in the House EVERY OTHER WEEK-- raise minimum wage to $15; reverse entire TaxScamGiveaway bill from 2017; pass sweeping new union rights bill; pass Green New Deal resolution or similar; pass big, sweeping infrastructure bill repairing worst bridges, highways, etc; pass new broadband internet law extending coverage to rural areas; protect and expand the ACA so it covers 10 or 15 million more people; etc. Then spend the next week talking about how each bill would help millions of Americans.
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@UARilollnGuy Just to be factually accurate, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has done pretty much that, i..e. pass meaningful bills and legislation (including minimum wage increases, background checks on guns) literally every other day. That the republicans escape public ridicule, shame and loss of jobs and any social status for their malfeasance and violent cruelty is the problem. And in fact are rewarded by first the media and then I'll assume voters like you when the efficacy of their attacks become the story rather than democratic attempts, in fact, to talk about how each bill would help millions of Americans. In other words, proving Dr. Krugman's premise for the editorial.
Moscow Mitch is already blocking 200 bills. Everyone focuses on the latest shiny object. It’s much more entertaining to follow the daily antics of Trump and Giuliani.
@UARilollnGuy
Brilliant
Are you listening Tom Perez?
Speak the truth brother. Speak the truth. The Republican Party is anti democracy. They figured out they cannot win a majority of votes any longer and decided then that they would not support democracy any longer. It all came to fruition with the Tea Party. These folks are an anathema to our founding fathers idea of Democracy. The Republican Party must be broken up for their part in yet another tragic Presidency. They seem to want no part in moving toward a more perfect union.
20
Good point- Trump is the culmination of where the party has being going for decades. But what evidence do you have that centrists are starting to recognize that he is an existential threat to democracy? I don't see it. I don't hear it. Centrist, and even conservative Republicans will only change when the polls change. When and if 65% of the public or more conclude that Trump must go watch how fast they start to jump ship.
9
I tried to be a centrist in college. I joined something called "United Moderate Students" in 1970; most of my former fellows are now radical right-winger, conservative Roman Catholics, while I am a fairly far-left Christian socialist Anglican. About the only thing we now agree on is an appreciation for the humor of GK Chesterton and some sense that his distributivist economics might actually work, they seeing it as a form of capitalism and I interpreting it as a non-state collectivist alternative to state socialism.
In any event, after a flirtation with something parading as "centrism," I have come to the conclusion that the "centrist" is the sparkly unicorn of American politics. Anyone who claims to be a centrist is lying; they are simply champions of the status quo representing what is truly a "fringe" opinion that the way things are is OK (which, as Dr. Krugman points out, is a delusion leading to dysfunction).
The status quo, however, is never "the center." As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has pointed out, to be neutral in a status quo of injustice is to side with the oppressor, to which I would add that there is always injustice in the status quo! The present can always be improved on!
"The center" is no way forward; it can only be determined after those with competing visions and alternative positions negotiate, renegotiate, and compromise. In truth, "the center" can only be seen in the rear-view mirror of electoral results, political haggling, and economic settlement.
26
The flaws of the 2 party so-called democracy are finally apparent. For a long time the problems was that the centrists of both parties differed so little from each other that the elections were pointless exercises that let us feel proud of our "democracy" with little actually changing. Both parties were beholden to the corporations and everything else was noise. Now one party in the system has gone rogue. And since every election in the ridiculous electoral college and 2 senator /state model is essentially a coin toss, this has led the country to the brink of disaster. The question is, will we actually address the core constitutional issues that allowed this to happen or chalk it up as an "aberration" and lurch to the next crises? I wouldn't bet on the former.
21
I am an independent and I have never been a Republican here in North Carolina we outnumber the Republicans. Most of us got disgusted the the act-and-react mentality of both misdirected parties and are at least trying to find a way to move forward.
7
@SchnauzerMom I was brought up never to ask how someone voted. I am sorry but I am going to ask: did you vote in the last Presidential election? And if so, for which candidate? And can you quantify how you compare the misdirection of both parties? And what do you propose to get us moving forward? No idle questions; I really would like to hear.
2
Maybe I've been asleep for too long, but today it seems ever which way we go there is another definition of the GOP and it just depends how far right you want to go. All I know is the GOP is not today what it was fifty years ago, a party that made sense. It has slowly emerged far to the right of being called a democratic party. I see Trump and I see the GOP as one, both are an obstacle to our democratic form of gov't. Both spell autocratic rule, my way or the highway, beliefs, thinking, and a form of rule that comes right from the pages of what America defeated in WWII. The GOP says very clearly that America can have its Constitution, its DNP, its leftist feelings, but it will be the GOP that decides how far out of gutter you will be allowed to go. The GOP, and its people, should move to Hungary or Poland, as they would easily blend in.
19
Of course, I'll thank Paul Krugman for this article because I've been writing and saying the same thing for years, too. Someone of Krugman's stature has finally broadcast this truth explicitly. Others are beginning to regard Republicans as a cult. In reading Sidney Blumenthal's second volume of his Lincoln political biography, I see parallels between the Southern politicians' talk leading to the formation of the Confederacy and what Krugman describes the Republican Party in this article as a "radical force increasingly opposed to democracy." I confess I've been a Sanders supporter, as he has pointed out that "leftist" must now mean a majority of citizens who favor his policies and plans, according to a number of surveys. "Change" (despite Obama's "change you can believe in" in 2008) is still regarded as a major factor in elections, as in 2016. The almost sacrosanct "centrism" is not exactly a meaningful "center" of change, with Biden as a prime representative. It's not comfortable or energizing for voters who want somebody to make a difference the opposite of Trump and his Republican ilk.
10
It would seem we have reached the reductio ad absurdum in which the Republican party wants to take everything and give it to the rich while the Democratic party wants to take everything and give it to someone a struggling member of the precariat does not recognize.
"There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America." - Barack Obama, 2004
How quaint. A message of hope and unity from 15 years ago seems to come not only from a different time but also from a place we can hardly imagine from the partisan redoubts from which we hurl invective across the gulf separating our camps.
The historian John Meecham spoke of changes after the civil war in describing this country by recognizing the profound distinction between saying "the United States are..." before the civil war and saying "the United States is..." afterwards.
We are runnng the clock n reverse. It appears we are reverting to "the United States are..." as our construct and the ties that bind us are being slashed like the proverbial Gordian knot.
5
You have to wonder how this squares with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.’s theory of a 60 year cycle from liberal to conservative and back in American history. Seems pretty good to me. If so, are we entering a period when the pendulum swings back to center? Don’t give up hope!
4
Paul Krugman has spent the past twenty years reminding Americans who actually pay attention that we are not insane, and in those same twenty years we have watched his observations and predictions consistently play out as undeniable facts. Yet, strangely, Krugman gets painted as "the far Left" in most media circles. It only tells you how right-wing our institutions have become. Thank God for Krugman! And if you do thank God, follow that up with a prayer that we be saved from this monstrous excuse for a "Grand Old Party" and delivered from this absolute joke of a president. I gave up prayer years ago but, hey, it can't hurt.
49
The historian Sean Wilenz argues in a recent essay that Trump's progenitors reach back to the 1940s and Robt. Taft Republican of Ohio.
My guess is without much effort that "evolutionary" line could be pushed back to, at least, the 1920s.
The fundamental principle of the Republican Party for the last hundred years or so was recently expressed by Stephen Moore (failed nominee to head the Fed), "Capitalism is a lot more important than democracy."
15
The "fanatical centrism" Krugman rightly deplores extends to far too much of the American media, and a cult-like belief that "if only the reasonable moderates on both sides would sit down and talk." For one example, the Columbus Dispatch editorial board has routinely blasted Trump, but adamantly refused to hold Senator Portman accountable, even though Portman has consistently voted with Trump and was one of the first GOP senators to call for his re-election.
13
Mr Krugman makes the mistake of thinking that he can reason with and appeal logically to those centrists. What if they are unreachable? What if they are complicit? What if they are, not just supporting, but indeed driving the change toward authoritarianism and one party rule?
3
What does it actually mean to be centrist? It’s like claiming to be middle class. Nearly everyone says they are because everyone thinks of themselves as mainstream America. I have known people who wanted the wall 50 feet high with a moat 10 feet deep, and people who want to allow refugees unencumbered entry, and both consider themselves centrists. Because of our echo chambers created online where we consume news tailored to our beliefs, we all believe our point of view is mainstream and the other guys point of view is fanatical.
Centrists are people who feel they’re above politics because they just want simple solutions and see the parties entrenched factions of self interest, ignoring the fact this is how America has always worked. At this point in time the parties are so radically different on nearly every point it’s hard to see how anyone could claim they’re the same. And therein lies the rub. Centrists by and large lean Republican, but don’t like trump. So when Biden is not chosen as the nominee (he slips further in polling and fund raising every week) largely because he is a centrist who is out of touch with modern political reality, what will the centrists (republicans) who don’t like trump do? The ones with whom I have spoken have said they’d rather stick with trump because he’s the devil they know over taking a chance with “radical socialists” like Warren or Sanders.
9
Hooray for Krugman. I personally switched from being centrist when George W. Bush's first stated reason for going to war in Iraq didn't match my overall understanding of the region. So the possibility and likelihood that others are now experiencing similar epiphanies is real. Hope springs eternal. May it be more than hope this time. Ever so much depends on it.
6
There is an entire ecosystem of authoritarianism occurring in many mutually dependent realms of our living -- in politics, economics, energy, land use, agriculture, etc. The great concentrations of economic activity have coincided and depended greatly on the capture of and coordination with federal and state governments and their regulatory agencies. Both political parties have abetted monopolization and hegemony. Accountability and transparency are out and secrecy is in. The gathering of intelligence, the very linchpin for the survival of complex societies, is suspect. The state, the only effective counter to corporate malfeasance, must have less authority to monitor and enforce. The people must be kept from knowing what they need to know. Untraceable, unaccountable, and untouchable are key traits of the authoritarian mindset whether that be in government or business and in the melding of the two.
All this is written more in Republican DNA. Democrats have been drug along by the corruption of campaign finance, playing the big game with the great concentration of wealth and power, and not questioning where all this might have been leading in limiting our choices and freedoms. And now questioning what it would take to take on big as being too extreme. Authoritarianism has crept into our thinking and our imaginations in ways we cannot truly fathom.
Our deference to Republicans it the deference to authoritarian ways. We may soon know no other.
3
I like Uncle Joe. But if he didn't see the personal attacks on him and his family coming from our Attacker-in-Chief, then that's a failure of imagination. The same kind of failure to imagine some real unimaginable things that somehow have come to pass, like 9/11 and like the Russians manipulating the 2016 election.
We need more nimble hands at the wheel.
16
What are the goals of Democrats and Republicans?
There are serious ideological goals:
For the Democrats these are social justice at home, a global environment that becomes sustainable for life as we know it, support for democracy at home and abroad, setting long-term guidelines for fair trade between nations, enhancing the well-being of all.
For the Republicans these are individual rights over all other, enabling businesses to thrive no matter the environmental or human costs because the expectation is that good will eventually emerge from this as the parts are made into a whole, national rights over international ones.
In terms of more pragmatic policy goals:
The Demoocrats want affordable, quality health care for all, a living wage, taxes that promote greater equality, regulations that protect our air, water, and consumers, comprehensive immigration reform, support for families -- day care, pre-K, good schools, affordable colleges, family leave.
The Republicans want reduced or eliminated regulations, reliance on self-policing by companies, privatization of education, health care, Medicare and Social Security, reduced immigration, enforcement of all current immigration laws, support for the fossil fuel industry, reliance on individuals to deal with pollution, allowing the wealthy to keep their wealth and use it as they see fit, proxy rights of fetuses over adult women.
How these articulated with the Constitution is the next issue to address.
10
@Concerned Citizen
The average deductible for a 2019 bronze policy -- which have higher deductibles, but lower premiums than other tiers of Obamacare plans -- is nearly $5,900, while the average maximum of out-of-pocket limit is just under $7,000, according to Health Pocket, an online health insurance shopping tool.
Average premiums for employer based plan is $6500. Then there are copays, coinsurance, deductibles.
Many on Obamacare get subsidies, if their income is low.So Obamacare is looking pretty good compare to other insurance. Compared to previous health insurance for people with preexisting conditions it is great.
The problem is that our private-based health care is too expensive. Medicare For All will help. Open your mind and your eyes.
As a species we always do such a bad job of really dissecting the boogey man. We prefer to demonize. The better position (with more effective results) is to find out what motivate Trump’s supporters in order to persuade them to vote for someone else. I just wish The NY Times would write more articles about what moderate Republicans want, so Democrats can persuade them to vote Democrat. Anything else is defeatist or fantasy-laden. Remember, we need to win. We need to understand how the people on the fence are thinking, then tap into it. Hardcore Trump voters won’t be persuaded, then let’s appeal to the more reasonable Republicans out there. Look at Staten Island. They voted Democrat when a military man who sounded reasonable (Max Rose) ran for office.
2
@Temp attorney
Unfortunately, it is not hard to figure out what moderate Republicans want. Start with what they don't want. They don't want reasonable regulations to mitigate the effects of Global Climate Change, keep our air and water safe and clean, protect the public from predatory lending, etc. They don't want fair taxation based upon income level and ability to pay. They don't want healthcare to be a right, and available to all at affordable rates. They don't want Judges on the bench who are fair and impartial. Since these are things they don't want, they tolerate the lawlessness of the Trump Administration. Very few speak out about atrocities at the southern border, or seeking the assistance of foreign Governments to dig up dirt against his political opponents. It seems to me we know what moderate Republicans want and don't want. They would like for Trump to be a little less outrageous but not enough to sacrifice those things they want. Most moderate Republicans are not "on the fence." They made their deal with the devil decades ago, as Professor Krugman rightly points out.
15
@Michael Banks
You nailed it! It still shocks me that the Republicans I know still hold onto unbelievable acceptance of horrible stuff.
Actually, if you go out and talk with just random people, you can have a good discussion no matter where on the political spectrum they are. So, evidence suggests we as a people are not as polarized as the political parties seem to be.
The general feeling though(I hear from across the spectrum), about those political parties in DC is that they need to get down to business, work together, and stop spending our money on nonsense. It seems they have created and maintain a culture where they 'score' points against each other with their games and are not at all concerned about real or heartland issues.
6
@Cal Page That is a wonderful sentiment but an impossibility in the age of Moscow Mitch McConnell. He blatantly prevents bills hatched in the House to come to the Senate. He stalemates every opportunity for Congress to work for the People, by the People. Working together is only possible when both teams play by the same rules. The Republican Party is failing to play by the rules at all, and believe in cheques and balance sheets for themselves, not in checks and balances as established in the Constituion.
1
I don't really think that political affiliations mean a thing to him, unless he owns them and they're beholden solely to him.
Unprincipled to begin with, he once claimed to be a Democrat while financially supporting anyone or any party that would benefit him. Nothing wrong with that. Reagan and Bloomberg yet
at least brought with them more principles than Trump ever knew existed. Even 'his' mantras of MAGA and America First were plagiarized from those who came before him.
Regardless, he sought out the lowest hanging fruit of the lowest hanging party, picked it and then plundered whatever was left of it for his own personal gain at the expense of our democracy.
We all saw it coming, allowed it to happen, then couldn't believe it happened.
Will we allow it to happen again?
Vote.
11
In the GOP, centrists are considered leftists or traitors. It is alarming how it is widely accepted in their ranks that the Constitution is optional, by justifying the Ukranian affair, ignoring emoluments clause, smearing the separation of powers and, even threatening not to recognize election results, depending on who wins.
22
The radical left is equally unwilling to compromise and seek a middle way. The ascendance of Warren and AOC, whose policy proposals are laughably extreme, tells you all you need to know about the shrill tone deafness on the far left. Yet there remains a more quiet center that doesn't support a green new whatever or free everything provided by government, or the right's plutocracy.
9
@Keith The far left sounds shrill because we are facing an existential threat to our survival and corporate forces minimize this threat to the point where effective change is seen as untenable. We need dramatic change because in the face of global climate crisis we need a tectonic shift. This is reality not partisan politics. Big oil, the nra, big pharma, the health insurance industry—basically pure greed—can no longer call the shots if we are to survive.
@Keith I don’t think its fair to conflate Elizabeth Warren and AOC. Dr. Krugman wrote an op-ed several months ago outlining how Warren’s policies are not extreme, or even leftist, but actually representative of democratic norms. On the right, the needle has swung so far over that it is espousing totalitarian-style government. Warren is no socialist, she is a believer in government that does the best it can, never hoping achieve absolute perfection. Her plans are money savers for us, the People, not the money down the drain that is our current GOP plan.
1
@Keith
Earth to Keith: the "Radical Left" is not what Fox News and Republicans tell you it is. It is obvious that you have not read the actual policy proposals Elizabeth Warren has put out. No Democrat is for "free everything provided by government." You are either a fool being exploited by right wing conservative, Fox News Republicans, or you are one of them, deliberately lying to try to scare others who might be open to Democratic policy proposals.
All true. Still, it's hard not to wonder if it's not centrist denial in the end but rather centrist acceptance of the fact that they need radical extremists on the right to maintain our stuck in the mud politics. The result gets both sides off the hook to do anything substantial for the public good.
A possible explanation for the far right's extremism, besides unhinged group think is that paranoid extremism exempts them from public pressure to accomplish anything beneficial for the American people. They can gin up a conspiracy theory and present themselves as saviors from some phantom terror they've concocted. Centrist democrats benefit in this scheme by portraying themselves as pragmatic, sensible and heroic merely by contrast with a wacky GOP.
Some are getting tired of this manipulative scheme to buy our loyalty with fear. As we got more weary, the GOP got crazier. The rational response IS outrage. Even so, Trump isn't making dramatic breaks with a pattern set down by Reagan and Bush.
An effect is that we've turned on each other. People we all depend on--e.g., farmers--are seen as a source of political woes. They then accept a similarly distorted caricature of the urbanites they depend on as causing their problems. It's a prisoners' dilemma with citizens as the prisoners.
Seeing this does no good. GOP derangement is real. We should still be suspicious of the centrist version of history because it's only there to keep the merry-go-round humming.
6