A reader reflects on recent electoral events:
Wondering what your take is on what looks to be a clear split of the entire GOP establishment from the Tea Party. I see it as pushing the Tea Party into, at the very least, a rhetorically anti-business direction (probably attacking big business). The Tea Party would lose money, but probably more than make up for it in votes.
It strikes me as though they're being pushed into the sweet spot of American politics. If it is they who oppose immigration reform (and the Chamber of Commerce being for immigration reform is now another reason to hate them for Tea Partiers), the only missing piece from offering a real change to voters would be a less interventionist foreign policy (though some of them already take that position).
While that technically wouldn't be a Sailer strategy, if voters want a change, the Tea Party is the only entity offering it. White Democrats are probably the only swing vote left (what would Obama's current poll numbers look like with the demographics of 1980 or 1960 America?), and anti-business, anti-war could probably be the few percent they'd need to pull out a win.
Interesting. I'd say, though, that it's a long way from here to there.
Posts
46 comments:
It's the sweet spot for me and a handful of other bitter ranters on internet comment threads.
"It's the sweet spot for me and a handful of other bitter ranters on internet comment threads." - Yeah, fundamentally opposing these policies is going to be seen as low status, and thats not going to be embraced until the pain gets really bad.
If TP is gonna reject big business, it has to gain power by being for government. But it opposes government too.
For a long time, conservatives scoffed at notions that it's bad for rich to get richer. They should the 'best' should make as much as possible and spend as much money they want in politics. Conservatives thought this way in conviction that rich are pro-GOP and pro-conservative.
Well... now, rich billionaires tend to be Liberal and lots of rich 'conservatives' want to open the borders.
If Democrat politician want to elect a new people, GOP businessmen wanna hire a new people.
...there's always fascism!
Mature democracy: People can compromise to get thing done.
Sign: Few political parties and little violence due to politics.
Example: England (people of incredible tolerance or compromising attitude)
Impossible democracy: Non-compromising people with attitude of my way or highway.
Sign: Numerous political fractions. Constant violence or civil wars related to poltics. Nobody want to give in.
Example: middle east or africa
With enough non-comprising type, third even 4th party can be reality.
would be a less interventionist foreign policy (though some of them already take that position
Paul takes this position but many Tea party folks are mild neo-conservatives. If a republican gets in they are fine with it, going to war. The mistake of the Tea party was to go hog on economic conservatism and many opposed even e-verify or ways to stopped bad businesses people since they are pro-businesses against taxes and regulation. They are against amnesty and for border control but that doesn't work if millions still get in and take jobs.
Actually, the minutemen movement was better than the Tea party it focus was immigration and some trade issues but the Tea party took those people in and its smooth talkers like Ran Paul went back and forth on immigration.
The Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves for how Virginia turned out. They need to get rid of the convention system and quickly, lest we get any more like E.W. Jackson.
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_24462841/voters-reject-big-tax-hike-school-finance-measure
I don't think the Tea Party is anti-business, they're anti-big business, better known as the Wall Street vs. Main Street fissure. Big business is seen, and with some justification, as being too chummy and comfortable with big government. For a long time, Bill Gates thought he could just be left alone to make money, even after Microsoft had gone public and was a huge enterprise by any yardstick. Along comes the Clinton DOJ and says "that's a nice little business youse got there, youse wouldn't want nuthin' to happen to it now, would youse?" And lo and behold Microsoft opened an office in DC and began to make political donations.
Cruz is the jerk that caused this. Mainly because he wants to run for President and is basically a new Newt Gingrich type. Young didn't get any Koch money which is basically the big business donor along with Boeing and some Pharmacy company for Tea party candidates. I found the scope on some of Tea Party donors from liberal Rolling Stones Magazine.
The Tea Party would lose money, but probably more than make up for it in votes.
As someone who has been involved in trying to fight illegal immigration at the state level for 12 years, let me assure you that 21st Century politics is 99% money. There may have been a time when ideas and passion could make a difference, but those days are gone.
As soon as the "Donorists" notice your populist movement gaining traction, they crush you with their money.
If you bring 5 people to a hearing, they rent a bus and pay 50 people to testify the other way.
If you get 10 volunteers to go door-to-door on a Saturday, they pay 100 people to go door-to-door 40 hours a week.
If you hold a rally, they throw an event with a stage, a sound system, entertainment, free tee-shirts and advanced advertising.
If you gather petitions, they set up a hotline to learn where you are, and then pay "activists" $15/hour to stalk and harass you.
If you buy radio spots, the next day they've bought 5 times as much air time on the same station, and their ads are professionally produced, not read by a DJ.
They pay lawyers to threaten you. They pay pollsters to manufacture "proof" that you're unpopular. They pay clergy to preach against you.
Blue collar whites just don't have the kind of money or time it takes to compete in modern politics. Maybe you can beat the Donorists if you're outspent 2-to-1 or even 5-to-1. But when you're outspent 250-to-1 you don't have a chance.
Going up against the Donorists in the modern political arena is like going up against the US Army on a conventional battlefield. If you try to fight their tanks and jets with your tanks and jets, you're going to be destroyed. Asymetric political warfare is needed, but I don't know what that could be.
o/t but relevant to the "immigration is good for us" meme
"Saudis bemoan soaring labour costs after migrant exodus"
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Saudis-bemoan-soaring-labour-costs-after-migrant-exodus/articleshow/25393033.cms
"Professionals in the kingdom, both Saudi and expatriate, say the freelance tradesmen who used to queue for odd jobs in public squares have virtually disappeared since police patrols began the strict enforcement of tough labour laws this week, rounding up thousands of illegals for deportation.
They have been forced to turn instead to authorised service companies, which charge double the rate or more to hire out electricians or plumbers.
"I had great difficulty finding a carpenter even at a higher price," complained primary school teacher Majed Hasan.
"I have been told that freelance carpenters have disappeared. I went to a services company and was told that they can provide me with a carpenter for 150 riyals ($40) — double what I used to pay."
From Monday, the authorities began rounding up thousands of illegal foreign workers following the expiry of a final amnesty for them to regularise their work status in the kingdom. "
Mature democracy: People can compromise to get thing done.
Sign: Few political parties and little violence due to politics.
Example: England (people of incredible tolerance or compromising attitude)
Impossible democracy: Non-compromising people with attitude of my way or highway.
Sign: Numerous political fractions. Constant violence or civil wars related to poltics. Nobody want to give in.
Example: middle east or africa
And then what does the mature democracy do ? Import people from the Middle East and Africa, and expect things to remain as they were.
I think you know exactly what it would be but for very prudent reasons are unwilling to vocalize it.
"o/t but relevant to the "immigration is good for us" meme"
The Saudi royalty is not stupid. They know that the so called "business class" will wail at their crackdown, but who cares? The lumpen proletariat will love it, and by extension love them for it. So it's very brilliant from their standpoint.
Steve, I love you and your writing, but here I think you're wrong. Unfortunately. I'd love for the Sailer Strategy to work, but it doesn't. And the reason it does not is that America's Whites are gripped in a religious obsession. No, not the Tea Party and Christians.
Post-Christians. Who worship NAMs. Look at NYC. Who has more power? A billionaire businessman or a low-level party hack who has ended Stop and Frisk? The low-level Party Hack. De Blasio. Who got elected because he has a Black wife and kids.
America, and the West, are not normal. We are gripped in a religious frenzy, where moralism and moral status and devotion rite matter most.
Derbyshire noted that the Hi-Low team up is nothing new; the Royalists and dirt-poor peasants against Cromwell's New Model Army.
However I would argue that technology (mass NSA monitoring) and concentration of power and women (who are far more religious and thus devoted to NAM worship) make this a different affair.
As is the new-old divide. In Cromwell's time it was the middling people who wanted the "new" and the Hi-Lo who wanted the old absolutist royalism. Now it is reversed, the middling who want the old liberty and freedom and independence, and the Hi-Low who want utter serfdom and mass-NAMism which is very, very new.
And new generally beats old, in human affairs. Humans love the new and despise the old ways.
If TP is gonna reject big business, it has to gain power by being for government.
Why?
In practice, here and now, they're the same thing: concentrations of wealth and power used to hurt the middle class.
Speaking of populists, the weasel Lyndsey Graham has introduced an anti abortion bill in the Senate to help his re-election bid next year. Graham is a shill for corporatists who have been impoverishing the working class and lower middle class americans that support the republican party.
It strikes me as though they're being pushed into the sweet spot of American politics. If it is they who oppose immigration reform (and the Chamber of Commerce being for immigration reform is now another reason to hate them for Tea Partiers), the only missing piece from offering a real change to voters would be a less interventionist foreign policy (though some of them already take that position).
What about protectionism? Hardly hear that talked about any more from any faction, left or right, but it would be surprisingly popular.
Restrictionism, protectionism, anti-imperialism -- the Buchanan trinity.
I think you know exactly what it would be but for very prudent reasons are unwilling to vocalize it.
Assuming you were directing this comment to me, and assuming you're talking about violence, no I really don't think so.
Trust me. I'm frustrated, no longer have any dependents, own firearms and know how to shoot them well. If I thought violence was the answer, I would be shooting the place up right now, not reading iSteve.
But I don't see violence as the answer.
FIRST -- Blue collar, white, middle class Christians naturally respect law and order and abhor violence. Remember the TEA Party protestors in 2010 bragging they left the DC Mall cleaner than they had found it? People who pick up their own trash are not going to embrace civil unrest.
SECOND -- The Donorists will make sure that if you use violence against them you will be portrayed as a sad, stupid, mentally ill, out-of-touch loser unable to adapt to a modern, tolerant, diverse and progressive America. A black ex-cop shooting at the LAPD might get the folk hero treatment, but not an unemployed white roofer shooting up the US Chamber of Commerce.
THIRD (AND MOST IMPORTANT)-- you can't kill money. Shoot all the politicians, journalists and professors you want. The Donorists can always hire more. Try shooting the Donorists themselves and they'll just reinforce their existing cocoons of gated communities, limos, bodyguards and private jets. Kill a Donorist and the money goes to another Donorist or the Donorist's favorite foundation.
Paul Mendez, I don't know how much you and I would agree on political issues, but I'd have to agree with most of what you wrote.
Except:
"SECOND -- The Donorists will make sure that if you use violence against them you will be portrayed as a sad, stupid, mentally ill, out-of-touch loser unable to adapt to a modern, tolerant, diverse and progressive America. A black ex-cop shooting at the LAPD might get the folk hero treatment, but not an unemployed white roofer shooting up the US Chamber of Commerce."
Thing is this stuff just goes down the memory hole anymore. More people know about the Sniper at the University of Texas in '66, and know his name (Charles Whitman) than even remember the two sniper in DC, or whatever the latest thing is.
Joe Bageant called it the "Hologram." To me it is if the collective psyche of America is High, but without having ingested drugs.
The media makes noise, the heads talk on TV. No one really pays much attention past the couple of days the media is spazzing about things.
Ask the normal joe on the street about any of these events, and odds are they don't remember anything about it, let alone details or names.
There is one exception: You got to have a hot chick and some salaciousness.
Even for the women, strangely.
Weird time in America if you ask me, it's like everyone is waiting for something, but they are not sure what.
The liberal establishment is bleeding money and resources. You can fight cash, you just have to be clever about it and rely on methods that cash can't hijack.
Remember, most of the country barely even knows what 'Obamacare' is, much less how badly it screws them. The opposition is not a bunch of tri-d chess ninjas, my goodness, man, look at the mandarins. LOOK at them! They can't even keep a Steve Sailer from officially being cited in the mainstream.
They are toast, if you want them to be.
In Utah the Revenge of the Establishment is taking the form of an attempt to eliminate our caucus/convention system. Local millionaires have already poured in $500,000 into a fund to end the convention and move to straight, plurality-vote primaries, the goal being to defend crooked incumbents by playing divide and conquer with the opposition.
Our establishment is tickedpissedangry at the number of pro-amnesty Republicans who have lost wholly or partly as the result of our caucus/convention system, and Sen. Bob Bennett's defeat pushed them over the edge.
Bennett, who spent several years on the Senate Finance Committee and Banking Subcommittee (i.e., the very body whose failure led to the Great Recession) went into the convention with at least $3 million in his war chest, 54% of which was from PACs. But money is less effective for winning conventions than it is for winning primaries, where uninformed voters who won't bother to attend their precinct meetings can be more easily swayed.
Obviously, a system where candidates can't be so easily bought is a system that must be destroyed.
For the bonus round, here's a video of a Bennett campaign guy (I believe it's his son, Jim) telling potential delegates to lie at their precinct caucuses by claiming to be open-minded or even be opposed to Bennett).
One big problem is that for too long Republicans have relied on millionaire donors to fund political campaigns. I don't like RINOs, but it's ridiculous to think they're going to support candidates who oppose amnesty, etc.
There are millions of alleged Tea Partiers in this country, and this is an off-year election. So how did Ken Cuccinelli end up with $15 million less than McAuliffe?
The reality is that conservatives need to budget money each year to candidates who are on our side: $50, $200, $1,000, whatever. If you can afford to donate but haven't bothered, don't tell me about the mess we're in. It's time to grow up.
Actually, many Tea Party folks are not anti- big busineses. They had donors besides the Koch brothers with money. In fact very free market thinking leads to giant businesses, the Koch s are in several things even chicken processing besides oil. The Libertarian myth that without government businesses would be small is mythical. The Kochs pushed deregulation of the oil environment rules and are big players.
What about protectionism? Hardly hear that talked about any more from any faction, left or right, but it would be surprisingly popular.
Restrictionism, protectionism, anti-imperialism -- the Buchanan trinity
Well, Tea Party folks are basically free trade with some argeeing on Paul against some trade agreements being against the free market. in fact, I think Buchnann will never get the tariffs. As for as manufacturing use of robots and 3 d printing will bring jobs back more than tariffs which neither party supports. Robots and automation make labor cost in the Us less than China or Mexico since robots in the long term cost less than people. Believe it or not, manufacturing gain a little while Retail went down. Why because of the robots and online orders have killed employing people in a store.
Well, the Kochs are number 3 in total wealth in the US. There are a lot of Republican land and oil barons not mention by the media. Trump is not poor in the top 50 in the US.
Speaking of populists, the weasel Lyndsey Graham has introduced an anti abortion bill in the Senate to help his re-election bid next year. Graham is a shill for corporatists who have been impoverishing the working class and lower middle class americans that support the republican party.
I will take home over Ted Cruz. Cruz wants 3 million tech workers in 10 years even Grham doesn't support that.
"Robots and automation make labor cost in the Us less than China or Mexico since robots in the long term cost less than people. "
You don't get it. China is BUILDING robots. And China has robot factories already cranking out some of the cheapest goods on the face of the earth.
Ever heard of "Sweater City" or "Sock City" in China? They produce gargantuan piles of goods on ultra-modern automatic knitting equipment.
Sock City supplies somewhere between 50% and 80% of all the socks in the world.
Chinese cutting edge automation plus no workers rights, no middle class, no tariffs and no pollution laws or regulation dominates anything little "robots" might produce in America.
We are merely waiting for The Collapse when the EBT cards run out and the Democrats can no longer feed the masses and pay them to buy Chinese trinkets. And the sooner it comes, the better. My only hope is that the Chinese haven't bought all US farmland and factories by then.
Well, Tea Party folks are basically free trade with some argeeing on Paul against some trade agreements being against the free market. in fact, I think Buchnann will never get the tariffs.
Keep in mind many ordinary Tea Party types, as well as people I've come across in comments on blogs like this, don't understand that free trade and trade are not synonymous. I have had commenters write something like this, "we have to have free trade because we need to trade with the world. We can't cut ourselves off from the rest of the world." They actually believe the choice is between free trade and no trade.
A not too insignificant number are surprised to find out that the USA has traded with the world from the get-go, and under tariffs for most of that time.
Explain to people that free trade ultimately means that which exists among the fifty states, and all that entails including free movement of labor, and you will see support for Buchanan's positions go up.
Of course as with the non-interventionism of Ron Paul, it is hard to push Buchanan's trade policies since the media and most talking heads equate any such talk to isolationism, protectionism, xenophobia, etc.
The power of the megaphone is hard to beat.
There is a way around the dilemma of having to be anti-business and vote for a Republican Tea Party candidate.
Rightly, the Supreme Court would kill a law that restricts campaign contributions. But legally a candidate can refuse contributions.
Tea Party candidate stump speech:
I will refuse any and all campaign contributions that do not come from someone who can vote for me. I will not accept money from a business that resides in this district, only individuals. In Congress I will NOT vote in the interest of government - I will vote only in your interest. I will NOT vote in the interest of some out of state business over your interests. I will vote to protect your family, your jobs, your savings, and local business. I will vote for smaller government and less debt. I will vote for local schools controlled by your local government. I am pro-business but anti those business that ensnare us in endless debt. I will vote for less regulation of private property. And I will for vote for peace - NOT more wars.
America will shine again - when America returns to it local roots!
A vote for me - is a vote for YOU!
Few independent, Republican, or Libertarian voters can disagree with the above statement. Candidates in Tea Party districts should start the ball rolling.
"Tea Party candidate stump speech: I will refuse any and all campaign contributions that do not come from someone who can vote for me. I will not accept money from a business that resides in this district, only individuals."
Campaign Aide: "Adlai, all the smart people are gunna vote for you."
Adlai: "Yes, but I need a majority."
The problem with your logic is that the stupid voters won't know you've said this unless you're advertising on their shows. And to do that, you need money, possibly from out of state.
"I have had commenters write something like this, "we have to have free trade because we need to trade with the world. We can't cut ourselves off from the rest of the world." They actually believe the choice is between free trade and no trade."
Part of the blame for this confusion rests with critics of free trade themselves. They think they are lambasting free trade but scratch a little and you often see that they have a problem with any international trade.
"The problem with your logic is that the stupid voters won't know you've said this unless you're advertising on their shows. And to do that, you need money, possibly from out of state."
The speech was intended for TPers, who presumably do pay attention to such things. Would it work? I have no idea, but it sure would represent a radically democratic turn. I wonder how the establishment would react if it were successful. Could they contain it?
"Speaking of populists, the weasel Lyndsey Graham has introduced an anti abortion bill in the Senate to help his re-election bid next year."
Wow. That may be the most nakedly cynical thing I've ever heard of a politician doing.
Count me among those eager to hear Anon 1:49 explain his theory of asymmetrical political warfare, which he assumes everyone knows but is just afraid to talk about.
Mr Mendez explained cogently why scattered violent attacks are not the answer. Was there something deeper or more sophisticated than that?
Weird time in America if you ask me, it's like everyone is waiting for something, but they are not sure what.
They're waiting for the punch line. That's the impression I get from people around me, anyway. On Obamacare especially: they can't quite believe that that, in the good ol' U. S. of A., a government -- a Democrat one at that! -- is going to take away people's insurance policies that they're satisfied with and fine other people thousands of dollars for choosing to take their chances. They hear that it's happening, but they can't really believe it, so they're still waiting for someone to tell them it's all a big misunderstanding, and here's what's really going to happen.
Same thing with the debt: they can't really be going to try to print their way out of debt, can they? Surely someone will come along soon to explain what the real solution is going to be.
"and anti-business, anti-war could probably be the few percent they'd need to pull out a win"
It would need to be anti corporatist rather than anti-business imo.
Wall St has turned into financial organized crime and the politicians are their whores which means there's a perfectly good free market argument to be made against the corrupt cartel that makes up the Wall St. / Washington Axis of Evil - all they need to do is say so.
Other than that point, yes.
Paul Mendez
"Asymetric political warfare is needed, but I don't know what that could be."
Very good points and correct. Given the current money and media odds meme warfare has to be near perfect to stand a chance of getting through.
The only advantage we have is every single word they utter is a lie.
As soon as the "Donorists" notice your populist movement gaining traction, they crush you with their money.
And, even if you win, you still lose in the end.
Well-funded NGOs will lead a decades-long legal battle against you. Eventually, they will find a sympathetic judge to rule in their favor.
Public officials will refuse to enforce whatever you pass, and will collude with your opponents to have the law struck down in the courts. The Supreme Court has held that state governors and attorney generals are the only people with standing to defend legislation and ballot measures before the federal courts. So, if a government- or Donorist-funded activist group challenges your ballot measure in federal court, and “your” state attorney general refuses to defend it, the ballot measure you worked so hard to pass will be summarily struck down.
And, if your counterparts in another state win, that will be used against you as well. Elected officials in your state – from the governor and attorney-general down to local transit agencies – will use your tax dollars write amicus briefs supporting efforts to have the the other state's law struck down by the federal judiciary. Their goal, as they will candidly admit, is to make it easier to have similar laws and ballot measures in your state struck down.
"The only advantage we have is every single word they utter is a lie." - 250-1 isn't sustainable, they are going to run out of cash at that rate.
What humors me is the way the RINO establishment is carrying on going into the 2014 primary season like it has any political capital to spend and as if people actually like them and take political cues from them.
"Vote out slash don't vote for this Tea Party bastard, vote for the other guy/gal, s/he's party establishment beltway shill all the way!"
Like that's going to get any votes.
The Tea Party Movement would help itself out immensely if it ditched the conservative egalitarianism and racial pandering and went full on ethnonationalist (heck, I'd even accept citizenist as a short term compromise). The good news is that they don't do as much of that as they used to when they first started out.
"Silver said...
""I have had commenters write something like this, "we have to have free trade because we need to trade with the world. We can't cut ourselves off from the rest of the world." They actually believe the choice is between free trade and no trade.""
Part of the blame for this confusion rests with critics of free trade themselves. They think they are lambasting free trade but scratch a little and you often see that they have a problem with any international trade."
No, that isn't true at all. In fact, that is just pure bullshit. You are just propagating the same meme that the MSM and the hostile elite does.
Actually, conservatives know the problem. Big business/big unions with tons of $$ to push for amnesty and even more $$. The problem is they have so much $$. So cultural conservatives have to threaten or vote for higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, for either retribution or for fighting fire with fire (shut up about amnesty, and I'll keep your taxes low, plutocrat).
It's a war.
Actually, conservatives know the problem. Big business/big unions with tons of $$ to push for amnesty and even more $$. The problem is they have so much $$. So cultural conservatives have to threaten or vote for higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations...
I've been pointing this out for a while now: conservatives support tax cuts on businesses and the rich (e.g., elimination of the estate tax) gratis, without expecting anything in return, because they've been fooled into believing it's the fair thing to do. The result is that we get nothing in return, and actually get screwed.
Through the battle on amnesty big business is all lined up on the other side, not only opposing conservatives but saying some pretty nasty things about them. Tomorrow, though, they'll need us to fight a minimum wage hike or whatever, and we're foolishly going to act as though the amnesty betrayal never happened.
Post a Comment