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Trump and Brexit are both manifestations of a “class revolution”

February 27, 2016

Glen Reynolds makes the case of anti-establishment, anti-elite revolution being the driver behind both the Trump wave in the US and the surge for BREXIT in the UK. He has a point.

In America, Donald Trump — who many of the experts thought had no chance — is dominating the polls. In Britain, meanwhile, much of the public seems to be mobilizing in favor of exiting the troubled European Union — a British Exit, or Brexit.

Writing in The Spectator, Brendan O’Neill puts this down to a class revolt on both sides of the Atlantic. And he’s right as far as he goes, but I think there’s more than just a class revolt. I think there’s also a developing preference cascade. O’Neill writes: “In both Middle America and Middle England, among both rednecks and chavs, voters who have had more than they can stomach of being patronised, nudged, nagged and basically treated as diseased bodies to be corrected rather than lively minds to be engaged are now putting their hope into a different kind of politics. And the entitled Third Way brigade, schooled to rule, believing themselves possessed of a technocratic expertise that trumps the little people’s vulgar political convictions, are not happy. Not one bit.”

Well, that’s certainly true. Both America and Britain have developed a ruling class that is increasingly insular and removed from — and contemptuous of — the people it deigns to rule. The ruled are now returning the contempt.

I think this is certainly partially correct. Every attack on Trump has contained a large degree of intellectual contempt, and every such attack has only increased his support. Now we may be seeing signs that the establishment is going to have to get off their superior backsides and treat with the contemptible. Similarly Cameron is being reduced to telling the UK electorate that he knows best what is best for them. He is treating the BREXIT supporters also with a contempt which is now back-firing. I expect that he, too, will have to come of his high horse. It does not help him that the bottom line is the EU will make their real concessions only after the UK votes – if they do – for a BREXIT. So far they have tried to fob him off with cosmetic changes.

This trend is visible across other parts of Europe as well and it has been brought to a head by the refugee/immigration issue. It has become the habit for the establishment, ruling elite to be contemptuous of the far right and in many cases, of avoiding debate with them. Just talking to the disaffected right has been seen as being beneath their interest. That disaffection has now spread to the middle ground and I expect that every election in Europe in the near future will be dominated by an anti-establishment wave.

Political correctness is taken as the child of the establishment elite and has therefore become the target of this new class revolution.

 

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Half of all union members in the US work for the government

January 29, 2016

It is only to be expected that most people will vote in favour of their own vested interests.

It is also only to be expected that those whose income depends on government spending will vote for the continuation or the increase of government spending or for the continuation or increase of taxation for that purpose.

One of the fundamental strengths of  “democracy” is supposed to be that every individual has an equal vote, but the corresponding weakness is that merit and ability and behaviour are not of any value.

The result is that it is mere existence as an individual that suffices to have an “equal vote”. And if everyone has the vote it is assumed that “democracy” has been attained – as if it were some sort of state of grace.  The only real criterion is that of age, even if some countries still have some other criteria in force. The merit of the individual is irrelevant. Votes can and are bought by promises or by free meals or by money or by a bus-ride. A “bought” or coerced vote weighs as heavy as one that is freely given. (There is nothing wrong in buying or selling votes – the flaw lies in that the seller has a vote equal to that of free elector). A fool has the same vote as a wise man. A large tax contributor is equated to a small tax contributor. Government servants paid for by taxes have the same weight of vote as the tax payers. Priests and politicians have the vote. The behaviour of an individual does not affect his vote. Experience, intelligence, wisdom, competence or criminality are all considered equally irrelevant. A majority vote is considered to be the “will of the people” where “constitutions” are supposed to prevent excesses against minorities. But constitutions are subject to the same majority vote. One hundred and one idiots take precedence over one hundred wiser men.

And there is something nor quite right if a majority living off a minority can vote to continue the oppression.

CNS News: 48.9% of Union Members Worked for Government in 2015

The percentage of American wage and salary workers who belonged to a union was only 11.1 percent in 2015, but the percentage of union members who worked for government was 48.9 percent, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The union membership rate–the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions–was 11.1 percent in 2015, unchanged from 2014,” the BLS said in press release published today. But the 7,241,000 government workers whom the BLS estimates were members of unions in 2015 equaled almost half of the estimated total of 14,795,000 union-member wage and salary workers in the nation.

…… Government wage and salary workers were far more likely to belong to a union than private-sector wage and salary workers, the BLS reported. “Public-sector workers had a union membership rate (35.2 percent) more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers (6.7 percent),” the BLS said in the press release that accompanied the release of the data.

It is only to be expected then, that most of these will vote in favour of increased government spending (which means the Democrats in the US.

 

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Increasing attacks from “establishment” media only feed support for Trump

January 23, 2016

The National Review, Weekly Standard, Red State are among the Republican, “establishment” media. They are supposed to be among the heavyweights in forming and reflecting Republican opinion. All of them have now come out against Donald Trump. Of course all the more liberal media (NYT, WaPo, LA Times, Boston Globe, Politico …) came out heavily against Trump some time ago. The left-wing media (HuffPo, New Yorker, Slate …) went so far as first dismissing Trump, then trying to laugh him off but are now all reporting him -albeit reluctantly – as the embodiment of all that is “bad”. (I discount the brainless part of the US media represented by CNN and NBC and Fox News).

When the left and liberal media attacked Trump, it seemed to energise his Republican supporters. No establishment figure has appeared to be the white knight for the Republicans. As Trump’s support has survived and thrived, the Republican “establishment” media have become increasingly agitated. Initially they were quite circumspect in their criticisms but have now started a concerted attack on Trump.

But the curious thing is that even the attacks from the Republican side of the “establishment” seem to feed Trump’s support.

Reuters rolling poll 22nd January

Reuters rolling poll 22nd January

Attacking Trump – from any direction – only seems to strengthen his support. That suggests that his support is coming from those who feel that their fears are completely unrepresented by any of the other candidates. The 2016 election is dominated, I think,  by the avoidance of worst fears and not by the meeting of aspirations.  It could well be that nobody will be able to take away from Trump’s support unless they can articulate the same disdain for establishment politics and political correctness that he does and address the worst fears that exist.

If no Republican is prepared to take away the ground he stands on, by occupying the same ground, then Trump could well be the Republican nominee. And if the Democratic candidate also ignores the ground he stands on, the result could be a very close run thing.

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Obama’s goodbye elevates Trump

January 13, 2016

I didn’t stay up to watch Obama’s final State of the Union address live, but have just read the transcript and a few reports.

It was a goodbye speech. He came in hope and leaves still counselling hope. Though the country’s economic position is inevitably better now than it was in 2009 in the valley of the financial crash, he leaves, as I perceive, a country with a much higher level of fears than of hope.

I was a little surprised that he attacked Trump (though not by name) as much as he did. I suspect that being elevated to the level of being the subject of a State of the Union address, by a sitting President, can only benefit Trump. Especially as Trump was being written off as not worthy of any consideration, of any kind, just a few months ago. His playing down of the monsters of Al Qaida and ISIS, born of twisted interpretations of Islam, but nurtured largely by US policy (including Obama’s), also fuels Trump’s narrative.

Obama has not lived up to the expectations that his own rhetoric had engendered. “Yes, we can” has morphed to “Well, we could have”.

History may remember Obama, vaguely, for his Syrian misadventures. He may even be remembered as having attempted to introduce universal health care. History may also record that his tenure was characterised by an aversion to risk and some paralysis-by-analysis. But he will primarily be remembered as having been the first half-black President of the US and of having served for 8 years, but without special distinction.

A passing grade then for the speech, a C+ and maybe even a B-, but not much more.

 

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If Executive Action is the President’s prerogative, why has it taken 7 years?

January 6, 2016

If the theatrically announced Executive Actions yesterday by Barack Obama have always been available to him, and if he feels so strongly about background checks on those buying guns, why, then, has it taken him 7 years to implement?

If gun control is the objective then it is very little and much too late. Personally I think that the issue of gun control is just an excuse used to avoid having to deal with the much greater malaise. The availability of guns may be of some consequence, but is not the root cause of the existence of the mass killers. I see that as the inexorable rise of permissiveness – the doctrine that encourages bad behaviour to be excused (not just explained) for “extenuating circumstances”. And upbringing, culture, laziness, lack of intelligence and poverty are all considered extenuating factors. Just being a member of a “minority” is taken to be extenuating. The incompetence of parenting is considered extenuating but the genes of the parents are not. The mass killings in the US are not going to stop with cosmetic gun control measures. My point is that the blind, almost religious, deference to political correctness has contributed – and may be the primary cause – of a permissive society generating mass killers. It is the same religion which has led to the failed doctrine of multiculturalism in Europe.

“Deference to political correctness” occurs when a theoretical dogma overrules evidence and reality. It starts with the belief that “I know best what is good for you”. It includes increased government regulation to protect groups and individuals considered to be “disadvantaged” from being held responsible for their actions. It is 50 years (3 generations) of “affirmative action” where one unfairness is imposed to try and correct some other perceived unfairness. It is the illogical belief that the poor are poor because the rich are rich which makes a god of “wealth redistribution”. It focuses on levelling down rather than levelling up. It tries to impose a lack of values. Individuals are no longer allowed to – or even considered able to – decide what is “good” or what is “bad”. It is a denial of the fundamental ability of a human to be able exercise judgement on the basis of his values.

I am more than a little suspicious of Obama’s “tears on demand” especially when it was at a carefully stage-managed performance which took weeks in preparation.

Mail&Guardian:Obama’s executive order is an attempt to bypass this legislative deadlock.

The executive order has been carefully crafted to survive a court challenge. It does not erase the distinction between business and private firearms sales. Rather, it broadens the definition of a business and provides for stricter enforcement of restrictions on business sales by hiring additional personnel to conduct background checks.

Yet, even the president has admitted that the executive order is “not going to prevent every mass shooting”.

There is evidence that unregulated private sales – over the internet and at gun shows – are a source of guns for individuals who are ineligible to purchase or possess a firearm. However, the weapons used in recent mass shootings in San Bernardino and Umpqua Community College in Oregon were acquired legally at federally licensed gun stores or through private transactions that likely wouldn’t be affected by Obama’s new rules. In other words, the president’s executive order would not have stopped these shooters.

The president’s executive order and its focus on the “gun-show loophole” is largely political theatre. Act II will be his upcoming town hall meeting on CNN.

Assuming Obama’s actions are of some value, why have they taken 7 years?

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Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby and droit du seigneur

December 31, 2015

I noted – or thought I noted – that Hillary Clinton’s attack on Trump’s “sexist attitudes” petered out when he responded by bringing up Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. How Bill Clinton got away with his blatant sexism and treatment of women in awe of his position still perplexes me. It was a period when a display of “sexual power” by Bill Clinton in the US seemed to be admired by the electorate just as much as Silvio Berlusconi’s bunga-bunga excesses were admired by the electorate in Italy.

I am not sure though that what Bill Clinton got away with as a minor transgressions, can be transformed and utilised by Hillary Clinton as being something positive and to her benefit. In fact, that she was quite as forgiving of his peccadilloes as she was does not reflect that well on her today. It suggests that she also shared his attitudes of the time. It will not be long before his strategic blunders in Somalia and his downright cowardice in Rwanda are compared to her apparent incompetence in Benghazi, Libya.

But today as Bill Cosby finally faces a criminal charge, it occurred to me that there is a commonality of the attitudes exhibited by Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby. They both felt their positions entitled them to certain “perquisites”. No doubt it was, to some extent, an attitude of the times they reigned in, but that does not excuse them. There were very many others of their time, who also reigned as kings of all they surveyed, but who did not succumb to the de facto power they had. They both effectively believed in a form of Droit du Seigneur. Bill Cosby reigned as king of the TV world and all aspiring young women, who felt he could be of some advantage to their careers, were seen by him as “fair game”and part of his right of office. Bill Clinton was king of the White House, and all female groupies, interns and the like caught up in his train, were also seen as “fair game”, and part of his perquisites of office. Neither could (or can) see that they did anything wrong. Hillary Clinton also accepted – perhaps reluctantly and only by default – Bill Clinton’s Droit de Seigneur at that time. Her relatively weak “feminist” credentials are not enhanced by her acceptance of Bill Clinton’s transgressions.

It does not mean that Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton were not likeable. They still are. So was Rolf Harris. But they represent a time that has gone and attitudes that are not defensible – even for their times. They could have chosen – as others chose – not to indulge in the excesses available to them.

I am not sure that Hillary Clinton can get any advantage – except among the already converted – by relying too much on Bill Clinton’s support.

 

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Time running out to stop Trump

December 23, 2015

The US Presidential election beats the new Star Wars for plot and entertainment.

The latest Reuter’s rolling poll shows Carson and Cruz fading and Trump consolidating his position. Clinton-Trump match-ups are meaningless for the moment since the currently secret Democrats for Trump will start coming out of the woodwork only after he has won the nomination – and that will not be till July 2016. Trump’s support is now three times larger than that of his nearest rival.

Reuters Rolling Poll Republicans 22nd December 2015

Reuters Rolling Poll Republicans 22nd December 2015

The primaries start in February and there is little time left for the Republican establishment to stop Trump. I suspect that they will fall in behind Trump if he maintains this lead till March.

Republican primary schedule

Republican primary schedule

I have a theory – which is a little far-fetched – that if it becomes a Trump – Clinton battle, the Democrats for Trump could include large chunks of traditional white, middle-class, liberals who are running a little scared of the demographic changes taking place. It might be thought that the immigrant communities would all be strongly Democratic, but Trump will play successfully to the entrepreneurial instincts that are so strong among many of them. In this scenario, a large section of these “immigrants” would prefer a lively Trump to a jaded Clinton. So, in my theory, Donald Trump could well split the white, liberal vote and even the “immigrant” vote while the Democrats will retain the bulk of the black vote and of the less enterprising immigrant community.

It’s just a theory, of course, but I expect an eventual Trump-Clinton fight to be much more favourable to Trump than the conventional wisdom allows. In any event, it could be a vastly entertaining election.

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Do many Democrats secretly support Trump?

December 12, 2015

The US Presidential election is at a fascinating stage. Clarity may come in a few months, but it could still develop into something of a thriller. Talking to some of my American friends, I have been surprised to find that under the vocal indignation about Donald Trump’s clowning and his outrageous comments, there is an undercurrent of admiration for his “stating of things as they really are”. Much of the criticism of Trump, it seems, is because it is expected of them.

The US Presidential election in 2016 is clearly going to be dominated by the issue of immigration. (This holds also for every election that will be held in any country in Europe and for the regional elections in France tomorrow). Economy and taxes and health care will all, I think, trail immigration by a large margin. And that puts Trump in a rather peculiar but unique position. It may well be that Trump is a “figure of this time”; that he is in the right place at the right time. Immigration, itself, is not a single issue and consists of a number of differentiated issues, such as:

  • “illegals” and their regularisation,
  • citizenship and the commitments to acquire citizenship
  • must all (meaning Muslim) immigrants explicitly assert the supremacy of the law of the land over religious Laws (meaning Sharia),
  • prevention of future illegal entry,
  • the entry rules for the relatives of immigrants who are not citizens
  • screening of would be entrants.

It is politically incorrect for any Democrat to admit to any liking for any Republican and – at the present time – quite unthinkable to consider Donald Trump as anything but a pariah. But I sense a thread of support for Donald Trump from the more centrist Democrats and even some immigrants, which will remain hidden and may only show up next November – assuming, of course, that he gets to be a candidate, either for the Republicans or as an Independent.

I am old enough to remember the Reagan elections and I see a parallel between Trump and Reagan. Just as the Reagan Democrats appeared suddenly in droves, I suspect there could be a significant number of secret Trump Democrats who will not (dare not) surface until the real Presidential election. It is worth remembering, that on many issues Trump is remarkably closer to Democratic dogma rather than traditional Republican positions. I remember how incredulous many commentators were at the idea of Reagan, a not very good B-movie, cinema actor, becoming President. There is a similar kind of incredulity about Trump as a serious contender at the present time.

The Atlantic: Like Reagan, Trump is a former Democrat and a one-time TV star, whom the media initially dismissed as having little chance of reaching the White House. But there is a more significant parallel that has gone unnoticed: Trump is running on essentially the same message as Reagan. Reagan insisted that America’s problems were not as complicated or intractable as everyone seemed to think. “For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension,” Reagan said at his 1967 inauguration as governor of California. “Well, the truth is, there are simple answers—there are not easy ones.”

And of course that is a very powerful message – perhaps an insight. There is always a simple answer which always provides a clear direction. Ways and means for implementing an answer may be difficult but the direction remains clear. It makes a change from politicians who feel it necessary to justify their lack of achievement by over-complicating issues.

Trump does not fit into the normal, standard shape of a conventional Democrat or a Republican. Many minority and immigrant groups also find him difficult to easily classify. Immigrants, especially newly arrived immigrants, have mixed feelings about further immigration and and how it affects their own insecurities. Latinos are incensed at Trump’s comments about immigration, but quite like his hard line about Islamic terrorists. East European immigrants are also attracted to this hard line about both Mexican illegal immigrants and Muslim terrorists. Asian immigrants can be split generally into two groups; Muslims mainly from Islamic countries and non-Muslims. Many of the non-Muslims feel threatened by the Islamisation of their communities and the insidious, creeping encroachment of – and perceived silent surrender to – Sharia Law. A large portion of the Asian communities are not comfortable with the influx of illegal, Latino immigrants. The black community, in my perception, detests the influx of Asians and their perceived economic successes. Asians themselves consider themselves superior, especially academically, intellectually and in business, to the black community. Even the black Muslims feel under threat from all the “new Muslims”, since they come quite low down in the hierarchy of “true Muslims”. Normally the bulk of the immigrant population in the US would be Democratic supporters, but Trump is tapping into some of their greatest fears of other immigrant groups. There is also – I think – a large section of the white, middle-class Democratic support which is inhibited from expressing its fears of immigration and Islamisation and are suddenly quite glad that these fears are being expressed by somebody – even if it is only a Trump.

Of course any support for Trump from the usually Democratic voters is a moot point unless he manages to get on the ballot next November. It occurs to me that many of them would be more likely to vote for Trump if he was labelled an Independent rather than a Republican. So one possible scenario is that Trump will be so far ahead in the Republican race that the GOP establishment decide to have a brokered convention and choose someone other than Trump. That would cause Trump to jump the Republican ship and go Independent – but as late as possible, and in as damaging a way as possible for the Republicans. The conventional wisdom is that an Independent Trump would lose too many votes to even a weak Republican, and that it would be a complete walk-over for Hillary Clinton.

Conventional wisdom, though, is not proving to be very reliable or very prophetic.

 

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Trump is changing the field of play as he prepares for an arbitration

December 9, 2015

There isn’t a single paper or TV station, or Democrat that isn’t enraged by Trump’s call to ban all Muslim entries to the US temporarily. The column miles that are being written by the pundits vie to each present a more vicious and indignant rejection of his views than the previous one. Trump is being called all kinds of things. In fact, some of the hyperbole applied and the invective is worse than anything Trump ever came up with. He is labelled a clown, a fool, a racist, an opportunist and even a fascist. Most often he is labelled a demagogue, compared to Mussolini, and even, but a little more circumspectly, to Hitler (for fear of Godwin’s Law). He has got more publicity and column-miles and TV exposure than all the other candidates, Democrat and Republican, together. The consensus wisdom is that if he wins the Republican nomination – which is said to be highly unlikely – then it will be a walk-over for Clinton.

But I wonder.

Let me use an analogy from the business world, not least because that’s where Trump comes from. Let’s suppose that the American election is an arbitration process between two parties in conflict. First, each party prepares its initial submission. This is a litany of the most extreme positions and a collection of the most outrageous claims against the other party that can possibly be imagined. Such a submission, from my experience, fails the test if our own lawyers do not themselves cringe from the extravagance of the claims. The initial submission often contains embarrassingly tenuous and far-fetched claims, ignores any semblance of rational thought and just baldly asserts the claims. In my analogy then the nomination process is this preparation of the initial submission. Trump and Clinton are the lawyers hoping to be engaged and are preparing the submissions they propose to begin with. The Presidential election itself is then the arbitration hearing with the American electorate as the arbitrator. In such hearings the arbitrators are primarily interested in seeing which claims fall away and can be put aside. That depends on how well each party presents each outrageous claim and how effective the other party is in nullifying it. Ultimately the arbitrators rule, based – not on abstract notions of natural justice – but on a practical, prevailing “centre of gravity” position, from among the surviving claims. Arbitrators are concerned with the best justifiable result rather than with justness or fairness. Invariably, an arbitration result favours that party which can protect its own outlandish claims while destroying the opponents claims.

Arbitration Result

Arbitration Result where Clinton is Party 1 and Trump is Party 2

We always used specialist lawyers, rather than our usual contract lawyers, for arbitration cases during my working career. They were the experts at stretching claims. Initially, I used to cringe at some of the shameless and barely justifiable claims that were introduced into our initial submissions. But it soon became clear to me that the critical step was in establishing the shape and the width of the field of play, by extending its area way beyond our desired final result. An arbitration was then a negotiation of claims – under special rules – on the playing field so established. A party comes closest to its desired result by expanding the area of its claims such that the desired result becomes – for the arbitrator – the centre of gravity position of the claims surviving the negotiation.

I see something similar in the way Trump is proceeding. I begin to wonder if Trump does not actually see himself as being in an arbitration in front of the US electorate as the final arbitrator. His over-the-top comments about illegal immigration and “the wall” and now his outrageous proposals about temporarily keeping all Muslims out, are actually defining the boundaries of his playing field. His outlandish claims have to be shot down but the new field of play is established. But just shooting down the claims is not enough. Unless the Democrats are equally outrageous, the field of play remains the one he has defined.

I think the media and the Democrats are missing that the playing field itself is being skewed by Trump’s apparently insane assertions. Every crazy position he has taken is now on the table and part of the discourse. He has been declared dead so many times by the pundits that I no longer take any obituary at face value. And the Democrats will have to shift the playing field if Trump does win the GOP nomination. Merely attacking Trump on his own playing field could prove to be quite ineffective.

Trump is playing a different game to his Republican rivals and to the Democrats. He is not preparing for an election. He is preparing his case for arbitration next November. On his field of play. My expectation is that at some time Trump will go Independent and change the game again.

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Obama has become the best friend the gun manufacturers have

December 7, 2015

Beyond my previous post, this needs no comment.

Market Watch:

Shares of the two publicly traded gun makers rallied on Monday, a day after President Barack Obama gave a prime-time address calling for a modest reduction in the availability of firearms. Both Smith & Wesson SWHC, +7.64%  and Sturm Ruger & Co. RGR, +5.78%  rose over 7% on Monday. 

Smith & Wesson has climbed 116% this year and Sturm Ruger has jumped 69%.

Gun stocks spike after Obama’s speech (graphic – MarketWatch)

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