Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 1004
August 25, 2015
Bob Odenkirk forces Jimmy Kimmel to ask him the questions everyone is too afraid to ask
Bob Odenkirk is convinced that everyone has been a lot nicer to him since the news broke that he'd been nominated for his first-ever Emmy for "Better Call Saul" -- too nice, in the actor's opinion. That's why, while appearing on "Jimmy Kimmel" Monday night, Odenkirk resolved to bring his own hard-hitting questions to the interview, the ones he wished people would ask him. "I feel like you're the type of guy who could cut through the B.S. and ask me the real questions," Odenkirk said, before handing Kimmel a stack of notecards. Among the "questions": "Why are you trying to steal Jon Hamm's Emmy" and "You're ugly. Discuss." Watch the clip courtesy of Jimmy Kimmel Live below: Bob Odenkirk is convinced that everyone has been a lot nicer to him since the news broke that he'd been nominated for his first-ever Emmy for "Better Call Saul" -- too nice, in the actor's opinion. That's why, while appearing on "Jimmy Kimmel" Monday night, Odenkirk resolved to bring his own hard-hitting questions to the interview, the ones he wished people would ask him. "I feel like you're the type of guy who could cut through the B.S. and ask me the real questions," Odenkirk said, before handing Kimmel a stack of notecards. Among the "questions": "Why are you trying to steal Jon Hamm's Emmy" and "You're ugly. Discuss." Watch the clip courtesy of Jimmy Kimmel Live below:
Bernie Sanders is wrong about the Koch brothers: They’re even more dangerous than he thinks
Bear with me for a second, because this is going to sound like a #Slatepitch or a hot take at first, I know. But after catching up on the latest from U.S. senator and presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders, who “delighted” a crowd of roughly 3,000 South Carolinians at a campaign rally this weekend, according to the Associated Press, I feel compelled to register a mild criticism. And it’s probably one of the last you’d expect to be leveled against this longtime, unapologetic democratic socialist. Here it is: I think Sanders is going way too easy on Charles and David Koch. Granted, that probably sounds ridiculous. After all, it was only a few days ago that Sanders was calling out the 1 percent, telling the folks in South Carolina that “a handful of very, very wealthy people have extraordinary power over our economy and our political life and the media.” He even bothered to single out the Kochs for special opprobrium. “For the life of me,” he confessed, “I will never understand how a family like the Koch brothers, worth $85 billion, apparently think that's not enough money.” Like their fellow plutocrats, Sanders said, the Kochs “are very, very powerful.” What makes them different from the rest, though, according to Sanders, is the fact that the Kochs are “extremely greedy,” too. Sanders didn’t come out and say it, of course, but the implication was quite clear: As far as the senator from Vermont was concerned, what motivated the billionaire Koch brothers to spend untold millions on turning America into a Randian paradise was greed, one of humanity’s most mundane and timeless vices. Oh, if only it were so simple. If only the pseudo third-party the Kochs have constructed were designed for no higher purpose than its owners’ enrichment. Because if that were true, defeating the Kochs — and their mammoth, unwieldy so-called Kochtopus — wouldn’t be so difficult. The venal are easily coopted; and while many a popular movement has been manipulated for the wealthy, few if any have admitted it. (Stripped of any idealistic veneer, the allure of such a cause is rather weak.) In that circumstance, reducing the Kochs’ status within American politics to that of any other ultra-wealthy special interests would be a breeze. With the notable exception of sociopaths who thought Gordon Gekko was the hero of “Wall Street,” no one thinks greed is a good thing; and “I want more, more, more!” is not a winning campaign slogan. Exposed as covetous misers, the Kochs would become pariahs. Maybe their example would convince other plutocrats that such public corruption wasn’t worth the risk. Thing is, if we lived in such a world already, we wouldn’t need Bernie Sanders. If the hollowness and impracticality of Koch-style libertarianism were so obvious, there’d be no need to portray them as such menaces to society at large, because their influence would be meager already. That’s not to say that the Kochs’ wealth doesn’t bestow on them a disproportionate level of power. It does, absolutely. But it is to say that for those who aren’t on Sanders’ side already, the Kochs’ villainy is not self-evident. However, there’s another reason why Sanders’ shrugging off the Kochs as purely greedy is a mistake, and it’s one that has more to do with the mindset of his followers than any potential recruit. Simply put, if those who support Sanders and social democracy in general want to defeat the Kochs, they’ll need to take them more seriously. And they’ll need to grapple with the possibility that despite being out-of-touch anti-government zealots, the Koch brothers, like the road to hell, really do have the best intentions. That doesn’t mean the rest of us should lay off or play nice, mind you. It just means recognizing that, as the American Prospect’s Paul Waldman once wrote, “no one thinks they're the villain of their own story.” And in this respect, if no others, the Kochs aren’t any different. Now, having said all that, my argument that Sanders is being “too easy” on the Kochs might seem odd. But I don’t mean that he’s going too easy on them in respect to their character or their overall impact on the world. Rather, I mean that he’s selling them short with regard to their seriousness as a threat to not just the welfare state but the whole idea of popular government. Because what the Kochs have built, and what they are still building, is not about them or their bank accounts. It’s far more ambitious. If the Kochs were to pull a “Leftovers” and disappear tomorrow, for example, it wouldn’t cause the many far-right and libertarian organizations they support to vanish, which is what you’d expect to happen if increasing the family’s fortune was the true goal. Instead, some other coalition of plutocrats from above and reactionaries from below would step in. Because, ultimately, American conservatism is bigger than the Kochs, no matter how many billions they have at their disposal. It’s an ideology, not a scheme. And since conservatism promises to maintain many social privileges (and not only those of the wealthy) that’s not a superficial distinction. Yet even if you don’t buy that analysis, there’s this: If you want to defeat your opponent, you need to understand them first. Sure, the Kochs are secretive and their motivations can be murky. But whatever it is that keeps them fighting, greed — and greed alone — isn’t it.
“The bimbo’s back in town”: Donald Trump live-tweets Megyn Kelly’s return to Fox News
Megyn Kelly returned from her suspiciously timed vacation Monday night, and Donald Trump -- who likely had a role in the timing of her absence -- couldn't pass up the opportunity to live-tweet her homecoming. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... Although Trump merely retweeted someone else calling Kelly a "bimbo," it's worth noting that it's the second time he's done so. It's almost as if he believes that while retweets aren't endorsements, repeatedly retweeting the same insult about the same person won't give people the impression that it's a belief he shares with followers. Once he had finished dispatching Kelly, or whatever it was he thought he was doing, Trump turned his attention to Jeb Bush: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... At least he didn't attack Jeb for how he looks -- at least not yet, it's only 8:08 a.m. on the East Coast.Megyn Kelly returned from her suspiciously timed vacation Monday night, and Donald Trump -- who likely had a role in the timing of her absence -- couldn't pass up the opportunity to live-tweet her homecoming. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... Although Trump merely retweeted someone else calling Kelly a "bimbo," it's worth noting that it's the second time he's done so. It's almost as if he believes that while retweets aren't endorsements, repeatedly retweeting the same insult about the same person won't give people the impression that it's a belief he shares with followers. Once he had finished dispatching Kelly, or whatever it was he thought he was doing, Trump turned his attention to Jeb Bush: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... At least he didn't attack Jeb for how he looks -- at least not yet, it's only 8:08 a.m. on the East Coast.Megyn Kelly returned from her suspiciously timed vacation Monday night, and Donald Trump -- who likely had a role in the timing of her absence -- couldn't pass up the opportunity to live-tweet her homecoming. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... Although Trump merely retweeted someone else calling Kelly a "bimbo," it's worth noting that it's the second time he's done so. It's almost as if he believes that while retweets aren't endorsements, repeatedly retweeting the same insult about the same person won't give people the impression that it's a belief he shares with followers. Once he had finished dispatching Kelly, or whatever it was he thought he was doing, Trump turned his attention to Jeb Bush: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... At least he didn't attack Jeb for how he looks -- at least not yet, it's only 8:08 a.m. on the East Coast.Megyn Kelly returned from her suspiciously timed vacation Monday night, and Donald Trump -- who likely had a role in the timing of her absence -- couldn't pass up the opportunity to live-tweet her homecoming. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... Although Trump merely retweeted someone else calling Kelly a "bimbo," it's worth noting that it's the second time he's done so. It's almost as if he believes that while retweets aren't endorsements, repeatedly retweeting the same insult about the same person won't give people the impression that it's a belief he shares with followers. Once he had finished dispatching Kelly, or whatever it was he thought he was doing, Trump turned his attention to Jeb Bush: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... At least he didn't attack Jeb for how he looks -- at least not yet, it's only 8:08 a.m. on the East Coast.Megyn Kelly returned from her suspiciously timed vacation Monday night, and Donald Trump -- who likely had a role in the timing of her absence -- couldn't pass up the opportunity to live-tweet her homecoming. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... Although Trump merely retweeted someone else calling Kelly a "bimbo," it's worth noting that it's the second time he's done so. It's almost as if he believes that while retweets aren't endorsements, repeatedly retweeting the same insult about the same person won't give people the impression that it's a belief he shares with followers. Once he had finished dispatching Kelly, or whatever it was he thought he was doing, Trump turned his attention to Jeb Bush: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... At least he didn't attack Jeb for how he looks -- at least not yet, it's only 8:08 a.m. on the East Coast.Megyn Kelly returned from her suspiciously timed vacation Monday night, and Donald Trump -- who likely had a role in the timing of her absence -- couldn't pass up the opportunity to live-tweet her homecoming. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... Although Trump merely retweeted someone else calling Kelly a "bimbo," it's worth noting that it's the second time he's done so. It's almost as if he believes that while retweets aren't endorsements, repeatedly retweeting the same insult about the same person won't give people the impression that it's a belief he shares with followers. Once he had finished dispatching Kelly, or whatever it was he thought he was doing, Trump turned his attention to Jeb Bush: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... At least he didn't attack Jeb for how he looks -- at least not yet, it's only 8:08 a.m. on the East Coast.Megyn Kelly returned from her suspiciously timed vacation Monday night, and Donald Trump -- who likely had a role in the timing of her absence -- couldn't pass up the opportunity to live-tweet her homecoming. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... Although Trump merely retweeted someone else calling Kelly a "bimbo," it's worth noting that it's the second time he's done so. It's almost as if he believes that while retweets aren't endorsements, repeatedly retweeting the same insult about the same person won't give people the impression that it's a belief he shares with followers. Once he had finished dispatching Kelly, or whatever it was he thought he was doing, Trump turned his attention to Jeb Bush: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... At least he didn't attack Jeb for how he looks -- at least not yet, it's only 8:08 a.m. on the East Coast.
Donald Trump’s incoherent China-bashing: Why his response to yesterday’s market plunge is (vaguely racist) gibberish
On the morning of this week's stomach churning stock-market roller-coaster ride, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump came out swinging with an Instagram video shot heard round the world. Looking very seriously into the camera, he said:
"I've been telling everybody for a long time China's taking our jobs. They're taking our money. Be careful: They'll bring us down. You have to know what you're doing. We have nobody that has a clue."He followed up with some very strong, powerful, patriotic tweeting: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... As Politico reported, most Wall Street analysts scratched their heads at The Donald's "analysis"
The facts are that the U.S. economy is not actually highly tied to China. And many market strategists believe the U.S. market was ripe for a significant correction with valuations at historic highs and fears rising over coming interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. The Chinese decline was simply a convenient trigger. And by earlyMonday afternoon the Dow Jones industrial average had already reversed much of its initial 1,000-point drop. “China is a growing market for the U.S. but it is still very small. Even if you throw in all the rest of the emerging markets, it’s still just 2 percent of our GDP,” said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics. “It’s a problem for big U.S. companies like Apple and GM that want to take market share among Chinese consumers. But it’s not doing damage to most of the U.S. economy. And this is hardly a market calamity. It’s simply a correction that takes us back to where we were in the spring of 2014, which was a pretty good place.”Donald Trump is a very successful real estate magnate. But the way he talks about the world economy shows either that his knowledge is limited to some talk over drinks at the club or he's just a plain old nationalist demagogue. I'd guess the latter. He can't be that dim. The fact is that while immigrant bashing has been the big applause line in Trump's stump speeches, he has spent almost as much time bashing China and promoting himself as someone who "has a clue" about how to make the world economy work for Americans because he knows how to negotiate a deal. (He often digresses at this point into a long story about how nobody thought he could pull off the purchase of the Doral golf course but he went in there and kicked butt and took names. According to this, it was actually his 9 months pregnant daughter Ivanka who made that deal, but whatever.) Trump's appeal, therefore, is not limited to his harsh nativism. His chauvinism and nationalism are just as potent. Indeed, it's entirely possible that we will see a shift in the emphasis among all the Republican candidates, including The Donald, away from deportation and wall building to China and Japan bashing. One gets the sense -- from Jeb Bush's comment yesterday explaining that he was really referring to Asians with the term "anchor baby," as well as from Scott Walker's inane demand that the president cancel the Chinese premier's visit because of the stock market drop -- that someone has decided blaming Asians rather than Mexicans for whatever their voters are upset about is a smarter tactic. Asian Americans are a smaller voter demographic to be sure, and they moved pretty heavily into the Democratic column in recent elections. But the way these Republicans are going, every last racial and ethnic minority will feel personally insulted before anyone casts even one vote in Iowa. So how exactly does Trump plan to make good on all his talk? Trump told Joe Scarborough back in June that he would bring on his good friend investor Carl Icahn, former GE Chairman Jack Welch or KKR's Henry Kravis, all very famous names from the 1980s, as Treasury Secretary. He explained:
[China and Mexico] “are taking our business like we're a bunch of babies. We don't have our best and our brightest negotiating for us. We have a bunch of losers, we have a bunch of political hacks. We have diplomats. I know the smartest guys on Wall Street.I know our best negotiators. I know the overrated guys, the underrated guys, the guys that nobody ever heard of that are killers, that are great. We gotta use those people.” We have people that are better than any of their negotiators. ... We don't use them, Joe. We use people that are soft and weak and frankly stupid and incompetent.”He has since said he would also use them as trade representatives and other "negotiators" in various ways. Because they aren't "babies." In fact, they are all in their 70s. When Kravis heard this he reportedly said it was "scary" that Trump would want him to be Treasury Secretary. Icahn too at first demurred, saying that he was surprised that Trump would want him. After watching him debate he changed his mind and accepted the offer in a tweet: https://twitter.com/Carl_C_Icahn/stat... Tweeting must be the new medium for all those high level global negotiations Trump keeps talking about. No word from Welch as yet. But all this brings up some very interesting questions. Icahn, Kravis and Welch are progenitors of of the corporate-financier strategy that upended American business in the 1980s. Kravis was an inventor of private equity, Icahn was a notorious corporate raider, and Welch created the concept of the modern corporation. In fact, Welch famously set forth the idea that every manufacturing plant should be built on a barge so that factories could float between countries in order to profit from currency manipulation,subsidies, and low taxes or labor costs. How that would make America Great Again — as opposed to a few wealthy businessmen — remains unanswered. Carl Icahn, meanwhile, served as a model for the Gordon Gecko chatacyer in Wall Street" and has been called "one of the greediest men on earth." He's worth $25 billion or more, not quite as rich as a Koch brother, but certainly among the richest of the Masters of the Universe. He and Welch and and Kravis, Trump's boys, are the guys who would willingly bring down the state -- for profit. They are the swashbuckling business revolutionaries of the 1980s who made their careers as economic wrecking balls, loathed by the financial establishment for their destabilizing predatory activities and the destroyers of well-paying jobs for American workers. These are the men the GOP frontrunner wants to put in charge of the economy. As a friend of mine ominously put it the other day, "There might just be a group of 70-something-year-old billionaire revolutionaries who just think they can run the country directly instead of dealing with those pesky annoying politicians. They upended corporate America, which was much tougher than politics." These free-trading, corporate raiding, off-shoring billionaire contemporaries of Trump, the 2015 populist hero of the white working class which worships him for his phony advocacy on their behalf, represent the apotheosis of rapacious American corporate values. It would be funny if it weren't so frightening.
These candidates can’t take a joke: Inside the baffling humorlessness of presidential politics
“By he way, you may have seen that I have recently launched a Snapchat account,” Hillary Clinton told Iowans last month. “I love it—those messages disappear instantly, all by themselves.” The joke was on herself, of course, referring to the much-criticized private email account she used as Secretary of State. Since the dawn of the television era, our most skilled politicians have deflected attacks by making wisecracks at their own expense. But self-deprecating humor is in short supply on the 2016 campaign trail, where the candidates have mostly fired their one-liners at each other. A typical example: citing recent news reports about cyberattacks , Republican candidate Scott Walker said that Russia and China now know more about Clinton’s email server than do members of the U.S. Congress. For both parties, of course, the easiest target is Donald Trump. “Finally, a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine,” Clinton jibed. After Trump visited Iowa in his private helicopter, Bernie Sanders joked that he had left his own chopper at home. These kinds of quips might draw a few chuckles from from a campaign crowd, but they won’t humanize candidates—or disarm their opposition. To do that, you need to poke fun at yourself. Consider the master of the genre, John F. Kennedy. When he ran for president in 1960, JFK faced three big negatives: his family wealth, his Catholic religion, and his young age. So he made jokes about all three, which defused them better than any other retort could. “I just received a telegram from my father,” Kennedy told a campaign audience. “He says, ‘Don’t buy one more vote than you need. I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for a landslide.” To deflect fears that he’d take orders from the Vatican, Kennedy joked that the Pope had misspelled American cardinal Francis Spellman’s name. And when Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn suggested that JFK might be too young to be president, Kennedy replied, “Sam Rayburn may think I’m young, but then most of the population looks young to a man who’s 78.” The other president who excelled in self-deprecating humor was Ronald Reagan, who poked fun at his old age rather than his youth. He often quoted Thomas Jefferson’s claim that a person’s age shouldn’t be a barrier to public office. Then, after a pause, Reagan would add, “And when Tom told me that . . .” Reagan’s most famous quip came during a 1984 debate against his Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale. Noting that JFK had gone for days without sleep during the Cuban missile crisis, a reporter asked Reagan—who was already the oldest president in American history—whether he “would be able to function in such circumstances.” Reagan smiled, then replied. “I want you to know that I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Reagan’s staff had obviously anticipated the question and had prepared a snappy reply, courtesy of the jokewriters that were paid to sprinkle levity into his speeches and press conferences. That practice also went back to Kennedy, who hired several humorists for his 1960 campaign. So did JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, whose “Humor Group”—as his jokewriters called themselves--assembled on Mondays at 5 p.m., in an office stocked with liquor. They included a young author named Peter Benchley, who would later make millions from his best-selling novel Jaws. But most of their jokes never made it into LBJ’s speeches. Lacking the Ivy League polish of Kennedy and other East Coast elites, LBJ also lacked the confidence to poke fun at himself. So he rejected any jokes that were even mildly self-deprecating, deeming them “unpresidential.” Ditto for Richard Nixon, who was simply too uncomfortable in his own skin to make jokes at his own expense. Like LBJ, Nixon displayed a sardonic wit when sparring with the press. But he could never affect the happy-go-lucky humor that Americans appreciate, as his own staff realized. “HUMOR—Can be corrected to a degree, but let’s not get too obvious about it,” one adviser wrote in 1968, during Nixon’s successful bid for the White House. “If we’re going to be witty, let a pro write the words.” (Nixon demurred, refusing to hire a full-time comic for the campaign.) Gerald Ford brought a bit more humor to the White House, even doing a gag at a journalists’ dinner about his alleged clumsiness. But Jimmy Carter was all business, often rejecting jokes that his staff inserted in his speeches. “If the American people wanted Bob Hope for their president, they should have elected him,” Carter snapped. We do want someone who can laugh at themselves, however. And since Reagan, that’s been hard to come by. The two Bush presidents? Too awkward. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? Too cerebral. Channeling Reagan, GOP candidates Mike Huckabee and George Pataki have made some cute quips about their respective ages. Huckabee said that most of America’s B-52’s were older than he was—“and that’s pretty scary”—and Pataki joked that he had been considering a White House run “since the Civil War.” Otherwise, though, it’s slim pickings for self-deprecating humor in 2016. Hillary’s joke about her email was the exception that proves the rule. Get ready for candidates to lob barbs at each other, not at themselves. It won’t be pretty. And it probably won’t be very funny, either.“By he way, you may have seen that I have recently launched a Snapchat account,” Hillary Clinton told Iowans last month. “I love it—those messages disappear instantly, all by themselves.” The joke was on herself, of course, referring to the much-criticized private email account she used as Secretary of State. Since the dawn of the television era, our most skilled politicians have deflected attacks by making wisecracks at their own expense. But self-deprecating humor is in short supply on the 2016 campaign trail, where the candidates have mostly fired their one-liners at each other. A typical example: citing recent news reports about cyberattacks , Republican candidate Scott Walker said that Russia and China now know more about Clinton’s email server than do members of the U.S. Congress. For both parties, of course, the easiest target is Donald Trump. “Finally, a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine,” Clinton jibed. After Trump visited Iowa in his private helicopter, Bernie Sanders joked that he had left his own chopper at home. These kinds of quips might draw a few chuckles from from a campaign crowd, but they won’t humanize candidates—or disarm their opposition. To do that, you need to poke fun at yourself. Consider the master of the genre, John F. Kennedy. When he ran for president in 1960, JFK faced three big negatives: his family wealth, his Catholic religion, and his young age. So he made jokes about all three, which defused them better than any other retort could. “I just received a telegram from my father,” Kennedy told a campaign audience. “He says, ‘Don’t buy one more vote than you need. I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for a landslide.” To deflect fears that he’d take orders from the Vatican, Kennedy joked that the Pope had misspelled American cardinal Francis Spellman’s name. And when Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn suggested that JFK might be too young to be president, Kennedy replied, “Sam Rayburn may think I’m young, but then most of the population looks young to a man who’s 78.” The other president who excelled in self-deprecating humor was Ronald Reagan, who poked fun at his old age rather than his youth. He often quoted Thomas Jefferson’s claim that a person’s age shouldn’t be a barrier to public office. Then, after a pause, Reagan would add, “And when Tom told me that . . .” Reagan’s most famous quip came during a 1984 debate against his Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale. Noting that JFK had gone for days without sleep during the Cuban missile crisis, a reporter asked Reagan—who was already the oldest president in American history—whether he “would be able to function in such circumstances.” Reagan smiled, then replied. “I want you to know that I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Reagan’s staff had obviously anticipated the question and had prepared a snappy reply, courtesy of the jokewriters that were paid to sprinkle levity into his speeches and press conferences. That practice also went back to Kennedy, who hired several humorists for his 1960 campaign. So did JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, whose “Humor Group”—as his jokewriters called themselves--assembled on Mondays at 5 p.m., in an office stocked with liquor. They included a young author named Peter Benchley, who would later make millions from his best-selling novel Jaws. But most of their jokes never made it into LBJ’s speeches. Lacking the Ivy League polish of Kennedy and other East Coast elites, LBJ also lacked the confidence to poke fun at himself. So he rejected any jokes that were even mildly self-deprecating, deeming them “unpresidential.” Ditto for Richard Nixon, who was simply too uncomfortable in his own skin to make jokes at his own expense. Like LBJ, Nixon displayed a sardonic wit when sparring with the press. But he could never affect the happy-go-lucky humor that Americans appreciate, as his own staff realized. “HUMOR—Can be corrected to a degree, but let’s not get too obvious about it,” one adviser wrote in 1968, during Nixon’s successful bid for the White House. “If we’re going to be witty, let a pro write the words.” (Nixon demurred, refusing to hire a full-time comic for the campaign.) Gerald Ford brought a bit more humor to the White House, even doing a gag at a journalists’ dinner about his alleged clumsiness. But Jimmy Carter was all business, often rejecting jokes that his staff inserted in his speeches. “If the American people wanted Bob Hope for their president, they should have elected him,” Carter snapped. We do want someone who can laugh at themselves, however. And since Reagan, that’s been hard to come by. The two Bush presidents? Too awkward. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? Too cerebral. Channeling Reagan, GOP candidates Mike Huckabee and George Pataki have made some cute quips about their respective ages. Huckabee said that most of America’s B-52’s were older than he was—“and that’s pretty scary”—and Pataki joked that he had been considering a White House run “since the Civil War.” Otherwise, though, it’s slim pickings for self-deprecating humor in 2016. Hillary’s joke about her email was the exception that proves the rule. Get ready for candidates to lob barbs at each other, not at themselves. It won’t be pretty. And it probably won’t be very funny, either.“By he way, you may have seen that I have recently launched a Snapchat account,” Hillary Clinton told Iowans last month. “I love it—those messages disappear instantly, all by themselves.” The joke was on herself, of course, referring to the much-criticized private email account she used as Secretary of State. Since the dawn of the television era, our most skilled politicians have deflected attacks by making wisecracks at their own expense. But self-deprecating humor is in short supply on the 2016 campaign trail, where the candidates have mostly fired their one-liners at each other. A typical example: citing recent news reports about cyberattacks , Republican candidate Scott Walker said that Russia and China now know more about Clinton’s email server than do members of the U.S. Congress. For both parties, of course, the easiest target is Donald Trump. “Finally, a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine,” Clinton jibed. After Trump visited Iowa in his private helicopter, Bernie Sanders joked that he had left his own chopper at home. These kinds of quips might draw a few chuckles from from a campaign crowd, but they won’t humanize candidates—or disarm their opposition. To do that, you need to poke fun at yourself. Consider the master of the genre, John F. Kennedy. When he ran for president in 1960, JFK faced three big negatives: his family wealth, his Catholic religion, and his young age. So he made jokes about all three, which defused them better than any other retort could. “I just received a telegram from my father,” Kennedy told a campaign audience. “He says, ‘Don’t buy one more vote than you need. I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for a landslide.” To deflect fears that he’d take orders from the Vatican, Kennedy joked that the Pope had misspelled American cardinal Francis Spellman’s name. And when Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn suggested that JFK might be too young to be president, Kennedy replied, “Sam Rayburn may think I’m young, but then most of the population looks young to a man who’s 78.” The other president who excelled in self-deprecating humor was Ronald Reagan, who poked fun at his old age rather than his youth. He often quoted Thomas Jefferson’s claim that a person’s age shouldn’t be a barrier to public office. Then, after a pause, Reagan would add, “And when Tom told me that . . .” Reagan’s most famous quip came during a 1984 debate against his Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale. Noting that JFK had gone for days without sleep during the Cuban missile crisis, a reporter asked Reagan—who was already the oldest president in American history—whether he “would be able to function in such circumstances.” Reagan smiled, then replied. “I want you to know that I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Reagan’s staff had obviously anticipated the question and had prepared a snappy reply, courtesy of the jokewriters that were paid to sprinkle levity into his speeches and press conferences. That practice also went back to Kennedy, who hired several humorists for his 1960 campaign. So did JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, whose “Humor Group”—as his jokewriters called themselves--assembled on Mondays at 5 p.m., in an office stocked with liquor. They included a young author named Peter Benchley, who would later make millions from his best-selling novel Jaws. But most of their jokes never made it into LBJ’s speeches. Lacking the Ivy League polish of Kennedy and other East Coast elites, LBJ also lacked the confidence to poke fun at himself. So he rejected any jokes that were even mildly self-deprecating, deeming them “unpresidential.” Ditto for Richard Nixon, who was simply too uncomfortable in his own skin to make jokes at his own expense. Like LBJ, Nixon displayed a sardonic wit when sparring with the press. But he could never affect the happy-go-lucky humor that Americans appreciate, as his own staff realized. “HUMOR—Can be corrected to a degree, but let’s not get too obvious about it,” one adviser wrote in 1968, during Nixon’s successful bid for the White House. “If we’re going to be witty, let a pro write the words.” (Nixon demurred, refusing to hire a full-time comic for the campaign.) Gerald Ford brought a bit more humor to the White House, even doing a gag at a journalists’ dinner about his alleged clumsiness. But Jimmy Carter was all business, often rejecting jokes that his staff inserted in his speeches. “If the American people wanted Bob Hope for their president, they should have elected him,” Carter snapped. We do want someone who can laugh at themselves, however. And since Reagan, that’s been hard to come by. The two Bush presidents? Too awkward. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? Too cerebral. Channeling Reagan, GOP candidates Mike Huckabee and George Pataki have made some cute quips about their respective ages. Huckabee said that most of America’s B-52’s were older than he was—“and that’s pretty scary”—and Pataki joked that he had been considering a White House run “since the Civil War.” Otherwise, though, it’s slim pickings for self-deprecating humor in 2016. Hillary’s joke about her email was the exception that proves the rule. Get ready for candidates to lob barbs at each other, not at themselves. It won’t be pretty. And it probably won’t be very funny, either.“By he way, you may have seen that I have recently launched a Snapchat account,” Hillary Clinton told Iowans last month. “I love it—those messages disappear instantly, all by themselves.” The joke was on herself, of course, referring to the much-criticized private email account she used as Secretary of State. Since the dawn of the television era, our most skilled politicians have deflected attacks by making wisecracks at their own expense. But self-deprecating humor is in short supply on the 2016 campaign trail, where the candidates have mostly fired their one-liners at each other. A typical example: citing recent news reports about cyberattacks , Republican candidate Scott Walker said that Russia and China now know more about Clinton’s email server than do members of the U.S. Congress. For both parties, of course, the easiest target is Donald Trump. “Finally, a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine,” Clinton jibed. After Trump visited Iowa in his private helicopter, Bernie Sanders joked that he had left his own chopper at home. These kinds of quips might draw a few chuckles from from a campaign crowd, but they won’t humanize candidates—or disarm their opposition. To do that, you need to poke fun at yourself. Consider the master of the genre, John F. Kennedy. When he ran for president in 1960, JFK faced three big negatives: his family wealth, his Catholic religion, and his young age. So he made jokes about all three, which defused them better than any other retort could. “I just received a telegram from my father,” Kennedy told a campaign audience. “He says, ‘Don’t buy one more vote than you need. I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for a landslide.” To deflect fears that he’d take orders from the Vatican, Kennedy joked that the Pope had misspelled American cardinal Francis Spellman’s name. And when Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn suggested that JFK might be too young to be president, Kennedy replied, “Sam Rayburn may think I’m young, but then most of the population looks young to a man who’s 78.” The other president who excelled in self-deprecating humor was Ronald Reagan, who poked fun at his old age rather than his youth. He often quoted Thomas Jefferson’s claim that a person’s age shouldn’t be a barrier to public office. Then, after a pause, Reagan would add, “And when Tom told me that . . .” Reagan’s most famous quip came during a 1984 debate against his Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale. Noting that JFK had gone for days without sleep during the Cuban missile crisis, a reporter asked Reagan—who was already the oldest president in American history—whether he “would be able to function in such circumstances.” Reagan smiled, then replied. “I want you to know that I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Reagan’s staff had obviously anticipated the question and had prepared a snappy reply, courtesy of the jokewriters that were paid to sprinkle levity into his speeches and press conferences. That practice also went back to Kennedy, who hired several humorists for his 1960 campaign. So did JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, whose “Humor Group”—as his jokewriters called themselves--assembled on Mondays at 5 p.m., in an office stocked with liquor. They included a young author named Peter Benchley, who would later make millions from his best-selling novel Jaws. But most of their jokes never made it into LBJ’s speeches. Lacking the Ivy League polish of Kennedy and other East Coast elites, LBJ also lacked the confidence to poke fun at himself. So he rejected any jokes that were even mildly self-deprecating, deeming them “unpresidential.” Ditto for Richard Nixon, who was simply too uncomfortable in his own skin to make jokes at his own expense. Like LBJ, Nixon displayed a sardonic wit when sparring with the press. But he could never affect the happy-go-lucky humor that Americans appreciate, as his own staff realized. “HUMOR—Can be corrected to a degree, but let’s not get too obvious about it,” one adviser wrote in 1968, during Nixon’s successful bid for the White House. “If we’re going to be witty, let a pro write the words.” (Nixon demurred, refusing to hire a full-time comic for the campaign.) Gerald Ford brought a bit more humor to the White House, even doing a gag at a journalists’ dinner about his alleged clumsiness. But Jimmy Carter was all business, often rejecting jokes that his staff inserted in his speeches. “If the American people wanted Bob Hope for their president, they should have elected him,” Carter snapped. We do want someone who can laugh at themselves, however. And since Reagan, that’s been hard to come by. The two Bush presidents? Too awkward. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? Too cerebral. Channeling Reagan, GOP candidates Mike Huckabee and George Pataki have made some cute quips about their respective ages. Huckabee said that most of America’s B-52’s were older than he was—“and that’s pretty scary”—and Pataki joked that he had been considering a White House run “since the Civil War.” Otherwise, though, it’s slim pickings for self-deprecating humor in 2016. Hillary’s joke about her email was the exception that proves the rule. Get ready for candidates to lob barbs at each other, not at themselves. It won’t be pretty. And it probably won’t be very funny, either.
White people aren’t the enemy: Why social justice demands a rainbow coalition of minorities & poor whites
On average, whites are far better off than blacks. But the problem with averages is that they often conceal radically uneven distribution of the phenomena in question. This is certainly true of wealth among white Americans. It is well-established that white people are overrepresented in the upper classes. And even within the middle class, whites are far more likely to own their own home, to own their own business, to send their kids to better primary schools and have them go on to college. By contrast, the children of most black middle-class families earn less than their parents when they reach adulthood, often sliding into poverty—and for blacks, college does little to ameliorate this trend. Among the lower classes, blacks are far more likely than whites to live in areas of “concentrated poverty,” which has a severe debilitating effect on social mobility. However, the fact that blacks are so much worse off relatively speaking does not entail that white people are generally enjoying prosperity. Overall, 15% of Americans live in poverty—40% of these in “deep poverty.” An additional 30% of the total population lives just at the cusp of poverty. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Americans struggle with economic insecurity, and most will sink below the poverty line for some period of their lives. And these dynamics persist across generations, regardless for instance, of how hard people work: the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor. A majority of America’s poor are white, as are a plurality of those receiving federal assistance. Why does this matter? Because poor white people seem to be a natural ally for the social justice movement. In fact, there is widespread support among this constituency for policies addressing inequality, enhancing social mobility, protecting social safety nets, and reforming drug and sentencing laws. However, when crime and poverty are discussed in racialized terms, this dynamic changes completely: whites become far more likely to support stricter enforcement of the law and harsher sentencing. They also grow far more receptive to policies which erode safety nets for the poor and redistribute money to social elites. And this is not just a problem for old white men, these trends are just as prevalent among millennials. Is this racist? Of course. But it’s easy to misunderstand what this means. At its core, racism is not about xenophobic reactions to difference, stereotyping people from other groups, or a sense of intrinsic superiority. Racism is about preserving a socio-economic order which privileges the majority group (in this case, whites) at the expense of minorities. And while hate can (and typically does) play an important role in justifying this cause, strictly speaking, it is not necessary: there are plenty of racists who do not hate black people, per se. Many may even have black friends and colleagues whom they hold in great esteem. But this does little to alleviate the gnawing, pervasive and persistent fear that the empowerment of minorities will ultimately come at the expense of whites. For those many white Americans already struggling (or failing) to keep their head above water or support their families, this prospect doesn’t just induce dread—it motivates resistance. More than Hate For contemporary racist movements, keeping down minorities is a means towards the end of preserving white dominance over society; it is rarely an end unto itself. Groups typically recruit people, not with hate, but by evoking love for one’s family, community and way of life, or else appealing to pride in one’s history, heritage and culture. The call is for white people to band together against the forces which threaten these—a mandate through which many find comradery and purpose. It’s counterintuitive perhaps, but the sales pitch for racism relies heavily on positive messaging. This is why so many who participate in ethnic nationalist and separatist groups are so sincerely convinced that they are not racist. To the extent that negative emotions play a role in racist organizations, they appeal primarily to the generalized desperation, helplessness, and sense of foreboding that many whites feel--along with the desire to expropriate blame and direct (out)rage for one’s plight towards some perceived hostile “other.” Because the literature from these groups is rife with revisionist history, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, and problematic (or outright false and falsified) empirical claims, it is tempting to dismiss members as whackos or fools—but this would be a mistake. These elements cohere into a mythology which substantiates and reinforces the white identity that so many Americans believe is under siege—and in turn produces a community to protect it. Outsiders sniping at parts of this belief system merely reinforces this siege mentality and further polarizes adherents. The only way to really undermine these groups is to eliminate their raison d’etre. And so the task of social justice advocates should be obvious: to convincingly argue and demonstrate to poor white Americans that it is possible to preserve or even improve their condition and at the same time raise up marginalized groups. Not only have activists miserably failed at this task, their message and tactics regularly alienate impoverished whites while confirming racist narratives. It should be no surprise then that ethnic nationalist and separatist movements have been rapidly expanding in America (and across Western democracies), while their ideology and methods are growing increasingly extreme, and increasingly effective. If the current dynamics continue unchecked, we should expect the problem to grow worse. Fruitless Engagement America’s demographics, economy and culture are evolving rapidly—and as the primary stakeholders in the current socio-economic order, white Americans believe they have the most to lose from these changes. As white privilege is increasingly critiqued and challenged, many have come to fear that minorities have become racist against them, that they are increasingly the victims of reverse-discrimination, and that whites will be increasingly marginalized and persecuted in the future as minorities continue to rise (often resting on the premise that these groups will act as a monolith). When they express these fears, adherents are immediately denounced as ignorant, bigoted or intolerant. Meanwhile, their own culture is mocked and derided with total impunity: It is perfectly acceptable to denigrate impoverished whites as rednecks, hillbillies, trailer trash, white trash, and so on—to mock their religion, traditions, and even their suffering. This is not to draw an equivocation—but to help illustrate the frame of reference that many white Americans are working from: While often blamed for their own misery, blacks and other minority groups can ultimately point towards institutionalized racism, historical disadvantages, and contemporary prejudice to gain some sympathy. However, when impoverished whites are blamed for their own poverty (and for the poverty of minorities on top of it), there is little recourse. Millions of white Americans are struggling with unemployment, food insecurity, homelessness, substance abuse, lack of access to education, healthcare, mental health and social services, etc. But no one really cares. In fact, whites often feel as though they don’t even have a right to express any hardships they face without being immediately reminded that others are worse off. When a white person has the audacity to include their own struggles in conversations about injustice or inequality, they often instructed that their proper role in these discussions is to listen contritely and then validate the grievances of minorities. While the moral imperative for this is certainly understandable, it is also easy to see why many grow frustrated: if you are already struggling to get by, history lessons and statistics on white privilege do nothing to help put food on the table or keep the lights on. The Politics of Spite The antipathy impoverished whites often get from minority groups and their liberal white advocates is perhaps the single greatest cause for their resentment of “other” poor people. Because progressives typically look down on this constituency as ignorant, stupid or crazy, they tend to believe that right-wing politicians are duping poor white people into voting against their best interests—and accordingly, that they can “help” these lost souls “see the light” by presenting them with the relevant “facts” about racial inequality—oblivious that this kind of condescension is precisely the problem: White voters know that GOP candidates will target the poor and bolster the wealthy; this is precisely what they are electing them to do. It is clear that some already-disadvantaged whites may become worse off in some respects (although the policies are often tailored to minimize this), but white voters are confident that “others” will be harmed far more. As a result, the position of white people, even poor white people, may be enhanced relative to the minorities who bear the brunt of these actions. In other words, this voting pattern is not illogical--it is a war of attrition to preserve the status quo. While many impoverished white people may be tired of being the collateral damage of this struggle, there seems to be few alternatives. They have no faith that their views, priorities or interests would be respected in Democratic Party--and this is as much a result of the hostile posture and messaging from the left as it is of race-baiting propaganda from the right. Progressives need to get better at speaking to the interests of poor whites, acknowledging the challenges they face, and connecting white populism to other social movements. Poor People's Crusade 2.0 Many of the problems being highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement have powerful salience for poor whites as well. For instance, a majority of those killed by police, including a plurality of those who are unarmed, have been white. While there are radical disparities between blacks and whites overall relative to their respective populations, this may be in large part because blacks tend to be disproportionately represented in the lower classes and whites in the upper. Were there sufficient data to control for income, I suspect that the rates would be much closer. It has already been well-established that within the black context, these problems are far more pronounced for poor African Americans than for their middle and upper-class contemporaries. Similarly, one reason blacks are far more likely to end up in “the system” is because police operate most heavily in areas of concentrated poverty—which, again, tend to be overwhelmingly populated by minorities (this is why fair housing should be much bigger part of the conversation than it has been). As a result, minorities are far more likely to be arrested, and to be arrested more than once—and penalties tend to grow stronger with each repeat offense, in large part due to mandatory minimum sentencing laws. This is explains much of the disparity between blacks and whites in terms of the prison population. In the courtroom, the conviction rate is roughly 95%, and the only variable which seems to make a large difference is money. Poor whites have a huge stake in all of these problems. Their strong participation can help create a majority-coalition to override resistance from those most invested in the prevailing order; it can render the entire racist system less solvent. However, social justice becomes much more compelling for these constituents if framed as a populist uprising rather than a civil rights crusade. It would be easy to view this as a deflection, but in fact, class tends to track along racial lines due to historical disadvantages, institutionalized racism, and cultural prejudices—and the already significant social disadvantages of class can be exacerbated for blacks by these same factors. As a result, addressing these class-related issues could have a huge impact on African Americans and other minorities without alienating white voters in the process. Put another way: black people don’t need to forgive or ignore racism—we can achieve many (perhaps most) of our pragmatic goals in spite of racism by prioritizing class disparities instead. Of course, this is far less satisfying than having the horrific injustices through which the prevailing order was established not only validated by its primary beneficiaries, but rectified by them as well—with nothing to gain except the knowledge that we’d all be living in a more just and moral society. But this is not going to happen in any foreseeable future. Frankly, it’s a luxury that many white people feel they cannot afford given their own desperate situations. Attempting to guilt, shame or otherwise cajole these voters into supporting social justice initiatives will always be far less effective than appealing to their own interests, values, and frames of reference. To be sure, there will be some issues which are more specific to racial (and/or sexual) minority groups and will gain less traction with these constituents. However, even many minority-specific problems will be at least partially alleviated by addressing economic imbalances. And ultimately, it will be easier to get white voters to care about the problems of “others” when they are not so fearful of their own fate: the central premise underlying the racist system is that minorities can only be empowered at the expense of the majority group (whites). If impoverished white Americans see their fortunes rise in tandem with minorities, they will be less susceptible to this racist messaging down the line--particularly to the extent that cooperation in pursuit of these reforms helps build trust and goodwill across communities. In the near term activists should worry a lot less about changing hearts and minds, dedicating their energies almost exclusively to restructuring laws, systems, institutions and practices. Social justice advocates should be focused, first and foremost, on identifying convergent interests and forming coalitions around them--exchanging ideas, formulating concrete policies, and mobilizing a political consensus to address common problems. If engaged in good faith, and as part of a broad populist platform, poor white voters can be essential (perhaps decisive) for the success of the reform enterprise. Otherwise, they will likely continue to act as a spoiler—and all of us will be much worse off for it.
This could be how Trump’s momentum ends: Why his flip-flop on self-funding undercuts his appeal
Like most people who own stock, Donald Trump's net worth has suffered in recent days. The Washington Post's rough back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that Trump has lost up to $4.5 million in the market during its current dip. It's not like that's going send him crawling into the poor house anytime soon. And the candidate himself is dealing with the dreary financial news the same way deals with everything: by trying to pick a fistfight with China, the very large country, "and Asia." https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... Despite having a very large net worth -- perhaps TEN BILLION DOLLARS, perhaps $2.9 billion -- much of Trump's worth, given that he's a real estate developer, rests in buildings and other illiquid assets. He claims that he's willing to spend over a billion dollars of his own money to self-fund his own campaign, but doing so could require him to cut deeper into his wealth than he might be comfortable with. It's much nicer when other people just donate money to you or your super PAC while you keep all of your own money. Trump is beginning to recognize this. It was reported over the weekend that in mid-July, Trump attended and briefly spoke at a fundraiser for the Make America Great Again PAC. (Three guesses whose candidacy that super PAC is intended to support.) Politico reports that "about 200 people packed into a private residence in Manhattan" to hear Trump speak and then, for whatever reason, pledge high-dollar donations to make him the most powerful human on earth. This in addition to the recent online fundraising drive he launched to fund his official campaign, in which he promised to match donor contributions. Trump has confirmed that he's accepting donations large and small. "I would even take big contributors, as long as they don’t expect anything," is how he put it to "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson. On Monday's "Fox & Friends," he said that he will accept big fat-cat donations "only if there’s no strings whatsoever attached. The only strings attached is I wanna make America great again." Who doesn't wanna Make America Great Again? The problem is that some of these big donors think the best way to Make America Great Again is to carve out a loophole in the tax code, for each of them, personally. Trump's best pitch against the systemic corruption dominating both parties is that he can't be bought, because he just has so, so, so much money. He knows how these crook donors work, he's been one of them, and so he's the best to weed it out by self-funding his own campaign. Trump's at his best when he's delivering this speil: admitting that he knows how to buy political favors, knows how to play the game, and knows how to end it. "Billionaires should run because they're the only ones that can't be bought" isn't the best direction for campaign finance reformers to look, but for the meantime, well, maybe. What Trump may be recognizing, now that he's beginning to think he might be able to win this thing, is that it would be prohibitively expensive to self-fund a primary and general election presidential campaign. The Democratic nominee and her (his?) backers will spend $1-2 billion dollars to win the presidency. Same with the Republican nominee. This is just what it costs now, and it's a lot of liquid assets for any one man. And if Trump were to win the nomination, he'd basically have to start doing any number of joint fundraisers with local, state, and national Republican parties. Anyone who says they won't be bought by large corporations, whether that's Trump or Bernie Sanders or whoever, hasn't competed in a modern presidential general election before as the representative of a major political party that expects to win. And if he won, he would need to run for reelection. How would he even fund that? Would he sell Trump Tower, America's Greatest Building? Even a political figure of such massive, bigly wealth such as Donald Trump can be, and would need to be, bought. That could blunt Trump's sharp message against the special interests and turn him into "any other politician."Like most people who own stock, Donald Trump's net worth has suffered in recent days. The Washington Post's rough back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that Trump has lost up to $4.5 million in the market during its current dip. It's not like that's going send him crawling into the poor house anytime soon. And the candidate himself is dealing with the dreary financial news the same way deals with everything: by trying to pick a fistfight with China, the very large country, "and Asia." https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s... Despite having a very large net worth -- perhaps TEN BILLION DOLLARS, perhaps $2.9 billion -- much of Trump's worth, given that he's a real estate developer, rests in buildings and other illiquid assets. He claims that he's willing to spend over a billion dollars of his own money to self-fund his own campaign, but doing so could require him to cut deeper into his wealth than he might be comfortable with. It's much nicer when other people just donate money to you or your super PAC while you keep all of your own money. Trump is beginning to recognize this. It was reported over the weekend that in mid-July, Trump attended and briefly spoke at a fundraiser for the Make America Great Again PAC. (Three guesses whose candidacy that super PAC is intended to support.) Politico reports that "about 200 people packed into a private residence in Manhattan" to hear Trump speak and then, for whatever reason, pledge high-dollar donations to make him the most powerful human on earth. This in addition to the recent online fundraising drive he launched to fund his official campaign, in which he promised to match donor contributions. Trump has confirmed that he's accepting donations large and small. "I would even take big contributors, as long as they don’t expect anything," is how he put it to "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson. On Monday's "Fox & Friends," he said that he will accept big fat-cat donations "only if there’s no strings whatsoever attached. The only strings attached is I wanna make America great again." Who doesn't wanna Make America Great Again? The problem is that some of these big donors think the best way to Make America Great Again is to carve out a loophole in the tax code, for each of them, personally. Trump's best pitch against the systemic corruption dominating both parties is that he can't be bought, because he just has so, so, so much money. He knows how these crook donors work, he's been one of them, and so he's the best to weed it out by self-funding his own campaign. Trump's at his best when he's delivering this speil: admitting that he knows how to buy political favors, knows how to play the game, and knows how to end it. "Billionaires should run because they're the only ones that can't be bought" isn't the best direction for campaign finance reformers to look, but for the meantime, well, maybe. What Trump may be recognizing, now that he's beginning to think he might be able to win this thing, is that it would be prohibitively expensive to self-fund a primary and general election presidential campaign. The Democratic nominee and her (his?) backers will spend $1-2 billion dollars to win the presidency. Same with the Republican nominee. This is just what it costs now, and it's a lot of liquid assets for any one man. And if Trump were to win the nomination, he'd basically have to start doing any number of joint fundraisers with local, state, and national Republican parties. Anyone who says they won't be bought by large corporations, whether that's Trump or Bernie Sanders or whoever, hasn't competed in a modern presidential general election before as the representative of a major political party that expects to win. And if he won, he would need to run for reelection. How would he even fund that? Would he sell Trump Tower, America's Greatest Building? Even a political figure of such massive, bigly wealth such as Donald Trump can be, and would need to be, bought. That could blunt Trump's sharp message against the special interests and turn him into "any other politician."
The GOP’s austerity hawks are throwing away a golden opportunity (again)
The U.S. Congress should have gaveled in an emergency session yesterday to react on the latest twist in the capital markets. Failure to do so creates unnecessary pain and will damage American competitiveness for the next generation. I’m not talking about the stock market, which fell significantly at the opening bell, reversed most of its losses by midday and then slid at the close, finishing down over 580 points (or, to put it in more useful terms, 3.5 percent). Even if stocks dropped for the next week, the cable networks would freak out some more, but it’s not clear it would have much impact on any American without a personal valet. But the slide of the 10-year Treasury note over the past couple months represents a significant opportunity. Not that our blundering policymakers will capitalize on it by spending the free money investors want to give to them. First, let’s go over this madness about the stock market. Nobody should confuse the actual economy with the trading pit where mostly computer algorithms, at this point, buy and sell bets on companies. As Dean Baker points out, the stock market can experience wild swings upward when the economy is bad, or plummets downward when the economy is good. The markets mostly try to predict not the future economic path but trends for corporate profits, and they’re not necessarily even good at it. Moreover, only 13 percent of Americans own individual stocks. To the vast majority of people getting through their workdays, this is a non-event. To the extent that there’s any real-world activity causing the market volatility, it’s the bursting of the Chinese stock bubble, which happens to still be up significantly relative to last year. But a lot of new Chinese investors, many of them middle-class, rode the stock wave upwards with borrowed money. They’re in for some pain. Whether that will have any impact on the rather large Chinese economy is a different question. China does have to figure out how to safely move from a manufacturing to a consumer-driven economy while taking the air out of its stock and real estate bubbles, a tricky situation. The country is big enough that fears of an economic slowdown – which could simply mean growth below 7 percent, a number we in the U.S. would kill for – could have an impact internationally. But the biggest consequence of that in the United States can be seen in the 10-year Treasury note. Right now, the U.S. can borrow money for 10 years at around 2 percent – a staggeringly low number, made so by an increase in global demand for Treasury bonds. When the economic winds shake globally, investors lead a “flight to safety,” looking for any instrument that won’t lose money. And despite the tumult of the past decade, investors still see Treasury bonds as the safest investment in the world. What this means is that investors will hand over cash to the U.S. government with effectively no interest in real terms. That makes today the best time for Congress to borrow money since a period between spring 2012 and summer 2013. Congress wasted that chance, and they are poised to do the same with this gift horse staring them in the mouth. The flight to safety could stick around for a while. The market volatility index is at its highest point in seven years, and that could send traders to calmer waters. Plus, emerging markets like Brazil are being battered, precipitating cash flow out of those countries and, increasingly, into Treasuries. Meaning that the U.S. has time to make the major borrowing move that could change our economic position. Significant borrowing, to repair crumbling infrastructure like bridges and water systems, or upgrade the electrical grid and broadband capacity for the entire nation, would have a seriously stimulative impact on an economy that’s already showing some labor market success. It would help arrest the persistent demand deficit that has existed in our economy since the outset of the Great Recession. Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum posted a chart last week showing that federal spending since 2007 at all levels has been sharply below the average spending following recessions, which says everything you need to know about the sluggish recovery. The market upset will probably lead the Federal Reserve to back off raising interest rates in September, which will provide a short-term economic boost. But government spending when borrowing is cheap would sustain that boom, and is in fact the only real opportunity for economic growth in the near term. Plus, plowing that spending into investment in the future has tremendous payoffs over the long term. The money spent today will be even better than free down the road. The lack of government debt is a problem for the world, as Paul Krugman pointed out recently. Former White House economist Jared Bernstein goes further, explaining that budget deficits lead to smoother and stronger economic growth. Our deficit is falling fast, and the government not only can handle throwing a couple hundred billion at upgrading the basic structures that make the country go, but would benefit handsomely from it. Sadly, this is all wishful thinking with a Republican Congress that is itching to perpetuate a fight over government spending when the deadline for the next fiscal year’s budget ends next month. What makes economic sense and the course politicians end up taking have had no resemblance whatsoever over the last decade, if not much longer. So the gift investors are clamoring to bestow on us goes unaccepted, year after year. This actively harms our economic potential over the next several years. We can’t have nice things because we’re still governed by a backwards ideology that thinks the government should run the country like a family manages their budget. But if a family could borrow money for free and use it to make all kinds of improvements in their lives, they’d jump at the chance. If we ever want to make America great again, we have to get over this dysfunction and get out our checkbook.
