Watch a Billionaire cry on air about the possibility of a 2% wealth tax

November 9, 2019 in Uncategorized

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61 comments

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November 9, 2019 at 12:50 pm

Julie Timmons

Disgusting! Thanks for posting.

November 9, 2019 at 6:27 pm

Eric Kirk

You weren’t moved by his tears? He cares! He said so!

November 9, 2019 at 7:37 pm

John

What’s disgusting is the greed you display.

Anything is OK as long as you’re doing it the the rich ?

Too many people you are “rich” Kirk and they will come for you later.

November 9, 2019 at 8:50 pm

Eric Kirk

Yes, the horror of a 2 percent wealth tax on fortunes over 50 million to pay for a system which makes their fortunes possible. Makes the rest of us “greedy!”

Seriously John?

November 9, 2019 at 9:56 pm

Guest (Mitch)

Eric, do you actually think his tears are about his being charged 2% of his wealth? I don’t. I probably don’t agree with the guy’s politics one bit, but to be honest the take-home from this clip, for me, was handsome young guy makes fun of old bald guy crying. It reminded me of trump making fun of the shaking movements of the reporter with CP.

November 10, 2019 at 12:06 am

MOLA42

Mitch:

My take is a little simpler. I think the billionaire has just realized that for the first time in his life everyone (other then money-worshipers like John Fullerton) hates him; and all the money in the world won’t buy him an ounce of respect.

I can imagine that to be a stark realization for one to have near the end of one’s life.

I don’t expect this trauma to affect the billionaire for very long, however. He’ll just buy himself some immortality by donating a bit of loose cash to a “worthy cause” and call his life a success.

November 10, 2019 at 6:41 am

Guest (Mitch)

MOLA42:

I’ve always been impressed by your humor and attitude, by what has seemed to me your level-headed attitude. This is by no means, though, the first time we’ve disagreed.

My take is that we don’t actually have a clue as to what “the billionaire” was thinking just before he said “I care.” It could have been worry about his spare yacht, but I literally cannot imagine that. So I’m open to the possibiility that the man finds “progressive solutions” bad for less selfish reasons, or that he found he had late-stage cancer earlier in the day, or that a beloved grandchild was just shot, or perhaps he’d just read a good, sad book. Perhaps he grew up in a society where those “progressive solutions” had led to gulags, and can’t imagine a different outcome. I have no idea. So while I think he should be relieved of 2% (or more!) of his wealth each year when it exceeds $50 million (or less!), I don’t think his public display of sadness is something with which to amuse myself. (In fact, in my fantasies, that same person in a different, more sensible society would have been far happier with far less wealth.)

I’ve always had a hard time with people, and the normal dividing line of politics has never felt comfortable, although sometimes, as with trump supporters, the dividing line of “politics” aligns with my sense of decent vs. criminally indecent. I can find no excuse for supporting trump, and I think human beings that do so are dangerous because they’ve allowed themselves to be sucked into a system that is particularly and overwhelmingly indecent, inhuman, cruel, mean, dastardly, despicable, motherfucking.

But I think that’s a bit of a special case and in general believe that the dividing line between decency and indecency doesn’t perfectly align with political views or even with individuals. That makes me essentially useless when it comes to politics, except, when it comes to trump supporters, as The Onion’s glowing ball of white hot rage, from Eric’s earlier post. trump supporters support someone who makes fun of people’s disabilities, separates parents from children, and all the rest. But my quarrel with trump supporters is with their cruelty and inability/unwillingness to see others as human, not their political beliefs. I don’t know if I’m fooling myself, but I see a distinction. Until the trump era, I knew of and believed in principled republicans, and I’ve known selfish democrats all my life.

My quarrel is with an extraordinarily cruel, fundamentally stupid system, not with an old guy overcome with emotion. And it makes me nervous, very nervous, when the people with whom I tend to agree see that old guy as “the billionaire.”

And, as you might guess, my quarrel is, in large part, with myself.

November 10, 2019 at 6:57 am

Rusty

Hell yes Mitch, he’s overwhelmed with emotions from the fear of being taxed to support a system that will only come back for more. 2% is just the jump off point to 70% . That money will go to the people…. “laughing hysterically at the people in the breadline” the actual money actually goes to support Dachas in the countryside for the ruling class. Bernie and Elizabeth are Russian operatives, duh.
It’s easy to point and at the rich old guy and whine he’s not paying his fair share until your paying 70% and he picked up and moved to Monaco and he’s laughing at you and flipping you the bird. What goes around comes around.

November 10, 2019 at 7:20 am

Guest (Mitch)

If his fear is that some of his billions will go to support a system that comes back for 70%, then I think he has nothing to fear. After all, no matter how many times the system takes away 70% of his billions, he’ll be left with $50 million, which is more than enough to live a safe and sane life and to provide that to his children, his grand-children, and their friends.

Cooperman (I’ve googled him now) is the child of Polish immigrants, was born in 1943, grew up in the South Bronx, was the first member of his family to go to college. Then he joined Goldman Sachs where he was apparently good at the legal theft called “finance” by this society. Nobody earns a billion dollars ethically and honesty, I am very comfortable that it can’t be done. The very idea is an absurdity when there are starving people in the world and the system that spins off the ridiculous levels of wealth held by some people is simultaneously destroying the birthright of every human being and every other living thing

You don’t have to have much empathy to think of other things that a child of Polish emigrants might find worrying, beyond living on $50 million. And history has given us all a lot to worry about when people who start out with good intentions obtain vast power… in fact, that’s the biggest reason I think it’s a very good thing to strip people of wealth beyond $50 million.
.

November 10, 2019 at 7:27 am

Anonymous

Many wealthy folks simply do not want to even consider the idea that their wealth may have come, at least to some degree, at the expense of others (i.e. underpaid employees), and certainly with the help of others and with the help of our system as a whole, including government-supported physical infrastructure, legal apparatus, etc.

And thus these folks are just not really open to the idea that their successful accumulation of great wealth should confer any societal obligations on them beyond whatever they might voluntarily choose to give back. As far as they are concerned, they “earned every penny of it, and don’t owe anyone a cent.”

(Paradoxically, those who have inherited most of their wealth — the Walton family of, both current generations of the Trumps — often seem to cling to this belief even more than those who really did “earn” more of it themselves!)

At the other extreme, there are certainly some folks out there who seem to view economics as pretty much always a zero-sum game, where for one person to gain any significant amount of wealth, others must always lose ground, and that since everyone knows that’s how it has to work, this means that anyone who sets out to gain wealth is inherently a selfish monster bent on ruthlessly exploiting others in a heedless scramble for advantage.

While there are obviously some people, wealthy and otherwise, who fit that description, it’s not inevitable that one would need to be a selfish monster to grow wealthy — because the economy is simply not a zero-sum game. Invention, innovation, and improvement of goods and services help create wealth, and all things being equal that’s a very good thing and it’s perfectly appropriate for innovators and entrepreneurs to be rewarded for their roles in this wealth creation.

The vast majority of people — even most folks on “the left” — have no problem with that. “Eat the rich” jokes aside, most people just want the wealthy to pay a bit more so that society as a whole can benefit a bit more from the wealth creation — through, for example, better education, better public health, better infrastructure — which in turn benefits further wealth creation.

So, yes, marginal tax rates on upper income earners should go up, capital gains taxes should go up, and inheritance taxes on large fortunes should go up. Not because wealthy people are all terrible people and the point is to punish them, but simply because it’s good policy and would yield much-needed revenue for improving important public goods such as like public health, education, and infrastructure.

November 10, 2019 at 7:46 am

Rusty

While I partially agree with what you both are saying you’ve failed to mention my point. The fabulously wealthy people won’t be here anymore and they’re going to tax you, 70%, not them.
Mitch,
Imagine going through life believing that the only people worthy of respect are those who share your obsessive hatred of a particular politician.
Oh, I guess you don’t have to lmagine.

November 10, 2019 at 7:47 am

Guest (Mitch)

PA, I’m in near-complete agreement with you. I don’t believe, though, that in a society in which a middle-class American (that is, someone fairly near the tippy-top, materially, of humanity), might earn $10-$20 million over a lifetime, that anyone can earn a billion dollars ethically and honestly.

Sure, they can do it by the rules. As a standard example, people trot out Bill Gates, but his initial innovation was primarily in charging for what other people were doing on a shared basis — that is, he didn’t “invent” software so much as he “invented” software licensing. And then, by taking advantage of a legal and economic system that didn’t handle network effects properly, he was able to basically tax every personal computer except Apple’s. At least in Gates’ case, he actually contributed some to his field, but in most situations, the vast wealth is accumulated by people who have inside information (the railroad barons) or who take advantage of externalities (the fossil fuel wealth, funded by the taxes we pay to have a military and CIA suppress the actual owners of the world’s fossil fuels, and not charged for destroying the world).

Jonas Salk was famously bewildered about who might own the vaccine he discovered, which has saved untold thousands of lives. He figured “the people” owned it. That is not a path to a billion dollars, but it was the truth. That wisdom is no longer in currency, because we are swimming in a sea of information/propaganda controlled by the “winners” of a very corrupt capitalist game.

November 10, 2019 at 7:49 am

MOLA42

Mitch:

No worries on any disagreements. I seldom agree wholeheartedly with myself.

I guess I lack the requisite sympathy called for here. I feel sympathy for lots of people but billionaires who voluntarily wear their hearts on their sleeves on national TV just isn’t one of them.

He’s benefited from a system of extreme privilege and his sorrow at losing a tiny portion of the overwhelming power and security he enjoys will not cause me to lose any sleep.

I do very much agree to what you said in response to Rusty… “Nobody earns a billion dollars ethically and honest[l]y…” Thus, my lack of empathy for the man.

What does have me worried is that for every tearful billionaire out there… there are many more who won’t cry any tears at what they will do to the rest of us to make sure their piles of money don’t get molested.

After all… a billionaire got millions of poor people to believe he was their champion and they still believe it to this day despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The sky’s the limit.

November 10, 2019 at 7:53 am

Anonymous

“2% is just the jump off point to 70%”

LOL…I don’t think I’ve ever seen the “slippery slope fallacy” taken to such hilariously absurd extreme.

Gotta love it when people unintentionally make a mockery of their own argument without even realizing it.

November 10, 2019 at 8:03 am

Guest (Mitch)

MOLA:

“No worries on any disagreements. I seldom agree wholeheartedly with myself.”

Yeah. I have the same issue. I always enjoy reading what you offer.

November 10, 2019 at 8:11 am

Guest (Mitch)

Rusty,

You are right, I do feel that you cannot support trump and be worthy of respect.

I’m not comfortable feeling that, but it is absolutely how I feel. If you’d like to understand it, imagine yourself staring at a really sexy woman and then being told she’d just been arrested for torturing a dog. If you’re like me, you’d lose any boner you might have had, because you cant’ really compartmentalize enough to continue finding her attractive.

I respect compassion, but I feel none for people who I think of as committing crimes against the world’s most vulnerable people. It’s a common source of comedy: intolerance of the intolerant. So, what can I do, I guess I’m naturally funny. I am judgmental towards my own overly-judgmental nature, but I can never suppress it for any period of time.

November 10, 2019 at 8:22 am

Guest (Mitch)

Hmmm, not that anyone but me cares, but I need to modify that. I respect compassion and I feel some for the people who’ve somehow been so warped away from their natural humanity that they could support something so despicable as trump and what he represents. I feel compassion, just no respect. And compassion notwithstanding, if I was in a position to exile them, I would.

November 10, 2019 at 8:34 am

Anonymous

The idea that most wealthy Americans will just move to wherever their taxes are lowest is just not supported by the evidence. Sure, some do “move,” to another state, at least on paper, to try to avoid some taxes. A few have even gone so far as to renounce their citizenship and move abroad. But the vast majority haven’t and won’t.

November 10, 2019 at 8:58 am

Henchman Of Justice

Awe, the liberals and proggies are avoiding their impeachment charades, movies, now videos of big ole babies…

Perspective: 20 million on a billion is still 980 million…awe pooh bear…

What libs don’t want to do is take that register of cha ching and put 100% of it toward homelessness only…cuz then it really is robbing the rich to give to the poor…nope, gotta have a bunch of pork projects in various liberal communities…

November 10, 2019 at 9:01 am

Henchman Of Justice

Rusty on point,

Tax the 2%, ok…but with 980 million leftover, time to move to a tax friendlier locale…got the means, the goods and the dough….doh!

November 10, 2019 at 10:29 am

Guest (Mitch)

A good opinion piece, IMO, in today’s Times, on this very topic:

November 11, 2019 at 8:30 am

John

Too bad there are so many insults and so little thinking here.

From an article last Friday on CNBC. Warren’s “wealth tax” proposal is 2% on households with a net worth over $50 million and 6% on households with a net worth over $1 billion. CNBC was concerned with “big capital flight out of this country” and its impact on the economy.

They quoted Economist Edward Wolff and his proposal of a lower Wealth Tax on households with a net worth over $200,000 and a little bit more on households with a net worth over $2.5 million.

Once you cross the line and give the government the power to decide how much is to much wealth to allow you to have anything is possible. You have set the precedent for them to start coming for you.

November 11, 2019 at 8:57 am

bolithio

How touching. We need to change the name of this tax concept to “obscene wealth”. There is a difference between a reasonable family estate and what the top 1-5% highest wealthy people have. Not a single one of these families earned billions of dollars. Its not earned, its stolen from people who do break sweat. Call me liberal if you want but Im blue collar and its the low class earners who are getting crushed. So I will fill a cup of that rich mans tears and drink it down. Hes been enjoying the creme his whole life, we have never had it. But we have worked harder than his fat arse 1 million times over. And its not about getting something for nothing, like all these republican sycophants keep saying, its about recognizing who pulls the weight. Amazon shareholders don’t want to pay taxes, as if the highways they deliver their products on didn’t make them rich. As if the highways were not built by our labor. Pay us our fair share, kick down reasonable amounts to society, and everyone will be happy. They will still be fucking rich!

November 11, 2019 at 9:26 am

Guest (Mitch)

Capital will always flee to where it can get the highest return; it’s practically as much a tautology as biological evolution’s “survival of the fittest.”

We’ve already seen that happen with the departure of much of the United States’ industrial infrastructure.

What are needed are laws taxing capital (wealth) regardless of its location. For example, if you want to sell or buy or trade anything in the United States, or be a participant in any entity which does, you will pay this percentage of your wealth annually. Legal fictions like corporate entities will, of course, ensure that such laws are bypassed (legally where possible). This will continue until majorities realize, and act on that realization, that the existing legal system itself violates any foundational ethical system that is used to justify it. People need to accept that exploitation is bad, regardless of the pretty words used to justify it. Until that happens, and it may never happen, I don’t see any nonviolent solution to the class issue.

We’re so far from there that it’s not even visible on the horizon. For the wealthiest, theft and exploitation are a way of life, and they have the money to completely isolate themselves even from an awareness that their behavior creates suffering in others. Enough layers of lawyers and sycophants, and you never see consequences. We worship mental illness, and that worship so permeates everything it is invisible to most people.

November 11, 2019 at 9:26 am

Anonymous

Once you cross the line and give the government the power to decide how much is to much wealth to allow you to have anything is possible. You have set the precedent for them to start coming for you.

Another victim of the Slippery Slope Fallacy. How sad.

Can’t do something eminently reasonable, because someday someone might use that as “precedent” to do something less reasonable.

What lazy, superficial thinking.

November 11, 2019 at 9:45 am

Guest (Mitch)

The entire justification of a free market rests on the clearly-false assumption that both participants in a transaction have equal power. That ceases to be true after the very first transaction, just as a coin will flop to one side rather than land on an edge.

The mismatch between justice and the “free market” grows as wealth inequality grows, inevitably. This is just common sense, but it is so disturbing to anyone who benefits that it is just ignored. The legal system is controlled by the beneficiaries.

When one person has ten loaves of bread and wants to negotiate with others who have no bread and hungry children, that is not a “free market.” Eventually, such exploitation yields a legal system which justifies it, and a police force which enforces it. Over time, it is so coated in institutions that the beneficiaries don’t realize the society is enforcing their ability to exploit others.

November 11, 2019 at 9:53 am

Guest (Mitch)

Too funny for words: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/rick-perry-pals-landed-ukraine-gas-rights-contract-after-boost-from-secretary

November 11, 2019 at 10:57 am

Eric Kirk

John – I would be happy to restoring tax levels to what they were in the 1950s, when conservatives were pragmatic about the good of the nation even if they were bigoted and culturally oppressive. But we will never return to what most nations consider to be a normal tax rate because that would be “socialist.”

2 percent for over 50 million isn’t going to break the bank, and moving assets to Swiss bank accounts wouldn’t exempt them from audits in which they have to make declarations under oath. And since most of the nation’s infrastructure exists to generate and protect that wealth, they can pay their fair share, and that’s still way below their fair share.

November 11, 2019 at 6:33 pm

Anonymous

Mr. Kirk, denigrating roughly half of the country as being “bigoted and culturally oppressive” from 70 years ago seems excessive. As a matter of fact, it’s bigoted itself. Shame on you.

November 12, 2019 at 2:27 am

Anonymous

Yes, how dare you suggest supporters of Jim Crow segregation were bigoted?

I suppose next you’ll be saying that lynching was wrong too!

November 12, 2019 at 6:56 am

Guest (Mitch)

“Once you cross the line and give the government the power to decide how much is to much wealth to allow you to have anything is possible. You have set the precedent for them to start coming for you.”

This may be an example of the slippery-slope fallacy, but I think of it as an example of something else: binary thinking.

In many ethical controversies, I believe, there are two or more ethical demands in conflict with one another.

I think some philosophers use exaggerated cases to bring this out. For example, would you feel comfortable with yourself if you were alone on a walk and came across a toddler drowning in a pond you were walking past, and did not rescue the toddler because it would mean getting your shoes muddy?

Most people would not.

But in our day to day lives, all or most of us fail a much milder ethical test — we use the money we control to buy, say, a pair of movie tickets when we could have used it to buy food or medicine or clean water for people halfway around the world in desperate need.

In one case, a person is valuing their complete and total freedom above all else, including a toddler’s life. In the other, we may feel challenged to sacrifice every comfort until there is complete equality.

Freedom and equality are in conflict. Both are admirable. To pretend that we don’t need to take both into account is foolish. The gop has, for my lifetime, come down more strongly for freedom, and the democrats have, for my lifetime, come down more strongly for equality. But the gop went off the deep end some time ago, seeming to forget that there are multiple values, and thinking that any erosion of complete personal autonomy is somehow evil. What is evil is complete personal autonomy in a world in which others exist. To avoid that evil, you have to locate yourself somewhere on that slope, slippery or not. And if it feels slippery, perhaps that means you aren’t yet at the normal and natural position on that slope, properly balancing two or more ethical demands. Perhaps you’re clinging to one demand, because it helps you feel comfortable.

Jesus’ teaching (among many others) was not meant to inspire comfort. He was not someone who went on television to tell people that the wealthier they were, the more they were favored by god. Quite the opposite, in fact, with predictable results. And yes, I’m an atheist, with no belief in Jesus’ divinity or the existence of god. God’s not necessary; good is.

November 12, 2019 at 7:24 am

W.o.P.

“But in our day to day lives, all or most of us fail a much milder ethical test — we use the money we control to buy, say, a pair of movie tickets when we could have used it to buy food or medicine or clean water for people halfway around the world in desperate need.”

Do you pass this “milder ethical test” on a regular basis?

November 12, 2019 at 7:25 am

Anonymous

Mr. Kirk’s comment was about society in the 50’s. He was just calling out the wrong group.

This from Wikipedia “Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States.[1] All were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Democratic-dominated state legislatures after the Reconstruction period.”
As for lynchings, they became a calling card of the KKK, also a democrat created organization. Credit, or more like blame, should be assigned where appropriate. People change, but history doesn’t.

November 12, 2019 at 7:59 am

Guest (Mitch)

W.o.P.,

No, I specifically chose it because I went to the movies yesterday. If you picture the balance as a curve running between two high points labeled equality on the left and autonomy on the right, with a low point somewhere between, that low point represents the balance we choose. Traditionally, the gop places the low point nearer to autonomy than the left does.

For those of us who behave as they think they should, they are resting on the bottom of their personal curve. When we feel guilty about our behavior, we are probably acting from a point closer to autonomy, and are feeling the tug of our conscience pulling us to the balance point our conscience believes in.

Every society also imposes its own curve; people on the left generally feel that society has pushed the low point of the curve too far to autonomy and the right generally feels that society has pushed the high point of the curve too far towards equality. But to think that you can just stay at the freedom end of the curve, and not feel guilt probably means you’re a psychopath. And there is a danger that if you think everyone should be forced to stand at the equality end of the curve, despite their own personal curves, probably means you’re too authoritarian for my taste.

I make no claims to having “the correct” curve. I just agree with most on the left that because of humanity’s selfish nature, it’s entirely appropriate to push the government curve — the one that represents our expectations of correct behavior — in the direction of equality. It would be a wonderful world if this took place through charity, but it evidently does not, so we need to impose limits on ourselves through our society. If we were all saints, no government would be necessary, and no military either.

November 12, 2019 at 8:00 am

Guest (Mitch)

Anon 7:25. “The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.”

Don’t confuse a label, which changes meaning over time, with a reality.

November 12, 2019 at 8:14 am

Guest (Mitch)

A correction, in case anyone is reading and was confused by my error:

“…the right generally feels that society has pushed the LOW point of the curve too far towards equality…”

Also, maybe I should be more explicit. I’m no saint, probably closer to whatever the opposite might be.

November 12, 2019 at 8:53 am

Eric Kirk

As for lynchings, they became a calling card of the KKK, also a democrat created organization.

They were Democrats but they were also conservatives. That’s why the surviving segregationists have been voting Republican for decades. And that’s why black voters switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic, beginning with the New Deal.

And the opposition – the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conferences – were made up of socialists and leftists.

November 12, 2019 at 9:44 am

Anonymous

Eric (accurately) called out 1950s conservatives as bigoted. You’re the only one who tried to make that about Democrats vs Republicans.

But since you want to go there, sure, let’s go there! Yes, we all know that when you go back in our history more than 50 years or so, you find that back then most Southern Democrats were segregationists / racists.

But then came the GOP’s “Southern Strategy,” which was explicitly aimed at winning over the votes of those same Southern racists, who deeply resented the Democrats embrace of civil rights and were looking for a new political home.

This GOP effort to win over Southern racists snowballed into a (largely successful) effort to win the support of bigots of all varieties — anti-immigrant xenophobes, anti-gay homophobes, anti-Muslim bigots — basically all those who are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of an America no longer totally dominated by straight, white Christianist men.

At the same time, the Democratic party has increasingly become home to the vast majority of African-Americans, Hispanics, and other racial/ethnic minority voters, as well as most LBGT people — basically everyone that the GOP has spent the last couple of decades shitting on in their campaign to consolidate the support of ignorant/angry/fearful whites — along with the remaining whites (who tend to be better educated) who haven’t fallen prey to the GOP’s racial/cultural siren calls.

Which is how we ended up with the situation we have today, in which today’s GOP is made up almost entirely of white people (and especially poorly-educated ones), while today’s Democratic party is a broad, multi-racial coalition that includes a significant portion of the white population along with the vast majority of members of minority groups.

And, by the way, while you’re welcome to disagree with my characterization of how we got here, the fact of today’s GOP being a party overwhelmingly made up of white voters, while the Democrats are the party supported by a combination of whites along with the vast majority of minority group members, is just a cold, hard fact.

And as long as the GOP keeps embracing, elevating and celebrating blatant bigots like Donald Trump, they are dooming their brand to continue to be The Party of Frightened Old White People, and thus will continue to gather relatively few votes from minority voters.

So far this state of affairs has still allowed the GOP to win in very conservative and very white states, which are vastly overrepresented in the Senate, to do very well in the states of the former Confederacy, and to narrowly win the electoral college (while losing the popular vote by millions).

But as the 2018 Congressional elections showed, even all the many GOP gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement efforts couldn’t hold back the tide in the most representative part of our democratic electoral system (the part that comes closest to the ideal of one person, one vote).

As the older, whiter (an not coincidentally, more bigoted) portion of the population dies off, and the voting-age electorate comes closer to representing the actual population of the U.S., the GOP is going to have to pivot sharply away from its white-nationalist rhetoric in order to survive as a viable national party, or it will risk atrophying into a regional party only capable of winning in the shrinking number of areas where poorly-educated whites still dominate the electorate.

A decade or so ago, parts of the GOP seemed to grasp this reality, at least intellectually, and made significant efforts to try to appeal to at least some minority groups (particularly Hispanics). But the white-fright base they’d spent decades dogwhistling at and fearmongering toward, rose up and put an end to those efforts at broadening the GOP’s base — most notably, by nuking bipartisan immigration reform efforts that at least some in the GOP were sincerely supporting at the time.

So now, due to their own actions and rhetoric the GOP is stuck being the Party of White People, and have to make the most of that, which means continuously trying to whip up ever more racial / ethnic resentment among their increasingly aging, gradually shrinking base of White Fright voters.

Can the GOP win another presidential election as the Party of Frightended Old White People? Sure, there are still plenty of frightened old white people, and plenty of them are still poorly educated and susceptible to manipulation by cleverly-crafted white nationalist rhetoric. So the Party of Frightened Old White People isn’t doomed quite yet, especially given the over-representation of white, rural voters in the Electoral college.

But it’s living on borrowed time, and the very steps that the GOP finds itself forced to take to win in the short term — namely, doubling down on the xenophobic / white nationalist rhetoric and actions in order to whip up greater enthusiasm and turnout of its aging, shrinking White Fright base — are the very sort of steps that move it further away from the pivot that will eventually be required in order to survive as anything other than a regional rump party for a dwindling remnant of dead-ender white bigots.

Ironically, the “best” thing Trump could do at this point for the long term prospects of the GOP, would be to lose big in 2020, as this would likely hasten the pivot away from white nationalism as the key organizing principle of today’s GOP.

Whereas if Trump squeaks out another narrow electoral college win (or even loses but relatively narrowly) the GOP base will probably insist on their candidates continuing to double down on the very sorts of white nationalist rhetoric and actions that risk making the GOP a pariah to the growing contingent of more diverse voters who will make up a larger and larger portion of electorate over the next few decades.

So while I’m sure it won’t feel that way at the time, if Trump loses in 2020, that would probably be good news for the GOP’s chance to remain a viable major party over the long term.

November 12, 2019 at 9:49 am

Guest (Mitch)

Wow, PA, you think people are a lot more forgiving than I do. I don’t think the gop has a chance in an American democracy of 2030, though it will do very well if there is no longer an American democracy at that time.

November 12, 2019 at 10:04 am

W.o.P.

A legal expert, a movie critic, and a SJW ? An interesting combination.

November 12, 2019 at 11:01 am

Henchman Of Justice

Bolithio,

Like Rusty, then John…once you profile who you are gonna punch at (billionaires), then ya better hit them all at once with everything because after round one, the only thing being punched at is air…

Wealthy will move out quicker than the climate changes… and we all know how Democrats are pushing climate change to be a daily crisis sort of thing…

So there really is only one shot to grossly tax extremely wealthy, before the mass Exodus to tax friendlier countries…

Then the plan is right back to “what is the plan”… which will still include letting illegal shits into this country for sanctuary enslavement nobility purposes… because it’s Noble to be a Democrat for whom allows illegals to live in this country free of charge… while taxing everyone else who is legal to make up for the disparity created by a bunch of feminists and masculine pussies in charge!

November 12, 2019 at 11:56 am

Anonymous

Wow, PA, you think people are a lot more forgiving than I do…

Maybe, although I think it’s more about the fact that many Americans just aren’t that engaged in politics and therefore tend to get kind of forgetful/apathetic about which positions which parties were taking even just a decade or so previous.

So if the post-Trump GOP leadership made a sincere, concerted, ongoing long-term effort to repudiate the xenophobic hatemongering of the Trump era and, going forward, stuck to other “conservative” priorities like opposing tax increases, supporting “business-friendly” regulatory policies, opposing abortion rights, and so on, I would not be at all surprised if they were able to start to pull in at least a bit more minority support within 10-15 years.

I mean, sure, Trump will be a lasting stain and I’m not talking about the GOP suddenly drawing huge support from minorities…I’m just talking about some significant improvement over their existing, pathetically low levels of support from minority voters

So in my view, their problem isn’t that there’s no potential for at least some additional minority support to come the GOPs way if they straightened out their act and stopped blatantly pandering to white supremacists at every turn.

Their problem is that by making that pivot, they’ll risk losing a significant part of their base — the kind of angry, hateful, fearful, ignorant bigots who show and mindlessly chant the cult slogans at Trump rallies. In fact, at least for a while, they could lose more from that category than they gain from “socially and/or fiscally conservative minorities” who might be willing to come their way in a reformed GOP.

Of course “We have to do this to survive for the long term, but it will probably hurt us in the short term” isn’t exactly an easy sell in politics, so chances are the post-Trump GOP will continue to kick the can down the road, hoping to eke out a few more victories as the Party of Frightened Old White People before finally having to face the fact that this just won’t cut it anymore in most of the country.

My point re: Trump’s results in 2020 is simply that if he wins or comes close, that will delay that date of reckoning for the GOP, whereas if he loses (and especially if he loses big) then they may find themselves having to more quickly come to grips with the inherent unsustainability of forever remaining the Party of Frightened Old White People in an increasingly diverse country.

November 12, 2019 at 1:03 pm

MOLA42

I’m old enough to remember what it was like when Nixon got chased out of Washington.

And I very much remember people saying that it was the end of the Republican Party.

Well, the GOP is still here. And they will remain here long after Trump shuffles off the stage. Because, like it or not, the GOP still stands for something that a large portion of Americans still get behind.

Political parties do fade away. After all, there aren’t many Whigs running around these days. But I remain skeptical when someone believes the end of the GOP is nigh.

November 12, 2019 at 1:40 pm

Guest (Mitch)

My comments about the gop’s disappearance are not based on its support of a crook, but on its support of racism and misogyny.

There will still be racists and misogynists in 2030, but there will also be a ton more people who will find either intolerable under their “big tent.” Nonvoters born in the 21st century will be more likely to be voters in 2030 and, I suspect, they will view the gop as PA describes it, as the party of frightened old white people. They might not use as polite a description for the party’s members; there’s a four syllable description for them that I’ve used in the past. It’s the one with a four letter abbreviation.

Of course, it’s not unknown for me to confuse what I think ought to happen with what I think will happen. I’m constantly expecting people-in-the-future to behave with more decency than is ever demonstrated by people-in-the-present, without much supporting evidence.

November 12, 2019 at 2:08 pm

MOLA42

Mitch:

“Of course, it’s not unknown for me to confuse what I think ought to happen with what I think will happen.”

I know what you mean… I thought for sure that the GOP would do the sensible thing and dump Trump right off the bat and go with Mike Pence. And wrote that thought several times in blogs… so it’s on the public record that I am an Idiot.

It was because I was partly thinking the GOP wasn’t as stupid as they turned out to be; but also because of my wishful thinking clouding my reason. I mean, as bad as Pence is… at least he’s not Donald Trump.

November 12, 2019 at 2:09 pm

W.o.P.

Surely you folks realize that Trump will more than likely be re-elected in 2020? I’m pretty sure Nancy, Adam, and the rest of the political trash realizes it. And if the GOP takes back the House too ?!!!!? Golly Gee Whiz !

As some Democrat used to say … “it’s the economy stupid” ! Have you checked the Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S&P 500 today ? Lately ?

November 12, 2019 at 2:19 pm

Guest (Mitch)

W.o.P.,

You won’t believe it, but, fwiw: https://www.peakprosperity.com/the-end-of-money-3/

You can just skip to the section called “It’s all about the amount of claims.”

If I could print money, I could make numbers look good too.

November 12, 2019 at 2:36 pm

Guest (Mitch)

Let me put it in my own words: if you own a factory that can make 10,000 widgets a day, then until you sell it, it doesn’t matter how much the stock market says it is worth, all that matters is that you can make 10,000 widgets a day.

November 12, 2019 at 3:33 pm

Anonymous

If Trump gets re-elected is I’m sure the good stock market numbers will rightly get some credit for that. But if that’s what Trumpublicans are counting on to outweigh everything else, including Trump’s consistently miserable approval ratings, they may be grasping at the wrong straws.

For one thing, the stock market is related to the real economy, but it is not the same thing as the real economy. And to the coal miners who have seen Trump’s empty, cynical promises of “bringing back coal jobs” evaporate into nothingness, to the farmers who have gone bankrupt and the factory workers laid off due to his trade war bumbling, the fact that stockholders are still getting richer than ever on Wall Street may not be the slam-dunk argument for re-election that Trump Cultists imagine it will be.

Second, to the extent that the economy, overall, is doing pretty well…most people, rightly, don’t give Trump much credit for that, because he inherited a steadily growing economy with low unemployment from Obama (who, by contrast, inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, and actually did the heavy lifting of leading the country out of the Bush recession). Basically, most people recognize that Trump’s been coasting on Obama’s economic coat-tails, and if anything has probably contributed to an overall slow down of growth — and actual contraction in the manufacturing sector — with his clumsy trade war bumbling.

Third, and perhaps most important, while “it’s the economy, stupid” was a clever saying and perhaps captured the dynamics of some past races, it’s just no longer how most people are deciding who to support….

https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-not-the-economy-anymore-stupid-11573570241

But as I’ve said before I welcome the Trump Cult’s over-confidence in their Dear Leader! By all means, keep counting those chickens, pay no attention to the polls, no need to change anything, everything Dear Leader does is just “perfect,” just like his totally awesome call with the Ukrainian president! 🤣

November 12, 2019 at 3:50 pm

Eric Kirk

Trump may well get re-elected. Provincial white people are still the largest voting bloc in the country, and right now the electoral college really favors Republicans heavily. If he wins he will certainly win with fewer votes again.

But if the Democratic nominee selects Sherrod Brown (and he accepts) I don’t see how Trump wins, because Brown will deliver Ohio and Republicans have never won a Presidential election without Ohio. Brown’s appeal goes well into the midwest.

And also, the results of the Philadelphia suburbs last week probably has Trump’s campaign people freaking out.

One thing last week’s election made clear – so far there is absolutely no negative political fallout for Democrats due to the impeachment inquiry. That could change, but it could go either way.

November 12, 2019 at 5:30 pm

Anonymous

Should be an interesting week. All the Trumpublican squawking points about “closed door hearings,” and “no due process” — which were already falling apart as the transcripts of those depositions have been released — will completely collapse as the public hearings get underway.

Meanwhile, Team Trump can’t even come up with a coherent defense, much less a persuasive one, as the President seems intent on forcing his party to defend the indefensible claim that his blatant acts of corruption and abuse of power are not just less-than-impeachable, but actually “perfect.”

Of course the Dimwitted Trump Cultists won’t be swayed by any amount of evidence — they gave up any independent thought when they joined the cult — but plenty of less-brainwashed Americans may be very interested to see the witnesses lay out the facts under questioning by members of both parties.

November 12, 2019 at 5:44 pm

Anonymous

Speaking of people with no coherent defense for their blatant corruption — I’m gonna go out on a limb here and make a prediction that self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone is going to be convicted and sentenced to prison. (We should know for sure fairly soon, as closing arguments in his trial are tomorrow.)

November 12, 2019 at 5:47 pm

Eric Kirk

We did “learn” from the Stone trial that Trump lied in his written responses to Mueller’s questions. Probably “confirmed” is a better word.

November 12, 2019 at 7:51 pm

Henchman Of Justice

“Provincial white people”…

Erica means the Clintons in the Hamptons…or Canadians Bernie and Warren…no real difference…provincial socialists…bunch of cold hearted mutha luvas…

November 12, 2019 at 9:59 pm

W.o.P.

You’re right Mitch, I don’t believe it.

“If he wins he will certainly win with fewer votes again.” ……. so what Eric, if he wins with one vote, he wins!

November 13, 2019 at 1:05 am

MOLA42

W.o.P:

Trump lost by three million votes. Or don’t you remember?

November 13, 2019 at 5:28 am

Anonymous

But MOLA, in the Cult’s “alternative facts” version of the 2016 election, their Dear Leader won the popular vote by a landslide, once you subtract the “millions of illegal votes” that he claimed were cast against him.

The fact that in the three years since the election, and with the vast investigatory powers of the federal government at his disposal, Dear Leader hasn’t come up with a shred of evidence for that claim doesn’t matter one bit to his dimwitted, endlessly gullible followers. He said it, so they mindlessly believe it, end of story. Because that’s just how dimwitted cult followers roll.

November 13, 2019 at 7:10 am

W.o.P.

MOLA42, Trump WON the electoral vote by a significant margin. Or don’t you remember? Winning by one has the same effect of winning by 30, or 40.

PA, ………………………….

November 13, 2019 at 7:43 am

Guest (Mitch)

W.o.P. is correct. Trump won the electoral college. If memory serves, he flipped it with about 75,000 votes in three states. It’s possible, I suppose, that the democrats will put some effort into flipping those 75,000 votes back, but it’s possible that trump’s apparent midwest Teflon will continue in service through November 2020.

November 13, 2019 at 8:11 am

Guest (Mitch)

Wow, listening to Taylor. It’s beyond me how what he’s already said (8:10 Pacific) isn’t enough to sink trump. The Senate’s gop is going to have a hard time.

November 13, 2019 at 12:37 pm

MOLA42

W.o.P.:

I remember Trump winning the Electoral College. You responded to a statement that pointed out he lost he POPULAR Vote.

I also remember he got those essential Electoral College votes by the slimmest of margins in something like three states through a great deal of help from a foreign adversary of our nation and the incompetence of James Comey (added to a few strategic errors on the part of his Democratic contender).

Yes, Trump could indeed win a second term. But not without the help of his overseas buddies whom he serves. Thus, the interesting stuff he’s been up to in Ukraine and why Trump is in the mess he is now.

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