Hillary vs. The Donald

It is increasingly looking like a battle between two New Yorkers for the Presidency this November – Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump.   This could be the oddest election in recent history.

To be sure, each has to win nomination.  Hillary’s South Carolina showing shows that Sanders’ appeal is limited, while Trump continues to ride high in the polls against weak opposition.     Assuming by mid-March it looks like Hillary vs. the Donald, what then?  In the last week or so I’ve had a number of conversations about such a match up and have heard opinions that run the gamut from a disaster for the GOP to a battle Hillary can’t win. Nobody really knows; this is a unique election.  So en lieu of a prediction, here’s a few things I think such a race would mean:

1.  Conservatives would be the big losers.  While Trump’s opposition to immigration and his nationalism are music to the ears of many on the right sick of political correctness and multiculturalism, there is nothing in Trump’s past that suggest he has any sympathy for the conservative agenda.  To people like the folk at the National Review or Red State, Trump vs. Hillary would be legitimate cause for deep depression.

2.Trump will run against the establishment, pointing out how the middle class has been squeezed for thirty years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations; indeed, he’ll personalize it to present himself as an anecdote to a poisonous Clinton-Bush dynasty.  The appeal of populist anger is hard to measure; I suspect he has a relatively low ceiling and that fear and disgust at Trump will balance out the anger…but perhaps not!

3. Clinton or her surrogates will run an intensely negative campaign against Trump, cherry picking quotes, examples from his past, things he’s said on the campaign trail, with one message:  “Is this the kind of person you trust to keep the country secure – is this the type of person you want representing the United States?”  This will include statements from former military leaders and even Republicans.  That avoids a frontal assault on Trump over policies or values – attacking him personally doesn’t seem to work – and instead lets Trump be his own enemy, with the voters asked to decide.  Will it work?  Well, if it doesn’t, welcome President Trump!

Although dismissed as “too liberal” by some conservatives, Nevada Republican Brian Sandoval represents a new kind of conservatism, one that may prove popular for the GOP in the future.

4.  My guess is that this race would help Democrats win the Senate and make gains in the House.  Many Republicans will be “meh” about Trump, and could depress the vote.  Meanwhile, Democrats have to hope that fear of a Trump Presidency will bring out the party faithful.   Clinton needs to continue the trend of high black voter turnout faithful to Democrats, and somehow she needs to win Millennial Sanders supporters who talk about Hillary with the same kind of disdain as her conservative critics.  If she can’t do that, welcome President Trump.

5.  This could actually help the Republican party in the long run, especially if Trump is defeated.  Right now the GOP is stuck due to intense conservative opposition to compromise with the Democrats.  The problem is that these conservatives represent a shrinking number of Americans who are in denial of the cultural and demographic change of the last thirty years.  The Republicans need to craft a conservatism for the 21st Century.  By showing the inability of either the establishment wing or the conservative wing of the party to put forth a viable alternative, the GOP will be forced to rethink it’s brand.  If Trump wins, that will happen as well, as a Trump led GOP will be anathema to the so-called conservative movement.  Either way, the Republican party is in transition.

6.  While a Hillary victory will cement gains made by progressives during the Obama administration, the Sanders challenge shows that the public wants the Democrats to retool their message as well.  Obama beat Hillary for the same reason Sanders is threatening her – she is the past, she represents the old Democratic message.  If she wins, Democrats risk becoming lazy, not recognizing that their message isn’t resonating, especially with young voters who are more liberal than ever.  A Hillary loss, on the other hand, will yield a new generation of Democratic leaders who will recognize that they need to expand their appeal – much like Obama did in 2008.

Cory Booker of New Jersey, who recently penned a book about regaining unity in the country, represents a direction the Democrats need to take.

And therein is the oddity of this election as I see it:  the losing party is likely to benefit more in the long run than the winning party.  If Hillary wins, she needs to make sure Democrats do not become complacent and take seriously what the Obama and Sanders challenges symbolized.

I also sense that this election will introduce radical changes in American politics in the years to come, not reflecting the traditional interests of left or right, but concepts and attitudes fitting the culture of the new Century.  In any event, we live in interesting times.

A Lurch To Socialism?

In article in the conservative Orange County Register is alarmed by the apparent :lucrch to socialism” by Millennials.   Unlike some pundits, who claim it’s just a bunch of spoiled idealistic kids who don’t understand the nature of economics, Joel Kotkin recognizes that there are good, solid reasons for this shift, even if he considers it dangerous.   Part of it reflects failures of our current economic system, and in part the specific issues facing young people.   He points out that such admiration for someone like Sanders would have been unimaginable in any previous generation since the New Deal.  The solution, he suggests, is making capitalism work for people, rather than the elites.

Teaching at a university and listening to students, I hear a lot of support for Bernie Sanders.   Yet I think Kotkin is a bit too 20th Century in his analysis.  It’s not that Millennials “want socialism;” rather, young people are in many ways post-ideological.  Whereas the 20th Century was the “century of ideologies,” the current era finds ideological conflict vacuous, a kind of intellectual play with ideas that don’t connect to the real world.

Francis Fukuyama was ridiculed when he proclaimed “the end of history” after the Cold War was over. But he was on to something.

Young people know communism failed.  They know the Soviet Union collapsed, and they do not talk about the workers owning the means of production, or the state dismantling the capitalist system.   Their focus is on issues – debt, opportunity, the massive concentration of wealth at the top, and the increasing economic problems their generation faces.

Hillary Clinton represents the old way of thinking to them.  Ties with Wall Street, insider politics, a focus on interest groups rather than on average people.  Sanders is a breath of fresh air, someone who addresses the issues they take seriously.

And the socialism?  It’s true that Millennials don’t have the same negative connotation with the word that us 20th Century folk hold.  They also know that many European countries have the kind of “socialism” Sanders espouses, and those countries are free, prosperous and often lack the problems facing young Americans.

In other words, young people are interested in opportunity and a better quality of life, not ideological socialism.   Now, the Scandinavian system wouldn’t work in the US for a variety of reasons, but we can still learn from what they do that does work.   Young people understand that power and wealth are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, the country’s infrastructure is falling apart, and opportunities to make it in the middle class are fading.

If Sanders were to win, he’d have limited success in making his plans a reality.  Congress would balk, and he’d need to make major compromises.  However, he is demonstrating that young people can’t be counted on to vote for either party, and are dissatisfied with the direction of the country.   He is starting a movement, and even if he wants to, he can’t simply direct his supporters to vote Clinton if she gets the nomination.

The good news for people like Kotkin is that Sanders doesn’t represent an attack on market capitalism or some kind of effort to nationalize industry and create a massive central government.   That’s not what young people want, they distrust concentrated power.   The bad news for those who like the current power structure is that these Millennials will dominate electoral politics soon, and change is coming.   And ultimately Kotkin is correct: the solution is to make market capitalism work for the people, not primarily for interest groups and elites.