Small Town Angst That Fuels the GOP Base

I will admit I am putting this forth as a theory only and it is coming straight from my brain with no outside supporting research.  But if I am correct, Democrats are going to have find a campaign solution for this if they want to win in predominantly rural states.

I have long been fascinated by the history of China and read a fair number of books, both historical and fiction about life in China.  China has been a populous place for a long time.  It's government for the longest time was/is undemocratic because the leaders feared what would happen if the masses rose up against them and they only understood the use of force and terror and religion (Confucianism) to convince the masses that towing to the common good of society while the wealth off could reach for and preserve their advantage without fear of being caught.  The effect on the poor was they found comfort in their village and satisfaction for their life in their little world.

That is also how the masses in the major cities of the world find satisfaction with society.  If my little world is calm and to my satisfaction, I am happy.  That is why Jayne Byrne lost to Harold Washington in the 1983 Chicago mayoralty race when she failed to clear the blizzard snow from the neighborhoods.

But the U.S. rural areas find satisfaction in a different ideal, even when it doesn't work for them.  That  ideal is also based upon family, church, and working together in a small community to find satisfaction from society and life.  It is a view that is based upon the bedrock belief that hard work will be rewarded and they will prosper.  And they are profoundly uncomfortable with the idea that the Chinese accept:  we are little individuals in a big society that we have no control over.  We can only control what we are in control of.

Even though globalization and technology have devastated small town economic opportunity for many in the U.S., these individuals continue to possess and treasure that bedrock belief in hard work. I too believe in the benefits and necessity of hard work, but I also understand that one must be educated and participate in the global economy in order to prosper.  The old way of growing a little food and trading with neighbors is not going to provide the funds necessary to pay for health insurance or college or modern tax levels.  But the only thing these rural voters can even remotely control is tax levels and we will see in Kansas if trickle down economics helps restore the rural economy.  I doubt it because capital is global and it is the rare well off person who doesn't want his capital to perform.  They wouldn't be well off if they didn't care about that.

The Democrats must find a way to respect those rural voters while addressing the concerns of all voters.  The rural voters think of themselves as middle class, even if they are working poor, and they resent the view that all Washington D.C. cares about is the rich and urban poor.  Even if ObamaCare, the lower income tax code and food stamps benefit them, they don't believe it.

Overcoming ignorance is difficult but you cannot do it if you don't respect the bedrock beliefs and sell your policies as supporting those bedrock beliefs.  The GOP has figured out a way to build unquestioned support for their policies with their sales job that government is inefficient.  Democrats have to have a laser focus on creating efficient government and how they sell it.

I rambled a bit.  I started out trying to make the point that the U.S., with over 300 million people, may have tipped the point where individual can feel like they have control and don't want to accept what the Chinese accept that the individual in a large society has very limited control.

The Common Link Between the Tea Party and Inner City Youth Who Riot

Capitalism is always creating winners and losers.  I had no idea growing up that I needed to work in the global economy, but I am glad that I did.  Although I just met a retired fire chief who has a more secure retirement than I do and he certainly did not work in the global economy.

But I digress.

Within the U.S., the people enjoying economic advantage now generally work in either the global economy or technology.  The people whose jobs have moved overseas or been eliminated by technology have lost hope.  Those who have little, perform poorly in schools (there are many reasons for that centered on domestic home situations), perceive that they are the target of police, have little hope.  Within the inner city there is the allure of drug cash flow and the attractive (to the young within the inner city) life style that it brings.  There is little focus on the violence it promotes and the risks that come with it.

But the commonality between the Tea Party and the rioting youth everywhere is the lack of hope that the economy will deliver something good for them.  Trickle down economics doesn't work any more because capital is in the global economy and flows overseas where the demand for capital is higher and offering higher risk and returns.  There is inadequate demand within most of the G10 and ample supply so marginal capital has little reason to stay in the U.S. promoting jobs.

I believe most intelligent members of the GOP understand this but pander the party line to insure that the rich keep giving them campaign contributions with the goal of reducing the tax burden on the rich.  But this doesn't help the Tea Party or inner city youth who lack hope.

This is where think tanks should be useful.  I should be reading thought pieces in The New Republic about how we can encourage manufacturing to relocated back to the U.S. now that labor rates are  moving closer together, but I don't.  I know education is important but there is no question that schools in rural or inner cities are not as good as they are in suburbia or smaller cities.  And I am not sure that spending more money on those schools is the answer.  Attending college is important, but in  addition to being inadequately prepared for college, These lower income youth face the specter of too much debt upon graduation and uncertainly on ability to repay said debt.

I don't have an answer for this lack of hope.  I just wish I was reading some thoughtful ideas that I could consider as policies I could support.

This is interesting, Millennials Don't Trust Anyone

Millennials are people age 18 to 29 in the United States.

The % of them that they "sometimes trust" or "never" trust the following institutions is surprisingly high and implies that even with education, these institutions have a problem with their future clients.

Percentage that "sometimes trust" or "never" trust the following institutions

The Press - 88%
Wall Street - 86%
Congress - 82%
Federal Government - 74%
The President - 63%
The Supreme Court - 58%
Local Police - 50%


The danger of such distrust is nihilism because we need society to function well and that required both participation and sound governance.


Link to source document

Ross Douthat Endorses Obama Military Policy

and predicts that even Lindsay Graham would follow a similar policy if elected.

Link to Douthat column

Nanny State vs. Healthy Eating

It is an interesting contrast in conservative circles today.

A few years ago they ridiculed Michael Bloomberg for proposing that soft drink cups be limited in size for a single serving.  As one who thinks the size of small drink cups is the equivalent of a super sized large in many situations, I thought this was perfectly reasonable.  However, conservative circles said Mr. Bloomberg was creating a nanny state that deprived citizens of their rights to buy whatever quantity they wanted to buy.

However, now more than one GOP led state is trying to restrict what poor people can buy with food stamps.  When one reads a list of things they want to prohibit, such as cruise ships, filet mignon, and other luxury foods, one is left to wonder how many food stamp recipients are actually using their food stamps to buy such goods since usually they run out of food before the month has ended.

And what about some consistency?  Do citizens who receive food stamps somehow become 2nd class citizens deprived of their right to buy a super sized soda at the movies (which will be forbidden under some of these food stamp rules).  What happened to choice?

I actually have less of a problem with some of these restrictions if they make conservatives feel better as I don't think they really effect the choices food stamp recipients have.  But I do have a problem with their criticism of Michael Bloomberg for trying to limit the quantity of sugary drinks in one serving.

Diabetes is a plaque on our health care system and we need to do something.  Some consistency on the part of these conservatives would be useful.  If limiting the use of food stamps is conservative, so should be limiting the size of soft drinks.

The Nanny State has become a conservative concept if applied consistently.   But conservatives are anything but consistent.

Pure Unadulterated Socialism????

The CEO of Gravity Payments decided that he wanted to pay every employee at least $70,000 a year and cut his own pay to help do that.

What happens?  Conservative social media breaks out in hysteria being critical.  One pundit who I have never heard of "His mindset will hurt everyone in the end".  Rush Limbaugh labeled the move "pure, unadulterated socialism".

I don't know about my readers in Russia and the Ukraine who lived in pure unadulterated socialism, but a profit making enterprise that is free to hire and fire employees and decides that it wants to pay employees in a certain way, even if the wages are above market for some roles, does not strike me as socialism in any manner.

Perhaps if my last company's Board had not been so fixated on paying themselves so they could get rich quickly, and paid the lower end people a bit more, they would have been focused on the risks they were taking to get paid as they would have needed to work longer and they wouldn't have destroyed shareholder value the way they did.  Now a firm that once employed 120 people employs 30 or so and is simply a segment of a much larger firm.  And many of the well and less well paid people who did not survive the downsizing have suffered financial loss.

I have no idea what Gravity Payments does, but I suspect they are a high tech firm.  That means they have a high risk of failure.  If the CEO wants to have the best people he can find, pay them well so he has the best chance of making it over the long term, that seems like a valid capitalistic strategy to pursue and is certainly not socialism.

Socialism is when a business is on the government gravy train for its revenues generated by connections fostered by campaign contributions.  Say like Blackwater.   I am sure Rush Limbaugh saw them as a great example of capitalism even when they have seen their old employees convicted of murder.

I hate GerryMandering and other small points

I read with an interest a partisan Congressional Tea Party Republican's view on the state of politics.  His view is that he doesn't need to compromise or even contemplate the middle ground because his brand of politics dominates his electorate so he is no danger of losing his job.  He also sees this as true of most Democrats who have no risk of losing their jobs either by being diametrically opposed to him.

This certainly casts doubt upon my original goal for this blog which was to foster thoughts about a proper path between Democrat and Republican points of view to find a balance which takes the best of both worlds.  Instead, we get nothing but gridlock and parliamentary type system without the constraints of a parliamentary system.

I have no doubt that gerrymandering is the driver of all this and wish statewide elections were a growing norm rather than the small trend toward driving everything down to the Congressional Districts.  That might be OK if Congressional District winners recognized that they owe some leadership potential for the 20% to 49% of the voters who didn't vote for them and want to see compromise over some issues sometime.  But I suspect we will not see this any time soon.

Similarly, Tim McGraw is finding out that a country star cannot play a benefit for Sandy Hook victims because some Sandy Hook victims support a verification system before allowing the purchase of a gun.  The NRA has worked up such a high level of hysteria over reasonable gun control (it used to be handgun controls, but now we can't even control military weapons, and then people wonder why police are fearful for their lives every time they stop someone), that Tim McGraw is being seen as a traitor to the country music world and NRA supporters are going to boycott his music.  Maybe he should have just sent a donation, but I read somewhere he already has a net worth in excess of $30 mm so I guess he is now rich enough to not care if he maximizes the profits from every song.

Meanwhile, Chris Christie is trying to resurrect his campaign by coming after entitlements.  I have written extensively about the need to fix entitlements, but also must note that sending block grants to states to fix Medicaid will force the states to create death panels.  Most of the growth in medicaid spending is the direct result of the ever increasing number of elderly alzheimer's patients who become  institutionalized, spend down their resources and go onto Medicaid to pay for their long term care.  They have no life and they are doomed, but someone has to pay for their care unless you have death panels and euthanasia, which most conservatives and liberals are against.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  You either support robust palliative care or you need to authorize euthanasia if you want to control the growth in Medicaid spending.  DEMENTIA is growing rapidly, not the cost of covering poor children.

I don't have a solution for this except to support robust palliative care.  Dr assisted death only works if the patient is cognizant and dementia patients are not cognizant.  I know this because my mother had Alzheimers, cost the system over $600,000 for her last 4 years of life and did not have one iota of cognizant thought in those 4 years.   I wanted her to die with dignity but instead she ended up with an ignored DNR and 4 months in an ICU on a ventilator before she died.  The Dr who oversaw that should go to jail but instead he got paid handsomely no doubt.

The failure to regulate the financial system well in the years leading up to the 2008 financial collapse now has a measure of what it did to global growth.  Global GDP is now 3% lower than it would otherwise be according to J.P. Morgan economists.  Since GDP is annual concept that is how much lower aggregate incomes are each year.  That is a lot of foregone income and would have helped people and governments afford things better if the collapse had not happened.  I don't understand why Republicans, who studied economics, don't understand the need for prudent financial regulation. An unregulated economy leads to excesses that have disastrous results.