July 22, 2016, 9:32 am
My personal reaction was that Trump's speech was horrifying, a dystopian vision that bears no relationship to what is actually going on in this country (e.g. violent crime continues to fall, trade continues to make us wealthier, immigrants continue to make productive contributions, etc). Peter Suderman has more in case you missed it.
But in Arnold Kling's 3-axis model of politics, the speech made perfect sense. Trump has decided he is going to run hard on the civilization-barbarism axis. The barbarians are at the gates, and his opponents are either too weak to deal with them or are actually in league with the barbarians. He is the strong leader who will turn them back and make everyone safe again. We're not going to trade with the barbarians, we are not going to treat with them, and we are not going to waste civil rights on them. Ugh. Trump is working hard to make me feel the victim, but I don't accept victim status.
I am not sure if this is marginally better or worse than what we are going to get at the Democratic Convention, where we will get four days of hearing that I personally am the bad guy and source of all misery in the world and the person that needs to be regulated harder and looted more furiously. I almost prefer the Democratic approach, because at least evil is being done against me rather than in my name.
August 27, 2008, 8:55 am
Marxism holds that the middle class will eventually disappear, as the world is polarized between a few large business owners and the masses of the proletariat. Small and independent businesses would disappear, and most of the middle class would be pedestrianized. The middle class was always a sticking point for Marx, and there is some question whether this is really prediction or wishful thinking. I say wishful thinking, because Marx knew that he could not achieve his socialist end-state with a middle class in place -- he had to drive the middle class into the proletariat.
In a large sense, that is what was are seeing at the Democratic Convention -- the effort to convince the middle class that, against all reason and reality, they are actually not well-off, that they are marginalized victims. It is an attempt to pedestrianize the middle class. Thus we get this classic quote from Rahm Emanuel, via Matt Welch:
The truth is, the Bush crowd has been giving the middle
class a thumping. This November, the middle class is going to give it
right back. This election comes down to a simple question: do we want
four more years of Bush-McCain or do we want the change we need?
There
is only one candidate from the middle class, that understands the
middle class, and that can deliver the change the middle class needs:
Barack Obama. A strong economy depends on a strong middle class. But
George Bush has put the middle class in a hole and John McCain has a
plan to keep digging that hole with George Bush's shovel.
