So now New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo has come out and said "America was never that great." To groans from the audience. And now he is trying to "'splain" his remarks.
Really, you wonder about guys like that. Because he is playing to Trump's strength.
The point about Trump's "Make America Great Again" is that it speaks to all Americans as Americans. It divides the world into Americans and the Rest.
Remember my maxim: Politics is Division. If you are a politician you want to divide up the electorate so that you get the majority and the other guy is left with the rest. If you are the president of the nation state of the United States of America that is exactly how you want to divide the world. America vs. the Rest. People that want to make America great again vs. people that say American was never that great. Our optimism vs. their pessimism. Our hope vs. their fear. And so on.
Moreover when the economy is firing on all cylinders and black and Hispanic unemployment rates are at all-time lows, why then the slogan Make America Great Again seems to set exactly the right tone.
I mean. Why would you say America was never that great when the economy is growing at 4 percent and very likely more?
Let's reset back to Obama's Hope and Change. It was great in 2008 because of the mess of Iraq and the Great Crash. Only thing is that Obama didn't deliver. He didn't revive the economy (because he spent money on keeping teachers in their jobs and he increased regulations rather that shaking out the reins and telling business to go get it); he didn't realize the hopes he ignited in black voters. And his change with Obamacare was an abject failure and a lie.
But in 2008 Hope and Change was a great line and Republicans hated it. Of course they did.
Today in 2018 Make America Great Again is a great line and Democrats hate it. Of course they do.
In my view Make America Great Again has another side. Most Americans are never going to amount to anything. We can aspire to a good job; we can be good fathers and mothers. But we are never going to see their names up in lights. So our chance for immortality (aside from having children and grandchildren) is that America does well, so we can bask in the knowledge that America is the greatest country in the world and the American people are the greatest people in the world.
But if you are a credentialed member of the ruling class, you think differently. For instance, you will very likely spend a part of your life in some gig in a foreign country, as a visiting professor, or working for your employer for a couple of years for a foreign subsidiary. The boundaries of your world are not the shores of the US. You belong anywhere, because you belong to the global elite. Visas and residence permits are not a problem for people like you. So it is not surprising that academics and journalists and writers tend to be globalists.
If you are a member of a minority, still feeling your way from agricultural idiocy to urban competence, then you are probably tribal in your sense of belonging. You are not ready to make your primary identity as American, but identify with your tribal group. Our modern minorities like blacks and Latinos are merely the latest in a long story. When the Irish came to the US they became Democrats because the Americans of British ancestry were usually Republicans. And they became Democrats because it was Republicans that were creating public schools to cure them of their Catholicism. If you read Teddy White and his Making of the President books, you will find long disquisitions on the Irish vote, the Italian vote and the Jewish vote. People carried their Old World loyalties into the New World. Today we don't talk so much about the Irish and Italian vote so much as the deplorable white working-class vote.
So when Trump tweets about record low black and Hispanic unemployment here and again here, what do you think he is doing? He is trying to get blacks and Hispanics to feel that they are a part of America, participating fully in the economy, and he is tempting them to identify as Americans rather than as blacks and Hispanics. The dirty dog.
Oh, and, of course, the whole Trump thing about illegal immigrants and borders plays to the natural tribal instinct that Our People are OK, but the people beyond the border, not so much.
My point is that all politics is about Us and Them; the only question is who counts as Us, and who counts as Them. The liberal line is that Us includes the enlightened and evolved and the marginalized victims and the Them is the racist sexist homophobes. Trump says that the Us is the ordinary Americans that want to make America great; the Them are the people that say America was never great.
All I say is that one of these slogans is the smart one and the other is the dumb one. Which one do you think?
Really, you wonder about guys like that. Because he is playing to Trump's strength.
The point about Trump's "Make America Great Again" is that it speaks to all Americans as Americans. It divides the world into Americans and the Rest.
Remember my maxim: Politics is Division. If you are a politician you want to divide up the electorate so that you get the majority and the other guy is left with the rest. If you are the president of the nation state of the United States of America that is exactly how you want to divide the world. America vs. the Rest. People that want to make America great again vs. people that say American was never that great. Our optimism vs. their pessimism. Our hope vs. their fear. And so on.
Moreover when the economy is firing on all cylinders and black and Hispanic unemployment rates are at all-time lows, why then the slogan Make America Great Again seems to set exactly the right tone.
I mean. Why would you say America was never that great when the economy is growing at 4 percent and very likely more?
Let's reset back to Obama's Hope and Change. It was great in 2008 because of the mess of Iraq and the Great Crash. Only thing is that Obama didn't deliver. He didn't revive the economy (because he spent money on keeping teachers in their jobs and he increased regulations rather that shaking out the reins and telling business to go get it); he didn't realize the hopes he ignited in black voters. And his change with Obamacare was an abject failure and a lie.
But in 2008 Hope and Change was a great line and Republicans hated it. Of course they did.
Today in 2018 Make America Great Again is a great line and Democrats hate it. Of course they do.
In my view Make America Great Again has another side. Most Americans are never going to amount to anything. We can aspire to a good job; we can be good fathers and mothers. But we are never going to see their names up in lights. So our chance for immortality (aside from having children and grandchildren) is that America does well, so we can bask in the knowledge that America is the greatest country in the world and the American people are the greatest people in the world.
But if you are a credentialed member of the ruling class, you think differently. For instance, you will very likely spend a part of your life in some gig in a foreign country, as a visiting professor, or working for your employer for a couple of years for a foreign subsidiary. The boundaries of your world are not the shores of the US. You belong anywhere, because you belong to the global elite. Visas and residence permits are not a problem for people like you. So it is not surprising that academics and journalists and writers tend to be globalists.
If you are a member of a minority, still feeling your way from agricultural idiocy to urban competence, then you are probably tribal in your sense of belonging. You are not ready to make your primary identity as American, but identify with your tribal group. Our modern minorities like blacks and Latinos are merely the latest in a long story. When the Irish came to the US they became Democrats because the Americans of British ancestry were usually Republicans. And they became Democrats because it was Republicans that were creating public schools to cure them of their Catholicism. If you read Teddy White and his Making of the President books, you will find long disquisitions on the Irish vote, the Italian vote and the Jewish vote. People carried their Old World loyalties into the New World. Today we don't talk so much about the Irish and Italian vote so much as the deplorable white working-class vote.
So when Trump tweets about record low black and Hispanic unemployment here and again here, what do you think he is doing? He is trying to get blacks and Hispanics to feel that they are a part of America, participating fully in the economy, and he is tempting them to identify as Americans rather than as blacks and Hispanics. The dirty dog.
Oh, and, of course, the whole Trump thing about illegal immigrants and borders plays to the natural tribal instinct that Our People are OK, but the people beyond the border, not so much.
My point is that all politics is about Us and Them; the only question is who counts as Us, and who counts as Them. The liberal line is that Us includes the enlightened and evolved and the marginalized victims and the Them is the racist sexist homophobes. Trump says that the Us is the ordinary Americans that want to make America great; the Them are the people that say America was never great.
All I say is that one of these slogans is the smart one and the other is the dumb one. Which one do you think?
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