Whatabout those opinion polls that show President Trump behind the leading Democratic candidates? Is Trump in trouble? Dov Fischer, the American Spectator's resident rabbi, points out the basic problem with such polls. it is this:
OK, fine. But let's look at the bigger picture.
The fact is that democratic politics, like politics in any age, is all about what you can get in the world by force. All politics is about loot and plunder, as in my Maxim:
In our day, during the industrial era, it's "vote for me and I'll give you free stuff."
In the early days of the democratic era this was a real winner, because the state spent something like 10 percent of GDP on government programs and a lot of that was defence. So it was a no-brainer to sell the workers on social insurance and free education because the workers wouldn't appear to be paying for it.
But, as Irving Kristol pointed out half a century ago, there is a catch. If you are a lefty wanting to help the workers or women or blacks or undocumented immigrants, you pretty soon learn that your plan won't fly unless you deal in the middle class. And there is another catch. The wonderful program to help the workers and women and blacks will end up being skewed towards the agenda of the middle class. So free education, beloved by the workers in the 19th century, turned out to benefit mainly the middle class who were already paying for education for their children. Today, it is clear that education works best in middle-class suburbs where the middle-class mothers are running herd on the school system. Social Security benefits mainly the middle class. Ditto Medicare.
So, when you propose to meddle with Social Security, its middle-class beneficiaries immediately start wondering about the security of their pensions. When you propose to expand Medicare into Medicare For All, its middle-class beneficiaries immediately grasp that they are going to be getting worse health care.
So this really creates a problem for the politicians that have got elected in the last century by promising benefits to the workers and the traditionally marginalized. It worked well when the government was still devouring less than 10 percent of GDP. But when, as now, the government is spending north of 35 percent GDP, then the middle class is going to get the feeling that they are not going to benefit. They instinctively realize that any change in government entitlements is likely to hurt them.
So I would say that the loot-and-plunder operations of democratic politics has gone about as far as it can go. If you start looting and plundering beyond our current level at 35-40 percent GDP you are risking a meltdown like Argentina, or Venezuela.
So, in the current election cycle, our Democratic friends are proposing glorious new vistas of loot and plunder with Medicare For All and student loan forgiveness that sound really cool until you get beyond the unicorns and rainbows and start realizing how, at the imminently personal level, it's going to hurt the average middle-class voter.
Now there is another approach to this, that is exemplified by the Green New Deal. This is a quasi-religious program, to heal the world of its vile sludge and make it new again. It sounds wonderful in its unicorns and rainbows aspect, but when it comes to the nitty gritty, with gas prices in the stratosphere, paying for a complete do-over of the electrical generation and transmission system, etc., average people are going to find themselves paying big bucks -- for what?
And yet, it has to be, politics must operate on a basis of loot and plunder, as it has always done.
My question is: how do you do loot and plunder in the digital age? Clearly the loot-and-plunder of the industrial age as reached its limit. But what comes next?
I have to admit that I have no idea.
The Average American Is Painfully Ignorant, Strikingly Uninformed, and Hopelessly Clueless — Until a Matter Becomes Imminently Personal.So, the average American is all for Medicare For All when presented by the CJC, the Corrupt Journalist Corps, until she starts to find out what it means to her.
Pollsters find that 70 percent of Americans prefer “Medicare for All” when initially surveyed. “Sure, let’s guarantee ‘free’ health care for everyone — even those here illegally. It’s only right.” Then, after pollsters follow by asking whether the surveyed person would be OK with losing his or her own private insurer option, support plummets to 37 percent. “What? You mean I can’t have my PPO and will have to lose my family doctor or my long-time pulmonary/coronary/neurological/gastroenterological specialist, and will need to go to some clinic where I get whoever they have on duty that day?” And then when apprised that single-payer government health care also will mean enduring substantially increased waiting times just to see a doctor and brutal scheduling delays to undergo an urgently needed surgery, the results suddenly crash to 26 percent.Notice the three levels here. First, the abstract unicorns and rainbows level: oh yeah, let's have healthcare for everyone. Second, the "they'd better not take away my doctor/insurance" level. Third, the "waiting in line" realization, what you might call the "imminently personal" stage of understanding.
OK, fine. But let's look at the bigger picture.
The fact is that democratic politics, like politics in any age, is all about what you can get in the world by force. All politics is about loot and plunder, as in my Maxim:
Government is an armed minority, occupying territory and taxing the inhabitants to reward its supporters.In hunter-gatherer bands, it's all about the dawn raid on the neighboring band, for loot, plunder, and women. In the agricultural era it's all about invading the neighboring country to loot them of their grain stores and their women. Or, in Hitler's version, it is conquering the East in order to establish the Germans with land to grow their own food supplies and its corresponding Lebensraum.
In our day, during the industrial era, it's "vote for me and I'll give you free stuff."
In the early days of the democratic era this was a real winner, because the state spent something like 10 percent of GDP on government programs and a lot of that was defence. So it was a no-brainer to sell the workers on social insurance and free education because the workers wouldn't appear to be paying for it.
But, as Irving Kristol pointed out half a century ago, there is a catch. If you are a lefty wanting to help the workers or women or blacks or undocumented immigrants, you pretty soon learn that your plan won't fly unless you deal in the middle class. And there is another catch. The wonderful program to help the workers and women and blacks will end up being skewed towards the agenda of the middle class. So free education, beloved by the workers in the 19th century, turned out to benefit mainly the middle class who were already paying for education for their children. Today, it is clear that education works best in middle-class suburbs where the middle-class mothers are running herd on the school system. Social Security benefits mainly the middle class. Ditto Medicare.
So, when you propose to meddle with Social Security, its middle-class beneficiaries immediately start wondering about the security of their pensions. When you propose to expand Medicare into Medicare For All, its middle-class beneficiaries immediately grasp that they are going to be getting worse health care.
So this really creates a problem for the politicians that have got elected in the last century by promising benefits to the workers and the traditionally marginalized. It worked well when the government was still devouring less than 10 percent of GDP. But when, as now, the government is spending north of 35 percent GDP, then the middle class is going to get the feeling that they are not going to benefit. They instinctively realize that any change in government entitlements is likely to hurt them.
So I would say that the loot-and-plunder operations of democratic politics has gone about as far as it can go. If you start looting and plundering beyond our current level at 35-40 percent GDP you are risking a meltdown like Argentina, or Venezuela.
So, in the current election cycle, our Democratic friends are proposing glorious new vistas of loot and plunder with Medicare For All and student loan forgiveness that sound really cool until you get beyond the unicorns and rainbows and start realizing how, at the imminently personal level, it's going to hurt the average middle-class voter.
Now there is another approach to this, that is exemplified by the Green New Deal. This is a quasi-religious program, to heal the world of its vile sludge and make it new again. It sounds wonderful in its unicorns and rainbows aspect, but when it comes to the nitty gritty, with gas prices in the stratosphere, paying for a complete do-over of the electrical generation and transmission system, etc., average people are going to find themselves paying big bucks -- for what?
And yet, it has to be, politics must operate on a basis of loot and plunder, as it has always done.
My question is: how do you do loot and plunder in the digital age? Clearly the loot-and-plunder of the industrial age as reached its limit. But what comes next?
I have to admit that I have no idea.
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