After many months of hype, the election tomorrow almost seems like an anticlimax. Maybe it only feels that way to the Antiplanner because I voted more than a week ago. Polls indicate that Trump has closed much of the gap that had opened up after the conventions. But I can’t help but think that, no matter who wins, nothing much is going to change.
Certainly none of the apocalyptic predictions made for if Clinton or Trump are elected are likely to come true. Our systems has too many checks and balances for anything really bad, such as nuclear war or a fascist dictatorship, to happen.
Instead, what is more likely is continued paralysis as our high-paid representatives in Congress decide the best course for them is to do nothing because doing anything would lend credibility to the other party. That means we’ll continue to fight too many wars, spend money on frivolous domestic projects, and grow more polarized.
At least some people have figured out that this election is really a fight between the elites and the working class. Trump won the nomination by speaking the language of the white working class, but if he loses the election it will be because he failed to capitalize on a fact that Ben Carson understands, which is that blacks and Latinos are harmed by the same policies that have harmed the white working class.
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As the Antiplanner has noted before, the divide between the elites and the rest of the country isn’t between the 1 percent and 99 percent, it is between the 30 percent who are college educated and the 70 percent who are not. The economic mobility that we enjoyed fifty years ago is gone, so that divide will simply grow larger.
Though they love to pay lip service to the poor and downtrodden, members of the 30 percent are too busy trying to design the world for themselves to think about whether it will work for anyone else. Will Los Angeles, Seattle, and other cities really vote for functionally obsolete multi-billion-dollar rail projects? If so, it’s because the 30 percent doesn’t want to ride a bus. Poor blacks in Washington DC hardly need a gondola across the Potomac or another streetcar to help them get to work, but that’s what they’re likely to get if the 30 percent has its way.
If Clinton gets elected, white, middle-class children may get low-cost higher education. But that won’t help children in poor families, many of whom, as John Oliver pointed out last week, are forced to go to schools that don’t even give them the option of preparing for college. Meanwhile, if Trump gets elected, he is likely to focus too much on a nearly non-existent immigration problem to solve any real problems.
By 2020, some politician is likely to figure out that the 30-70 divide is the most important one in America. If they can repackage Trump’s rhetoric to appeal to the entire working class, not just whites, they will win in a landslide. Until then, count on four more years of gridlock.
I am pretty sure Clinton will win, and then enter office very weak from all the scandal. The Democrats will rally for their collective agenda, just like they did for Obama, but the personal leadership will be very weak, just like Obama.
A Trump presidency would sure be interesting, as he would try lots of new things and be hounded incessantly by the press. The Republicans would not fall in lock step with him unless he was proposing a typical conservative agenda item. It would be very interesting to see what he did with Free Trade deals. But Trump would also violate a lot of “rules” the USA has developed about presidents.
(Personally I think the USA squanders a ton of advantages in trade deals and just helps the Antiplanner’s 30 percent and very much hurts the 79%).
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If Clinton gets elected, white, middle-class children may get low-cost higher education. But that won’t help children in poor families, many of whom, as John Oliver pointed out last week, are forced to go to schools that don’t even give them the option of preparing for college. Meanwhile, if Trump gets elected, he is likely to focus too much on a nearly non-existent immigration problem to solve any real problems.
” ~ Anti-planner
That’s the problem with these free and subsidized tuition schemes. Unless they’re income based – class based – they become little more than programs for those with the means and connections to get a hand out.
Even the class based aspect is somewhat dodgy. There’s no reason why a skilled engineer can’t be making $100k 10 if not 5 years out of college. Even if they’re from a 20 kid single mom in from the roughest block in South Central LA, after college they’ll have the means to take on $25k, $50k, $100k of debt.
The problem with public schools is the lack of options, which, John Oliver himself opposes. It’s not just a lack of options in good, okay or poor schools but options for life paths. There a lot of classes that teach tangible, meaning skills that have seemed to gone the way of the dodo.
“There a lot of classes that teach tangible, meaning skills that have seemed to gone the way of the dodo.”
The problem is that they’ve been moved from high school to community colleges. The whole goal of the schooling racket is to increase consumption of schooling, That’s how adolescence has been extended to the third decade of life and how educrats like me have jobs.
Agreed there should be more non-college skills taught in high school. Too much emphasis on just college prep, and teaching non-college students subjects like algebra that they will never use.
The Antiplanner wrote:
By 2020, some politician is likely to figure out that the 30-70 divide is the most important one in America. If they can repackage Trump’s rhetoric to appeal to the entire working class, not just whites, they will win in a landslide. Until then, count on four more years of gridlock.
Not every 30% person believes in (or lives) the lifestyles of the rich (and sometimes famous) in places like New York City; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Boston; Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area. Beyond that, I think that winning all of the hearts and minds of the 70% is very, very difficult, given that opinions about many things are as diverse there as anyplace else, and perhaps more extreme.
Certainly, with a Clinton win the status quo is maintained. The slow plod of democratic pragmatism continues. It’s not exciting. It’s not grand.
I don’t think the same can be said with Trump. While policies may not change on paper his promises would throw the country into an immediate constitutional crisis. Instead of governing the focus would be on legal fights over the constitutionality of his directives.
It’s more of the same v. who knows what.
Trump: “…the focus would be on legal fights over the constitutionality of his directives.”
I know it does not get headlines in the MSM, but federal courts have ruled many of Obama’s actions to be unconstitutional. He goes ahead and does them anyway as the courts do not have any enforcement ability as long as we have a justice department controlled by people like Holder and Lynch.
The difference will be anything Trump does wrong will be headlines.
And it will become an impeachable offense if the President plays golf. 🙂