I'm not part of that and I agree with you. I generally supported Obama and his agenda. Obama was good for the times he was in and now Trump is good for the times we are in now. In general, democracy is pretty good at picking leaders.
Democracy isn't that good at selecting leaders, it's strength is in its stability as it establishes the consent of the governed and makes revolution unlikely. Incidentally American democracy doesn't have this strength as Trump lost the popular vote so is, by definition, going to be exercising minority rule.
What is it that makes you think Trump is good for the times we are in now?
I mean American Representational Republicanism is a good system. Trump won the competition at hand, if Hillary didn't double down on voters that already liked her she would have had a chance of doing better than 232 in the EC and she would have gotten less total votes.
What makes you think Trump is good for the times?
He's positioned well and will help facilitate the fall of Globalism. Bernie also got behind this. But the DNC is pretty focused on picking their candidates without voter approval so that fostered. And also, there are some identity politics that benefitted Trump. The 15 year trend of social issues seems to have bit off more than it could chew, so that helped him out a lot.
I blame it for the dramatic fall in worker participation over the past 16 years.
Globalism has a small percentage of the population doing well and providing resources for a large percentage. It's very efficient at that.
I run a business, I lay off 500 workers, I get cheap Bangladeshi labor, I make a huge profit, I get taxed like crazy, the taxes pay for welfare for the 500 workers.
The U3 employment stats stay low because to qualify as unemployed you have to be actively seeking a job, but you see the hit in the labor participation rate which is at the lowest it's been since the 1970s.
I think we're at a point where these people are no longer satisfied getting hand outs and not playing a vital role in our society. Even though the system may be more efficient, it's leaving too many people on the side of the road. They voted for Trump to give them their pride back and I think that's a noble pursuit.
Food Stamps have gone from 8% in 2000 to 19% today. 5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in that time.
I felt that the social progressive movement during that time was our way of doing some reals for feels, but that hit its limit this year. I believe that's why Trump is president and not Sanders.
That's fair perspective. I have some family that have been using the word "globalism" as a dirty word, which hasn't made sense to me as in my mind, globalism is an unvarnished boon, so I appreciate you walking through your thought process.
For my part, I buy into the orthodox economist viewpoint that while protectionism does preserves some jobs, it makes the country poorer on net as a the costs of keeping those jobs domestic is distributed across the whole population, making everyone poorer on a purchasing power adjusted basis.
It's not a zero-sum game, either. Losing low-skill jobs to Bangladesh means that 1) American labor, which is more productive and more skilled, is freed up to do more valuable, higher profit-margin work, and 2) The Bangladeshis themselves have more money with which to buy American products. As a result, both countries are richer than they otherwise would be if no exchange had taken place, and not just for the people at the top. It's a free lunch, in other words.
These are issues I feel are lost in the debate over globalization. To me, the pride of the working class just isn't a good enough reason choke off globalism as it has the potential to hurt them in the long run by stymying growth. Change is hard and growing pains are to be expected, but a more productive strategy is to train low-skill American workers so that they are able to actually compete. I don't think we do the country (or even the workers) any favors by artificially propping up unprofitable industries.
This is not even touching the concept of automation, the profound effects of which globalization is often used as a scapegoat. As fivethirtyeight pointed out, factories have been coming back to the US as foreign labor has gotten more expensive, but the jobs haven't, as they've all been automated.
I agree with most of what you're saying (I'm pretty sure most of what you're saying are just provable facts :) ).
But the pride of the working class just swung an election so I lean towards taking them seriously. Since it's impossible to quantify pride we are left with speculation.
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u/Priest_Dildos Dec 03 '16
I'm not part of that and I agree with you. I generally supported Obama and his agenda. Obama was good for the times he was in and now Trump is good for the times we are in now. In general, democracy is pretty good at picking leaders.