What Some Voters Think and Why
Jason Hooper of Greensboro, N.C., says that in 2016,
“I didn’t like either of the candidates” --
He will reluctantly vote in 2020 for Biden
Louis Johnson, New Orleans
“Even though I have been a registered Democrat my entire life, I am also a conservative Catholic, and I don’t see the Democratic Party as very moralistic. President Barack Obama sank the party when he allowed same-sex marriage. Trump has protected us from that; he has some strong religious views and is protecting the church as we know it. Anyone with Christian values has to vote for Trump, as I will, in person on Nov. 3. Joe Biden is like the Titanic iceberg: I see the tip. I don’t want to see any more.”
Gloria J. Young, Woodbridge, Va.
“Come hell or high water, I was going to vote this year”
“Come hell or high water, I was going to vote this year: President Trump is incompetent, ignorant, insensitive, racist and disgusting. I feel responsible for not voting in 2016 — like my vote might have made the difference. And I know that by voting this year, I’m honoring my mother, who volunteered for many years as a poll worker in Gary, Ind., before she died in 2013. I haven’t always been focused on the importance of every citizen exercising their rights, even though she always was. But Mom, I don’t plan to make that mistake again.”
But, ugh, Biden. It’s a double-edged sword: Who is the worst — him or Trump? But I really don’t want Trump to be reelected. The comments he has made about Kim Jong Un and other countries that threaten the U.S.? Not that I care that they don’t like us, but sometimes you have to be diplomatic. He could cause World War III.
Why some people will vote for Trump in 2020: Jobs & Immigration
“I spent 35 years in the steel business and I can tell you unfair trade deals were done by Republicans and Democrats,” Mr. Haines [Bruce Haines, Bethlehem PA] said. Both parties, he complained, had given up on manufacturing — once a wellspring of stable middle-class jobs. “Trump has been the savior of American industry. He got it. He’s the only one.”Still, despite one of the worst years in recent American history, the issue on which Mr. Trump gets his highest approval ratings remains the economy. It points to the resilience of his reputation as a savvy businessman and hard-nosed negotiator. And it is evidence that his most enduring economic legacy may not rest in any statistical almanac, but in how much he has shifted the conversation around the economy.
In the process, he scrambled party positions on key issues like immigration and globalization, and helped topple sacred verities about government debt. He took a Republican Party that preached free trade, low spending and debt reduction and transformed it into one that picked trade wars even with allies, ran up record-level peacetime deficits and shielded critical social programs from cuts.
“He completely moved the Republican Party away from reducing Social Security and Medicare spending,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
The Democrats changed in turn. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has positioned himself as the champion of immigrants, pledging to reverse Mr. Trump’s most restrictive policies, while rejecting more radical proposals like eliminating the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
He has also been pushed to finesse his position on fracking and the oil industry, promising not to ban the controversial drilling method on private lands, and trying — with mixed success — to walk back comments he had made during the presidential debate about transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Shifts on trade were more momentous. Mr. Biden and other party leaders who had once promoted the benefits of globalization found themselves playing defense against a Republican who outflanked them on issues like industrial flight and foreign competition. They responded by embracing elements of protectionism that they had previously abandoned.
The reshuffling is clear to Charles Jefferson, the managing owner of Montage Mountain Ski Resort near Scranton, Pa. “Those were not conversations we were having five years ago,” he said. “The exodus of manufacturing jobs, that was considered a fait accompli.”
Mr. Jefferson, who said he voted for Mr. Obama, supported Mr. Trump in 2016. He plans to do so again.
As a result, in this election, unlike the last, the significance of manufacturing and the need for a more skeptical approach to free trade are not contested.
Mr. Biden, after decades of supporting trade pacts, is now running on a “made in all of America” program that promises to “use full power of the federal government to bolster American industrial and technological strength.” He has also vowed to use the tax code to encourage businesses to keep or create jobs on American soil.
Even voters who don’t particularly like Mr. Trump credit him with re-energizing the U.S. economy.
What does all of that mean?
Some research after the 2016 election indicated that white voter unease with the impending rise of minorities to majority status and accompanying social changes was the most important factor in the president's electoral college win. I suspect it will be the first or second most important factor in 2020. If that is true, Biden is making a huge mistake, possibly a lethal one, by not clearly and repeatedly telling people that (i) he will not tolerate illegal immigration, but (ii) he will humanely deal with the issue. There is plenty of room to deal with the problem of illegal employers and illegal immigration without the shocking cruelty that the president has embraced.
The other big issue seems to be jobs and how to protect US manufacturing. I am not an economist, but from what I think I understand, that will be impossible without massive economic changes that will take years to implement. It will also cause huge increases in the cost of almost everything Americans buy. At the same time, the GOP is rigidly opposed to increasing wages, so the American standard of living will probably have to decrease for most workers.
And there is the federal debt time bomb. The GOP has completely abandoned meaningful concern for the debt. They increase it when they are in power, even in good economic times, but complain vehemently about it when the dems are in power. Sooner or later American debt will come back to haunt us. When investors lose faith in American debt, the mindset change will cause the American standard of living to significantly decrease for most workers.
The other puzzle is whether free trade has been a net positive or negative for the American economy and standard of living. Some argue that it has been a net benefit, but that policies to deal with job losses have not been effective in the US. GOP anti-domestic spending policies tend to limit or completely block government efforts to support workers who have lost jobs to foreign competition.
Comments
Post a Comment