Kevin Drum made a huge mistake in an article last week, “Free Trade” Is an Election-Year Nothingburger. I’ll get to his more general point in a bit, but he really blew it. And he even knows it. He wrote, “It’s always dangerous arguing with [Dean] Baker…” Yes! Yes it is! And when you find yourself writing things like “This is probably a bad idea, but…” you probably shouldn’t write it!

What he did was totally straw man Baker’s argument that globalization has been a one-way street. Baker has long argued (because it has long been true) that it has been free trade for manufacturing workers and others who don’t make a whole lot of money. And it has be big time protectionism for highly paid people like doctors and lawyers. This is, of course, not the only problem with globalization, but it is a really important one.

Kevin Drum calls foul, saying it “really doesn’t hold water.” So how is that? Well you see, when manufacturing jobs go overseas, the stuff they make still has to “meet American standards.” But that wouldn’t be true of the doctors who were coming to the United States! Because as we all know, French and Japanese doctors (who make half what American doctors make) are no good at their jobs! That’s why people die so young in those countries. Oh, wait…

But here’s what really makes me mad about Kevin Drum’s argument: Dean Baker has addressed this issue virtually every time he’s talked about free trade as it applies to highly paid professionals. He’s always going on about foreign doctors training to American standards. In fact, I’ve been somewhat annoyed about it. I’ve thought, “Enough! I get it!” But apparently, he didn’t say it enough because Kevin Drum, who is really smart and who I greatly admire, did not get it.

What bothers me in a more general way, however, is that Kevin Drum’s article is mostly a defense of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Well, maybe not a defense. It’s more, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” Most people don’t see trade deals as having hurt them, so who cares?! Well, that’s the way it is with large scale processes. Certainly Kevin Drum would never make the argument that global warming isn’t happening because some town in Mississippi has actually seen a slight decrease in temperature over the last two decades. He wouldn’t see that as a reason to do nothing about global warming. But when it comes to trade, he’s willing to make that argument.

There are, of course, many people who know that all our “free” trade agreements have affected them directly. Erik Loomis highlighted one in a recent article, Capital Mobility and Trumpism. A Carrier factory is being moved to Mexico. And an executive kindly told the laid-off men and women, “Workers there [in Mexico] typically earn about $19 a day — less than what many on the assembly line here make in an hour.” As Loomis noted, “The doctrine of unrestricted free trade has been basically bipartisan for many decades now. But no one ever thought hard enough about what this would look like when all the manufacturing jobs were gone.” That’s because those in power didn’t and don’t care, at least for as long as there isn’t a fascist takeover of the country.

What’s particularly bad is that Kervin Drum is not alone in his apologetics. I’ve been seeing a lot of liberal cheer leading recently for the TPP. Did a secret memo go out? It’s especially interesting when Paul Krugman, who has always been very pro-free trade, is now backing away from new trade deals. So it is a very good thing that people like Dean Baker keep hammering away at them. Kevin Drum should know better than to create a straw man out of Baker’s arguments. Just what does Drum think he’s doing?

Afterword: Dean Baker Responds to Kevin Drum

Dean Baker responded to Kevin Drum’s article, Kevin Drum Strikes Out Big Time on Trade. I don’t think he made his strongest case, probably because he likes Drum.

Afterword: the Battle Continues

Kevin Drum was right to be worried about a fight. After Baker’s article, Drum wrote, Dean Baker Needs Better Trade Comparisons. It’s a face-saving article. Basically, Drum is conceding the point but trying to argue about the specific case with doctors. But this is why, “It’s always dangerous arguing with Baker…” Dean Baker is having none of it, More on Kevin Drum’s Protectionism for Doctors. Unfortunately, this is not a “pass the popcorn” moment, because Baker and Drum are more or less in agreement. Still, it is pretty funny because of Drum original comment. It is always dangerous arguing with Dean Baker no matter who you are.

I’ve long argued that conservative voters don’t actually think that differently from liberals. In my conversations with them, I find that we have an enormous amount of common ground. Where things get weird is that conservative voters have a strong tendency toward parochialism — or flat out racism. But in the context of their lives, they get what’s going on: the middle class is shrinking, wages are stagnant, and all of this is going on as the rich just get richer. The rich aren’t “job creators”; they are job destroyers, who take any extra economic efficiencies as profits for themselves. Conservative voters get that.

I want to be clear about this distinction, however: conservative voters, not conservative politicians and other elites. Ted Cruz may seem very authentic to the people who vote for him. But look at his tax plan. Is he looking out for the interests of middle class Americans? No. He talks the talk, but he walks the walk of the Republican establishment that is committed most of all to one thing: reducing taxes on the rich. The net effect of the entire Republican Party economic plan is to funnel money from the poor to the rich. This is not a plan that most conservative voters would be for if they knew.

We all know how it is that the Republican Party gets the base to vote for it. It’s the same way that Donald Trump is doing it. After all, Donald Trump’s tax plan is even worse (pdf) than Cruz’s plan. But conservative voters are very easily distracted with mythical fears about an ISIS invasion and the horror of keeping fetuses alive so we can “harvest its brain.” So don’t take anything I say as meaning that Trump is any different from the Republican establishment.

What is different is that Trump terrifies the Republican establishment. And this has led to the remarkably vile Kevin Williamson article, The Father-Führer in National Review. A Jonathan Chait summed up the article, Conservatives to White Working Class: Drop Dead. This is tearing the Republican Party apart.

What Conservative Voters Believe

Digby brought my attention to an article in Breitbart, A Rebuttal to National Review’s Claim that White Working Class Communities Deserve to Die. Tell me if the following quote couldn’t have been written by me:

Obviously, I would dive deeper and note that the issue isn’t so much the moving of plants but that government policy has allowed the rich to keep all the gains from these moves — and more. The Breitbart writer goes on to rant about environmental regulations, as though that’s what’s actually going on. It is, after all, the Breitbart party that has pushed for lower taxes on the wealthy and government benefit cuts on the poor and middle class. But clearly, Breitbart is closer to the conservative voters than National Review — or Ted Cruz.

Of course, it’s all very funny to watch. There are some Trump voters who have been screwed by the economy. But that isn’t what’s going on for the most part. As Jonathan Bernstein noted last week, Good Times, Not Anger, Led to Trump’s Rise. The truth is, things are good enough for angry conservative voters to say, “Screw it!” They’ve been told by the Republican establishment that Obama has done nothing but destroy the United States over the last eight years. Is it surprising that they would go with someone who seems like a radical? As Bernstein concluded:

But I actually do think that Trump voters see that the nation is out of balance. Of course, like conservative voters always seem to do, they vote for exactly what they claim to be against. I mean, really: they see the middle class being destroyed by sleazy billionaires so they want to elect the sleaziest billionaire? But that’s all part of the game. Trump tells them all the problems of the American worker is do to the Mexicans and the Chinese. But the fact remains: conservative voters aren’t that different from liberal voters in that they see what is happening to the American worker. They just can’t seem to engage with it on a rational level.

Jonathan Chait reported something that should surprise no intelligent person, Conservatives Demand Supreme Court Vacancy Be Filled by Next President, Unless That President Is Hillary Clinton. The fate of Merrick Garland hangs in the balance.

The headline overstates what’s going on. It’s just The Wall Street Journal that is saying this. Of course, you can depend upon the fact that the entire Republican establishment is thinking this. I’ve already talked about how they will come up with a new reason why Hillary Clinton can’t appoint a Supreme Court justice either. But what The Journal presents is actually a clever idea, and highlights the fact that Obama still doesn’t really know who he’s dealing with.

As you have probably heard, Obama has nominated Merrick Garland to replace Scalia on the Supreme Court. This is a curious pick for two reasons. First, Garland is a moderate. Second, he’s 63 years old. It’s clear what Obama is doing. He’s saying to the Senate Republicans, “Here’s by far the best justice you are going to get unless you win the general election, which ain’t looking good right now.” I don’ really get it. I keep coming back to John Boehner claiming that he got 98% of what he wanted in the original Debt Ceiling showdown — and still didn’t take it. Does Obama think the Republicans have gotten more reasonable since then?

But this case is even worse. Because Obama has effectively given the Republicans everything they could have asked for. As The Wall Street Journal put it, the Republicans can stall on Merrick Garland’s nomination and then “vote for him in a lame-duck session — if Mrs Clinton wins the election.” So there is no threat for the Republicans. They aren’t facing Merrick Garland or someone younger and more liberal; they are facing Garland as their worst case scenario. That’s actually really bad.

It takes me back to the old days when Obama played the part of Charlie Brown and the Republicans were Lucy. Obama makes a peace offering and the Republicans repay him by acting like he had wounded them. There is no dealing with the Republican Party. It is a revolutionary power. It doesn’t believe in norms. It doesn’t believe in history. It only believes that it should be in power and it doesn’t matter in the least how that goal is managed.

The Irony of Merrick Garland’s Fate

Of course, there is a wonderful irony to all this. Conservatives have conveniently decided that the president should not be allowed to pick a Supreme Court justice in his last year in office, because it should be left up to the people. The people will decide who the next president is, as though they didn’t decide who the current one is. But once conservatives know that they are going to have another president they don’t like, well, that whole last year thing is out the window.

I understand that “politics ain’t bean bag.” But at the same time, what’s going on here isn’t politics; it is governance. And what the Republicans are engaged in regarding Scalia’s replacement is unpatriotic. It’s all about their power. They show no confidence in democracy or the Constitution or anything else. They’ve been trained to know that they can just talk about Obama’s “imperial presidency” without the media countering them. There is no such thing as truth, so it is wrong to allow Obama to nominate a justice on 7 November 2016, but just fine on 9 November 2016.

And Obama, it seems, has fallen into the same old trap of trusting the Republicans to act in any way like normal people.

So Bernie Sanders had a bad night on Tuesday. But don’t worry, he’s going to come roaring back and win the nomination! Oh, how I love to kid my fellow Bernie Sanders supporters…

As I’ve been saying for a month and a half, the Democratic nomination fight is over. I understand that others are resistant to admit defeat in this matter. But that doesn’t mean you have to let go of the Bern. In fact, it should glow in you more brightly now than ever.

Two years ago, I wrote, Advice for Young Carey Wedler. She was the young woman who had burned her Obama shirt because she was so disappointed in him as president. I was a lot nicer to her than I probably should have been. What I should have said is what we all need to remember now (and always): there is no “one weird trick” to fix your democracy.

Let’s think about Obama for a moment. Do you believe that the United States is better now than it would have been if John McCain had been elected in 2008? Or if Mitt Romney had been elected in 2012? If you don’t, you either haven’t been paying attention or you’re just being contrary. Obama has not been a disappointment to me because I never expected that much from him. What I did expect from him is what he delivered in spades: a better country than the Republican alternative would have delivered.

Continuing on, there were things that Obama did not get to do that would have been good. And those things were stopped because our more conservative Democratic representatives would not let him. So even Obama’s own presidency wasn’t as liberal as Obama himself wanted. The truth is that the Democratic Party is a very big tent and we on the left need to understand that we are not the party.

But if this primary has shown anything, it has shown that the left wing of the Democratic Party has awakened from its long slumber. It’s even possible that we have a clear majority. But Clinton had a huge advantage coming into this race. In 2008, the Democratic Party base really didn’t like having to choose between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. So for a large number of people, 2016 was a chance to have their cake and eat it too. I think a lot of Clinton supporters are very much on the left wing of the party.

The primary also stands as a clear threat to the likes of Rahm Emanuel. Actual liberals who care about actual liberal policy may be “fucking retarded,” but we have enough power to end the political careers of such New Democratic idiots who have done so much harm over the last two and half decades.

What Will Bernie Sanders Supporters Do?

The worst thing that Bernie Sanders supporters can do is go and sulk in the corner. The Democratic Party is not as liberal as it ought to be. It is still in the pockets of big donors. The election of Bernie Sanders might have been one step toward changing that. But that’s all it would have been: one step. And there are plenty of other steps. As I’ve repeated again and again recently, Sanders’ amazing campaign has been part of that. His campaign has made Clinton better, the Democratic Party better, and America better.

The question is, “What are you going to do now?” Bernie Sanders supporters have a choice. They can take over their local Democratic Party. They can push for more liberal nominees. They can be more liberal nominees. But Bernie Sanders only lost the nomination. The fight continues on. What are you going to do?

Mark Thoma, the gentlest economist around, wrote an article that I mostly agree with, Rising Insecurity and the Rise of Trump and Sanders. He argued that populist movements are the result of increased economic inequality and insecurity. I think the second word there — insecurity — is actually the more important one. Most people can deal with their lives as they are. The hardest part of our society is not knowing if it is all going to be destroyed through no fault of your own. As Thoma put it, “When new technology is adopted, some people who did nothing worse than pick the wrong industry to work in will lose their jobs, while others will see their incomes rise, sometimes spectacularly if the new technology serves an important, unfilled need.” You know, it’s called “luck.”

The core of what Thoma talked about is what has happened during globalization. In general, it has made the world richer. But instead of the wealth being distributed, it all went to a small group. This is to be expected. It is also to be expected that in a democracy, measures would be taken to fix things. As Thoma noted, “If the gains are $1,000 and the losses are $300, transferring $301 or more from the winners to the losers would leave everyone better off.” But we have not seen that.

In fact, we have seen the opposite. Even as globalization has helped the rich, we have seen policies that have made things even worse. Let’s just list a couple of things. When you buy oil for your car so you can go to work, you pay sales tax; but when rich people buy stocks, they pay no sales tax. While manufacturing workers have been put in direct competition with foreign workers, doctors, lawyers, and other highly paid workers have not. While incomes of the wealthy have skyrocketed, their taxes have gone down — way down. None of these are economics; these are political decisions designed to take money from the lower rungs of society and give them to the upper rungs.

This all brings me back to Milton Friedman’s claim that while the rich might be getting much richer, the poor too are better off. Well, that’s been open for debate for a long time. Just last year, Glenn Hubbard (Yes, that guy.) was claiming that if you looked at total compensation (rather than just wages), the lower classes weren’t stagnating. Now I’ve always found that a disingenuous argument, because our protectionist healthcare system makes it look like people are getting more in benefits, but its just the cost of those benefits that are going up. If these people were working in Canada, they wouldn’t see any increase.

Well, Lawrence Mishel reported yesterday, Pay Is Stagnant for Vast Majority, Even When You Include Benefits. The Bureau of Labor Statistics did a detailed study of workers from 2007 through 2014 and they found that for the bottom 80% of workers, total compensation was stagnant or went down — with the median worker seeing their pay decline by 4% and their total compensation decline by just under 2%.

So what are we going to do? Nothing, of course. This is because the power elite really don’t care. If I had Milton Friedman in front of me right now, I would ask him what he thought about this. It does, after all, go against what he argued for years. But I know what he would say: it doesn’t matter. He was never making a practical argument. He only threw those out for the prols to keep them off his back. And that’s true for all the rest of the power elite.

Go back to the days of feudal lords and you will see that the real justification for our system of inequality and insecurity is the same: there are the deserving and the undeserving. In Mark Thoma’s article, he wrote, “We don’t have to abandon capitalism.” And most people think that capitalism, despite all its flaws, is still the best thing we have. I think the problem is in our biology. The reason that capitalism is the best system we can come up with is because we are still hierarchical pack animals, so we can’t imagine a system that doesn’t involve winners and losers. If anyone ever did come up with a system where everyone was able to live dignified lives, we’d rebel against it. We want people to feel the insecurity so they will constantly know their place.