Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren: Trump is Right on Taxes, the Economy

Fauxcahontas:

There are a lot of places where he gets out and talks about important things," Warren said of the celebrity real estate tycoon on ABC's "The View." "Donald Trump and I both agree that there ought to be more taxation of the billionaires, the people who are making their money on Wall Street," she said.

"That's a pretty liberal position. He must be driving the right-wingers out of their mind," co-host Joy Behar interjected.

"Don't call us liberal. It is a pretty right position," Warren retorted to applause, adding she believes it is a position held by a majority of Americans.

In an article that calls Trump a racist every other paragraph or so, left-wing economist Paul Krugman observes:

And her'’s what’s interesting: all indications are that Mr. Bush's attacks on Mr. Trump are falling flat, because the Republican base doesn’t actually share the Republican establishment’s economic delusions.

The thing is, we didn’t really know that until Mr. Trump came along. The influence of big-money donors meant that nobody could make a serious play for the G.O.P. nomination without pledging allegiance to supply-side doctrine, and this allowed the establishment to imagine that ordinary voters shared its antipopulist creed. Indeed, Mr. Bush’s hapless attempt at a takedown suggests that his political team still doesn't get it, and thinks that pointing out The Donald’s heresies will be enough to doom his campaign.

But Mr. Trump, who is self-financing, didn’t need to genuflect to the big money, and it turns out that the base doesn’t mind his heresies. This is a real revelation, which may have a lasting impact on our politics.

This will be put forward as yet another thing Trump's supporters Just Won't Care About, but for my part, I've been calling for a break with the Capital Class for about a year.

My thoughts are these: We were in a political coalition, but the Capital Class has betrayed its coalition partners every chance it's had.

I grew tired of hearing we in the grassroots have to give up this or that political goal because they're unpopular, in order to save our political capital for the only thing that matters: keeping hedge fund carried-over interest taxed at capital gains rates instead of normal income tax rates.

Yes that's an exaggeration, but not by much; Jay Cost has been writing that the Republican Party seems to have mistaken itself as solely a defender of corporate interests for some time now.

In fact, he wrote a book about it.*

So for some time, I've had this idea: It's time to either punish or simply jettison those in our party who do not act as if we are in coalition, but rather seem to think we exist solely to advance their agenda.

I can't help but notice that the Capital Class wants to get rid of grassroots agenda items as being "unpopular," but never seems to notice its own agenda items are equally -- or more -- unpopular.

Hence, if we we wish to save our political capital for fights that matter, we in the grassrooots should stop defending the Capital Class' agenda and simply give up on it (too unpopular!) and focus on our own.

It's what they've done themselves; they can hardly complain about other people doing the same.

And, as I keep saying: If they want their set-asides, Ex-Im bank subsidies, and so forth, they can get them from the political party they truly belong to, the Democrat Party.

No reason we should be expending precious political capital for political enemies.

Speaking of traitors and personal betrayals I shall never forgive, Brandon Finnigan (CAC) has been writing about this strategy at The Federalist.

* None of which should be taken as meaning that Cost supports Trump. From what I've read of him, he doesn't (though he does seem to take issue with the often-hysterical overreaction from the political class).

I have no idea who the Meatball supports. Maybe he'll tell us one day, on The Federalist.

posted by Ace at 04:32 PM

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