Tag Archives: Trump

Randall Wray, Bard College For months now, the Hillary campaign has vigorously argued that Bernie supporters have to fall in line to support the Democratic National Committee’s favorite candidate. Anyone not willing to jump to Hillary is a “Bernie Bro”—not willing to vote for anyone but Bernie. Why? Because, Trump. Forget the will of the people, the democratic process, or “voting one’s conscience”—Trump trumps all hesitation. We simply cannot afford to give Trump any chance of winning. We...

Right here. Except this libertarian idiot connects Keynesianism to Herbert Hoover, which demonstrates, if nothing else, how libertarians never seem to get anything right.Apparently Trump did an interview recently where he said this:“Mr. Trump himself said in a telephone interview last week that he believed more borrowing and spending would help lift economic growth, a departure from traditional Republican economics.‘It’s called priming the pump,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘Sometimes you have to do...

No, the one **on the left.** Yes, this is the new propaganda line over at the Weekly Standard, Neocon Central.Seriously, dudes, Neoconservatism is dead. Get over it.

As explained by Dean Baker here.

People well informed about the current US presidential election should know that the neoconservatives – America’s all-star team of warmongering foreign policy GOP elite – have had a massive falling out with Donald Trump (e.g., see here). That assault on the neocon and GOP elite is summed up by this amusing cartoon here.The result of all this has been that now one neocon faction prefers to vote for Hillary, and the other faction led by neocon-in-chief William Kristol is supporting an...

Just watch this clip from his interview with Larry King in 1999:[embedded content]Yes, you heard right. The man was for universal health care in America in 1999. He began as a moderate or liberal Republican (or what was sometimes called a “Rockefeller Republican”), different from the quasi-libertarian conservative Republicans.If Trump wants to win over Bernie voters and actually do something no other US president has ever done, he ought to return to that issue, but framed in a way that does...

Serious question in light of this:[embedded content]Note well: the question is not whether Trump will actually do anything after he is elected to raise minimum wages (excuse me while I laugh… because I would be genuinely astonished if he did), but whether, once he’s the official Republican party candidate, he will be smart enough to make a play for all those angry Bernie Bros who hate Hillary, the Democratic establishment and neoliberalism by presenting himself as pro-working class and as...

At least in terms of public rhetoric as described here and here. It is difficult to see how he could do both this and cut taxes (a promise of his) without driving the US into deep, deep deficits.We can also turn to Chapter 12 of Trump’s Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (New York, 2015). I am not sure how much weight one should attach to this supposedly ghostwritten book, which Trump signed off on. But for what it is worth we find the book praising infrastructure projects as a...

By L. Randall Wray The drumbeat is quickening as Hillary’s surrogates insist that Bernie’s supporters fall in line. Bernie’s chances are said to be hopeless. Continuing to run only plays into the hands of truly despicable Republicans. And forget about trying to pressure the Democratic Party’s establishment to let Bernie play a role in formulating the convention’s platform. That also would just play into the hands of the Republicans. Time to unite behind Hillary, and let her move further to...

A really fine analysis here, with an excellent history of American neoconservatism: Michael Lind, “The Neocons Are Responsible for Trumpism,” The National Interest, March 7, 2016. Trumpism, at least in the rhetoric we hear from Trump, is a rejection of second wave “fusionist” neoconservatism and its foreign policy, and is a kind of protectionist statism and a rejection of aspects of neoliberalism.He notes too that the left is also partly responsible for Trump. The mainstream Democratic left...