Nov

11

Charlie Cook got it right. Here is his firm's analysis of what the election says about the future:

"Democrats wanted this election to be about more than just winning the House or the Senate. They wanted 2018 to be a total rebuke of Trump. A wipe out of epic proportions all across the country. That didn't happen. What we saw instead was more of a retrenchment. Red areas stayed red; blue areas stayed blue. The only real movement was in districts that were purple — districts that had voted for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or had narrowly supported Trump- tipped overwhelmingly to Democrats. As my colleague David Wasserman pointed out, Democrats didn't flip any district that Trump had carried by 55 percent or more."

anonymous writes: 

It would appear it is going to be a long, hard slog for the D's in that regard. The economy, though hotter than a hotel Coke, and acknowledged by the media is not yet being felt and celebrated on Main St to the extent it seems it should have been.

Half of America, and the other 96% of humanity outside of America, still believes we are in the darkest of times. Of the un-retired, everyone in the private sector, is still shuffling about in a glossy-eyed PTSD-like state from the protracted period of essentially no economic growth, despite substantial population growth in that period. Women in their late 40s to early 60s and older probably in the worst shape from it if they are single.

Millennials, in the main, still hunkered by the tens of millions in their parents basements with their incredible dildo collections.

We have not emerged culturally from the past depression. This is going to take a while, this will not be like the 1980s or it's brother, the 90s, and the reason I believe that not only do the D's have an uphill battle, needing to find a new voice, a new platform–a new direction, but the distance between where we are in terms of economic optimism and where we have been in times past (where the backdrop, sans anything going on policy-wise, has been nowhere near as rosy as now) in terms of euphoria, is a gaping chasm still. More reason why I believe this thing will run longer and go farther than any of us think it will.


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  1. Gregory Rehmke on November 12, 2018 11:37 pm

    “For now we see through a glass darkly” But new lights are shining across the U.S. economy and the world. A Vox post reports the decline of extreme poverty. Child mortality is down. Every measure of human flourishing is up, but on average and not for everyone, everywhere. A billion less people in absolute poverty now than just 8 years ago. That’s progress.
    https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/11/8/18052076/human-history-in-one-chart-industrial-revolution

    The Industrial Revolution that lifted Western Europe and the U.S., then Japan, has lifted the people of China and around southeast Asia. The intense debate from the 1930s to 1980s over capitalism vs. communism vs. socialism has shifted to debates of income inequality, immigration, climate change, and more or less socialism at the margins. These are debates worth engaging.

    More debates about the Industrial Revolution, Great Depression and New Deal, and Great Recession would be good for students, teachers and parents. I suggest various videos and posts here: http://economicthinking.org/brookings-benefits-debate/

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