Monday, March 28, 2016

Doing the Job the Democrats Just Won't Do

From the Wall Street Journal...
In 36 States, Unemployment Rates Still Linger Above Prerecession Levels
The recession is over, but it’s certainly not forgotten across most of the U.S.:

The average annual unemployment rates in 36 states plus D.C. in 2015 were higher than the average unemployment rate for those states in 2007. The recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.
Unemployment rates in just 14 states had returned to or fallen below their 2007 averages in 2015: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota,Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Regardless of the outcome of Election 2016, we could be witnessing the front-edge of a big political realignment. Ol' Ross Perot, poppin' that hood open and pokin' around inside was a precursor, as was Patrick J. Buchanan, albeit to a lesser extent.

I stumbled across an interesting article about how back in 1996 a Patrick Buchanan advisor predicted the rise of a Donald Trump. The author opens the article with this quote from now deceased Buchanan advisor:
[S]ooner or later, as the globalist elites seek to drag the country into conflicts and global commitments, preside over the economic pastoralization of the United States, manage the delegitimization of our own culture, and the dispossession of our people, and disregard or diminish our national interests and national sovereignty, a nationalist reaction is almost inevitable and will probably assume populist form when it arrives. The sooner it comes, the better… [Samuel Francis in Chronicles]
The article also has some tough realizations for conservatives... 
Middle American forces, emerging from the ruins of the old independent middle and working classes, found conservative, libertarian, and pro-business Republican ideology and rhetoric irrelevant, distasteful, and even threatening to their own socio-economic interests.
It was all a lie wrapped in Chicago School of Economics theory...
For decades, people have been warning that a set of policies that really has enriched Americans on the top, and likely has improved the overall quality of life (through cheap consumables) on the bottom, has hollowed out the middle.
Chinese competition really did hammer the Rust Belt and parts of the great Appalachian ghetto. It made the life prospects for men — in marriage and in their careers — much dimmer than those of their fathers.

Libertarian economists, standing giddily behind Republican politicians, celebrate this as creative destruction even as the collateral damage claims millions of formerly-secure livelihoods, and — almost as crucially — overall trust and respect in the nation's governing class. Immigration really does change the calculus for native-born workers too.
The Left is No Help

After decades of screaming and carping that America was being ripped off by billionaire plutocrats, Team Sport Democrats shout down and deride such talk when it emanates from their right.  It throws shade on the Obama economic "recovery," so they dismiss this legitimate criticism as nothing more than white people whining about losing their lofty status. They also tell those aging whities who are dying at an alarming rate from diabetes, obesity, alcoholism and drugs, to check their privilege.

I believe we are witnessing the front edge of a big political realignment. Left-Right has lost much of its relevance.  In some ways, it has almost flipped. Don't laugh, Democrats.  Once the Berning mad Sandernistas realize the party politburo long-knifed them, they will Bern the place down, and as the #OWS and #BLM movement-types come to realize it's all been lip-service from the Democrats, they will trash the joint. Not this year, but most certainly by 2020.

Even if Hillary or a Republican establishmentarian (same difference) becomes the next president, I still agree with Crackpot Pat Buchanan on at least one thing:  Donald Trump’s Rise Is Rejection of a Quarter Century of Bush Republicanism.

Related:  Harry Dent: Civil Unrest is Coming to America

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