As the 2016 US presidential election heats up here, now barely two and a half months away from the Iowa caucus, apparently there's much angst among Republican elites over the seemingly unabated ascendancy of such anti-establishment outsiders as Donald Trump and Ben Carson. But overall, the ball is still in the upstarts' court: they really have to keep convincing enough Americans that our country really is going down the tubes or on the precipice of Armageddon, in order to poll so well. Historically, it's always been a losing proposition to run on a platform of, "Things are so bad now that you need to look to me as a Messiah."
As in any modern US presidential election, the eventual winner is more a function of the prevailing state of our economy, than it is any referendum over a particular candidate or party's policy prescriptions and positions.
As such, the fringe right-wingers who have thrown in their lot behind a movement to lynch the Republican power elite will remain just that - a fringe - unless the general economic condition of the country as a whole truly deteriorates much, much further than its present state.
But if the Fed can hike rates, if even a token 25 basis points, and if China stabilizes in the short term, the entire narrative of the presidential election will have shifted subtly but substantially by the first primaries in late January.
Eventually, it will come out that Trump is actually 75 to 90 percent establishment in his leanings: he doesn't oppose big government per se, and at the end of the day most of his supporters won't have much problem switching to Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush.
Carson, meanwhile, is really little more than this year's version of Rick Santorum or Mike Huckabee: the pious preacher who soothes the wounded egos of fundamentalist middle Americans who wish we were back in the Fifties.
I'll record here what I've told others in person: this has always been Jeb's nomination to lose, no matter how low he polls.
Finally, I'll refer to my earlier post: Will China become more like us, or will we become more like them? When the haze of populist anger (fanned in no small part by demagogues on the radio waves) begins to clear, it should come out that most of the Republican base, believe it or not, can in fact live with the socialist monstrosity of Obamacare. After all, the US already runs a socialist welfare state of massive proportions - Social Security and Medicare - that has long acquired "untouchable" status with both parties. Thus it can be said that all the right-wing ranting about the evil of big government is 90-plus percent hot air, less than 10 percent actual substance. Even if Obamacare is amended or outright repealed, it will only happen with Republicans offering a better form of universal healthcare that flies in the face of the laughable notion (for the 21st century) of "small government."
We don't live in the Fifties anymore: those who clamor for that world are either lunatics or ignoramuses. No, our country won't go to hell because we have up to $200 trillion in future unfunded liabilities (Social Security and Medicare) which are set to increase with the ramp-up of Medicaid under Obamacare. All that the continued expansion of the welfare state will ensure - for sure - is that our labor market will continue to improve...yaay!
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