"Jeb [Bush] is married to a Latina, is fluent in Spanish, speaks on Univision as a commentator, his Spanish is that good...And if you look at the electoral map in 2012, you have to assume that Obama is going to have a very hard time in holding North Carolina and Virginia. The industrial Midwest, where the auto decline has been huge, has weakened Obama's numbers... a great deal. So Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin become a bit more wobbly. So if you're Barack Obama, the firewall is the Latin belt from Florida to southwestern California. And there is only one Republican who can break through that firewall. And it is Jeb."(1)
Apparently appeals to fuzzy skin color solidarity is all the Democratic Party has to offer. One would think that Jeb's economic vision would offer some possibility of criticism.Sorry, the U.S. can't function smoothly even on its on terms, a bourgeoise Republic, as a balkanized collection of identity interests. That only works when there is an overwhelming -for instance- Protestant Establishment, to play off of. But even the Power Elite as an Establishment is disintegrating (as David Brooks recently wrote).
Maybe the newly engorged ruling class can get it together, but maybe not.
1'The Bush Revvial' - Huff Po; Stein
2'The Power Elite' - NYT Op-Ed; Brooks
1 comment:
Wow, I'm not sure what this post is about! But in the middle of it all you say: "One would think that Jeb's economic vision would offer some possibility of criticism."
Economics has been in disarray, Alan Blinder wrote, since the end of the Keynesian consensus in the 1970s.
No vision has yet arisen to overcome the disarray. Therefore, the democrats have nothing to offer and can make no worthwhile criticism. Instead, they drift more and more toward republican views.
Meanwhile, republicans are still basing their strategies on the Two Santa Claus Theory.
Art
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