Brad takes issue with Chris Caldwell’s assertion that the republican party is not where wealth votes:
It takes a somewhat weird failure to look at the cross-tabs to arrive at the conclusion that the Democratic Party is the party of "billionaires, academics, minorities and single women" and the Republican Party is the party of "landscape gardeners, construction workers, truckers." For one thing, landscape gardeners throughout much of the country are now overwhelmingly Hispanic, and less and less likely to vote Republican with each passing day…
via Brad DeLong.
But Brad is using a convenient play on words. High finance is in bed with the democrats, and big oil is in bed with the republicans. “Billionaires” was a bad choice of pejorative language. He should have said “high finance”.
So brad is just feeding the fires of dishonest discourse rather than correcting it.
That said Chris is still off-base. Republican party is becoming the white party. which is why there is a clock running on its future. And further, it’s why we are not going to have a peaceful resolution of our class warfare: because it’s going to become race warfare.
The libertarians have a solution but it’s too late to enact it. Bush was the last president with the opportunity. When one republican defected and ruined his chances of reform, the die was cast.
Sometime in the not too distant future it’s going to get very bad here in the states.
2 responses to “Brad DeLong Watch: Terminological Nits with Caldwell”
Ummm… Wall Street was 60% McCain 40% Obama in 2008. Wall Street is now 90% Romney 10% Obama. Soros is a real outlier. What Wall Street will do if the Republicans nominate Santorum or Gingrich is anybody’s guess. But to say that Wall Street is in Obama’s corner is simply wrong. Hollywood is in Obama’s corner 80% to 20%. Silicon Valley is in Obama’s corner 60% to 40%. But billionaires as a whole are Republican. Entertainment, technology, and traditionally-Jewish investment banks are not the rule but the exception.
Brad,
Thanks for your reply.
This is a problem of imprecision. Chris said “billionaires” when he should have said “big banks”. He is using, and so am I, Jeffrey Sachs’ quote. Sachs is basing his information on dollars given to the Democratic party, which up until THIS YEAR, has been in favor of the Democrats — at least according to all the data I know of.
You’re then jumping off on his ‘Billionaires’ error, then using voting data instead of donation data. So, in the end this little argument is a comedy of errors. Which is what I’m pointing out.
I just can’t tell if they’re honest errors or dishonest errors. I’m pretty sure Chris is making an honest error. I might be throwing you in the camp with Krugman unfairly because I’ve just started following the structure of your arguments, and he quotes you frequently.
In the broader context, of the bloggers who advocate political preferences: Karl Smith is an honest man. Thoma’s an echo chamber and nothing more. Krugman is a shill for the party, his self serving methodology, and his social bias — which has unsavory roots behind it. Yglasias is straight as far as the technology allows. I’m just trying to figure out where you sit. I don’t know yet. But I’m betting it’s you and Smith that have the ideas on that side of the fence.
The other side has a different problem. Conservatives lack the language to articulate their vision of society. I can help them with some of that if I live long enough. But we have to assume discourse is honest, or its simply a form of deceiving the population.
I’m just doing my small part.
Thanks again.
Curt