Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign was famous for (among other things) the internal slogan associated with his advisor Jim Carvey. Reporters told us how, inside campaign HQ, there was a sign on the wall to remind everyone of the central theme of the campaign, the key to electoral victory: “It’s the economy, stupid!”
That perspective remains with us today and has been the framing device for untold column-inches of discussion as to the balance of social and economic forces in Trump’s squeaker win last year.
Did he appeal primarily to White racism?
Was he speaking to a segment of society left behind economically by globalization?
Were his words some sort of salve for people who felt culturally disrespected by coastal elites?
Or, in a hybrid explanation, did economic stagnation and decline leave people receptive to someone who elicited their cultural and racial anxieties?
Behind the noneconomic explanations there is, I think, a presumption that people nonetheless have important economic interests.
In a recent column Fareed Zakaria questions that assumption.
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Right-sizing
A large number of Czech voters in October's parliamentary elections chose parties that are, at a minimum, somewhat leery of the EU, and at the other end openly hostile to the organization. That adds to the interest in following the progress of Brexit through the Czech press.
If I were being more thorough about this as a study of the press, I would read more widely, but as it is, there's a limit on how much willful stupidity I can absorb before completely going out of my mind, and I need to keep some of that capacity for reading Facebook comments on Mike Flynn's plea deal, so I generally limit my local reading to things on the logically consistent end of the spectrum.
Last week Respekt provided an article from The Economist that laid out the logic of the situation surrounding the border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. (That's merely where I encountered it; the coverage obviously isn't unique to that publication, since Britske listy just presented a similar summary in translation from The Guardian). The underlying reality was merely implicit in the Respekt article, but it was spelled out more fully in The Guardian.
Consider two political entities that agree to have the same rules about business: the same standards for food and product safety, the same provision for worker safety and pensions, the same conventions for product labeling etc. In that case, the two entities can open up the border between them.
On the other hand, if there are too many differences in their business rules, they need a border. Country A could make products that violate Country B's standards - they're unsafe, or their made under working conditions the second party finds unacceptable, etc. - but Country A could still take its products across the open border, thus undercutting the standards and the businesses in Country B.
That means that there are only three outcomes for the question of the Irish border:
If I were being more thorough about this as a study of the press, I would read more widely, but as it is, there's a limit on how much willful stupidity I can absorb before completely going out of my mind, and I need to keep some of that capacity for reading Facebook comments on Mike Flynn's plea deal, so I generally limit my local reading to things on the logically consistent end of the spectrum.
Last week Respekt provided an article from The Economist that laid out the logic of the situation surrounding the border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. (That's merely where I encountered it; the coverage obviously isn't unique to that publication, since Britske listy just presented a similar summary in translation from The Guardian). The underlying reality was merely implicit in the Respekt article, but it was spelled out more fully in The Guardian.
Consider two political entities that agree to have the same rules about business: the same standards for food and product safety, the same provision for worker safety and pensions, the same conventions for product labeling etc. In that case, the two entities can open up the border between them.
On the other hand, if there are too many differences in their business rules, they need a border. Country A could make products that violate Country B's standards - they're unsafe, or their made under working conditions the second party finds unacceptable, etc. - but Country A could still take its products across the open border, thus undercutting the standards and the businesses in Country B.
That means that there are only three outcomes for the question of the Irish border:
- The entire UK, including Northern Ireland, leaves behind the EU trading rules, so there has to be a border in Ireland.
- "Mainland" Britain (i.e., England, Scotland, and Wales) leave the EU trading rules, but Northern Ireland stays in compliance, so there need not be a border within Ireland. On the other hand, that means there would in effect be a trade border between different parts of the UK.
- The entire UK stays in compliance with the EU trading rules, so there's no need to have a border within Ireland, nor between Ireland and Britain.
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