Andrew Sullivan Returns!

++Andrew writes his first piece for New York magazine--Trump, an extinction event. Really it's title is about how Democracies die. Andrew writes about the fascist tendencies of Trump and his followers but points out that this does a disservice to fascism which was an ideology. But Andrew is wrong there as I have pointed out on this blog that all fascism starts out without a program and eventually creates one after taking power.

++He points to Trump's popularity as based on working class whites who have felt our culture has left them behind.Hence the attacks on "political correctness". These people believe the culture mocks their religion,their gender identity and their occupations. Trump's misogyny is tailored to his white male supporters feeling woman are dominant now and the prospects of a black President followed by a woman is just too much.

++Sullivan starts off the long essay on Plato's analysis of how Democracies fail but he may have been biased since a democracy executed his mentor Socrates. Sullivan writes that Obama was the bright point of our democracy as opportunities got expanded for all types to seek the presidency. But the flip side of that is a populism emerging from the whites who eschewed the elites and were conditioned to accept a "strong leader". 

++Sullivan has absolutely no respect for Hillary Clinton as he has made obvious through his journalistic career. He points to her tone-deafness to millenials and what he sees is her corruption. He believes Trump has the ammo to go against her. 

++Sullivan gets Trump's World Wrestling techniques and his appearances on the Howard Stern Show as appearing to be a "regular guy". His "You're Fired!" resonates because the white working class know their bosses are too cowardly ever to act that way. 

++He brings up his old bete noire Sarah Palin as an example of the bad populism that the Obama phenomenon unleashed and the story how she told Todd she was going to Costco when she really went to see the then-Mrs Trump to "participate in the glamour" she brought to Alaska. It is this that draws people to Trump, watching his plane appear before a rally. 

++Sullivan admits wavering between disbelief and dread about a Trump victory. I do too. 

++Read the article. I don't know whether the long format benefits Sullivan the way it used to.

++For data nerds,Sam Wang writes a long piece at Princeton Election Consortium about how accurate head-to-head polls are--Pretty accurate starting at February before a Presidential election. He has Hillary at 93% probability of winning and Trump at 7%. He warns you that summer polls tend to be less accurate as witnessed by the 2012 elections. Then they get right on the mark. His piece goes back in term and finds the Reagan 1980 election the outlier that conservatives all embrace but hasn't happen again.

++Happy Tom Friedman predicts that a terrorist attack would mean a Trump victory. Oh,myyy, as George Taki would say. 

++Josh Marshall analyzes Trumponomics. Trump believes with interest rates so low,instead of concentrating on deficits and the debt it's time we should build some infrastructure, which is just the thing the white working class want. Infrastructure pending is now at a 30-year low.