February 20, 2019

"Could we have our first four-party election in 2020 — with candidates from the Donald Trump far right, the old G.O.P. center right, the Joe Biden center left and the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez far left all squaring off, as the deepening divides within our two big parties simply can’t be papered over any longer?"

Asks Thomas Friedman (NYT).

It's a good question in terms of attention-getting, but substantively, it's silly. Parties have often had wings, and it's not that special that the wings are pretty far apart. I'm thinking of the 1960s, for example.

Everyone's such a drama queen these days.

109 comments:

AustinRoth said...

Sadly, I see Trump vs Michelle, and more sadly, Michelle winning.

Seeing Red said...

Who sez Trump is far right?

That’s in his world to make himself feel comfortable.

AOC has a boyfriend/PAC problem already. It’s only been 6 weeks.

Ken B said...

Puerile. In what way is Trump “far right”? Wanting to legalize homosexuality? Prison reform? Gigantic deficits?

Jim at said...

The fact Trump is considered by some to be 'far right' is amazing.

The guy is Ross Perot with a better looking wife.

Kevin said...

Everyone's such a drama queen these days.

No, the drama on the left is already set in motion.

This was a plea for non-existent drama on the right to materialize.

madAsHell said...

Friedman failed to associate a name with the center right GOP, but stuck Trump out on the far right. What a hack!!

JackWayne said...

My view of Friedman is that he has always been a drama queen. At least he stay true to his sophomoric intelligence.

J Melcher said...

Lincoln won in a 4 way race. Coolidge in a three way. Nixon was at least assisted in defeating Humphrey by Wallace's campaign and Clinton benefited from Perot's flanking GHW Bush.

Friedman is forecasting a trivial future.

Sebastian said...

Trump's approval rating among Republicans is what -- 85%?

Some divide.

But I wouldn't put it past Kasich et al. to try and deny Trump a majority by acting as spoilers. They are objectively pro-Dem.

The Dems have more to worry about: Schultz, and Bernie vs. Joe vs. Kamala. But I still think Oprah can clean up. Maybe Michelle--Oprah-lite.

sinz52 said...

If it weren't for the terrible "winner-take-all" rule that most states have for the Electoral College, a third or fourth political party would be more viable.

And if we had Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), third or fourth political parties would no longer be relegated to being spoilers. Because voting third-party would no longer be a wasted vote if your second choice was one of the two major parties.

And with these two reforms, each of our two political parties might well split into two. You would have:

-- Moderate-left (Dem) party (e.g., Joe Manchin, Bill Clinton)
-- Hard-left (Green) party (e.g., Bernie Sanders, AOC)
-- Moderate-right (GOP) party (e.g., Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse)
-- Hard-right (Nationalist) party (e.g., Donald Trump, Pat Buchanan)

narciso said...

he's been a practicioner of category error, since he botched the shatila story, nearly forty years ago, he is like skippy kennedy, in that he is married to the daughter of a well heeled Canadian developer,

tim maguire said...

Plus only a dingbat like...basically anybody on the Times opinion page could call Trump far right.

Hasn’t Friedman moved to China yet?

Drago said...

sinz52: "If it weren't for the terrible "winner-take-all" rule that most states have for the Electoral College, a third or fourth political party would be more viable."

LOL

Go ahead sinz, just say it: Stupid Founders! What do they know about anything. Just because they had effectively studied every previous governmental arrangement in history and identified a structure which provided the greatest chance for individual rights to flourish, we should just dump it all so we can go far left faster!

narciso said...

how do I know he botched the shatila story, because in his book length treatment, he didn't mention Samir geagea, as part of the event, he did ding him for other offenses like moving against the druze, it is because of the earlier narrative, that the us is considered having provoked the Beirut embassy and marine barracks bombings, nothing to do with the pasdaran recruiting the likes of mughniyeh from force 17,

Drago said...

Pointed out earlier in thread: There is no bigger fan of the current communist govt structure in China than Thomas Friedman.

Two-eyed Jack said...

I think it is important to point out that, rather then "far-right," Trump is better described as "center-far-left-of-really-far-right." That and Hitler.

mccullough said...

Friedman, like Krugman, is an incredibly stupid person. But like Beto he married well.

Mountain Maven said...

I can't be bothered to read it. Any paeans to chicom style uniparties?

Psota said...

pretty sure the 1860 election was a "four-party" election.

Friedman has completely lost his frame of reference. He can't imagine a world where Trump will coast to the GOP nomination and is in a very strong position to be re-elected, so he creates these absurd "big picture" analysis that are completely ungrounded

n.n said...

and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable

Trump has been Constitutional, center, or conservative, beyond human reason.

Mountain Maven said...

Name a Republican who is dumb enough to take on Trump next year. kaisch is a democrat.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

We had a four-party election in 2016:

Hillary Clinton, Centrist Democrat
Donald Trump, Populist Republican
Gary Johnson, Libertarian Republican
Jill Stein, Green Socialist

All four were significant in terms of having an effect on the Electoral College outcome.

narciso said...

it seems these are the folks funding much of this faux opposition,


https://www.jns.org/report-qatar-plans-not-renew-funds-for-gazas-electricity/

as well as Omidyar who seems to operate on similar wavelength with the intercept, icij, and other appendages,

Marty said...

When Friedman says "center right" he means the "traditional left" - his "far right" is the "center right" (or maybe just "center"). There no longer is a center left or moderate left; it's either hard left (Biden and maybe michelle) or radical left (most of the rest of the dems).

Drago said...

Left Bank: "Hillary Clinton, Centrist Democrat
Donald Trump, Populist Republican
Gary Johnson, Libertarian Republican
Jill Stein, Green Socialist"

I think in the context of 2016, I would stick with just plain old "Libertarian" for Johnson and not modify it with "reublican". I bet Johnson drew more center-ish dems than republicans, though I dont have stats to back that up.

chuck said...

Trump isn't far right. What more needs to be said about Friedman.

Anonymous said...

Seeing Red said...

AOC has a boyfriend/PAC problem already. It’s only been 6 weeks.


Not her personally running. She's too young. but her ilk...

I'm Full of Soup said...

What would do without Tom Friedman, our Big and Stupid Thinker?

mccullough said...

AOC’s boyfriend is a white boy. Like Kamala she’s too good for men of color.

gilbar said...

isn't Thomas Friedman's Claim to Fame that he is marginally less stupid than Paul Krugman?

Bay Area Guy said...

Everyone's such a drama queen these days

Not quite everyone, but much of the Trump critics are. They have to be, because most sane folks simply want to go about their lives.

Think about it -- our country has moved to a point of more hoax crimes, than hate crimes.

campy said...

"Friedman failed to associate a name with the center right GOP,..."

It's against the rules of journ-o-lism to identify a repub as center-right until he's dead. All living repubs belong to the ultra-right/nazi/taliban wing of the party.

rcocean said...

Is Tom Friedman still alive? Amazing.

dreams said...

Thomas Friedman is a liberal dumbass.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Donald Trump far right?
LOL. Trump is practically a democrat.

Big Mike said...

Let me answer Friedman's question: No.

And the bad news for Friedman is that, if it were to happen (i.e., four parties) then Trump wins a landslide.

People who never venture far outside their bubble need to learn about politics before they write about politics.

rcocean said...

Typical NYT bullshit. Trump got 46% of vote, but he's "Far Right". Egg McMuffin got, what 1% - but he's "Center-right". Meanwhile Hillary isnt' "Far Left" no, she's "Center-left"

They've done this my entire life. I can remember Reagan - who won 60% of vote in 1984 - being labeled "ultra_right" "Far Right" and "Extreme Right". But was Ted Kennedy ever "Far Left"? Of course not. He was never labeled at all! He was just good ol' Ted.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Friedman and Krugman - two ass clowns.

Otto said...

"Parties have often had wings, and it's not that special that the wings are pretty far apart. I'm thinking of the 1960s, for example. "
The only party that had wings in the 60s was the democratic party.
What do you expect from a UM art student.

Michael said...

You have to be deranged to think Donald Trump is "far-Right." Didn't we spend 2016/17 wondering if he was really a conservative? If he is farther right now it is because the Thomas Friedman's of the world have driven him there.

narciso said...

inconvenient facts not acceptable in the times,


https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/430717-the-family-secret-bruce-ohr-told-rod-rosenstein-about-russia-case

Unknown said...

Tom Friedman used to be interesting when he was reporting from the Middle East.

Now it's pieces about carbon taxes, how wonderful China central planning is, and ill-advised pieces about party politics.

gilbar said...

in response to "If it weren't for the terrible "winner-take-all" rule that most states have for the Electoral College, a third or fourth political party would be more viable."

someone said... "Stupid Founders! What do they know about anything."

I'm not going to call anyone Stupid (see Professor?) But, Hello? here's the grand total of things that the Founders said about "winner-take-all" rules for the Electoral College:
{this space left intentionally blank}

Since the Founders didn't say anything about Parties, it shouldn't be surprising that they didn't say anything about Parties.
*IF* more states would be like Nebraska (or Maine?) things would be a Lot different.
One thing that would still be the same though, people here would be snarky and rude while simultaneously being inaccurate.

Otto said...

Sorry Democrat not democratic. What do you expect from an engineer.

Al Kuhseltsur said...

One answer is no because Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez won't be the minimum presidential qualifying age of 35 in 2020. Thomas Friedman needs better editors if he can't get things right himself.

Al Kuhseltsur said...

One answer is no because Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez won't be the minimum presidential qualifying age of 35 in 2020. Thomas Friedman needs better editors if he can't get things right himself.

narciso said...

actually he wasn't except for his introduction of hama rules, this was meant to instill confidence in hafez assad, the same who would provide hezbollah to provide the infrastructure to attack coalition forces, like his son would do for al queda, a generation later, another name I noted in absence in his manuscript is the actual perpetrator of the shatila affair, who was later relied with Saudi intelligence to attack fadlallah, the Lebanese Khomeini, but then ended up allied with assad's proxies in Lebanon,

narciso said...

true the constitution, did not include faction, but seeing the example of the whig and the tories, which were roughly the democrat and federalist, it wasn't a radical leap,

RMc said...

Coolidge in a three way.

And afterwards, he said, "You both lose."

Paul said...

The 1912 presidential election featured four candidates from four parties--republican, democrat, bull moose, socialist--and the lowest performer, Eugene Debs, received six percent of the vote.

narciso said...

the federalists basically evolved into the whigs, and they were ultimately done in by the slavery question, which became the gop to some degree, a patchwork quilt of interests, now is illegal immigration the solvent 150 some years later, that's a question he doesn't care and probably doesn't even consider answering,

tcrosse said...

Trump is sui generis. Then there's everybody else.

Bob Loblaw said...

Apparently Friedman's taxi driver is a little confused about the political spectrum. As other people have noted, a guy who was a Democrat in New York until he realized the only opportunity for office is on the Republican side, a guy who just went to bat for gay people internationally, a guy who doesn't seem to care about the growing size and scope of government... this guy cannot reasonably be characterized as "far right".

Donald Trump doesn't have a political philosophy. Leftists just think he's "far right" because they have a utilitarian view of political structures and tend to portray everyone they don't like as "far right".

narciso said...

the story doesn't make much sense, except to the times,

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/the-indoctrination-of-monica-witt.php

for instance if she was concerned about drone strikes, why did she defect to the shia, which we were tacitly allied with in Iraq,

MountainMan said...

Not only was the election of 1860 a 4-way race but Lincoln took only 39.8% of the "popular vote." He won 18 of 33 states and got 180 of the 303 electoral votes. I don't think he even appeared on the ballot of 6 southern states.

A four-way race, where there is a clear Electoral College winner, would show the value of the EC.

bgates said...

Translated into Earth language, Friedman's four factions are

* the "center left" - these are the people who promise they'll be able to do what Venezuela tried and make it work
* the far left - these are the people who dispute Venezuela is a failure, and/or blame its problems on Yankee imperialism
* the "center right" - swear to resist anyone to their left to their dying breath, so long as they don't have to do anything distasteful, unfriendly, un-collegial, or worst of all effective, while keeping in practice at every dirty trick in the book by destroying anyone to their right
* the "extreme right" - think Venezuela is a bad example, and would prefer something more like America in 1992 but with more rights for gay people and fewer blacks in prison

narciso said...

Heh bgates, yes that's about the size of it.

MBunge said...

In what way does tariff-loving, homosexuality-decriminalizing, Syria-withdrawing, New York City Democrat Donald Trump qualify as "far right?"

Mike

J. Farmer said...

Reposted from the Elizabeth Warren thread:

Slightly off-topic but too funny to pass up. From NYT Opinion's twitter feed:

@tomfriedman boils down the major factions in our two big political parties as “redivide-the-pie Democrats” and “grow-the-pie Democrats,” and “limited-government-grow-the-pie” Republicans and “hoard-the-pie, pull-up-the-drawbridge” Republicans

Uh huh. Only Walter Russell Meade comes close to Friedman in inventing stupid, meaningless constructions to explain contemporary American politics. Why does Tom Friedman have a job? The guy is a total nitwit. I guess whatever self-respect you lose by being a slobbering lickspittle for the elite, you more than make up for in job security.

Bay Area Guy said...

Friedman & Krugman both stink. Privileged liberal academics - very little real world experience.

Bernie raised $6 Mill in 1 day. The Dems already have the long knives out for him.

DEEBEE said...

Surprised you gave Friedman (I knoe) a mention. His over-eagerness at displaying intellectual heft is extraordinary. He would be the one, when told of the fake news about Trump’s incestual lust for Ivanka, would write an article wondering about what the world would look like if incest was not taboo.

Tank said...

Friedman has a lot of money. So he figured something out.

narciso said...

Well he married money which doesn't mean the same thing.

Ralph L said...

The only party that had wings in the 60s was the democratic party.

You've forgotten Goldwater and Rockefeller Republicans, who later divided between Ford and Reagan in '76.

mockturtle said...

Trump is sui generis. Then there's everybody else.

Yep. And he is far from far right. But I guess if Trump=fascist, and fascist=far right, then Trump=far right, according to their narrative. It's amusing how some people just assume that everyone hates Trump. Most people I know are pleasantly surprised with his Presidency.

Ralph L said...

He got some people to buy his books a decade or two ago.

mockturtle said...

You've forgotten Goldwater and Rockefeller Republicans, who later divided between Ford and Reagan in '76.

That's right[heh], Ralph. Goldwater was the only real 'right-wing' candidate in my lifetime.

But then, I asked my aunt to define 'right wing' and she said, well, you know, like evangelicals! ;-)

mockturtle said...

Any politician campaigning as a Socialist in the US should be required to spend at least two years in Venezuela--or, at least, China--before being allowed to run for office.

Arashi said...

Nope - two years in North Korea at one of their 'world famous spa level work camps'..

rhhardin said...

It just throws the election to the house, where the deep state chooses the president.

Tank said...

@narciso

Actually, it does.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Trump is JFK

The left - a malignant glob of Castro-Maduro-LilKim-Krugman and Mao.

narciso said...

I suppose like John Kerry john McCain william weld married a roosevelt which made his us atty post in Boston where he ran interference for whitey bulger, his deputy was Robert mueller.

Michael K said...

It's a shame to see what has happened to Friedman. His books on the Middle east were pretty good,.

FIDO said...

Not a Drama Queen. Concern Trolling.

He sees the Ideological Shit Show that the Left is, and he wishes that the Right was similarly fractured.

He is begging for any Republican to do so.

Here is the problem: the unifying aspect of the Right is not Trump. It is that the Left is violent, scary and ignoring all laws, norms and processes in their quest for power. They have never acted this way before.

Well, everyone on the Right save Chuck, whose hate of Trump overrides his sense of survival. Sad, stupid and short sighted is no way to go through life, but Chuck seems content in his bubble of hate.

The Left seems to hate Christians, Capitalism, Westetn Culture and White People. Amazing. So any 'strong man' who can defend them will be embraced. Hence Trump and our Unity of Fear.

Friedman understands none of this, and like Chuck or Inga, if shown this, would reject it!

But even more: what Republican reads or listens to the NYT anymore?

tastid212 said...

For the last 2 yrs I prayed that Trump would stop his nonstop tweeting bc it was making everyone (me) crazy. It also drove people into permanent camps (the modern-day U.S. political equiv of Shatila, narcisso). It's clear that his tweets and existence (not actions) have deranged all his opponents into fecklessness and rotespiel (plus they're making $$ from opposition - media and pols alike). Meantime, he has been getting a lot of things done. And getting things done is what has jones'd Trump all along: buildings and casinos back in the day, now it's tax reform, SCOTUS picks, deregulation, prison reform, on the way to neutering the Norks, shaking up/ forcing lazy Euros to decide, disentanglement from the ME while shaking the status quo, shaking Asia on the way to a more level playing field, standing up to to PC, and a few more of your choice. (Yeah, all while dealing with the resistance of a series of embedded intel communities fighting him from the start, too.) No, none of it has been perfect. Most of it has been the opposite of horrible. But a lot has been done in 2 yrs. Maybe he should continue with the tweets?

Achilles said...

Friedman is a globalist tool. He thinks he is diving his enemies and trying to quarantine and other the deplorables.

He is stupid and wrong. There are 3 groups of globalist tools in his list.

Anonymous said...

Trump's approval rating among Republicans is what -- 85%?

I've seen as high as 93%.

chuck said...

His books on the Middle east were pretty good,.

How would you know? I call Gell-Mann to testify.

Bay Area Guy said...

The Left wants things. They want open borders, higher taxes, a "Green New Deal", free stuff, but most of all, they want the bad orange man to go away.

tim in vermont said...

I wish that somebody at the New York Times could work up a glossary so that we would know what "far right” really means. I am guessing that if the actual terms were laid out, more than half of America would be “far right” in their thinking.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Far right = men with nooses and bleach in downtown Chicago.

Sam L. said...

That would include Tommy Friedman.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Watching the radical left candidates fall all over themselves with their offers of "free stuff!" is going to be really fantastic.

mockturtle said...

The Left wants things. They want open borders, higher taxes, a "Green New Deal", free stuff, but most of all, they want the bad orange man to go away.

I'm not so sure. What would they have to rage about?

Bay Area Guy said...

I remind my folks in the Bay Area of these undeniable facts:

1. In 2016, Hillary got 66 Million votes, Trump got 63 Milllion. So, politically speaking, the country is roughly 50-50.
2. The media is roughly 90-10 against Trump.
3. The Bay Area voted 90-10 against Trump.

So, tell me again who is out of touch with the Country?

Leland said...

For the record; Gary Johnson got over 3% of the vote and Jill Stein got 1%. Write-Ins, Others, and Egg McMuffin combined for just over another 1%, with Write-Ins gaining 7 electoral votes.

Anonymous said...

-- Moderate-right (GOP) party (e.g., Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse)
-- Hard-right (Nationalist) party (e.g., Donald Trump, Pat Buchanan)


On pretty much any question of pure public policy, Ben Sasse is to the right of Donald Trump.

narciso said...

No I pointed out he was wrong from the start I always suspected it but it was a Israeli stringer for the times Michael widlanksi who pointed out this elemental error, he has also singed Paul pillar

narciso said...

Should van helsing continue with the cross, did w unilateral disarmament help anyone.

narciso said...

Hobeika who was a native of a maronite hamlet destroyed in the first round of the Lebanese civil war was the fellow I was referring to, no one care what happened to damour.

Gahrie said...

The 1912 presidential election featured four candidates from four parties

The 1824 election featured four candidates from the same party. The eventual winner, John Quincy Adams, only got 30.9% of the popular vote. He won 7 of 24 states and got 84 out of 261 Electoral votes. (one of the losers, Andrew Jackson got 99 Electoral votes.) The election got thrown into the House of Representatives where Adams won 13 of 24 states.


Daniel Jackson said...

Thomas Friedman is STILL alive?? Who knew?

Who cares!

Lewis Wetzel said...

Reading Friedman is waste of time. He knows nothing.
Trump is not "far right." Trump is an eccentric centrist. Friedman has called every GOP nominee for president "far right."
The three GOP candidates Friedman would consider "center right" in 2016 were Huntsman, Kasich, and Bush. None of the three has any appeal to the rank and file. They appeal to donors.
Friedman is a silly old dude wo thinks that he is the center of the universe. The more he dislikes a candidate, the further "right" they are.

Skeptical Voter said...

Reading Friedman is an interesting, but not very worthwhile, exercise. His opinions on any topic are like a merry go round. You wait long enough--the cycle takes about a year--and then Friedman will revisit a topic. If he said X is black in January of 2019, you can be pretty sure that he will write that X is white in January 2020. Read faithfully (albeit foolishly) and in a year or so the contradiction will arrive.


That said, Friedman has made a ton of dough from writing this codswallop and his mansion covers many acres. Not very planet friendly to occupy all that space (or waste the trees cut down to print his stuff) but hey, he's one of the anointed.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"Libertarian" for Johnson and not modify it with "reublican". I bet Johnson drew more center-ish dems than republicans"

Johnson was a refuge for many a LLR as well. His little statist-lite shuffle was a calculated bid for the unTrumpfortable establishment.

bgates said...

What would they have to rage about?

White people, white men, white women, heteronormativity, The Patriarchy, income inequality, wealth inequality, meat, climate change, guns, transphobia, racism, immigration limits, invasive species, Christianity, John Wayne, Kevin Hart, smiling white high school students, red hats, fake hate crimes, Fox News, systemic racism, unconscious bias, capitalism, underrepresentation, Catholics, opposition to gay marriage, abortion limits, the military, sports, Israel, nationalism, wage slavery, tax cuts, austerity, disagreement, anti-Communism, Russia, #OscarsSoWhite, #MeToo, conservatives on Twitter, conservatives allowed to speak on campus, conservatives, centrists, American exceptionalism, American history, America, Europe, colonialism, sexism, ableism, fat shaming, homophobia, endorsing gay rights worldwide, no high speed rail, ICE, drug laws, tobacco, Big Pharma, lack of government-paid health care, food deserts, rape culture, Mike Pence, Mike Pence's wife, Mike Pence never having dinner with women without his wife, unwanted attention from men, lack of attention from men, men, mockery, Roseanne, Tim Allen, Tim Tebow, Clarence Thomas, Mary Poppins, Lindsey Graham, fossil fuels, Texas, oil pipelines, Sarah Palin, George W Bush, Reagan, Reaganomics, reading white authors, white authors writing non-white characters, lack of movie/tv roles for non-white actors, privilege, Brexit, flyover country, air travel, cars, Christmas, Big Oil, WalMart, Wall Street, the 1%, redlining, predatory lending, mansplaining, the 1950s, Planet of the Apes, The Camp of the Saints, people who touch other people's hair, people who ask where other people are from, hate, intolerance, tolerance of intolerance, #HasJustineLandedYet, The Bell Curve, Shakespeare, lack of government funding for the arts, lack of universal basic income, #LearnToCode...

...anyway, those are the first few things that come to mind.

FIDO said...

I am a bit concerned about the cozy Clinton/Kaisch coffe klatch.

His career is over. Done. He was a charming and afable trad Con candidate but unfortunately ran into the paradigm buzzsaw that is Trump.

Being the kid to tearfully took his ball and went home did him no favors. Cruz was much more manly.

If anyone knows the usefulness of a spoiler candidate, it is the Clintons and in their corruption, they can try to buy Spoil Sport Kaisch.

An interesting potential though he would never be forgiven.

Lewis Wetzel said...

FIDO, despite Kasich's open hostility to Trump -- not only did he withhold the Ohio GOP voting machine from Trump, he would have had Trump's people in Ohio arrested, if he could have -- Trump bested Hillary by 10 points in Ohio.
Kasich is toast. He can still collect tens of millions from the GOP donor class for a 2020 run, or become a "Republican" pundit on MSNBC, but his career as an elected politician is over.
Anecdote: every Hillary voter I knew wanted Kasich to be the GOP candidate in 2016.

pchuck1966 said...

Friedman is an idiot. From The Facukty Lounge law professor's blog:

"In 1860, when the presidency was contested by Abraham Lincoln (Republican), Stephen A. Douglas (Northern Democratic), John Breckinridge (Southern Democratic), and John Bell (Constitutional Union."

Once again, celebrated NYT's opinion writer is wrong.

Yancey Ward said...

Notice what Friedman did there- where was Howard Schultz? If there is a significant alternate party run on the Left- Friedman's hypothesis- it is only honest to give it a name in that quote.

As things stand at the moment- Harris is going to be the candidate for the Democrats. Clinton, I think, will run if she has the goods to take Harris out before Iowa- if not, then Clinton probably is finished politically. Pay attention to any story that is anti-Harris starting about late August- look at who is running it and their past associations.

I am not yet convinced Trump even runs for reelection, but if he does, he is sure to be the Republican nominee, and I don't think anyone in Republican House or Senate will run against him in the general election. I assume that Gary Johnson will probably run again as a Libertarian, but will get half the vote he got the last time or less. Jill Stein will probably run again, but will also get less than half the vote she did last time.

If there is an attempt to run as a pseudo-Republican third party candidate, that is likely to be tried by Michael Bloomberg, but he has said that he would run as a Democrat, so he may well have already contaminated such a false run from the right of center.

People don't realize it in the media, but Trump is occupying the political center and that seems to have driven the Democrats off the cliff for some reason. It is a powerful political position he is in, and unless there is a recession between now and November 2020, Trump will be reelected.

Yancey Ward said...

Kasich won't run, and he is more likely at this point to draw votes from the Democrats- he has pretty well burned his bridges to Republican voters.

FIDO said...

I used to support him and he burnt his bridge to me.

But when you have nothing to lose and someone offers you a mint of money...

I would love to see a reporter actually investigate him and his intentions.

Daniel Jackson said...

"I would love to see a reporter actually investigate him and his intentions."

Why bother. He's lost his direction, asea without a compass, moral and otherwise.

Nichevo said...

another name I noted in absence in his manuscript is the actual perpetrator of the shatila affair, who was later relied with Saudi intelligence to attack fadlallah, the Lebanese Khomeini, but then ended up allied with assad's proxies in Lebanon,

By the actual perpetrator you mean Elie Hobeika? Clever to include the name of the party you reference, next time.

Danno said...

J Farmer said..."Only Walter Russell Meade comes close to Friedman in inventing stupid, meaningless constructions to explain contemporary American politics."

Walter Russell Meade used to have some fairly interesting articles on the blue state model, but he has drifted leftward the last couple of years, especially now that he has a sinecure position at the Wall Street Journal. So I am in agreement.

Maillard Reactionary said...

"Everyone's such a drama queen these days."

Especially the queens.

Martin said...

"It's a good question in terms of attention-getting, but substantively, it's silly."

That's the way Friedman always is... he gets your attention for a moment but then you realize he is fundamentally just silly.

Bilwick said...

Trump as "far right"? Meaning Trump will be the most libertarian? My stars and garters!