I have little doubt Paul Krugman’s Tweet Storm is responding to Thomas Friedman column today. (The Storm is diaried by Teacher Ken at the link.) Krugman has done the same thing with Brooks — without naming him, destroying one of Brooks’ stupid columns hours after it appears.
Friedman today gives the Democrats monumentally bad advice (How Clinton Could Knock Trump Out). It’s horrible analytically, economically, and politically.
it is an anti-trade, regulatory heavy, socialist-lite agenda the Democratic Party has drifted to under the sway of Bernie Sanders. Socialism is the greatest system ever invented for making people equally poor. Capitalism makes people unequally rich, but I would much rather grow our pie bigger and faster and better adjust the slices than redivide a shrinking one.
There are a lot of center-right, business Republicans today feeling orphaned by Trump. They can’t vote for him — but a lot of them still claim they can’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary, either. Clinton should be reaching out to them with a real pro-growth, start-up, deregulation, entrepreneurship agenda and give them a positive reason to vote for her.
It’s not just that Friedman wants a move “right.” It’s that he is an idiot who understands nothing. He uses buzz words (“start-up!”) that are meaningless. He has no idea what would really stimulate growth, and what he calls “socialism-lite” is slightly to the left of Bill Clinton and maybe right of Ike. Examples of each kind of stupid:
Analytically stupid: “making people equally poor” — you mean like in Scandinavia?
Economically stupid: “pro-growth” — like the George W. Bush years?
Politically: “”the sway of Bernie Sanders” — The Moustache of Understanding somehow has missed that the story on the Democratic side is attracting those voters, not alienating them.
I could go on — e.g., Friedman has no clue that the voters he seeks to attract with “pro-growth” policies are voting primarily for racist, xenophobic reasons, and anti-immigration is key. Of course, Friedman is quite pro-immigration reform, but somehow doesn’t mention it today.
But I think it would giving him too much credit to suppose he left it out intentionally because it doesn’t fit his theme of attracting Trump voters.
It must drive Krugman nuts that he has to share a page with such an idiot.