The On-Going Bitch Hunt and the Disposables

The email saga continues.  James Comey has made another "bombshell" revelation that there are Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner's computer.  It has now dominated a news cycle, but as one writer put it, "Donald Trump exulted about the discovery of new emails from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state" claiming they were "Bigger than Watergate!"  Well, yes, "Sure, they could be. They could also be pleas from Clinton that Huma Abedin fetch her a skinny latte from Starbucks. We don’t know. And the horrifying thing is that the F.B.I. director, James Comey, didn’t seem to know, either, even as he disclosed their existence to the world."   One thing is relatively clear.   The conservative side of the camp just can't give it up.   They are, in effect, searching for the black swan.  We can't prove it doesn't exist, which means it may exist, and the conservative camp has invested too much time and treasure trying to find it, that they have become exhibit one of the "sunk cost fallacy."  They just can't give it up, and just keep shifting from the possibility to the probability to the actuality.  But really, how likely is it, after all, that they are going to find a "black swan" email on Weiner's computer, one that reads "Hey Huma, would you pick up a skinny latte, and oh by the way have naughty boy send the me the contact info on that satanic assassination cult that did away with Vance.  I've got someone else in mind.   Tell Lizzy to meet me at Four Seasons.  I've got a new lubricant, so tell her to bring the big dildo, the black one!  You and Anthony can join if you want.   Finally, send the attached launch codes on to the Saudis.  The big abdullah Obama has been bugging me to 'get 'er done' before prayers.  Allah Akbar!"  Except in the most feverish imagination of the most conspiratorial Breitbart reader, and without apologies for the crudity, the likelihood of such an email is virtually nonexistent.  So what really do they expect to find?  

So when do they give it up?  When every last email has been read and scrutinized?  Even then, no doubt, there will be assertions of "missing" emails, and of course the only reason they are "missing" is because they're incriminating.   So never?  It is the modern equivalent of a witch hunt, a bitch hunt.  Whether they find anything or not seems to be irrelevant to the next stage of the investigation.   In the media malaise, the mere fact that the hunt is on seems to be damaging.  An interesting article by Susan Faludi appeared this morning in the Times, "How Hillary Clinton Met Satan."  I mention it because it fits the narrative picture I have been circling.  It concerns the "disposables," particularly the under-educated, white-male "disposables" that make up the more rabid conservative right.  At fundament it is an economic argument -- that is to say, the so-called "jobless recovery" doesn't feel like a recovery at all if one is among the jobless.   The post points out that in recent decades, recovery "often meant replacing employees with computers. This could explain why the jobs we lose in a recession don’t seem to return anymore: The positions became obsolete."  Moreover, "evidence says there might be another reason for these stubborn spells of low employment: after a recession, the remaining job openings may become harder to fill because employers start to demand people with better skills, who can adapt to new technologies in order to be more productive."   In other words, "it’s not just that many jobs go extinct during a recession.  Even the surviving jobs sometimes shift beyond recognition — and beyond the reach of many."  The under-educated, white males, many of whom were engaged in routine and repetitive industrial tasks, were disposed of quickly, and many others see the hand-writing on the wall.  How many can watch news reports of driverless vehicles without seeing their long-haul livelihood disposed of as well?  

At fundament it is an economic argument, but where does one direct one's resentment?  At Elon Musk?  At Google?  As Faludi recognizes, it is much more satisfying on a human level to direct one's resentments at the feminization of American society, and in particular the long-standing symbol of American feminization, Hillary Clinton.  "Wounded male prerogative," she points out, "was personal and sexual. The 1990s produced a generation of men who felt (and still feel) left behind by a society redefining power and success in terms of ornament and celebrity and demoting the value of industry and brawn, while simultaneously challenging men’s value as family providers.  Though women weren’t the source of men’s pain, the antagonist conjured up by aggrieved men I talked with in those years had a feminine face, and very often that face was Hillary’s."  There is a good deal in this statement that deserves unpacking, but I would just point out that "demoting the value of industry and brawn," demotes as well a core American value of "hard work."  The challenge to "men's value as family providers" was not met with an alternative vision.  If men no long have value as "family providers," where then does their value lie?  One need not necessarily be a misogynistic brute to suggest that the feminist movement left many men, who had defined themselves as "strong" and "providers," adrift in a culture that no longer valued the "hard work" that gave dignity and honor to them as men.  It was not simply, or not only, the loss of "male prerogative," but a culture that sees them, increasingly, as irrelevant.  It isn't surprising that "the antagonist conjured up by aggrieved men" had a woman's face, and that "face was Hillary's."  She was a symbol and target of convenience for the welling resentment that has now found it's full but ironic expression in Donald Trump.  If Hilary represents the bug-a-boo of feminism for the aggrieved male, he is precisely the sort of sexually dominant male narcissism that actually SHOULD be rendered irrelevant.  With his aggressive braggadocio, he is Anthony Weiner and a Bill Clinton wanna-be rolled into one, and his philandering deplorability makes him one big politically incorrect FU to Hillary and her kind. 

So I keep asking, what to do?  Faludi is right.  Women are not the source of the under-educated, white, middle-class male's pain.  Impersonal and genderless economic forces take tmost of the onus, but for the one experiencing those forces, they are neither impersonal nor genderless.  Consider, for example, Jeff Guo writing on the jobless recovery for the Washington Post remarks, non-routine professions "have been much hardier. These are, by definition, the jobs that are harder to automate.  In today’s society, they tend to be either highly paid or lowly paid: analysts and janitors, lawyers and home health aides, Silicon Valley programmers and Starbucks baristas.  What these workers have in common is that they all have to think flexibly and creatively throughout the day, whether that involves debugging a section of code or helping a customer choose between different kinds of seasonal lattes."  This litany of contrasts suggests two things.  First, the "lowly paid" professions require little in the way of education, and might provide a venue for the disposed of male, except! and it's an important exception, they all seem to be traditionally female or minority positions.  Let's be honest, when we picture a janitor's face, we see either a black face or "little miss housekeeping."  When we picture the "home health aide," a secondary form of nursing, we see a female, and the barista is just a hoity-toity name for "waitress in a coffee shop."  If we do picture a male barista, it's a "student working their way through college" with a paperback copy of "Beyond Good and Evil" in their back pocket to prove it.  Granted, these are gender stereotypes, and for the most part we should "just get over it," and any job is better than no job, but only barely.  The "lowly paid" jobs grant little in the way of dignity or honor for the displaced factory worker who can no longer take pride in being "the family provider."

Second, the litany of contrasts implies that education is the answer for the disposable male.  Analysts, lawyers, and programmers all require education, often education at a graduate level.  So, if you want a highly paid profession, get an education.  It's perhaps not surprising that the "liberal" often has "education" at or near the center of their agenda.  I would place it there as well because education is, and always will be, important, but education is not the answer for the disposable male.  For one thing, attitudes toward education vary, particularly toward a secular STEM (science technology engineering math) education, but for many it seems increasingly at odds with core belief.  As just one small example, the continuing (never-ending?) debate over the inclusion of "creationism" in school curriculum, a mythology that draws from Genesis and lends authority to a male dominate hierarchy.  The divide provides fodder for the "how-stupid-can-you-be" sanctimony on the left, but for many, particularly on the right, the debate provides yet one more piece of convincing evidence that it is better to have their children "churched" than "schooled."  As has been oft noted and examined, there is also strain of anti-intellectualism that runs through American life, a strain compounded by the increasingly partisan sense that a "liberal" education is just that, a "liberal" education.  As time goes on, it is compounded also by the nagging sense that education itself is nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt to push a feminist agenda.  As a recent Pew report notes, "Even though college enrollment rates among young people have risen in recent decades, a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that females outpace males in college enrollment."    There are any number of explanations, none of them completely satisfactory.   One study, cited by Pew, notes in particular that three factors may have contributed, technical, social, and legal.  "The widespread legality and acceptance of the “pill” as a birth control device allowed young women to plan their futures more accurately and also helped facilitate a large increase in the age at first marriage," which itself is problematic for those who hold traditional views, not only of female sexuality, but of male dominance in the social hierarchy captured by the phrase "barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen."  The technical innovation was compounded by "other enabling factors," not least the "the resurgence of feminism, "which not only "empowered young women," but led to "greater guarantees by the government that discrimination against women in education and employment would not be tolerated."

It is then, perhaps not so surprising that Hillary Rodham Clinton has become the symbolic target of the "radical feminist agenda."  For the disposable, she represents in her gender, in her accomplishment, in her wonky intellectualism, in her sanctimony toward the "deplorables," a full and complete answer to the question, "what is wrong with this picture?"   I think Faludi is correct, that "Republican ideological absolutism, nourished by masculine insecurity, created an amalgam corrosive to pragmatic politics," but to dismiss the antipathy merely as masculine insecurity is a mistake.   She is correct to note that "it’s a fiction to think we can move on beyond" the culture war surrounding Clinton "without settling it," but she is wrong to think "settling it requires helping Mrs. Clinton triumph once and for all against the calumnies that were created to define her."  Well, wrong at least in part.  It depends upon what she means by "triumph."  An electoral triumph alone will no more solve the problem than Obama's electoral triumph solved the racial problem.  Though one can only hope she wins the election -- and I do very sincerely hope she wins the election for oh so many reasons -- nevertheless when she wakes up to govern after her inauguration, there will still be a sizable base of republicans who will believe the "calumnies," that her presidency is "illegitimate," and that she has a "radical feminist agenda" targeting those who simply want to "work hard" and "support their family."  We have quite successfully demoted the value of "industry and brawn," but we have not addressed the real pain, or the misplaced resentments, of "a generation of men who felt (and still feel) left behind."   

Waiting in Line

The Cubs are tied at one game apiece in the World Series as I write this.  I imagine, for contractual reasons, MLB.TV doesn't carry those games that are broadcast by major networks, and so I have been going over to a friend's house to watch the games.  During the game, there have been a couple of ads that have run for Trump, and I know they're dying to say something, but out of respect, mostly to my wife, they have held their tongues.  So have I.  The ad itself is a standard sort of thing, transparent in its rhetorical devices and is intended to vilify Clinton.  It runs through the litany of woes -- terrorism spread, jobs lost, et cetera, all presented with imagery suggestive of post-apocalyptic films -- and then gives the debate punch line that she's been "in power" for 30 years and done nothing about it.  Of course, it's meant to suggest that she's a part of the Washington "elite," but I find the line curious nevertheless.  It plays to an authoritarian's naiveté about American power, suggesting a first lady, a single senator, or the Secretary of State were in complete command.  Anyone with a half ounce of sense would know that her power was limited.   I am sure he is running the ad during the World Series because the Indians represent Ohio, and he wants to reach the disaffected white voters of rust belt Ohio, where his message resonates, but it seems a bit pathetic to me.

I mention this because I am also reading Arlie Russell Hochschild's book, Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.  I downloaded it because she seemed to offer a slightly different take on the question that has plagued me for some time, what she calls the "great paradox," how so many on the right can be persuaded to vote for a conservative party that does so little to represent their actual interests.  One can illustrate the great paradox from just about any issue perspective, and the economic arguments are always compelling.  As she writes, "many tea party advocates work in or run small businesses.  Yet the politicians they support back laws that consolidate the monopoly power of the very largest companies that are poised to swallow up smaller ones."  As, indeed, they have.  Almost everyone recognizes that the advent of Walmart in Mountain Home brought in its wake the decimation of the "main street," which is, for the most part, a shabby partial ghost town.  Almost everyone claims to despise Walmart, but we all shop there because, really, we now have no other choices.   As another example, she writes "in 2008, reckless and woefully under regulated Wall Street investors led many to lose savings, homes, jobs, and hope" here in Mountain Home and elsewhere, but yet "under the banner of a 'free market,' many within the growing small town right defend Wall Street against government 'over-regulation.'"  The list can go on indefinitely, but the capper, perhaps, is this: "virtually every Tea Party advocate I interviewed for this book," she writes, "has personally benefited from a major government service or has close family who have," and yet they support the party that would curtail, privatize, or abolish such services.  I have pointed to this piece of the paradox, and while some are embarrassed by their "need" for the service, and respond with a shoulder shrug of resignation, "what can you do?"  At least one person has said to me, "why not get in line with the niggers?"

Our friends, who will be away for the opening game at Wrigley Field, even offered their house keys to me so I could come over and watch the games while they were away.  They are not mean spirited, or ungenerous people, and fed with a steady diet of Fox News, their appreciation of the issues behind the presidential election simply reflects an unreflective acceptance of a Fox News conservatism, without nuance and without sophistication, but not without "depth."  It's the depth that Hochschild is trying to get at.  Let me give another anecdotal, personalized example.  Under the Affordable Care Act, our out-of-pocket health insurance premiums doubled from about $250 to just under $500.  I would be the first to say that the law is deeply flawed.  Who to blame?  My impulse is to simply follow the money and ask "who benefits when a particular insurance company can simply drop one policy package and offer up another 'similar' package with a higher deductible and twice the cost?"  The answer seems to be fairly obvious, the insurance companies, and I want to assign "blame" on the corporate structures that offer increasing inadequate health coverage solely in order to make money (not, as their advertising would have it, that make sufficient money solely in order to cover fully a smiling America's health needs).   My anger, and I AM angry, is directed at the insurance provider.  Our friend's impulse is to blame the government, in particular the suspect motives of one President Obama.  I mention this for a couple of reasons.  In commiserating with my wife on the increase, he took the standard Fox line, but then one such insurance provider ran an ad during the Series promoting their sunny and smiling altruistic concern for the health of America.  Our friend mentioned that the particular insurance provider had dropped a family member's coverage right after they became significantly ill.  Under the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, it would be illegal to drop the coverage.  It was clear that the law, had it been in effect at the time, would have helped his family member, but when I mentioned this, it was clear he had no idea the law prevented insurance companies from behaving so rapaciously and I doubt that it impacted at all his support for the party that consistently and loudly calls for a repeal of Obamacare, to include the provisions that prevent the corporate providers from "dropping" unprofitable subscribers.

So it goes, without nuance or sophistication, but not without "depth."  Our friends would oppose Clinton's position on abortion along with her position of "gay marriage" for religious and moral reasons, and they are suspicious of any curtailment of gun rights citing a slippery slope of "first assault rifles, then my handguns, then my hunting weapons."  On the former, even if Clinton's proposals were enacted, I doubt that they'd even notice. in their day-to-day life.  Few in their circle would get an abortion, and most of the gays would have long since moved as far as possible outside their circle.  On the latter, they do have something of a point, but the only thing that would "really" put all gun ownership on the slippery slope would be a constitutional amendment, and the likelihood of that is virtually nil.  Although I have no love of handguns, even I would protest extending outright bans to those weapons used for hunting.  (As an aside, a favorite argument is to point to Chicago's strict gun laws, but high murder rates, without considering that guns might be easily "imported" into an illegal market at high profits from places like, well, Idaho with virtually nonexistent gun laws, all of which points to the insufficiency of local controls and the need for board-based federal laws.)  Those issues, however, are what I've called "bread and circus" issues.  They distract from the core economic issues, and there, without any real exception, Clinton's positions would benefit them and people like them.  Rationally, they would vote for a democrat, while opposing specific positions on the "bread and circus" issues -- its not inconceivable that a core democrat could support "gun rights" -- but they still provide full on support of a conservatism that is playing economic havoc with their way of life.

Hochschild's explanation "deep" explanation goes something like this: imagine a line of people, mostly male, mostly white, mostly middle-aged, mostly under-educated, mostly protestant, but with a few catholics.  It's a very long line, and it leads up the slope of a fairly steep hill.  On the other side of the hill, just out of sight, is the "American Dream," the promise of prosperity.  As Hochschild describes it, people have been waiting in line for quite some time.  It had been moving in the past, but recently it seems to have just stopped.  Like a traffic jam, they can't really see the reasons why it has stopped, and so there is a lot of discussion and speculation, and even a few "official pronouncements" from the big wigs who seem to be in charge of things, but one thing is clear, they've been waiting a long time and the line has barely budged.  In the meantime, there are people who are coming out of nowhere to take cuts in the line, and that wouldn't be so bad, except the line isn't moving and all those people taking cuts are pushing those who have been waiting further and further back.  They weren't in line for the American Dream in the past, and even if they were, they should fall in line back there, at the beginning of the que, and wait their turn.  Instead, they're taking cuts.  First, there were the "blacks," then women began taking cuts, and now various new immigrants and refugees seem to be pushing their way into line ahead of those who have been waiting patiently for quite some time now.  What's worse, the cuts seem to be "sanctioned" by the big wigs.  It used to be the "officials" looked a lot like those waiting in line -- male, white, middle-aged, and protestant -- and so there was some assurance that they could keep things orderly and "in line."  Recently, however, the biggest of the big wigs is black, and with a middle name like Hussain maybe not even christian, and he seems to be more "sympathetic" to those cutting in line than the people who have been waiting patiently for how long?  And now a woman, a friend of the biggest of the big wigs, wants to "take over?"  Things clearly will go from bad to worse.

As a parable, I think, this works fairly well to explain the emotional resonance that conservatism has with those who make up the "base" of conservative politics.  To put the parable into policy terms, the line isn't moving for a variety of reasons.  At one level of abstraction, the economic forces that have stopped the line are, among other things, the global "free-market" in "cheap" labor, improvements across a broad spectrum of technologies that decrease the need for semi-skilled and un-skilled labor, and a good deal of the need for semi-skilled and unskilled labor that remains is within a sector of the economy -- the so-called service sector -- that had been previously allotted to women and, as a consequence, under-valued and under-paid.  To extend the parable, if one has been waiting in line to get through gate 1A of the American Dream, just out of sight over the hill, that particular gate is closed and has been for some time.  If it opens, it opens briefly, seasonally, intermittently.  People have tried to tell them that they're waiting in the wrong line, that it will never start moving again, at least not the way it did in the past, and it really doesn't matter a damn who cuts into a line that isn't moving.  Gate 2T of the American Dream is open, but it no longer values being white and male and christian, all of which it considers more or less irrelevant, nor does it value the "life-experience" that comes with middle age.  It values the "cutting edge" of youth, and "creativity," but even more, it values specific technical skills that can only come through "education," though not necessarily the more traditional sorts of education, and especially not traditional public education.  One can get in line, but one will be quickly turned away at the gate without the right tickets, which are available, even readily available, but most people waiting in line 1D either have no idea how to get one, or the wherewithal to get one, or the native ability to get one, and so they continue standing in line 1D hoping for the best, with a growing resentment for the blacks, the women, the immigrants who are cutting in line and apparently pushing them further back.

To unpack the parable a bit more, it suggests a couple of things.  First, that the differences are principally economic and class based.  In my extension of the parable, there are two clear (and perhaps three) classes -- those waiting in line 1D and those waiting in line 2T.  We can invent various names for the classes.  In past posts, I have called those waiting in line 1A the disposables, those in 2B the technocrats.  The third class might be called the big wigs, the "monied elites," a more traditional Marxian class.  It is comprised of those who manage the gates.   The value differences between the classes are irreconcilable.  Here again, to give just one example -- "work."  The disposables tend to value "hard" work and honor those who work "hard."  There is a biblical base for this in the Eden parable, which runs through much American thinking, to include the American Dream.  To wit, Adam and Eve were in paradise, but disobeyed God.  As a consequence they were banished from paradise with the injunction found in Genesis 3:19 -- that is, "by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."  If one endures God's punishment, works "hard" and maintains one's faith, one will be rewarded, if not by a return to paradise on Earth, then the next best thing, the prosperity promised by the American Dream.   Ostensibly, one moves up in line and enters the pearly gate of prosperity through this "hard work," and those who "cut" in line are worthy of resentment, in part because they have breaking God's injunction to work hard and cheating those who do.  The technocrats, on the other hand, tend to value "smart" work and honor those who work "smart."  Insofar as one is "working smart" when one avoids "working hard" altogether, whether by the direct employment of technology or by the deployment of a finance scheme, there is at worst a sort of arrogant dismissal, at best a sort of paternal noblesse oblige implicit to a value scheme that "looks down on" the poor clods who honor themselves with hard work and must work "harder and harder" for ever diminishing returns. 

The conservative party, it seems, is comprised mostly of those waiting in line 1D, the hard working disposables, the progressive party most of those waiting in line 2T, the smart working technocrats.  This division has been elaborated by Thomas Frank in his book Listen Liberal, and I won't replicate the whole of his argument here, only suggest that he did not fully appreciate how increasingly "disposable" the disposables have become.  Many of their jobs -- the venues where they could "work hard," provide for their families, and bring "honor" to themselves in doing so -- have been outsourced to cheaper labor elsewhere.  The "outsourcing" has been facilitated by a number of factors, in small part by the trade agreements that have come into question during the recent election cycle, in larger part by the technical and financial innovations of those "working smart."  Although one might nurse a fantasy (or demagogically exploit a fantasy) once the need for a particular type of labor has been "disposed," there really is no "bringing it back," unless one takes the position of the Amish, saying "here we draw the line" and prohibit any further innovation.   It is unreasonable to expect a 50 year old man to learn new skills, and so what to do with the disposables who have been or are threatened with disposal?    Here, anecdotally, one can point to "disability"if one can show that the "disability" was the result of "hard work"  -- a construction or industrial accident.  "Disability" is a sort of purple heart conferring some residual honor as one retreats into the roles of the "takers," line 3W over there.  At the end of that line, there is no pearly gate of prosperity, only a cadre of dispassionate bureaucrats in greasy aprons ladling thin soup into tin cups, a fate for some worse than death.

In some respects, the conservative alignment with the disposables seems in retrospect the cumulative result of short sighted reactions to inevitable changes -- a sort of "WTF! how did that happen?"  Class marks and differentiates itself as a class, and one of the clear markers for the disposables has been what Marx called "the opiate of the people."  At one time in my life, I used to lecture on the two forms of "truth," and I lived up to my self-image as an "equal opportunity offender" because I didn't reveal (or tried very hard NOT to reveal) my personal take on the matter to my students.   On the one side, there is what might be called "observed truth," which forms the basis of our day-to-day common sense.  The epitome of "observed truth" is science, and its representative man in the scientist.  On the other side, there is what might be called "revealed truth."  The epitome of "revealed truth" is religion, and its representative man is the prophet.  A perceptive reader will recognize this as a variant to C. P. Snow's Two Cultures, and I am simply suggesting that, as a class, the technocrats tend toward "observed truth" of science, while the disposables tend toward the "revealed truth" of religion.  This shows up in our political discourse in a variety of forms.  An acquaintance in town, clearly a member of the disposables (a fifty something construction worker, injured and on disability) and clearly someone who thinks of himself as well informed on the issues (a watcher of Fox News and listener of Rush Limbaugh) once tried to convince me that "climate change" was a hoax by quoting the Bible.  His demeanor suggested that the argument was over, done,  I won, "stick a fork in it," and I had to agree there was no continuing.   He could not accept the scientific consensus, but equally I could not accept the authority of the bible on such matters inconceivable at the time of its authorship.  For the most part, there is no bridging that divide.

I would suggest that unbridgeable divide "patterns" or "structures" much of our political discourse of late.  When the two forms of "truth" come into conflict -- the divide between "evolution" and "intelligent design" being perhaps another obvious and persistent example -- those who adhere to "revealed" truth will double down on the authoritative source.  The observable evidence is either discounted as a "worldly illusion," or even worse as a "deliberate deception," or a test of faith, in either case a satanic conspiracy to undermine faith in the "true" word of God as revealed by his various prophets.  One would suspect that the big wigs, the economic elite, would have more in common with the agnosticism of the technocrats, and the recent defections of big money toward Clinton, the ultimate technocrat, is perhaps an indication of as much.  The SNL parody of the third debate captured this brilliantly when they had the Clinton stand in engage the camera with a sly grin and ask, "between the two of us, who do you trust to be your president, the republican or Donald Trump."  One also suspects that the big wigs, the conservative political elite, who have long vilified the Clintons, is caught in something of a quandary.  Since Reagan began the consolidation of the evangelical vote for the republican party, it doesn't take wide strides to move from Billy Graham, to Jerry Falwell, to Rush Limbaugh, to finally a figure messianic in and of himself, Donald Trump.  I have detailed this pattern in previous posts, but he has actually called Clinton the devil, and his recent claims that the whole of the election is "rigged" in her favor, that the media is engaged in a broad conspiracy to spread lies and undermine faith in his candidacy, that even the conservative elite have acquiesced to the work of the "crooked Hillary" -- all fits the pattern. It is all a satanic conspiracy to upend established hierarchies, or as Susan Faludi put it, "The 1990s produced a generation of men who felt (and still feel) left behind by a society redefining power and success in terms of ornament and celebrity and demoting the value of industry and brawn, while simultaneously challenging men’s value as family providers. Though women weren’t the source of men’s pain, the antagonist conjured up by aggrieved men I talked with in those years had a feminine face, and very often that face was Hillary’s."  In short, among the faithful, Reagan served as John the Baptist to Trump as Christ.   He will either be "crucified" at the polls, which will grant him the moral authority of having "sacrificed himself" for the cause.  Or he will be "confirmed" at the polls, which, like the rapture, will provide him with the mandate to separate the faithful from the feckless, "shake things up," and make America great again in his image.

If the Trump campaign has served a purpose, it has been the revelation (pun intended) of the fault lines within the republican party, the fissure between the "disposables," who have waited faithfully in line to pass through the pearly gates of prosperity, and the economic "elites," who have closed off the gate.  As I have suggested before, it is not a wide stride either between "being disposable" and "being deplorable," particularly when someone is there stoking a misplaced resentment at those "cutting in line" -- at the blacks, the hispanics, the immigrants, the feminists, and now god forbid the gays?  As another SNL parody has also brilliantly revealed, there are few class differences between the long-standing class of black "disposables" and the emergent class of white "disposables," and there is a potential common ground to address their economic distress, but in the end, the long standing racial resentments prevail and the class interests dissolve into the identity politics of race, another unbridgeable divide.  The conservative party of the past has been too much the party of self-serving economic elites, who cynically courted the votes of those who cling to "traditional" social hierarchies and evangelical values.  The emergent conservative party, with Trump as its figure head, has become too much the party of the "disposables" and a misplaced resentment of those who seem to upset the "traditional" social hierarchies and dismiss religious values.  It is a grand deception to suggest that acting on their resentments will in any way address their condition.  They may "feel better," and they may move up a notch or two in line, but ultimately the line isn't moving because the gate at the end is closed.

The liberal party, as Frank points out, has become too much the party of the technocrat, more or less sharing the economic values of the economic elites, and with perhaps equal cynicism they have courted votes from the targets of conservative resentment.  (Trump has a point there.)  Their solution to the "problem" of the "disposable" -- more access to better education -- the creation of more technocrats -- does little to address the need of those who have already been pushed behind or out of line entirely, nor for that matter does it address those in immediate danger of losing their standing.  They are simply no longer needed in any meaningful way.   The social safety net might address immediate and temporary needs, but as it becomes permanent, as it becomes "welfare," as more and more wait in line 3W for a ladle of thin government gruel, it undermines the core value of "work" as something that gives purpose and meaning and honor to life.   It is dehumanizing to see the "disposables" as a problem to be solved, but even more so to propose "solutions" that contravene their core values.

The solution lies in a new politics ...

Cynicism and American Politics

A recent editorial in the Washington Post made the case against Clinton, one that Trump could have done but failed to do in the debates.  Charles Krauthammer wrote:

The most sensational disclosure was the proposed deal between the State Department and the FBI in which the FBI would declassify a Clinton email and State would give the FBI more slots in overseas stations. What made it sensational was the rare appearance in an official account of the phrase “quid pro quo,” which is the currently agreed-upon dividing line between acceptable and unacceptable corruption.

He is not making an "equivalency of evil" argument between Clinton and Trump.  That bird has long since flown the coop with the revelations about the Trump foundation and the unmistakable smear of "quid pro quo" in his contributions to a Florida prosecutor, his allegedly illegal use of Trump Foundation monies to pay legal fees, not to mention his legal problems with Trump University or his potential legal problems with the women who have come forward to dispute his denials of groping.    There is no real equivalency of evil.  Krauthammer admits, "I could never vote for Donald Trump." 

And besides, there really is no "quid pro quo," unlike the contribution to the Florida prosecutor where the contribution was directly followed by an action favorable to Trump.  As Krauthammer also admits,

This is nonetheless an odd choice for most egregious offense.  First, it occurred several layers removed from the campaign and from Clinton. It involved a career State Department official (he occupied the same position under Condoleezza Rice) covering not just for Clinton but for his own department.  Second, it’s not clear which side originally offered the bargain. Third, nothing tangible was supposed to exchange hands. There was no proposed personal enrichment — a Rolex in return for your soul — which tends to be our standard for punishable misconduct.   And finally, it never actually happened. The FBI turned down the declassification request.

He calls it a "warm gun, but nonsmoking."  One suspects that, like many other conservatives, he hopes the next dump of 30,000 emails will contain something truly damning, but I'll call their hopes and raise with my skepticism   I continue to doubt that the real smoking gun will appear.  If all this is a Russian hack in support of Trump, he desperately needs a real change of momentum, as Obama might say, "right now!" So far, nothing that damning, and every day that passes without a photo of Clinton standing over the corpse of the constitution with a smoking gun simply increases my doubt that it will ever happen.  Having said all this, Krauthammer will not be voting for Clinton either.  He promises to write in a candidate.  And why?  He cites "the bottomless cynicism of the campaign and of the candidate."

Before I go on, let me admit what might be apparent -- Clinton is not my idea of the ideal candidate either.  I have scratched my head for someone to more closely represent that ideal candidate, but I come up short every time.  It wouldn't have been Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren, both of whom would have been flawed candidates in their own rights.  It wouldn't have been Bernie Sanders either.  He might have been a good vaccine immediately following the Reagan years, but Sanders today seems to be an expired vial of penicillin against an emerging political superbug pandemic.   So who?  I'm open to suggestions, but I've long since outgrown any sense that there is an "ideal" candidate, one who carries the charisma and the cure for all our ills.  I suppose I'm somewhat "cynical" myself, and I will be voting for Clinton, and not simply because she is so clearly "the lessor of two evils," but because I actually agree for the most part, as Krauthammer put it, with "her worldview and the policies that flow from it."    

In an adversarial political system, one can expect each candidate to advocate for themselves and against the other.  If we wonder why politics always seems to go negative, and focus not on "policy" or "issues," but on "charisma" and "identity," it's because one simply cannot advocate for oneself on the basis of "policy" alone.  Policy is complex and would require a deep level of bureaucratic understanding, and even most well-meaning Americans have neither the time nor the inclination nor the patience to ferret through what a change to the earned income tax credit might entail.  One cannot advocate for oneself on the basis of "issues" either, in part because most of the hot button issues like abortion rights are simply irresolvable and, consequently, already well entrenched along party lines.    Republicans are anti-abortion, democrats are pro-choice, and given one's predilections, one takes a side, end of story.  Consequently, in our adversarial system, all that is really left is humbly accepting the praise of surrogates and heaping the "negative" on one's opponent.   The latter has more credibility and lingers longer.  Consequently, over the course of a long campaign season, we come to know the flaws of both candidates rather intimately, which only increases the sense that we are voting for the "lesser of two evils," when for the most part we are really voting for one or another flawed human being.  So it goes, and one suspects that many Americans -- those who want an "outsider" to come in and purge a "corrupt" system -- are harboring the hope for someone without sin, or failing that, someone "strong" enough to do away with our adversarial system once and for all.   The former is not realistic, the latter is not democratic, and so neither really is particularly helpful for those of us who live in the real world of a democratic system.  Besides, despite his bluster, Trump is proving himself too weak to do away with our adversarial system.     

Krauthammer finds himself in the unenviable position  then of being unable to support his party's candidate.   Setting aside those republicans who support Trump because of the litany of character flaws that follow each Huffington Post article, there are those who continue to support him because he takes the "rightish" side on most conservative policies and issues.  Putting a benign spin on it, they concede the "lesser of two evils" argument and want to distance themselves from the particular candidate, but still support him because he [mostly] supports the agenda of the republican party, at least where it counts, on abortion, on guns, on taxes.  To his credit, Krauthammer cannot take that line and has repudiated Trump as a candidate altogether too flawed as a human being to serve.  That does not mean he will vote for Clinton.  He dislikes her, not only because he "disagreed with her worldview and the policies that flow from it," but because he has "watched her long enough to find her deeply flawed, to the point of unfitness."  

The first piece of evidence (he actually gives evidence!) for the "bottomless cynicism" that renders her unfit is what he calls "the Qatari gambit."  He writes that "Qatar, one of the worst actors in the Middle East (having financially supported the Islamic State, for example), offered $1 million as a “birthday” gift to Bill Clinton in return for five minutes of his time.  Who offers — who takes — $200,000 a minute? We don’t know the “quid” here, but it’s got to be big."  OK, but a quibble, an absurdist metaphor, and another confession.  This is another warm gun, not a smoking gun.   As his reference to the Post goes on to point out, "It is not clear whether Bill Clinton ever met with the ambassador or whether the official presented the check."   In the absence of clear evidence of a "quid pro quo," Krauthammer is still just wishing for the scandal.  I have the sense that Krauthammer and other conservatives see Clinton as a fan dancer.  The potential president has no clothes, really, or so they want to believe, but the emails fan out to both promise and conceal a glimpse here, a tantalizing glimpse there, but never really a full on view of Clinton's naked corruption behind all the fluff of those feathers, and if they did.  Well.  No doubt it would be disturbing, and I am certain I, for one, would not want that image in my mind.  

So far as the confession goes, Krauthammer asks, who offers?  Who takes?  I would have.  Let me explain.  As the chief academic officer of three public colleges, I cannot count the number of times I met with potential donors to the college foundation.  Very often, I was asked to do so by the college president because the donor "had a great idea." Usually that meant an hour of my day where I would sit with furrowed brow, feigning interest, while they rambled on about "on-line education" or "ethics education" or "how I made my first million" ... choose your favorite hobby horse.  On occasion, they would actually want to "teach a course" (more often wanted someone else to teach a course they designed) that would reveal the secret to their success.  Still,  these were sincere people, who deserved a hearing.  No matter how benighted their ideas, they simply wanted to do what they believed would be good for education, and I don't recall one instance where a meeting with a donors had any real, actionable, outcome.  They had money, and that money bought access to one of the college leaders, and sometimes faculty would smell a rat because of it, but that was about as far as it went, and not because I was the model of intellectual and academic integrity.  I was honest enough.  I would explain (and hide behind) the "curriculum process," set out in Regent's policy, elaborated within College Board policy, and elaborated even further by Faculty Senate by-laws.  To outsiders must have looked like a bureaucratic version of American Ninja Warrior, but to insiders, it was simply an assurance of thorough "peer review."  They were often surprised that I, as the Chief Academic Officer, couldn't simply demand that the faculty adopt their ideas and teach their course.   I couldn't.  No one person in the college could approve a course, not even the president.  So who gives?  People with the wherewithal to give and those who want their money to do their version of "good" in the world.  Would I take their money, even knowing that I wouldn't and couldn't give the "quid" to their "pro quo" beyond a few minutes of time?  You betcha, because I believed in the College and its mission, and the money would facilitate that mission. 

So, how cynical is that?  I honestly don't know.  Just as I believed in the mission of my college and its foundation, I feel relatively sure that the Clintons, the whole lot of them, believe in the mission of the Clinton Foundation.  By all accounts and by independent review, it has done some good in the world.  One can always argue the viability of the "good," but one can follow the money to see if it is being applied to that "good" and is not serving as a slush fund for the Clinton family.  As FactCheck put it, at least "one independent philanthropy watchdog did an analysis of Clinton Foundation funding and concluded that about 89 percent of its funding went to charity."  Knowing what it costs to run a charitable foundation, that only 11% goes to administrative costs points to an efficient operation, and none of the money goes to a Clinton family member.  So, with that in mind, the ambassador of Qatar wants to give one million dollars to the Clinton Foundation for five minutes of time with Bill.  Just as many potential donors to the college wanted me to enact some curricular reform, let's assume there is some big and nefarious "quid" for the "pro quo" of that gift.  Could Bill Clinton enact it?  If it concerned the foundation mission, perhaps.  Could Bill in turn influence Hillary to modify US policy in exchange for the gift?  If it's in sync with on-going US policy, perhaps.  One might disagree with that policy, and the outsize influence wielded by a country like Qatar, home of the Al Jazeera Media Network, but it's just grist for the mill.  If it's not in sync, however, as Secretary of State, Clinton would need to be overcome the whole machinery of the US government, not to mention that pesky person in the white house, to enact a particular favor.  While we might imagine many nefarious "deals," one would also need to imagine a direct power not given to the Secretary of State.  While a one million dollar "quid" seems large to the average American, and one suspects it's worth a few minutes of Bill's time.  The remaining $890 after over-head would pay any number of staff "to train rural farmers [in Africa] and help them get access to seeds, equipment and markets for their crops," but would cover little else in the cosmi-comic trillion dollar world of middle-east politics.  Is it cynical to accept the money from a country known for terrorism and civil rights abuses?  Perhaps, but it is a cynicism doing grunt work of idealism.

Not enough?  As Krauthammer goes on to write, "A governance review by an outside law firm reported that some donors 'may have an expectation of quid pro quo benefits in return for gifts.' You need an outside law firm to tell you that? If your Sultanic heart bleeds for Haiti, why not give to Haiti directly? Because if you give through the Clintons, you have a claim on future favors."  Krauthammer is right.  There is an element of "no-shit-sherlock" about the assertion that donors may have "an expectation of quid pro quo," but "may have" is not the same thing as "did have based on promises made."  And besides, the donor's "expectations" are more or less irrelevant, particularly if untoward expectations are not fulfilled.  Although there were meetings with donors that left me needing a shower, I could still assume -- because neither I nor anyone else in my presence promised otherwise -- that those donors were donating to the work of the College, nothing more, nothing less.  Likewise,  unless Assange or conservative watchdogs can produce evidence of "promises made," one should assume donors to the Clinton Foundation were donating to the work of the charity, nothing more, nothing less, not some nebulous "claim on future favors."   So far as donating "directly to Haiti," what exactly does that mean?  To the government of Haiti?  As Wikipedia points out, "Corruption in Haiti is a serious problem.  In 2015, Haiti ranked 161 out of the 177 countries measured on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, the lowest ranking in the Caribbean region. On the Corruption Perception Index, Haiti ranked 163 in 2014 and 164 in 2013."  You can donate directly to the Haitian governmenti, but I'll refrain.  So what then is "Haiti" that I might donate "directly" to it? 

As an aside, too on "sultanic heart?"  Come on now, really?  One might despise the government of Haiti and feel for the people of Haiti at the same time, but I'm not sure why one would need a "sultan's heart," or have ambitions of becoming a "sultan," or be sympathetic to "sultans" in order to give to the hapless people of Haiti.  I'm not sure just what a "sultanic heart" might be, but I'm pretty sure I don't have one, though perhaps I'd resent the accusation less if I didn't have to read the sentence twice (with some incredulousness) to correct for my initial reading of "satanic heart."   I'm sure there's cleverness at work here, but it's a cleverness that falls completely flat on me.

Back to Krauthammer's argument, and the crux of it I think.  He goes on to write, "The soullessness of this campaign — all ambition and entitlement — emerges almost poignantly in the emails, especially when aides keep asking what the campaign is about. In one largely overlooked passage, Clinton complains that her speechwriters have not given her any overall theme or rationale.  Isn’t that the candidate’s job? She asked one of her aides, Joel Benenson: 'Do we have any sense from her what she believes or wants her core message to be?'"  From there, he suggests "It’s that emptiness at the core that makes every policy and position negotiable and politically calculable. Hence the embarrassing about-face on the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the popular winds swung decisively against free trade."   Point by point.  First, I'm not sure I'd want a president that wasn't "ambitious."  What would an "unambitious" president look like?  We'll never find out.  Second, one may feel "entitled," but as the now flailing campaign of Trump reveals, a campaign even more marked by misplaced ambition and overweening entitlement, one's "entitlement" to power must ultimately be sold to the American people, and they are, blessedly, sometimes a tough sell (though perhaps not tough enough).  

Third, though I'm sure Krauthammer would admit that a certain level of ambition, if not entitlement, is necessary to a presidential run, it's also pretty clear that Krauthammer wants something else beyond just that.  He calls it "soul," and  for Krauthammer "soul" is something inviolable beyond "negotiation" and beyond "political calculations."  I suspect that Clinton does have those positions, and they can be found, not in the economics of any particular trade policy, but in a statement from the Clinton Foundation: "We believe that the best way to unlock human potential is through the power of creative collaboration. That's why we build partnerships between businesses, NGOs, governments, and individuals everywhere to work faster, leaner, and better; to find solutions that last; and to transform lives and communities from what they are today to what they can be, tomorrow."  If it took some grinding in the sausage mill to come up with the encapsulating phrase, "stronger together," then so be it.  If it takes even more grinding negotiation and political calculation (aka "creative collaboration") to advance her particular areas of concern -- global health, girls and women, climate change, and economic opportunity -- then so be it.  Although there is a paradox at the idea of "inflexible belief in creative collaboration," I would say it counts as soul, even by Krauthammer's definition.

Beyond that, however, I am also pretty sure that Krauthammer, like most conservatives, wants "soul" to manifest itself as uncompromising inflexibility, one capable of standing firm, a big beautiful wall of principled concrete against "the popular winds."  Although Krauthammer finds Trump repugnant, for good reason, Trump is nevertheless a manifestation of this desire for a politics of "soul" beyond the machinations of the so-called "elites."  Such has been the hallmark of conservative politics now for some time, but to yearn for an uncompromising politics beyond mundane political calculations, one that disdains to gauge the strength and the direction of the "popular winds," is to yearn for a politics that is no longer representative of the popular will, that is no longer democratic in any recognizable way.  It is to yearn for a strong man whose authority transcends petty politics and ultimately imposes a clear moral vision on the nation.  Trump read the leaves in the tea party cups, but despite his protestations, he has neither the strength, nor the vision, nor the moral compass to satisfy the likes of Krauthammer, though his yearning for the strong man remains.  

In the end, those who celebrate democracy should likewise celebrate Clinton's shift away from global neo-liberalism to a polity more centered on domestic economic opportunity.  It suggests that she has listened to the Sanders supporters, and for that matter the Trump supporters, who have called NAFTA and the TPP into question.  Whether this is merely a cynical political calculation or the sort of empathic listening necessary to "creative collaboration" can be questioned, and perhaps should be questioned, but her personal authenticity is ultimately beside the point.  So what if her shift is inauthentic?  It is still time we had a polity more centered on domestic economic opportunity, particularly for the growing numbers of under-educated poor in the rural south and west, a polity that helps develop middle class jobs without cynically suborning the environmental devastation we see in Louisiana, a polity that is culturally sensitive without cynically playing our worst instincts of racism and xenophobia for votes.  How do we do that?   By attending, my friend, to what's in the popular winds without succumbing to empty populist demagoguery.  Can Clinton make it happen?   I don't know.  I really don't.  Part of me doubts it, not because I particularly doubt Clinton herself, but because I don't see the congressional obfuscation and intransigence coming to an end.  Still, given the way things are shaping up, it is looking more and more like we'll have the opportunity to find out.

An Elite Essay on Technology and the Disposables

A couple of years ago, there was a concept popularized by Clayton Christensen called "disruptive innovation."  I didn't find the concept as novel as some of my peers -- the core concepts seemed to me an unacknowledged application of a basic premise drawn from Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions translated into business terms.  Nevertheless, it goes something like this: "a disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leading firms, products and alliances. In the early 2000s, 'significant societal impact' has also been used as an aspect of disruptive innovation."  Wikipedia goes on to give an example: "not all innovations are disruptive, even if they are revolutionary. For example, the first automobiles in the late 19th century were not a disruptive innovation, because early automobiles were expensive luxury items that did not disrupt the market for horse-drawn vehicles. The market for transportation essentially remained intact until the debut of the lower-priced Ford Model T in 1908.The mass-produced automobile was a disruptive innovation, because it changed the transportation market, whereas the first thirty years of automobiles did not."  One can easily see where the introduction of the mass produced automobile, which made the  automobile affordable to the masses and consequently ubiquitous, had "significant societal impact."  On the one hand, it opened up a network of economic opportunities that did not exist before -- think "auto mechanics" and "gas stations."  On the other hand, it closed down other networks of economic opportunities -- think "horse poop scoopers" and "stable hands."  One can also see how current "fringe" items -- e.g. the "driverless car" currently being tested in Pittsburgh -- could have "significant societal impact."  It's difficult to see the economic opportunities that might arise, and who might be able to capitalize on them, but some of the opportunities that could well be closed down -- e.g. cab drivers -- are more easily seen.

The basic model is descriptive, not predictive -- that is to say, it provides a vocabulary for describing what has happened, but cannot predict what will or will not be "disruptive," except perhaps in the way that recurrent patterns in history provide a way of anticipating what will likely happen in the future.  As Jill Lepore, writing for the New Yorker put it, "disruptive innovation as a theory of change is meant to serve both as a chronicle of the past (this has happened) and as a model for the future (it will keep happening). The strength of a prediction made from a model depends on the quality of the historical evidence and on the reliability of the methods used to gather and interpret it.  Historical analysis proceeds from certain conditions regarding proof." She doesn't feel the conditions have been met.  Regardless, it's questionable whether the model could ever become predictive, except in very limited cases, because one simply cannot anticipate all the variables.  The "disruptive" innovation, whatever it might be, enters into a "status quo" that is enormously complex and intricately interconnected.  Consider another "fringe" item -- e.g. the fully "electric" car.   If ubiquitous, they would "disrupt" not only the whole network of "filling stations," but all the networks that serve the "filling stations."  Insofar as many filling stations are also "convenience stores," it would likely have an impact too on soft drink and beer distributors, and what about the stoner sitting behind the counter over-charging for cheese balls?   Hard to say, dude.  

The notion of disruptive innovation is popular among conservatives, in part because it seems to validate a particular American mythology virtue -- the self-reliance of the self-made man.  The practical example provided by Wikipedia provides a case in point.  Bear with me.  I'll quote it in its entirety:

In the practical world, the popularization of personal computers illustrates how knowledge contributes to the ongoing technology innovation. The original centralized concept (one computer, many persons) is a knowledge-defying idea of the prehistory of computing, and its inadequacies and failures have become clearly apparent.  The era of personal computing brought powerful computers "on every desk" (one person, one computer). This short transitional period was necessary for getting used to the new computing environment, but was inadequate from the vantage point of producing knowledge. Adequate knowledge creation and management come mainly from networking and distributed computing (one person, many computers). Each person's computer must form an access point to the entire computing landscape or ecology through the Internet of other computers, databases, and mainframes, as well as production, distribution, and retailing facilities, and the like. For the first time, technology empowers individuals rather than external hierarchies. It transfers influence and power where it optimally belongs: at the loci of the useful knowledge. Even though hierarchies and bureaucracies do not innovate, free and empowered individuals do; knowledge, innovation, spontaneity, and self-reliance are becoming increasingly valued and promoted.

In the beginning, we had  catholic "main-frames," and that one computer served the needs of many people.  That "status quo" was disrupted by the likes of  Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, both of whom saw the possibilities of the "personal computer," and, not unlike Ford, were able to transcend a programming mind-set and make the computer easily accessible to the masses.  Having said this, I very much doubt that their motives were quite as techno-utoptian as Wikipedia implies.  The creation of the personal computer itself, for example, may have even begun with the protestant idea of individual empowerment over against an external hierarchy -- and those individuals may have demonstrated a certain level of "knowledge, innovation, spontaneity, and self-reliance" in the creation of their products.  Bill Gate's and Steve Jobs' "disruption" of IBM, however, resulted in Microsoft and Apple Computers.  I'm pretty sure the employees of both Microsoft or Apple do not feel particularly empowered, and both would see hierarchies and bureaucracies with any number of "dilbertian" foibles that quash innovation, spontaneity, and self-reliance even as their leadership self-reflexively "promote" the attributes that ostensibly made them rich.   In both cases, the innovation "disrupted" a established hierarchy and bureaucracy, but simply replaced it with another established hierarchy and bureaucracy. Meanwhile, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have exercised considerable "elite" power, in part because they were simply the right men, in the right place, at the right time.  They, in effect, won the lottery, and more power to them.

So far as the networking of the personal computer, I doubt that anyone thought, "hmmm, from the vantage of knowledge production, the personal computer itself is inadequate."   It's much more likely that someone thought "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could leave messages for one another on the computer?"  It's much more likely that someone else thought something like, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could sell our porn on the computer instead of sleazy bookstores downtown?"  So on and so forth -- thousands of independent decision points, if not "self-interested," per se, then at least "self-involved."  Hence, the on-going evolution of "networked computers" in a "marketing environment." The ubiquity of email creates considerable convenience, and good riddance to the jangling interruptions of the unwanted phone call, but it comes with a privacy downside as well.  Clinton could no doubt explain that in some detail.  Internet porn may have put the sleazy bookstore out of business, and good riddance, but the easy accessibility of internet porn too comes with a social downside that I probably don't need to explain.  I haven't even touched on the different sort of ubiquity that Mark Zuckerberg created with Facebook or Jeff Bezos created with Amazon.  I'm suggesting, of course, that the particular "innovators" in computing set out with a limited intent, for good or for ill, but I sincerely doubt that their intent was anything like the techno-utopian notion of "knowledge creation and management."  Some were  able to leverage the public's desire for finger tip convenience and instant gratification into wealth and a position within the economic elite, and they may feel themselves to be "free and empowered individuals," but the rest of us not so much.  There was no "over-arching" intent to make the personal computer "an access point to the entire computing landscape."  Even assuming the "disruptors" had that goal and their "disruptions" accomplished it, we should remember that "access to" does not mean the "entire computing landscape" is surveyed by any individual.

And what has been the social impact of the technologies created by the economic "disruptions" of the self-made men, the new "elites" of the knowledge economy?  We're still ferreting that out, of course, but I could point out a couple strands of common wisdom.  Technology has not ushered in a new protestant utopia of self-reliant, knowledge-enabled men and women blessed with wealth by the invisible hand of Adam Smith's free market, at least not in any sense that Emerson would recognize.   To be self-reliant is one thing, self-obcessed is another, and while social media promises connectivity to the world, it leaves most staring at a computer screen hoping that one's newest "selfie" will generate some likes.  The internet has promised a world of ideas, but one need only read the comment sections of many on-line publications to give some credence to Hobbes' darker view of human kind -- that the more active and passionate participants are motivated, not by rational insight into actual knowledge or a clarity of innate good conscience, but rather by a "shared" ignorance and fear amplified in the echo chambers of social media.  So far as the invisible hand, one wonders where it might be hiding.  As is always the case, some have succeeded within the technology driven "disruptions" of our social and economic networks, but as many and perhaps more have been left behind.  As the New York Times editorial board put it, "increased automation and the offshoring of jobs [enabled by improved communication and transportation technologies] have hit men with less than a college education particularly hard," who have become the "disposables" of the new age.  I am referring to an article entitled "millions of men are missing from the job market," which in turn refers to a working paper by Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist, who "casts light on this population, which grew during the recession that started in 2007."  The Times summarizes, suggesting that, "as of last month, 11.4 percent of men between the ages of 25 and 54 — or about seven million people — were not in the labor force, which means that they were not employed and were not seeking a job. This percentage has been rising for decades (it was less than 4 percent in the 1950s), but the trend accelerated in the last 20 years," a period corresponding to the widespread investment in personal computing.  Correlation is not causation, but from an employer's standpoint, there is another piece of common wisdom as well -- that the sole economic justification of technology is to limit cost and improve efficiency, which means in effect either limiting the number of costly employees needed to do a particular task, or the elimination of those costly employees altogether.  

Of course, it's not quite that simple, so let me touch on obvious objections up front.  There are other "costs" that can be eliminated by the advent of a "new" technology and limiting or eliminating those "costs" often serve as it primary justification.  Then too, as the land of opportunity, we can expect the the disruptive technology to create a range of new "opportunities" for those able to capitalize on them.  Consider again the "disruptive" technology of the electric car.  If it were to become truly ubiquitous, it would limit to some degree our dependence on fossil fuels, at the same time limiting some "costs" to the environment.  It's a bit more difficult to quantify such "environmental costs." We would need to increase capacity on a power grid already strapped in some locations, and we would need to consider the environmental effects of the batteries, both of which in turn might have some environmental impacts.  Nevertheless, I'm sure we could estimate with some degree of accuracy the net impact of the electric car on the environment, and that alone may ultimately justify its adoption despite its "disruption" of the very broad network of those employed in fossil fuel production and distribution.  And then too, the electric car will create new opportunities for employment.  To increase capacity on the grid, there may emerge new opportunities not only in nuclear power generation, but in renewables like solar and wind as well.  To deal with the toxic content of most batteries and nuclear power plants, there may emerge new opportunities in the recovery and recycling of waste metals.  Nevertheless, there too, I'm sure we could estimate the net effect of the electric car on employment, and the creation of new, well-paid jobs might also justify its adoption despite its "disruption" of the existing "status quo."

Even assuming that the introduction of the "disruptive" technology of the electric car is justifiable on environmental, social, and economic grounds, that still leaves us with the problem of the "disposables," those pushed aside by the introduction of the new technologies.  And to all appearances it is a growing problem.   The Times also reports that "while it’s hard to generalize across a large group of people, it’s clear that job market changes can have significant health effects on the labor force," not least opioid addiction.  "The connection between chronic joblessness and painkiller dependency is hard to quantify," the Times admits, and "Mr. Krueger and other experts cannot say which came first: the men’s health problems or their absence from the labor force."  Nevertheless,  "some experts suspect that frequent use of painkillers is a result of being out of work, because people who have no job prospects are more likely to be depressed, become addicted to drugs and alcohol and have other mental health problems.  Only about 2 percent of the men say they receive workers’ compensation benefits for job-related injuries.  Some 25 percent are on Social Security disability; 31 percent of those receiving benefits have mental disorders and the rest have other ailments, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute."  Some of this is also, no doubt, "gaming the system."  The connection between bureaucratic process and opioid addiction too would be hard to quantify, but anecdotally, my wife, who has a slowly degenerative arthritis of the spinal column and has had three reconstructive surgeries made an initial application for disability.  She does suffer from chronic pain, and has developed any number of work arounds to manage that pain, but she avoids opioids.  She was told, by counsel, that her application lacked standing because she was NOT currently using opioid pain medications.  She was encouraged, by co then  unsel, to seek a prescription EVEN IF she did not actually use the drugs. 

The responses to the growing problem are, for the most part, predictable.  On the conservative side, it's essentially "that's the breaks," along with various forms of corporate welfare and tax cuts.   It's not surprising, in part, because the conservative party is the party of the great American myth that it requires only knowledge, innovation, spontaneity, and self-reliance to succeed, and the greatest of these is self-reliance.  Pluck, tenacity, grit -- choose your adjective -- are all that is REALLY needed to succeed in this land of opportunity.   For those that DO succeed, the message is compelling, reinforcing the belief that they are, themselves, more worthy.  Having said this, however, almost all the research tends to indicate -- surprise! -- that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.  The Atlantic, for example, recently ran an article suggesting that "America is even less socially mobile than economists thought."  They write that "scads of reports have documented how parents’ income dictates how financially successful someone will go on to be."  In other words, "the amount of money one makes can be roughly predicted by how much money one’s parents made," and the farther up the income spectrum one moves, the more true that assertion becomes.   "Children born to 90th-percentile earners," those at the high end of the scale, "are typically on track to make three times more than the children of 10th-percentile earners," those at the low end of the scale.  Again, even the children of the rich get richer, while the children of the poor get poorer, if not in absolute terms, then relative terms.    

Not all areas of the county are created equal, however, and a group of Harvard and UC-Berkeley researchers (aka liberal elitists) have noted that "intergenerational mobility varies substantially across areas within the U.S. For example, the probability that a child reaches the top quintile of the national income distribution starting from a family in the bottom quintile is 4.4% in Charlotte but 12.9% in San Jose."   These numbers are encouraging of the great American myth of upward mobility in one respect.  It is POSSIBLE to scale the income ladder, and the 4.4% in Charlotte and the 12.9% in San Jose prove the possibility.  They are also encouraging in another respect.  San Jose is the epicenter of the "disruptive" technologies that are changing the American economic landscape, and it is perhaps not surprising that it demonstrates greater upward mobility than Charlotte.  The principle industry in Charlotte is banking, and Measured by control of assets, Charlotte is the second largest banking headquarters in the United States, after New York City.  While the characterization might be a bit unfair, it is the difference between a city dedicated to the growth of wealth through "disruptive" technical innovation and a city dedicated to preservation of acquired wealth, and if there is growth of wealth, it is growth through various forms of rent-seeking interest and investment.  Finally, it is encouraging in another respect as well.  The researchers, noted that, when they explored "the factors correlated with upward mobility," they found that high mobility areas, like San Jose, "have (1) less residential segregation, (2) less income inequality, (3) better primary schools, (4) greater social capital, and (5) greater family stability."  These are decidedly "liberal" issues and the left of center "results" most liberals would like to see, and so again, while the characterization might be a bit unfair, particularly since we cannot equate correlation with causation, we find greater social mobility in liberal California than we find in conservative North Carolina.  

As a side note, the characterization might be a bit unfair on another scale.  The researchers found that "the probability that a child from the lowest quintile of parental income rises to the top quintile is 10.8% in Salt Lake City," and Utah is anything but a liberal bastion.  Having said this, however, one would need to take into account the effect of "the church," and the dominance of the LDS faith throughout the state, which creates, in some respects, the "liberal" results.  Though Salt Lake's minority populations are growing, not unlike the US as a whole, and Salt Lake City itself if experiencing "white flight" from the core city to the outlying suburbs of Ogden and Provo, it remains a remarkably homogenous state both racially and religiously.  The church itself provides considerable social capital and its value scheme places great emphasis on both large and stable family structures.  Because of this, it is a very "young" state, with an emphasis on "good schooling" for the children, and while there is some revolt against "public" schooling typical of conservative politics, they have traditionally supplemented public schooling with private religious instruction.  Next to my campus at Salt Lake, for example, there was the LDS institute, which served both an instructional mission relative to the LDS faith as well as an extended social network.   Moreover, there is a supplemental "tax" on income through tithing, which provides for church activity, but also a social safety net.  Finally, there is a considerable entrepreneurial culture among the LDS, so much so that it is sometimes difficult for a non-mormon, like me, to distinguish between the missionary and the marketer.  In short, while it is possible for non-governmental structures to provide for the so-called liberal agenda, and Salt Lake stands as a clear example, it is unlikely that the conditions prevailing in Salt Lake could prevail throughout the country.  If not "the church," then the next best bet is "the government," and so you see a "liberal" polity that emphasizes less racial and ethnic discrimination, income redistribution from the top down aimed at greater income equality, increase funding for schooling from pre-school through college, and more emphasis on social safety nets.

Having said all this, I have been leading up to a string of propositions: 

• First, if one looks at the successes of the emerging economy, it glows with all the promise of the newest iPhone.  Having said this, however, the technical advance often comes at the expense of specific groups of people, the "disposables."  Just as the technical advances in robotics have decreased the need for workers on the factory floor, advances in natural gas extraction have decreased the reliance on the miners who extract coal.  We can expect the advances in artificial intelligence to displace human intelligence behind the wheel of the local taxis and delivery trucks when Google perfects its driverless car and Amazon perfects its drone delivery systems. There are any number of other forces at work to create "disposables," not least the globalization of labor markets for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, but its wishful thinking to believe that we can just "bring those jobs home," not without other political and social disruptions best enumerated elsewhere.  The introduction of "disruptive" technologies, in short, changes the fundamental distribution of labor, and it does so forever.  Our social structures do not have an "undo" button.   The "disruptive" technologies of past centuries, among other things, have "disposed" of the need for agriculture workers.  Rural America will never again need the number of agricultural workers that it needed in the past.  The industrialization and corresponding urbanization of the nation absorbed many of the "disposable" farm workers, and that worked for a while, but now the "disruptive" technologies of the present, among other things, have "disposed" of the need for industrial workers.  Urban America will never again need the number of factory workers that it needed in the past.  

• Second, we really do not know how to deal with the growing number of "disposables."  It is unreasonable to expect that the "disposables" will simply find other opportunities.  Unlike the rural workers of the past, one cannot simply follow the jobs and move to the city.  What is the displaced textile worker to do?  Move to Bangladesh?  Nor can the displaced assembly worker just "become" a robotics or CNC technician, not without a significant personal and financial investment in education, and even if they could make that investment, the number of displaced assembly workers far exceeds the number of robotics or CNC technicians needed.  While there is job growth, for the unskilled and semi-skilled factory worker, taking one of those burgeoning "service industry" jobs usually means a step down the economic ladder into work that, without union protections, is poorly paid, part time, and without benefits.  

• Third, it is not a far leap from being "disposable," to being "deplorable."  Who is to blame?  If we ask that question -- and it is almost inevitable as humans being that we WOULD ask that question -- it is virtually impossible to make an emotionally satisfying case for the more or less random and ultimately impersonal economic forces at work.  It is absolutely impossible to reduce it to a twitter feed.  If I buy into the mythos of self-reliance -- if I believe, really believe, that success is the result of individual intelligence and character -- then what does one make of economic failure?  If I believe, really believe, the failure is a result of my own stupidity and laziness, it shouldn't surprise us that disability claims and the slow suicide of drug addiction are on the rise, not to mention outright suicide.  If I cannot bring myself to believe the failure is a result of my own intransigence, then there must be nefarious forces at work.  Likewise, it really shouldn't surprise us that conspiratorial animosities aimed at blacks, hispanics, muslims, whites, cops, the one percent -- choose your loathing -- are on the rise.  One's own historical circumstances will, of course, influence the particular nature and shape of one's populist loathing, but at fundament it all serves the same emotional purpose -- deflecting responsibility for one's condition onto others.    

• Third, as a member of the educated elite -- Brown PhD -- I can say with smug assurance that more or less random evolutionally forces are at work economically and socially.  Though it is POSSIBLE to lift oneself out of poverty by sheer entrepreneurial pluck, for the vast majority of Americans, upwards of 90%, it remains highly UNLIKELY.   For the 90%, where they were born and to whom they were born has a greater impact on their future than their individual characteristics.  We don't choose our parents, and in that sense, we did not choose our likely fate.  For those lucky enough to be born into a stable family sufficiently wealthy to live in neighborhoods with good schools, a broad network of contacts well integrated into licit economic and social structures, good on you.  For the impoverished, they're just, well, ratf**ked from the outset by disrupted families, bad schools, and a broad range of social contacts more familiar with the criminal justice system, the intricacies of gang hierarchies, and the illicit drug distribution systems, all of which serve to perpetuate their condition.    

• Fourth, and finally, as a member of the educated elite, I can say with smug assurance that our democracy will most assuredly not be brought low by the moral degradation of "gay marriage" as a punishment from god for our embrace of sodomy.  As we "dispose" of more and more people, it will be brought low by the the slow decline from ideology into idiocracy, the identity politics of hate, and the demagoguery that goes with it.  The growing disparities, and the despair that accompanies such disparities, are not an "individual," but a "social" and "generational" issue and must be handled as a "social" and "generational" issue, but we seem incapable of doing so.  For those who have theirs, it is much more satisfying to believe, really believe, that it is the result of their individual superiority.  It is much more satisfying to believe, really believe, the disposables are simply deplorable and deserve their fate.  For the increasing number of "disposables," particularly those who have been recently "disposed," however, it is much more satisfying to believe, really believe, that it is the result of nefarious activity, a vast conspiracy of -- choose your loathing -- directed at "us" and our kindred.  It is much more satisfying to believe, really believe, that "they" -- choose your loathing -- are the great satan that must be destroyed.

So, what to do?  I can give another string of "what not to do" propositions.  We cannot arrest technical development.  We should not devolve into idiocracy or succumb to deplorability.   We should not, in other words, elect Trump, expecting Trump to push the magic button and irradiate the hated other.  If Trump's candidacy has revealed anything, the vaunted "white anger" fueling it has revealed an emergent category of "disposables."   We should elect Clinton, but we should do so with the full understanding that her election will simply be an ideological stay against an uncertain future.