Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 5, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2016 The coming political realignment By DAVID BROOKS New York Times News Service Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager AP Photo/Ben Curtis Then-U.S. envoy Chris Stevens attends meetings at the Tibesti Hotel in Benghazi, Libya, in April 2011. Chinook ancestors would be proud Chris Stevens’ family is tired of the Benghazi witch hunt t isn’t often that a remote Paciic Northwest coast newspa- per igures in national affairs in even the smallest way, but Washington, D.C.’s attention briely lickered toward Paciic County, Washington, in the aftermath of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens’ 2012 murder by thugs in Benghazi, Libya. Not only did the U.S. State Department reach out to pro- vide a statement of condo- lence to the Chinook Indian Nation via the Chinook Observer, but CBS News came nosing around to see whether there was any Wikipedia/By Kode3 vaguely interesting local Ambassador Via Chris Stevens’ information to report about gravestone in Grass Valley, Calif. the ambassador, a member of the tribe. of The New Yorker: tinyurl. The State Department’s com/Stevens-Interview. outreach was an unantici- Some high points: pated but thoughtful gesture, • The Benghazi com- while national media inter- pound wasn’t well enough est was the sort of due-dil- protected, but Congress igence one would hope for itself underfunded State from Edward R. Murrow’s Department security. organization. Unexpected • The latest investigation and unwelcome were efforts turned up nothing new. It and by some in Congress to earlier efforts were blatantly use Chris Stevens’ tragic political. death as a weapon to under- • Clinton took full respon- mine the political career sibility and established a of then-Secretary of State better security program. Hillary Clinton. However, danger is an inher- The Stevens family has ent part of being a diplomat shown remarkable patience in a tumultuous region. Chris and restraint as one investi- Stevens and his family knew gation after another tried to the risks and were willing to pin blame on Clinton and/ accept them. or the Obama administration • “It would be much more in general. Most recently, useful for Congress to focus late last month Republicans on providing resources who lead the House Select for security for all State Committee on Benghazi Department facilities around issued an 800-page, $7 mil- the world — for increasing lion report. It lambasted personnel, language capabil- the State Department, the ities, for increasing staff to Pentagon and the CIA for fail- build relationships, particu- ing to adequately protect the larly in North Africa and the slain diplomats and respond Middle East.” once the attack on them was Perhaps best of all in his underway. Democrats on the sister’s remarks, it is refresh- committee labeled the entire ing to be reminded of how enterprise a witch hunt. bright and outward-looking Anne Stevens, sister of Chris Stevens was. His open- Ambassador Stevens and ness to the world, his cour- chief of pediatric rheuma- age, intelligence and sense tology at Seattle Children’s of adventure all were exem- Hospital, cuts through all plary. His Chinook ances- the political gibberish in an tors would be exceptionally interview in the June 28 issue proud. I onald Trump has done something politically smart and substantively revolutionary. D He is a Republican presidential candidate running against free trade and, effectively, free markets. By putting trade at the top of the conversation he elevates the issue on which Hillary Clinton is the most squirrelly, where her position rein- forces the message that she will say anything to get power. But mostly it’s politically smart because Donald Trump’s only shot of winning the presidency is to smash and replace the entire struc- ture of the American political debate. For the past 80 years that debate has been about the size of government — Republicans for less government and more market and Democrats for more government and less market. If that debate structures this elec- tion, Trump will get somewhere between 38 and 44 percent of the votes — where he’s been polling all year. Trump’s only hope is to change the debate from size of government to open/closed. His only hope is to cast his opponents as the right-left establishment that supports open bor- ders, free trade, cosmopolitan culture and global intervention. He would stand as a right-left populist who sup- ports closed borders, trade barriers, local and nationalistic culture and an America First foreign policy. In an age of anxiety, that closed posture might have a shot at winning. On trade, for example, 60 percent of Republicans, 49 percent of Dem- ocrats and 50 percent of indepen- dents believe that trade agreements are mostly harmful, according to a Brookings Institution/Public Religion Research Institute study. I personally doubt that Trump will be able to pull off a right-left popu- list coalition. His views on women and minorities are unacceptable to nearly everybody on the left. There’s no evidence that he’s winning over many Sanders voters or downscale progressives. But where Trump fails, somebody else will succeed. And that’s where he’s substantively revolutionary. The old size-of-government question was growing increasingly archaic and obsolete. In country after coun- try the main battle lines of debate are evolving toward the open/closed framework. If you don’t like our current polit- ical polarization, wait 10 years. One way or another it will go away. When the frame of debate shifts to open/ closed, sometime soon, the old coa- litions will smash apart and new ones AP Photo/Keith Srakocic Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a cam- paign stop at Alumisource, a metals recycling facility in Monessen, Pa., on June 28. Donald Trump’s break with decades of conservative econom- ic thinking on the value of free trade comes as the Republican Party is increasingly relying on older, downscale white voters who are the most skeptical of trade deals and have lost out during an age of globalization. will form. Politics will be Instead one Carnegie-Mel- unrecognizable. lon type layer of prosperity It’s signiicant that and innovation had grown Trump gave his big anti- on top of the old work- trade speech in the Pitts- ing-class layer, which was burgh area. That part of still there and in bad shape. Western Pennsylvania When you’re in the illustrates in a very con- top layer you see why crete way how the open/ free trade is so good. Liv- closed debate will play out. ing standards are rising. Pittsburgh is a great A study by the Peterson David renaissance story. I Institute found that past Brooks recently got a tour trade liberalization of it from the mayor, laws added between Bill Peduto. We vis- If you don’t $7,100 to 12,900 in ited a beautiful, tight additional income to like our Italian community the average house- with family-owned hold. A study by Peter current businesses stretch- Petri and Michael political ing back generations. Plummer estimates We visited a resurg- the Trans-Paciic polarization, that ing African-American Partnership, which community where Trump opposes wait 10 local activists were and Clinton sort of years. building a cultural opposes, would boost center in the home of American incomes by the great playwright August Wilson. $131 billion. Mostly we just saw acres and acres of You also see how an eficient new development: new restaurants, manufacturing sector makes it possi- new museums, new loft-style ofice ble to divert resources into things that spaces and several gleaming new improve the quality of life. As Neil hospitals. Irwin pointed out in The Times, Pitts- Pittsburgh has come so far from burgh has lost 5,100 steel jobs since the deindustrialization days of the 1990. But it has also gained 66,000 1970s and 1980s. health care jobs over the same time. But then I drove through the steel The problem is getting people mill towns along the Monongahela from the bottom layer to the top layer and other rivers. The storefronts and — a 30-minute drive, but a universe banks were boarded up, the down- away. towns deserted. The mills are still The prophets of closedness will operating, but they are so eficient argue that the problem is trade. The they’re eerily empty of human pres- prophets of openness will argue that ence. The towns still have residents, we need the dynamism that free but not much is going on. I drove for trade brings. We just need to be more miles, unable to ind even a diner for aggressive in equipping people to lunch. thrive in that dynamic landscape. If It occurred to me the Pittsburgh facts still matter in this debate — and renaissance didn’t really grow up I’m not sure they do — the propo- out of the metro Pittsburgh of old. nents of openness are massively right. Sovereign Kingdom or little England? By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Washington Post Writers Group ASHINGTON — Given their arrogance, pomposity and habitual absurdities, it is hard not to feel a certain satisfaction with the comeuppance that Brexit has delivered to the unaccount- able European Union bureaucrats in Brussels. W Nonetheless, we would do well to refrain from smug condescension. Unity is not easy. What began in 1951 as a six-member European Coal and Steel Community was grounded in a larger conception of a united Europe born from the ashes of World War II. Seven decades into the postwar era, Britain wants out and the EU is facing an existential crisis. Yet where were we Americans seven decades into our great experiment in continental confederation, our “more perfect union” contracted under the Con- stitution of 1787? At Fort Sumter. The failure of our federal idea gave us civil war and 600,000 dead. And we had the advantage of a common lan- guage, common heritage and common memory of heroic revolutionary strug- gle against a common (British) foe. Europe had none of this. The European project tries to forge the union of doz- ens of disparate peoples, ethnicities, languages and cultures, amid the sear- ing memories of the two most destruc- tive wars in history fought among and against each other. The result is the EU, a great idea badly executed. The founding motive was obvious and noble: to reconcile the combatants of World War II, most especially France and Germany, and create conditions that would ensure there could be no repetition. Onto that was appended the more utopian vision of a continental superstate that would once and for all transcend parochial nationalism. That vision blew up more comfortable with its with Brexit on June 23. cosmopolitanism and have But we mustn’t underesti- come to expect open bor- mate the signiicance, and ders, open commerce and improbability, of the proj- open movement of people. ect’s more narrow, but still They voted overwhelm- singular, achievement — ingly — by 3 to 1 — to peace. It has given Europe Remain. Leave was mainly the most extended period the position of an older gen- of internal tranquility eration no longer willing to since the Roman Empire. tolerate European assaults Charles (In conjunction, of course, on British autonomy and Krauthammer with NATO, which pro- sovereignty. vided Europe with its Understandably so. Talk American umbrella Here is Britain, inven- against external threat.) tor of the liberal idea about Not only is there no and home to the mother armed conlict among parliaments, being a great of instructed European states. The by a bunch of very idea is inconceiv- pastry-eating Brussels idea able. (Fighting between bureaucrats on every- the various nations has executed thing from the proper been subcontracted to size of pomegranates badly. soccer hooligans.) This to the human rights of on a continent where war terrorists. had been the norm for a millennium. Widely mentioned, and resented, Give the EU its due. Despite its was the immigration directive to comical faux-national paraphernalia of admit other EU citizens near auto- lag, anthem and useless parliament, it matically. But what pushed the Leave has championed and advanced a trans- side over the top was less policy than national idea that has helped curb the primacy. Who runs Britain? Amaz- nationalist excesses that culminated in ingly, about half of the laws and reg- two world wars. ulations that govern British life today Advanced not quite enough, how- come not from Westminster but from ever. Certainly not enough to support Brussels. its disdainful, often dismissive, treat- Brexit was an assertion of national ment of residual nationalisms and sovereignty and an attempt, in one fell their democratic expressions. Despite swoop, to recover it. numerous objections by referendum There is much to admire in that and parliament, which it routinely impulse. But at what cost? Among its either ignored or circumvented, the casualties may be not just the Euro- EU continued its relentless drive for pean project (other exit referendums more centralization, more regulation are already being proposed) but pos- and thus more power for its unelected sibly the United Kingdom itself. The self. Scots are already talking about another Such high-handed overriding of vote for independence. And Northern popular sentiment could go on only Ireland, which voted to remain in the so long. Until June 23, 2016, to be EU, might well seek to unite with the precise. Republic. To be sure, popular sentiment was Talk about a great idea executed rather narrowly divided. The most badly. In seeking a newly sovereign prominent disparity in the British vote United Kingdom, the Brits might well was generational. The young, hav- ind themselves having produced a lit- ing grown up in the new Europe, are tle England.
