23 Mar 2016

Sumner vs. Murphy, Round XIV

Scott Sumner 13 Comments

BTW Scott and I fight on the internet in the same way that young lion cubs spar. Anyway, in this post Scott pushes back, and I clarify in the comments. Note that I am standing up for a hypothetical Krugman, which my standard critics would be incapable of explaining. None of you understands my heart.

Regarding Scott’s claims that every person on planet Earth hates Donald Trump (except for the ones who have already voted for him, of course), check out this report: “Nearly half of the supporters of Ohio Gov. John Kasich would vote for Donald Trump, not Ted Cruz, as their second choice, according to the results of a Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday. And more than half of Cruz’s backers suggested they would do the same with their man out of the race.”

One more anecdote: I was talking to this somewhat unorthodox mother at a playground the other day, and she mentioned that she currently supports Trump. It turned out that in the last election she had voted for Nader. Part of what drives her current support is that she thinks the media is out to vilify Trump in a way she doesn’t perceive with the other candidates.

Do with that what you will. I think a lot of the popular explanations of Trump’s support do not actually match up with people who support him.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I don’t like bullies, therefore I don’t like Trump. He is a jerk and doesn’t even know basic economics, or at least, doesn’t give evidence that he knows it.

13 Responses to “Sumner vs. Murphy, Round XIV”

  1. Andrew_FL says:

    ““Nearly half of the supporters of Ohio Gov. John Kasich would vote for Donald Trump, not Ted Cruz, as their second choice,”

    This says a lot more about how much Cruz is hated than how much Trump is loved/not disliked. Sumner probably overestimates how many Republicans will refuse to rally around Donald Trump, but on the other hand it doesn’t need to be that many to guarantee he loses in the general election.

    We are witnessing the crack up of a political party. An interesting time to be alive.

    • E. Harding says:

      I think the Republican party will be strongly unified around Trump. And you need to be a bully these days to win in politics. At least Murphy’s honest about why he doesn’t like him.

      “Nearly half of the supporters of Ohio Gov. John Kasich would vote for Donald Trump, not Ted Cruz, as their second choice, according to the results of a Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday.”

      -That’s because Trump is not a godbot. Most of his supporters don’t consider abortion a big issue or are actively for it. Not the case with a lot of fundamentalists.

      “And more than half of Cruz’s backers suggested they would do the same with their man out of the race.”

      -That’s because Kasich could only win over moderates. Trump is less of a moderate.

      And, yes, Scott Sumner is wrong about Trump, and Murphy’s right.

      • Andrew_FL says:

        “I think the Republican party will be strongly unified around Trump.”

        Quoted for the sake of posterity. No point in arguing that I think that’s obviously a flight of fancy.

        • guest says:

          By “Republican party”, are we talking about the heads of the party, or Joe Voters who identify themselves as Republicans?

          I think Joe Voters (R) will unify around Trump.

          Whether or not the heads of the party will do to them what they did to Ron Paul supporters in 2012 remains to be seen.

          • Andrew_FL says:

            guest-I know a number of Joe Voters in the Republican party and I find this to be backwards. The heads of the party have said they will rally around Trump if he’s nominated. The Republicans I know say they will balk.

            • Tel says:

              There’s a lot of trust issues going around right now.

              • Andrew_FL says:

                Tel you just hit the nail so hard on the head I think it counts as a hate crime against metal fastening spikes everywhere.

      • Tel says:

        And you need to be a bully these days to win in politics.

        I found Carson quite a decent candidate but his “nice guy” meekness got him precisely nowhere… and he screwed up with a comment on the pyramids but in the scheme of things that was pretty trivial, trouble is he let the media get the better of him over it.

        Romney was a practical middle-of-the-line generally inoffensive mainstream candidate and the voters abandoned him in droves.

  2. Silas Barta says:

    You know, it’s almost as if people don’t do pure rational CBA on candidate promises …

  3. Major.Freedom says:

    From econlog:

    “The world is a very complicated place, and people who look at things from just one dimension end up missing much that is important.”

    Did anyone else chuckle at this comment from NGDP guy?

    • Silas Barta says:

      ROFL. Good catch, Major.Freedom!

      Next thing we know, Sumner is going to lecture us about how, “you know, you can’t just look at history and say, hey, whenever we had good times, X was high, so if we make X high now, we’ll have good times too!”

  4. Capt. J Parker says:

    Things to consider when developing ones life plan:
    1) Trump has enough loot to personally finance a run for president.
    2) Trump has his own 757
    3) Trump has been married to multiple knock-out women.
    4) People are publicly discussing the possibility of Trump being president.
    5) Trump has no knowledge of basic economics.

    Given the above, how should one prioritize developing an understanding of basic economics?

    • guest says:

      It might help to appeal to Trump as a consumer of knock-out women:

      Russel Crowe’s John Nash’s Game Theory said that if we all go for the knock-out’s friends, we all get laid.

      But I submit that that only works if you’re only trying to get laid.

      If you’re trying to get laid by the knock-out, then his Game Theory fails.

      Now you’ve got your foot in the door.

      I nominate Robert Wenzel for this task.

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