Member-only story
Political ID and the McSally Meltdown
If the lines between Democrat and Republican are drawn in sand, what about between Republican and Trumpist?
I had been a “sustaining member” of the Democratic Party for many years when the blue dogs ran me off. The 2008 election had set a trap for both candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. Neither senator was prepared to run on economic issues, neither was qualified by experience or education to deal with a complex economic challenge, and, right in the middle of the campaign, all the oxygen in the room was sucked up by the Great Recession.
That campaign gave the voters an advance look at the ability of each candidate to deal with an unexpected emergency. They were required to pick economic advisors and then choose among what were likely to be conflicting opinions.
The Republican Party had, with the Reagan Revolution, acquired an identity as the home of supply side economics, memorably described by the man who became Reagan’s vice president and his successor as “voodoo” because of the since-debunked argument that a tax cut would stimulate the economy so much that government income would rise.
The Democrats came away from the Great Depression as Keynesians, and the demand side remained the go to remedy for recession: deficit…
