This post will be about the current state of the political system and the various wings of American politics. This post is partly a response to a different post on a different blog, which I don't do often, but will also go further into the divisions in the Republic as demonstrated the Presidential race. This post will go through the prevalent political wings, the divides in the Republic, the Presidential nomination process, and through some American history as well.
One of my favorite blogs to frequent is a blog called China's Financial Markets written by the brilliant author Professor Michael Pettis. This post will be a response to his most recent post, where he discussed what he calls the Re-emergence of the Jacksonians. Professor Pettis, whose posts are generally error-free, makes quite a few errors in his most recent post. He says that Trump represents the Jacksonian wing of American politics, which is incorrect. He also made the claim that Trump would only last a few weeks and extended that a few weeks further given the attacks in Brussels which was after the writing of his post was finished. Prof. Pettis also makes the claim that Trump has convinced his supporters that he's one of them when he does no such thing. Trump has been very explicit in speaking about his privileges and the unfairness of them. Pettis also claims Trump is feeding off populist sentiment from who hate big-city bankers, but this is just flat out not true. Trump has done rather well in urban centers, including in New York. Trump has even praised banks in general, but has said that they need to be held accountable. Prof. Pettis is also mistaken when he says the original Tea Partiers or the Sons of Liberty were Jacksonians. They were not Jacksonians. They weren't saying no taxes or arguing for laissez-faire or anything of the kind. They were okay with taxation given that they had representation. There was no real anti-city sentiment with the Tea Partiers, especially considering many of them resided in large cities. Prof. Pettis is mistaken because it's Ted Cruz that represents the Jacksonian wing and not Donald Trump. Why do I say this? I say this because of the coalitions both candidates are utilizing and the support structure/organization of both candidates. I'll also go a bit deeper into the major candidates of both parties.
In both parties, you've got two major candidates fighting for the nomination of each party (John Kasich isn't a serious candidate who can win). The Democratic Party has Bernie Sanders vs Hillary Clinton and the GOP has Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Each candidate represents a certain 'wing' of American politics that has risen and fallen throughout American history. The following candidates correspond to the following wings:
--Ted Cruz: Jacksonian Wing (or the 'Jacksonian Democrats' (ironically, they're now in the GOP)
--Donald Trump: Roosevelt Republican Wing (or the 'Old Yankee Republicans')
--Bernie Sanders: Jeffersonian Wing (or the 'Jeffersonian Democrats')
--Hillary Clinton:Wall Street Wing (or 'The Wall Street Coalition')
In order to demonstrate and prove my thesis, I first need to define what each "wing" of American politics is. From here, I must show how each person represents the wing they do. To show how each candidate is representative of each wing, we need to know the coalition that's backing them and the issues pertinent to those coalitions. To know the coalitions backing the candidates, we will first need to have a solid understanding of operational aspects of the political system in order to display how each wing is represented. Then, we need to understand how the operational aspects of the political system determine the winners. Then, we must understand how the way the winners arise determines the way in which the coalitions form.
Hence, this post will be separated into six sections:
1. Definitions/Descriptions of the Coalitions/Wings
2. How the Nomination Process Works in the Democratic Party and the GOP
3. The Current State of Affairs in the Democratic Party: The Wall Street Coalition or Jeffersonian Democrats
4. The Current State of Affairs in the Republican Party: Cruz Control or the Trump Card
5. The Issues of the Candidates and Divides in the Republic
6. The Wings Fighting for Power
1. Definitions/Descriptions of the Coalitions/Wings:
Before I get into the definitions/descriptions, let's keep in mind that these wings each has a long American history that goes back at least 100 years (usually longer). In reality, the Roosevelt Republicans could even be considered as the old
Jacksonian Wing--The Jacksonians are a group in American politics that've historically been located in the South and the Western parts, but it's important to note the Western parts were generally in the Mountain West although the Jacksonians do well in specific parts of the Industrial Midwest. They generally tend to be strong in the countrysides, amongst the industrial towns, and smaller cities.
Roosevelt Republicans--The 'Roosevelt Republicans' are "moderate" Republicans generally located in "Old Union Turf". They tend to be especially strong in the Mid-Atlantic and Industrial Midwest. They have strong support in both urban areas and in various small towns, albeit to a lesser degree as the Jacksonians in regions like the Industrial Midwest. I'd like to note that this wing goes back as far as a critical component of the old Whigs.
Wall Street Wing--This group is the wing in American politics that's generally strong during periods of high immigration, financial innovation, and financial liberalization. They tend to consist heavily of wealthy elites, especially related to the financial sector and banking in particular, while building strong ties with many minorities or immigrants. This coalition tends to be particularly strong in regions with high minority populations and is especially strong in large urban centers or cities. This wing has its roots in Alexander Hamilton and the old Federalists.
Jeffersonian Wing--The Jeffersonian Democrats generally tend to be heavily white or native. They usually consist of large amounts of agrarian populists along with those that become burdened by large amounts of inequality. Generally speaking, they usually represent those who are struggling to maintain their class level or status from society. In regions with lots of minorities, the Jeffersonian Wing consists almost entirely of whites and tend to be very anti-finance. This wing has its roots in the old Democratic-Republicans that go back to Jefferson.
Now that I've defined and described the various wings, we will now go through the rest.
2. How the Nomination Process Works in the Democratic Party and the GOP:
For those who don't know how the nomination process works, it's pretty simple: it's all about who breaks the threshold for delegates at the party conventions. The delegate threshold for the nomination is 50% of the total delegates plus one more. Each state has a certain amount of delegates. The rules are slightly different for the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
On the Democratic side, all of the popular delegates are distributed proportionally according to the portion of votes received by each candidate. These delegates become "pledged" to a candidate and are called pledged delegates. In addition to the popular delegates, you have super delegates that're basically party elites (like Senators, party bosses, etc.) who can support any candidate and switch their mind at any time before the convention. There's a total of 4,765 delegates in the Democratic side with 712 of those delegates being super delegates. The delegates that aren't super delegates are called "pledged delegates". The winner must get to a total of 2,383 delegates. The majority threshold in the pledged delegate count is 2,026 delegates.
On the GOP side, you have each state deciding how to apportion its delegates with some states having winner-take-all rules, others having winner-take-most (these are usually winner-take-all by district with each district having 1-3 delegates by state), others directly electing their delegates, and others having proportional representation of the vote. In the GOP case, once the voting is finished, the delegates in each state are "bound" do a candidate on the first ballot. If a candidate ever gets to 50%+1 of the total delegates, they get the nomination. If no one gets there on the first ballot, the convention is called a contested convention wherein more and more delegates slowly get "released" as the 2nd, 3rd, etc ballots take place. To win the Republican Party nomination without a contested convention requires the front-runner to have 1,237 delegates out of a total of 2473 delegates.
In both sides of the nomination process, 60-70% of the process is over. You have roughly 60 states+territories that vote with 15 left on the GOP side and 19 left on the Democratic side. After April that number will drop to 10 and 14 on the GOP and Democratic side, respectively.
3. The Current State of Affairs in the Democratic Party: The Wall Street Coalition or the Jeffersonian Democrats:
On the Democratic side, Clinton has ~1450 pledged delegates while Sanders has ~1200. She also currently leads Bernie by 2.5 million votes and ~225-275 pledge delegates. She's also consistently up in Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania (the next states to vote) by a polling average of ~10-15%. For Bernie to lead in pledged delegates at the end of the race, he'd need to win the remaining pledged delegates by a margin of ~19+%, which roughly translates into winning the remaining popular vote by ~20% from here on out.
Now keep in mind that each state can have either a primary or a caucus. In a primary, voters show up at the ballot box, put their vote, and then leave. In a caucus, you have a bunch of people in a room for hours involving yelling, screaming, and a certain procedure to determine who goes what way. In other words, caucuses actually disenfranchise voters. With that being said, the states that hold caucuses are: Washington state, Kansas, Utah, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado, Maine, Nebraska, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa, Wyoming, and North Dakota. All of those states have voted except for North Dakota with Bernie Sanders winning all of the caucus states except Iowa and Nevada. Not only did Bernie win those states, but he won most of those states by huge margins including up to 30-40% (including Alaska, Maine, Washington state, Hawaii, and Utah). In caucuses, Bernie has upped Clinton by ~150 delegates. In primary states, Clinton has beaten Bernie by ~400 delegates, and Hillary's up on Bernie by 2.7 million votes. What does this mean? It means that Bernie isn't even very competitive.
Note #1: Keep in mind that for the past month or so, Bernie has been burning through lots of cash while the Clinton campaign is basically spending no money right now. They think they've locked up the nomination, they're up ~10-15% in the polls in the Mid-Atlantic states and in California that have ~900 pledged delegates and 1000 total delegates up for grabs. Even if they break even or lose by 5%, Clinton will only need ~100 delegates in the remaining states to lead in pledged delegates and will have secured the advantage in super delegates to put this thing away. In other words, Bernie's chances are slim.
In the event of a close election where Bernie somehow miraculously ends up with a lead in pledged delegates, he'll still likely be down in votes. It's also important to note that out of the 712 super delegates, ~500 have declared their support for Hillary Clinton while Bernie has amassed ~40 super delegates thus far. So if the primary results end up with the unlikely result of Bernie having a lead of <150 pledged delegates, Clinton will still get the nomination. Keep in mind that Bernie hasn't even been in the Democratic Party for a few years. If I'm correct, this may be the first time Bernie Sanders is actually running as a Democrat. So the party elite will show little loyalty to him (since he hasn't been loyal to the Democratic Party either) and if it's close, they'll give the nomination to Hillary Clinton although the super delegates can change their mind in the run-up to the Democratic convention.
Now that I've described the direction of the Democratic race up until this point, we should look at the coalitions each candidate has relied upon to get to their current position. Hillary Clinton has won: Nevada, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, and New York.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has won: New Hampshire, Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Vermont, Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, Michigan, Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington state, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
If we look at the demographic split for each candidate, we'll see that Bernie has been defeating Hillary Clinton among whites, among males, and among the young. In fact, the entire Democratic nomination process has been remarkably predictable based on demographics. Bernie has won states with heavily white populations and he's crushed Clinton in heavily rural regions. Bernie's coalition consists of sections of the Midwest, the Mountain West, and the West Coast and relies heavily on white voters, males, and young voters located in heavily rural areas. Bernie's coalition is an age-old aspect of American history that's generally called the Jeffersonian Democrats or the old Agrarian Populists. Now, they're parading a new banner by the name of Democratic Socialism. Of course, the platform and policies are largely the same.
Clinton, on the other hand, has consistently won minorities (especially blacks and Latinos, but others as well) by ~30-40% varying upon the state. So we can clearly see how this election process has played out here. Thus far, Hillary Clinton's campaign has consisted of the South, parts of the Midwest, and the Southwest that's relied heavily on upper-middle class/wealthy whites combined with minority populations in states with large urban centers. Hillary Clinton's coalition is the same as the Obama coalition that was derived off Clinton's move to the right to win the 1992 election. Obama constructed a coalition of large money, primarily financial/Wall Street elites, that shares little difference with the old 'Gilded Age' coalition involving wealthy elites, upper-middle class/wealthy whites, and minorities that existed in the Republican Party roughly 120-150 years ago.
Note #2: The only state Sanders has beaten Clinton among minorities was Hawaii where he won by 40% with <14,000 votes. To put that in perspective, Clinton won Detroit by roughly three times the margin that Sanders won Hawaii even though she lost Michigan by ~2%. So until Sanders consistently shows the ability to win minority populations, I don't think he really has a chance to beat Clinton.
4. The Current State of Affairs in the Republican Party: Cruz Control or the Trump Card
Trump came out with a huge initial lead in delegates early on as the anti-Trump vote was split among many candidates. Now, it's basically Ted Cruz vs Donald Trump. Currently, Trump has ~845 delegates and Cruz has ~559 delegates with Marco Rubio having 171 delegates and John Kasich having ~150 delegates. It's also important to note that Marco Rubio has suspended his campaign, but Kasich's campaign is still operating.
It's funny because most pundits were saying that Cruz's strength would be among evangelicals, but it's Trump that has actually won evangelicals. Cruz has gotten a lot of support from local unions, a lot of old Reagan Democrats, working-class people, old conservatives, and pro-gun guys although he's lost evangelicals and old union supporters. That seems way more of a Jacksonian coalition than Trump's supporters in old union territory, "moderate" Republicans, Yankee Republicans, and support from old industry. Cruz's coalition is scantly differentiable from Andrew Jackson's old coalition. In my estimation, the only reason that Cruz is less likely to win the general election is because now we have the West Coast in the Union.
Note that when most of the South voted, Marco Rubio was in still in the race. The exit polls also show that Rubio's supporters would've backed Ted Cruz over Donald Trump by what's roughly a 3:1 or 4:1 margin. In other words, the only reason Trump won most Southern states was because there were many people splitting the vote amongst the rest of the Republican Party. Even with those facts, Cruz lost Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Kentucky by margins of ~.2%, ~2.3%, ~3.4%, ~3.6%, and 4.3% with Rubio still in the race. Had Rubio suspended his campaign a few weeks earlier than he did, Cruz would've won all of those states and some by significant margins. In a head-to-head contest (or a contest where you just didn't have Rubio), Cruz's coalition would heavily consist of critical states in the South that wouldn't have gone to Trump. To put frankly: Cruz would've locked up the GOP nomination by now had Marco Rubio dropped out a few weeks earlier.
Note #3: Cruz also lost South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia by ~10%, ~14% and ~15% as Cruz and Rubio effectively split 45%, 46%, and 48% of the total vote in both states respectively. The vote went 32.5%/22.5%/22.3%, 38.4%/24.7%/21.2%. and 38.8%/24.4%/23.6% for Trump/Rubio/Cruz in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia (respectively). If Rubio wasn't a candidate during South Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia, Cruz would likely have taken South Carolina. There's a good chance he even takes Tennessee or Georgia although they would be less likely to be taken by Cruz than South Carolina.
Anyways, if we exclude the fact that a stupid decision made by a former Presidential candidate to stay in the race potentially sabotaged the candidate who's really organized by the grassroots, we'll see Cruz's actual coalition. Cruz has won the states of Iowa, Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Maine, Idaho, Utah, and Wisconsin. If we add in the states Cruz would have won had Rubio not been a complete moron, we'd have added--at the very least--Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Kentucky. Therefore, we see that Cruz's strength lies in the Mountain West, in Texas, and along many states in the South although Cruz didn't technically win those states due to unfortunate circumstances.
Note #4: Notice that there were other candidates in the race who took away Cruz's support early including people like Ben Carson. Although Carson endorsed Trump, most of his supporters probably went to support Cruz once his campaign was suspended in much the same way Rubio's supporters did.
Hence, we can definitively say that the Cruz coalition is built heavily on the Mountain West alongside states like Oklahoma and Texas. We can also definitively say that Cruz relies heavily on states with high rural populations or old industrial towns for his support, especially in sparsely populated states. Thus, Cruz's coalition and the strength of his campaign involves the old coalition of Andrew Jackson and the entire wing of the American system that's centered around the Mountain West, rural regions in the Midwest, and many of the Southern states.
Note #5: Although Trump technically won most of the Southern states, I'll give Cruz the edge in many of those states simply because the dynamics of the voting process at that time was tilted against Cruz.
We can also definitively say that Trump's wing relies on a completely different set of states involving a coalition of the Mid-Atlantic, New England, the Midwest and specific parts of the South. Trump relies on many states that have large urban population centers and probably relies on large urban populations among his voters. The rise of Trump isn't related to the rise of the Jacksonians, but instead it's related to the return of the Yankee/Midwestern Republicans including the likes of Rudy Guliani and Chris Christie who've both endorsed Trump.
Note #6: Notice that Trump is up big in the polls in the Mid-Atlantic which has yet to vote. Considering that there's no way Cruz or Kasich could even dream of catching up in the Mid-Atlantic, I'll give Trump every single one of the Mid-Atlantic states in a landslide.
5. The Issues of the Candidates and Divides in the Republic:
As we can see, there's clear divides inside each party and there's serious divides in the critical issues that're being addressed by each campaign. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders has made an entire campaign about "inequality"--by which he advocates equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity--and a populist appeal against the big city interests, high finance, and Wall Street. He's also pushing for strong centralized social supports like "tuition-free college", single-payer health care, high taxation, and high levels of redistribution while largely being against gun control (most of the anti-gun rhetoric from Bernie is nonsense as his record will tell you the truth). Bernie Sanders is also crying out against military spending.
In the case of Hillary Clinton, she's running an entire campaign to build off what Obama has done. She's arguing for some more social supports, but she's clearly drawn the line by saying that college shouldn't be tuition-free, she's arguing against single-payer, she's not advocating a large increase in taxation, and she's using Wall Street/high finance to support her campaign and hold her coalition together.
On the GOP side, you've got Trump that's campaigning on issues like universal health insurance, infrastructure spending, holding a line against illegal immigration, and cracking down on foreign freeloaders. You've also got Cruz--and while his campaign is mostly filled with blatant lies--his supporters know his record on government spending/expansion, religious liberty, and preventing immigration reform regarding illegal immigrants.
So as we can see, there's clear differences within each party on how critical issues should be resolved. However, it's also important to note that much of what Trump is advocating for are ideas that're considered "liberal" or closer to the "left-wing" of American politics while combined with anti-illegal immigrant and anti-foreign government sentiment. Cruz, on the other hand, lies as much as necessary to get power so that he can basically prevent government spending or reform across a broad range of issues. Cruz is also a vehement defender of state's rights while Trump fundamentally wants to expand federal power.
From this, we can conclude that the divides in the Republic are largely regional. In the Democratic Party, there's a demographic split by race, by gender, and by age. In the GOP, the divides are entirely regional. Both Cruz and Trump have won various combinations of old industrial areas that has resulted in Trump beating Cruz in some while Cruz gets the better of Trump in others. However, Trump has done better in regions close to the Mexican border and in cities. Cruz has also done better with women, but that's about as far as the demographic divides go, except maybe for income but the income based demographics aren't entirely consistent across states.
So we can conclude that there's crucial divides in both the Democratic Party and the GOP that're regional, but the divides in the Democratic Party go beyond regional divides and goes out into racial, gender, and age-based divides although those divides seem to be largely regional as well. In the Republican Party, the regional divides only apply to gender because Cruz has won Republican and conservative women.
6. The Wings Fighting for Power:
As I've described, we've seen huge divides not just across party lines but within the parties as well. In the Democratic Party, there are two key factions fighting for power. The first faction is what I've called The Wall Street Coalition; it's also known as the Obama Coalition. It's very similar to the Republican Party that used a combination of wealthy, big-city elites (particularly financial elites) to unite upper-middle class/wealthy whites with minorities and immigrants. This faction is represented by Hillary Clinton. It was also created by Barack Obama and has its roots in Bill Clinton moving the Democratic Party to the right in the 90's. The 'Wall Street Coalition' generally tends to be concerned with issues regarding minority rights, they tend to be pro-immigration, they tend to favor liberal finance or financial innovation, and are heavily concerned with issues regarding economic development via market-based institutions. This is basically Hillary Clinton's platform
The other faction in the Democratic Party is the old Jeffersonian Democrats. It's effectively a combination of agrarian populists that're largely white combined with younger voters who tend to be students that are ideological and naive. The policies, the platform, and the viewpoints of this wing that's represented by Bernie Sanders has its roots in Thomas Jefferson. These "democratic socialists" are nothing more than a rebranded version of the old Jeffersonian Democrats. The Jeffersonian Democrats have always primarily been concerned with issues regarding inequality, banking/finance, excess political power in the hands of elites, and the centralization of the government purely in the hands of the financial system alongside other capitalist elites. They also rail against large military spending, are almost always in favor of sharply reducing military spending, and tend towards pacifism. I just described the policy platform of Bernie Sanders.
Note #7: Most people think that Thomas Jefferson was against a strong central government, but this is not true. Jefferson felt that the central government should operate in an actually democratic way regarding the "will of the people" and in accordance to their desires. Jefferson was against the strong centralized government pushed by Alexander Hamilton via control of the financial system.
In the Republican Party, you've got Trump that's heavily reliant on a coalition of New England and the Mid-Atlantic alongside pieces of both the Midwest and the South. This wing is what I like to call the Yankee Republicans of the 20th century, but the history of this faction predates the 20th century. Prof. Pettis calls this wing the Jacksonians, but they're not like Andrew Jackson or the wing that Andrew Jackson drew his support from at all. No one can claim to be a Jacksonian when you crush your opponent in New York while getting annihilated in Texas. The Roosevelt Republicans tend to be rather moderate on almost all issues. They favor government involvement in health insurance or in other specific regions while being against "free trade". They favor moderate social supports combined with strong international intervention for the US atop the "World Order". They tend to be okay with some levels of redistribution. This is basically the entire point of Donald Trump's campaign.
With regards to Ted Cruz, his coalition is heavily reliant on the Mountain West, parts of the South or Midwest, and will probably include many parts of the West Coast. In other words, the coalition backing Ted Cruz are the actual Jacksonians. The Jacksonian heavily Southern or Western (like Jackson himself), but struggle to gain support in Yankee territory. They tend to be led by the kinds of people who're intelligent while coming off off as idiots to much of their opposition, they understand politics, they lie through their teeth while being relentlessly in service to those who elected them, and they're staunchly anti-corruption. The Jacksonians tend to favor laissez-faire economics with grassroots democracy and "sound money". They fight against what they perceive to be the institutionalization of power which means favoring things like term limits. They also tend to vehemently be in favor of states rights along with the rights of their local communities, which is why they're staunchly pro-gun, as opposed to the big cities. They also tend to be more imperial while generally leaning to isolationism, are staunchly anti-internationalist, and are ruthless in securing what they perceive to be American interests at almost any cost. This is a lot like Ted Cruz.
Note #8: In his post, Prof. Pettis said that the Jacksonians used to favor a stronger Presidency back in the time of Jackson, which is correct. However, they also favored states rights' on most occasions which is one of the arguments Jackson used to destroy the Bank of the United States. I'd argue that they favored a stronger executive in order to effectively protect what they felt to be an encroachment of the rights of their states/localities by established elites from DC. Sure enough, this is Ted Cruz's rhetoric if you pay close attention to it.
Note #9: The Jacksonians are very good at political mobilization at the grassroots level, which is really Ted Cruz's only path to the Republican nomination considering that he won't be able to get enough delegates to catch Trump, but while noting that most of the delegates at the convention will be Cruz guys that were promoted through the grassroots in the GOP. Any time you've got a person who was actively engaged in bringing the party leadership down from the inside that's forced the entire party leadership to throw their support to the guy that tried to unseat them: the grassroots movement that allows for such political maneuvering are the Jacksonians.
Extra Bonus: Nomination Process is not Rigged
Now that I've described the nomination process, let me attack this idea that the nomination process is "rigged". Outside of the stupid claims of voter suppression as being anti-Bernie by Bernie Sanders supporters (when all of the evidence shows that all of the voter disenfranchisement/suppression issues occurred in regions with such a history and that such disenfranchisement/suppression also occurred in particular regions that favored Hillary Clinton both demographically and in the polls while all of the "evidence" used by Bernie supporters for such a bias is largely anecdotal), both Bernie and Trump have been saying the system is "rigged".
The system is not rigged in any way. The rules have been known and unchanged for basically a year--much longer in some cases. The Democratic contest doesn't mean the elites select the candidate, but that they have a say in splitting the vote if it's close. The contest also rewards party loyalty, which makes sense. On the Republican side, everything is done by states where all states have a highly democratic process. If we look at Trump's claim that the process is rigged against him, we'd actually see that such claims are simply not true.
From a pure results-based standpoint, it's not like Bernie Sanders has been competitive enough for the entire thing to matter anyways. Even if Bernie somehow pulls off the unlikely win in pledged delegates, he'd still be losing in votes and winning due to his performance in caucuses which'd tell us that he's actually winning because of rules that disenfranchise many voters.
One of my favorite blogs to frequent is a blog called China's Financial Markets written by the brilliant author Professor Michael Pettis. This post will be a response to his most recent post, where he discussed what he calls the Re-emergence of the Jacksonians. Professor Pettis, whose posts are generally error-free, makes quite a few errors in his most recent post. He says that Trump represents the Jacksonian wing of American politics, which is incorrect. He also made the claim that Trump would only last a few weeks and extended that a few weeks further given the attacks in Brussels which was after the writing of his post was finished. Prof. Pettis also makes the claim that Trump has convinced his supporters that he's one of them when he does no such thing. Trump has been very explicit in speaking about his privileges and the unfairness of them. Pettis also claims Trump is feeding off populist sentiment from who hate big-city bankers, but this is just flat out not true. Trump has done rather well in urban centers, including in New York. Trump has even praised banks in general, but has said that they need to be held accountable. Prof. Pettis is also mistaken when he says the original Tea Partiers or the Sons of Liberty were Jacksonians. They were not Jacksonians. They weren't saying no taxes or arguing for laissez-faire or anything of the kind. They were okay with taxation given that they had representation. There was no real anti-city sentiment with the Tea Partiers, especially considering many of them resided in large cities. Prof. Pettis is mistaken because it's Ted Cruz that represents the Jacksonian wing and not Donald Trump. Why do I say this? I say this because of the coalitions both candidates are utilizing and the support structure/organization of both candidates. I'll also go a bit deeper into the major candidates of both parties.
In both parties, you've got two major candidates fighting for the nomination of each party (John Kasich isn't a serious candidate who can win). The Democratic Party has Bernie Sanders vs Hillary Clinton and the GOP has Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Each candidate represents a certain 'wing' of American politics that has risen and fallen throughout American history. The following candidates correspond to the following wings:
--Ted Cruz: Jacksonian Wing (or the 'Jacksonian Democrats' (ironically, they're now in the GOP)
--Donald Trump: Roosevelt Republican Wing (or the 'Old Yankee Republicans')
--Bernie Sanders: Jeffersonian Wing (or the 'Jeffersonian Democrats')
--Hillary Clinton:Wall Street Wing (or 'The Wall Street Coalition')
In order to demonstrate and prove my thesis, I first need to define what each "wing" of American politics is. From here, I must show how each person represents the wing they do. To show how each candidate is representative of each wing, we need to know the coalition that's backing them and the issues pertinent to those coalitions. To know the coalitions backing the candidates, we will first need to have a solid understanding of operational aspects of the political system in order to display how each wing is represented. Then, we need to understand how the operational aspects of the political system determine the winners. Then, we must understand how the way the winners arise determines the way in which the coalitions form.
Hence, this post will be separated into six sections:
1. Definitions/Descriptions of the Coalitions/Wings
2. How the Nomination Process Works in the Democratic Party and the GOP
3. The Current State of Affairs in the Democratic Party: The Wall Street Coalition or Jeffersonian Democrats
4. The Current State of Affairs in the Republican Party: Cruz Control or the Trump Card
5. The Issues of the Candidates and Divides in the Republic
6. The Wings Fighting for Power
1. Definitions/Descriptions of the Coalitions/Wings:
Before I get into the definitions/descriptions, let's keep in mind that these wings each has a long American history that goes back at least 100 years (usually longer). In reality, the Roosevelt Republicans could even be considered as the old
Jacksonian Wing--The Jacksonians are a group in American politics that've historically been located in the South and the Western parts, but it's important to note the Western parts were generally in the Mountain West although the Jacksonians do well in specific parts of the Industrial Midwest. They generally tend to be strong in the countrysides, amongst the industrial towns, and smaller cities.
Roosevelt Republicans--The 'Roosevelt Republicans' are "moderate" Republicans generally located in "Old Union Turf". They tend to be especially strong in the Mid-Atlantic and Industrial Midwest. They have strong support in both urban areas and in various small towns, albeit to a lesser degree as the Jacksonians in regions like the Industrial Midwest. I'd like to note that this wing goes back as far as a critical component of the old Whigs.
Wall Street Wing--This group is the wing in American politics that's generally strong during periods of high immigration, financial innovation, and financial liberalization. They tend to consist heavily of wealthy elites, especially related to the financial sector and banking in particular, while building strong ties with many minorities or immigrants. This coalition tends to be particularly strong in regions with high minority populations and is especially strong in large urban centers or cities. This wing has its roots in Alexander Hamilton and the old Federalists.
Jeffersonian Wing--The Jeffersonian Democrats generally tend to be heavily white or native. They usually consist of large amounts of agrarian populists along with those that become burdened by large amounts of inequality. Generally speaking, they usually represent those who are struggling to maintain their class level or status from society. In regions with lots of minorities, the Jeffersonian Wing consists almost entirely of whites and tend to be very anti-finance. This wing has its roots in the old Democratic-Republicans that go back to Jefferson.
Now that I've defined and described the various wings, we will now go through the rest.
2. How the Nomination Process Works in the Democratic Party and the GOP:
For those who don't know how the nomination process works, it's pretty simple: it's all about who breaks the threshold for delegates at the party conventions. The delegate threshold for the nomination is 50% of the total delegates plus one more. Each state has a certain amount of delegates. The rules are slightly different for the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
On the Democratic side, all of the popular delegates are distributed proportionally according to the portion of votes received by each candidate. These delegates become "pledged" to a candidate and are called pledged delegates. In addition to the popular delegates, you have super delegates that're basically party elites (like Senators, party bosses, etc.) who can support any candidate and switch their mind at any time before the convention. There's a total of 4,765 delegates in the Democratic side with 712 of those delegates being super delegates. The delegates that aren't super delegates are called "pledged delegates". The winner must get to a total of 2,383 delegates. The majority threshold in the pledged delegate count is 2,026 delegates.
On the GOP side, you have each state deciding how to apportion its delegates with some states having winner-take-all rules, others having winner-take-most (these are usually winner-take-all by district with each district having 1-3 delegates by state), others directly electing their delegates, and others having proportional representation of the vote. In the GOP case, once the voting is finished, the delegates in each state are "bound" do a candidate on the first ballot. If a candidate ever gets to 50%+1 of the total delegates, they get the nomination. If no one gets there on the first ballot, the convention is called a contested convention wherein more and more delegates slowly get "released" as the 2nd, 3rd, etc ballots take place. To win the Republican Party nomination without a contested convention requires the front-runner to have 1,237 delegates out of a total of 2473 delegates.
In both sides of the nomination process, 60-70% of the process is over. You have roughly 60 states+territories that vote with 15 left on the GOP side and 19 left on the Democratic side. After April that number will drop to 10 and 14 on the GOP and Democratic side, respectively.
3. The Current State of Affairs in the Democratic Party: The Wall Street Coalition or the Jeffersonian Democrats:
On the Democratic side, Clinton has ~1450 pledged delegates while Sanders has ~1200. She also currently leads Bernie by 2.5 million votes and ~225-275 pledge delegates. She's also consistently up in Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania (the next states to vote) by a polling average of ~10-15%. For Bernie to lead in pledged delegates at the end of the race, he'd need to win the remaining pledged delegates by a margin of ~19+%, which roughly translates into winning the remaining popular vote by ~20% from here on out.
Now keep in mind that each state can have either a primary or a caucus. In a primary, voters show up at the ballot box, put their vote, and then leave. In a caucus, you have a bunch of people in a room for hours involving yelling, screaming, and a certain procedure to determine who goes what way. In other words, caucuses actually disenfranchise voters. With that being said, the states that hold caucuses are: Washington state, Kansas, Utah, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado, Maine, Nebraska, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa, Wyoming, and North Dakota. All of those states have voted except for North Dakota with Bernie Sanders winning all of the caucus states except Iowa and Nevada. Not only did Bernie win those states, but he won most of those states by huge margins including up to 30-40% (including Alaska, Maine, Washington state, Hawaii, and Utah). In caucuses, Bernie has upped Clinton by ~150 delegates. In primary states, Clinton has beaten Bernie by ~400 delegates, and Hillary's up on Bernie by 2.7 million votes. What does this mean? It means that Bernie isn't even very competitive.
Note #1: Keep in mind that for the past month or so, Bernie has been burning through lots of cash while the Clinton campaign is basically spending no money right now. They think they've locked up the nomination, they're up ~10-15% in the polls in the Mid-Atlantic states and in California that have ~900 pledged delegates and 1000 total delegates up for grabs. Even if they break even or lose by 5%, Clinton will only need ~100 delegates in the remaining states to lead in pledged delegates and will have secured the advantage in super delegates to put this thing away. In other words, Bernie's chances are slim.
In the event of a close election where Bernie somehow miraculously ends up with a lead in pledged delegates, he'll still likely be down in votes. It's also important to note that out of the 712 super delegates, ~500 have declared their support for Hillary Clinton while Bernie has amassed ~40 super delegates thus far. So if the primary results end up with the unlikely result of Bernie having a lead of <150 pledged delegates, Clinton will still get the nomination. Keep in mind that Bernie hasn't even been in the Democratic Party for a few years. If I'm correct, this may be the first time Bernie Sanders is actually running as a Democrat. So the party elite will show little loyalty to him (since he hasn't been loyal to the Democratic Party either) and if it's close, they'll give the nomination to Hillary Clinton although the super delegates can change their mind in the run-up to the Democratic convention.
Now that I've described the direction of the Democratic race up until this point, we should look at the coalitions each candidate has relied upon to get to their current position. Hillary Clinton has won: Nevada, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, and New York.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has won: New Hampshire, Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Vermont, Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, Michigan, Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington state, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
If we look at the demographic split for each candidate, we'll see that Bernie has been defeating Hillary Clinton among whites, among males, and among the young. In fact, the entire Democratic nomination process has been remarkably predictable based on demographics. Bernie has won states with heavily white populations and he's crushed Clinton in heavily rural regions. Bernie's coalition consists of sections of the Midwest, the Mountain West, and the West Coast and relies heavily on white voters, males, and young voters located in heavily rural areas. Bernie's coalition is an age-old aspect of American history that's generally called the Jeffersonian Democrats or the old Agrarian Populists. Now, they're parading a new banner by the name of Democratic Socialism. Of course, the platform and policies are largely the same.
Clinton, on the other hand, has consistently won minorities (especially blacks and Latinos, but others as well) by ~30-40% varying upon the state. So we can clearly see how this election process has played out here. Thus far, Hillary Clinton's campaign has consisted of the South, parts of the Midwest, and the Southwest that's relied heavily on upper-middle class/wealthy whites combined with minority populations in states with large urban centers. Hillary Clinton's coalition is the same as the Obama coalition that was derived off Clinton's move to the right to win the 1992 election. Obama constructed a coalition of large money, primarily financial/Wall Street elites, that shares little difference with the old 'Gilded Age' coalition involving wealthy elites, upper-middle class/wealthy whites, and minorities that existed in the Republican Party roughly 120-150 years ago.
Note #2: The only state Sanders has beaten Clinton among minorities was Hawaii where he won by 40% with <14,000 votes. To put that in perspective, Clinton won Detroit by roughly three times the margin that Sanders won Hawaii even though she lost Michigan by ~2%. So until Sanders consistently shows the ability to win minority populations, I don't think he really has a chance to beat Clinton.
4. The Current State of Affairs in the Republican Party: Cruz Control or the Trump Card
Trump came out with a huge initial lead in delegates early on as the anti-Trump vote was split among many candidates. Now, it's basically Ted Cruz vs Donald Trump. Currently, Trump has ~845 delegates and Cruz has ~559 delegates with Marco Rubio having 171 delegates and John Kasich having ~150 delegates. It's also important to note that Marco Rubio has suspended his campaign, but Kasich's campaign is still operating.
It's funny because most pundits were saying that Cruz's strength would be among evangelicals, but it's Trump that has actually won evangelicals. Cruz has gotten a lot of support from local unions, a lot of old Reagan Democrats, working-class people, old conservatives, and pro-gun guys although he's lost evangelicals and old union supporters. That seems way more of a Jacksonian coalition than Trump's supporters in old union territory, "moderate" Republicans, Yankee Republicans, and support from old industry. Cruz's coalition is scantly differentiable from Andrew Jackson's old coalition. In my estimation, the only reason that Cruz is less likely to win the general election is because now we have the West Coast in the Union.
Note that when most of the South voted, Marco Rubio was in still in the race. The exit polls also show that Rubio's supporters would've backed Ted Cruz over Donald Trump by what's roughly a 3:1 or 4:1 margin. In other words, the only reason Trump won most Southern states was because there were many people splitting the vote amongst the rest of the Republican Party. Even with those facts, Cruz lost Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Kentucky by margins of ~.2%, ~2.3%, ~3.4%, ~3.6%, and 4.3% with Rubio still in the race. Had Rubio suspended his campaign a few weeks earlier than he did, Cruz would've won all of those states and some by significant margins. In a head-to-head contest (or a contest where you just didn't have Rubio), Cruz's coalition would heavily consist of critical states in the South that wouldn't have gone to Trump. To put frankly: Cruz would've locked up the GOP nomination by now had Marco Rubio dropped out a few weeks earlier.
Note #3: Cruz also lost South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia by ~10%, ~14% and ~15% as Cruz and Rubio effectively split 45%, 46%, and 48% of the total vote in both states respectively. The vote went 32.5%/22.5%/22.3%, 38.4%/24.7%/21.2%. and 38.8%/24.4%/23.6% for Trump/Rubio/Cruz in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia (respectively). If Rubio wasn't a candidate during South Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia, Cruz would likely have taken South Carolina. There's a good chance he even takes Tennessee or Georgia although they would be less likely to be taken by Cruz than South Carolina.
Anyways, if we exclude the fact that a stupid decision made by a former Presidential candidate to stay in the race potentially sabotaged the candidate who's really organized by the grassroots, we'll see Cruz's actual coalition. Cruz has won the states of Iowa, Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Maine, Idaho, Utah, and Wisconsin. If we add in the states Cruz would have won had Rubio not been a complete moron, we'd have added--at the very least--Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Kentucky. Therefore, we see that Cruz's strength lies in the Mountain West, in Texas, and along many states in the South although Cruz didn't technically win those states due to unfortunate circumstances.
Note #4: Notice that there were other candidates in the race who took away Cruz's support early including people like Ben Carson. Although Carson endorsed Trump, most of his supporters probably went to support Cruz once his campaign was suspended in much the same way Rubio's supporters did.
Hence, we can definitively say that the Cruz coalition is built heavily on the Mountain West alongside states like Oklahoma and Texas. We can also definitively say that Cruz relies heavily on states with high rural populations or old industrial towns for his support, especially in sparsely populated states. Thus, Cruz's coalition and the strength of his campaign involves the old coalition of Andrew Jackson and the entire wing of the American system that's centered around the Mountain West, rural regions in the Midwest, and many of the Southern states.
Note #5: Although Trump technically won most of the Southern states, I'll give Cruz the edge in many of those states simply because the dynamics of the voting process at that time was tilted against Cruz.
We can also definitively say that Trump's wing relies on a completely different set of states involving a coalition of the Mid-Atlantic, New England, the Midwest and specific parts of the South. Trump relies on many states that have large urban population centers and probably relies on large urban populations among his voters. The rise of Trump isn't related to the rise of the Jacksonians, but instead it's related to the return of the Yankee/Midwestern Republicans including the likes of Rudy Guliani and Chris Christie who've both endorsed Trump.
Note #6: Notice that Trump is up big in the polls in the Mid-Atlantic which has yet to vote. Considering that there's no way Cruz or Kasich could even dream of catching up in the Mid-Atlantic, I'll give Trump every single one of the Mid-Atlantic states in a landslide.
5. The Issues of the Candidates and Divides in the Republic:
As we can see, there's clear divides inside each party and there's serious divides in the critical issues that're being addressed by each campaign. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders has made an entire campaign about "inequality"--by which he advocates equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity--and a populist appeal against the big city interests, high finance, and Wall Street. He's also pushing for strong centralized social supports like "tuition-free college", single-payer health care, high taxation, and high levels of redistribution while largely being against gun control (most of the anti-gun rhetoric from Bernie is nonsense as his record will tell you the truth). Bernie Sanders is also crying out against military spending.
In the case of Hillary Clinton, she's running an entire campaign to build off what Obama has done. She's arguing for some more social supports, but she's clearly drawn the line by saying that college shouldn't be tuition-free, she's arguing against single-payer, she's not advocating a large increase in taxation, and she's using Wall Street/high finance to support her campaign and hold her coalition together.
On the GOP side, you've got Trump that's campaigning on issues like universal health insurance, infrastructure spending, holding a line against illegal immigration, and cracking down on foreign freeloaders. You've also got Cruz--and while his campaign is mostly filled with blatant lies--his supporters know his record on government spending/expansion, religious liberty, and preventing immigration reform regarding illegal immigrants.
So as we can see, there's clear differences within each party on how critical issues should be resolved. However, it's also important to note that much of what Trump is advocating for are ideas that're considered "liberal" or closer to the "left-wing" of American politics while combined with anti-illegal immigrant and anti-foreign government sentiment. Cruz, on the other hand, lies as much as necessary to get power so that he can basically prevent government spending or reform across a broad range of issues. Cruz is also a vehement defender of state's rights while Trump fundamentally wants to expand federal power.
From this, we can conclude that the divides in the Republic are largely regional. In the Democratic Party, there's a demographic split by race, by gender, and by age. In the GOP, the divides are entirely regional. Both Cruz and Trump have won various combinations of old industrial areas that has resulted in Trump beating Cruz in some while Cruz gets the better of Trump in others. However, Trump has done better in regions close to the Mexican border and in cities. Cruz has also done better with women, but that's about as far as the demographic divides go, except maybe for income but the income based demographics aren't entirely consistent across states.
So we can conclude that there's crucial divides in both the Democratic Party and the GOP that're regional, but the divides in the Democratic Party go beyond regional divides and goes out into racial, gender, and age-based divides although those divides seem to be largely regional as well. In the Republican Party, the regional divides only apply to gender because Cruz has won Republican and conservative women.
6. The Wings Fighting for Power:
As I've described, we've seen huge divides not just across party lines but within the parties as well. In the Democratic Party, there are two key factions fighting for power. The first faction is what I've called The Wall Street Coalition; it's also known as the Obama Coalition. It's very similar to the Republican Party that used a combination of wealthy, big-city elites (particularly financial elites) to unite upper-middle class/wealthy whites with minorities and immigrants. This faction is represented by Hillary Clinton. It was also created by Barack Obama and has its roots in Bill Clinton moving the Democratic Party to the right in the 90's. The 'Wall Street Coalition' generally tends to be concerned with issues regarding minority rights, they tend to be pro-immigration, they tend to favor liberal finance or financial innovation, and are heavily concerned with issues regarding economic development via market-based institutions. This is basically Hillary Clinton's platform
The other faction in the Democratic Party is the old Jeffersonian Democrats. It's effectively a combination of agrarian populists that're largely white combined with younger voters who tend to be students that are ideological and naive. The policies, the platform, and the viewpoints of this wing that's represented by Bernie Sanders has its roots in Thomas Jefferson. These "democratic socialists" are nothing more than a rebranded version of the old Jeffersonian Democrats. The Jeffersonian Democrats have always primarily been concerned with issues regarding inequality, banking/finance, excess political power in the hands of elites, and the centralization of the government purely in the hands of the financial system alongside other capitalist elites. They also rail against large military spending, are almost always in favor of sharply reducing military spending, and tend towards pacifism. I just described the policy platform of Bernie Sanders.
Note #7: Most people think that Thomas Jefferson was against a strong central government, but this is not true. Jefferson felt that the central government should operate in an actually democratic way regarding the "will of the people" and in accordance to their desires. Jefferson was against the strong centralized government pushed by Alexander Hamilton via control of the financial system.
In the Republican Party, you've got Trump that's heavily reliant on a coalition of New England and the Mid-Atlantic alongside pieces of both the Midwest and the South. This wing is what I like to call the Yankee Republicans of the 20th century, but the history of this faction predates the 20th century. Prof. Pettis calls this wing the Jacksonians, but they're not like Andrew Jackson or the wing that Andrew Jackson drew his support from at all. No one can claim to be a Jacksonian when you crush your opponent in New York while getting annihilated in Texas. The Roosevelt Republicans tend to be rather moderate on almost all issues. They favor government involvement in health insurance or in other specific regions while being against "free trade". They favor moderate social supports combined with strong international intervention for the US atop the "World Order". They tend to be okay with some levels of redistribution. This is basically the entire point of Donald Trump's campaign.
With regards to Ted Cruz, his coalition is heavily reliant on the Mountain West, parts of the South or Midwest, and will probably include many parts of the West Coast. In other words, the coalition backing Ted Cruz are the actual Jacksonians. The Jacksonian heavily Southern or Western (like Jackson himself), but struggle to gain support in Yankee territory. They tend to be led by the kinds of people who're intelligent while coming off off as idiots to much of their opposition, they understand politics, they lie through their teeth while being relentlessly in service to those who elected them, and they're staunchly anti-corruption. The Jacksonians tend to favor laissez-faire economics with grassroots democracy and "sound money". They fight against what they perceive to be the institutionalization of power which means favoring things like term limits. They also tend to vehemently be in favor of states rights along with the rights of their local communities, which is why they're staunchly pro-gun, as opposed to the big cities. They also tend to be more imperial while generally leaning to isolationism, are staunchly anti-internationalist, and are ruthless in securing what they perceive to be American interests at almost any cost. This is a lot like Ted Cruz.
Note #8: In his post, Prof. Pettis said that the Jacksonians used to favor a stronger Presidency back in the time of Jackson, which is correct. However, they also favored states rights' on most occasions which is one of the arguments Jackson used to destroy the Bank of the United States. I'd argue that they favored a stronger executive in order to effectively protect what they felt to be an encroachment of the rights of their states/localities by established elites from DC. Sure enough, this is Ted Cruz's rhetoric if you pay close attention to it.
Note #9: The Jacksonians are very good at political mobilization at the grassroots level, which is really Ted Cruz's only path to the Republican nomination considering that he won't be able to get enough delegates to catch Trump, but while noting that most of the delegates at the convention will be Cruz guys that were promoted through the grassroots in the GOP. Any time you've got a person who was actively engaged in bringing the party leadership down from the inside that's forced the entire party leadership to throw their support to the guy that tried to unseat them: the grassroots movement that allows for such political maneuvering are the Jacksonians.
Extra Bonus: Nomination Process is not Rigged
Now that I've described the nomination process, let me attack this idea that the nomination process is "rigged". Outside of the stupid claims of voter suppression as being anti-Bernie by Bernie Sanders supporters (when all of the evidence shows that all of the voter disenfranchisement/suppression issues occurred in regions with such a history and that such disenfranchisement/suppression also occurred in particular regions that favored Hillary Clinton both demographically and in the polls while all of the "evidence" used by Bernie supporters for such a bias is largely anecdotal), both Bernie and Trump have been saying the system is "rigged".
The system is not rigged in any way. The rules have been known and unchanged for basically a year--much longer in some cases. The Democratic contest doesn't mean the elites select the candidate, but that they have a say in splitting the vote if it's close. The contest also rewards party loyalty, which makes sense. On the Republican side, everything is done by states where all states have a highly democratic process. If we look at Trump's claim that the process is rigged against him, we'd actually see that such claims are simply not true.
From a pure results-based standpoint, it's not like Bernie Sanders has been competitive enough for the entire thing to matter anyways. Even if Bernie somehow pulls off the unlikely win in pledged delegates, he'd still be losing in votes and winning due to his performance in caucuses which'd tell us that he's actually winning because of rules that disenfranchise many voters.
