Wow. This article was published on April 21st, before the end of the primaries.
> Trump capturing the nomination will not dispel the smug style; if anything, it will redouble it. Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What the fuck happened?
But the § just before that one is the meat of the article:
But even as many have come around to the notion that Trump is the prohibitive favorite for his party's nomination, the smug interpretation has been predictable: We only underestimated how hateful, how stupid, the Republican base can be.
Krugman today:
> We thought that the great majority of Americans valued democratic norms and the rule of law. It turns out that we were wrong. There turn out to be a huge number of people — white people, living mainly in rural areas — who don’t share at all our idea of what America is about.
I've been talking to a few liberal friends this morning who have no frame of reference outside of living on one of the USA's coasts all their lives.
The perceptual bubbles are very real for both sides, and to someone who has been on both sides of the aisle - they're terrifying; because breaking through the bubble is exceptionally hard and costly, doubly so if that person is already an established adult.
It's because Krugman changes his mind based on who is currently President and/or controlling Congress. A policy under a Democrat President is good and the exact same policy under a Republican President is bad. Krugman is a hack who received his Nobel for being anti-Bush. There are far better voices for the Left.
> Trump capturing the nomination will not dispel the smug style; if anything, it will redouble it. Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What the fuck happened?
But the § just before that one is the meat of the article:
But even as many have come around to the notion that Trump is the prohibitive favorite for his party's nomination, the smug interpretation has been predictable: We only underestimated how hateful, how stupid, the Republican base can be.
Krugman today:
> We thought that the great majority of Americans valued democratic norms and the rule of law. It turns out that we were wrong. There turn out to be a huge number of people — white people, living mainly in rural areas — who don’t share at all our idea of what America is about.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/elect...
Some people never learn, but they're not the ones we think don't.