Base Versus Base

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times

18 August 15

“This is an impressive crowd — the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base.”
— George W. Bush

zra Klein’s piece this morning on The Donald, and how his views are actually more representative of the GOP base than the establishment want to admit, dovetails with my piece about Social Security. Ezra is, however, a little vague about who he means by the Republican establishment; I argue that we’re really talking at this point about a small group of very wealthy donors. As the old joke by W indicates, these donors actually constitute a sort of different base.

And what we’re seeing here is a stark conflict between the two bases. The Bush base wants, well, Bush; it has anted up well over $100 million in an attempt to anoint Jeb! as the nominee, in part because he faithfully espouses its priorities. (Interesting note: If Jeb! really believed he could achieve 4 percent growth, there would be no need for Social Security cuts, since that kind of growth would rapidly fill federal coffers. But slashing the welfare state is, of course, not about the money — it’s about the pain.)

It turns out that Bro! was, for a while, pretty good at convincing the voter base that he was one of them, even while showing real featly to the big money. But that fell apart in 2005 during his attempt to privatize Social Security. And Jeb! has no talent at all for that kind of salesmanship — or, actually, anything as far as I can see. All that money, and he’s fourth in the polling.

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