Musings on the Coast

Making Sense of 2015

I make my living as a real estate developer and have many developer friends, who in OC are overwhelmingly Republican. Let me tell you: they are worried to death.

A sea change is happening in America.   You can feel it. Olds truths are melting away.   The center is not holding.   The year 2015 was one of perceived turmoil, terrorism, wars, mass migrations, permanent wealth bifurcation, and a dysfunctional government. Public opinion of all branches of the federal government, including the Supreme Court, are at all time lows.

What is happening here, Mr. Jones?

It begins with money, specifically, the world’s economic condition, which sucks. Europe still suffers from enforced fiscal belt-tightening, which is an economic disaster. Russia, India, South and Central America all harbor crony corruption, leaving their governments either bankrupt or close. China is so overleveraged its collapse is making America’s housing ruin look like chicken feed, and it is taking with it Japan, Australia, and all countries dependent on selling their natural resources.

This leaves the U.S. as the only significant bright spot in the world’s economy, and we ain’t that bright. Our unemployment rate is down to 5 percent, but that is a distortion. It does not include people who have been out of work so long they are deemed no longer looking—so not included in the published unemployment rate—and there are multiples of millions of them, as a percent, the highest since the Great Depression.

Most of these people are part of the formerly great middle class, the people who made things, the people who believed life for their children would be better. In the nonstop sweep to globalism (and the lowest wage), they got outsourced. Further, with an average education ending in high school, there is no place for them in the new technology world.

For them, the Great American Dream is dead. They know it. They feel betrayed. And they are very, very angry.

Which brings me to the Republican Party. It has two primary constituencies: members of the former great middle class and rich people. The political job of members of the former great middle class is to vote. The political job of rich people is to provide money to politicians who want their votes. For several generations, this coalition has held together because demographically the former great middle class was so large it could swing elections and did.

This no longer is true. The former great middle class is aging and both people of color and immigrants are overwhelming its numbers.

The rich people want to stay in power because they want the baubles they receive by controlling Republican politicians. They read the demographic statistics and know the former great middle class is declining, so they need to widen their base—-and sob, appeal to Latinos.   This means they must provide a means for 12 million undocumented aliens to become citizens.

Okay, now throw in Donald Trump. Build a wall. Seal our borders. Deport. Decline legal entry to all Muslims. That all this is racist and xenophobic is irrelevant because the former great middle class is pissed.   It needs to blame someone for its troubles, and it blames immigrants. And foreigners. And people of color. And single women. And, oh by the way, almost all elected politicians are members of an establishment bought and paid for by the rich people. So Trump steamrolls his way into leading the Republican primary field while openly thumbing his nose at the rich people.

Here in the OC, the rich people are freaked out.   Trump might attack their baubles. He might point out that they, the rich people, profited by outsourcing middle class jobs, or that their tax loopholes effectively mean rich people pay less of their income to the IRS, or that the entire system is rigged on their behalf.

The rich people are so freaked out they are considering third party options, anything to stop Trump. He is so egomaniacal he might say or do anything. Hell, he’s not predictable. He does not care if he destroys their comfortable Republican Party. He cares about applause.

At the bottom is an inevitable Teutonic political shift. It is based upon economics and demographics, and in that shift Republicans are losers. So far, they have fought back with voter suppression and big spending by rich people, but these are rear-guard defensive strategies, and cannot last, and my rich Republican friends are just as afraid of the future as members of the former great middle class.

They should be.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.