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This Washington Post editorial following the New York primary points out the misstatements, exaggerations, and extreme statements that have characterized the Trump campaign, about women, minorites, the media, and other candidates.

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This editorial in the WSJ points out the dangers to the Republican party in taking the stand on immigraton along the lines suggested by Donald Trump in August 2015- deportation for all illegal immigrants, no birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, and no remittances allowed for illegal immigrants to their home countries. It points out that remittances actually improve the economies of the countries south of the U.S. border in Latin America and reduce illegal immigration. There is a need for seasonal workers in farm areas where there is a severe shortage of workers even at $17 an hour. Reducing immigration is better accomplished by more guest worker programs. A likely result would be the move of farms and factories to regions with low cost labor in Latin America or other countries. For the Republican Party this type of policy would bring back the period of the 1920's, says the WSJ, when Irish and Italian immigration was opposed by the party, alienating the two ethnic groups till they were won back in the Reagan period- a sure way to lose in 2016....

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Dana Milbank of the WP says the views of some Democrats on Trump as a good Republican nominee based on the notion that he has high negative perception with voters is fraught with dangers for U.S. democracy. Milbank points out that this ignores what is good for the country. Having Trump as the nominee of one of the two main parties would create a divisive atmosphere and is not good for the country, says Milbank. In comparing Trump with Cruz, he says Trump is likely to follow his instincts to operate outside the U.S. constitutional system. Cruz as a person believes in the U.S. constitution and would never endorse violence or action against minorities. Cruz has not done enough to come across as a likable person with his persistent focus on conservative or Reagan values to the exclusion of everything else. This is changing in mid-April 2016 following a CNN interview with the Cruz family, a MSNBC town hall answering questions from undecided voters, and NYT coverage of Cruz at a Brooklyn bakery, that shows a different human face that people have never seen about Cruz. Cruz's self-deprecating humor in a NYT article where he talks about voters not liking "a hectoring scold," is part of this needed change that could have happened earlier in the campaign. About Trump Milbank cites Conservative party prime minister Cameron who says Trump would unite all Britons against him if he ever came to Britain....

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Fareed Zakaria points out that the primary elections of the Republican and Democratic parties can pose a danger to democracy because of demagogic politicians who can appeal to popular passions to bring a fringe group or individual to the presidency. Primaries for both parties became important after 1968. Eisenhower and Lincoln won the nomination after the person nominated on the first ballot failed to win the necessary votes. Another serious problem is that the turnout in the primaries is low, so low that a 15% turnout is considered high turnout. The media attention is so great that it creates the impression that a real election has taken place when in reality about 85% of the people have not voted- as the Economist magazine points out a representative turnout would change the outcome significantly so it is not clear how much this promotes democratic process.

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Galston focusses attention on the major problem facing democracies in Europe and the U.S.- that of providing decent paying jobs and improved economic prospects for lower and middle income households. He cites the surveys from the Pew Research Report and the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics showing how middle income households median net income remains stuck at levels of 1997, and lower income households at levels of 1996. The median net worth of American households adjusted for inflation presents an alarming picture of being at $96,000 in 1983 and $98,000 in 2013 for middle income families, and being at the level of $12,000 for lower income families the level of 1975. Most of the new jobs as much as 95% are being created in the low wage service sector and the BLS statistics show the future looking much the same- with huge numbers of low wage jobs, fewer decent manufacturing jobs because of automation and jobs shifts to low cost locations overseas, remaining manufacturing jobs in the U.S shrinking by another 800,000 to 7% of the workforce by 2025. The result is the alarming rise of populist politicians like Trump in the U.S., Le Pen in France , and populist politicians in Hungary and Poland. Cultural liberals in the Democratic Party and the Republican establishment are both threatened by the rise of cultural illiberalism, xenophobia, and nationalism, as economic anxiety increases, and fears of terrorism and immigrants add to this anxiety. Progressive tendencies in the Republican party since the days of Theodore Roosevelt and of professional elites in the Democratic Party could become endangered if no serious effort is made to come up with solutions to the problems these trends present. The disconnect between the concerns of the working and middle class and the professional elites as the gap widens and the social compact in America and Europe breaks apart, means a new mindset will be required in America and Europe to deal with this. ...

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Kessler in the WP corrects Obama's claim that he created 800,000 jobs. He says this is clever arithmetic as it takes a low point in Feb. 2010 following the financial crisis. Kessler points out that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. manufacturing jobs were 12.56 million in Jan. 2009 when Obama became president. In Nov. 2016, early estimates show there were 12.26 million manufacturing jobs, a loss of 300,000. This loss does not reflect the problems in the U.S. auto industry and older industries in the midwestern states as a result of trade and globalization that speeded up with the rapid industrialization of China. And led as Greg Ip pointed out in a recent WSJ report to a rapid acceleration of job losses in a decade that did not happen in the same scale during Japan's industrialization and urbanization in the sixties. This aggravated the situation in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and was met with a feeble response from Democrats. Even a economist like Krugman favoring the Obama administration's efforts came to the conclusion that TPP did not add much to gains from trade as most of the gains had already been realized. More of the gains went to tech and IT in California, at the expense of the auto industry based in the midwest. A report in WP show a president too close to IT in California and failing to grasp the situation in the midwest. Voters punish whoever is in power, regardless of being Conservative or Liberal, in Canada the hollowing out of manufacturing under Harper in Ontario and Quebec led to the win by Trudeau's Liberals.  ...

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Julia Preston of the NYT looks at Mr. Trump's speech on August 31, 2016 in Pheonix, Arizona, and compares what one can discern about the Trump policies on immigration with that of president Obama. She points out that it is similar to the deportation that was conducted under president Obama in some ways, but is more extensive in its dimensions. It includes sanctioning sanctuary cities, expanding the deportation law enforcement personnel, and deporting about 2 million people with criminal backgrounds. The estimate under the Obama administration is for about 176,000 people with such backgrounds. The Trump estimate appears to include people with minor offenses says Preston, because it is so much higher. As a result this could also include people who have no criminal background and disrupt families on a large scale, with hundreds of thousands of longtime residents and families deported. Under the sanctuary example of Trump, Denver, New York and counties in California would be places where Trump would cut off federal funding. On the wall itself, Mexico's president Nieto says he told Trump Mexico would not pay for the wall, and Trump says exactly the opposite that Mexico would pay for the wall in his speech to supporters.  A Gallup poll shows that 76% of Republicans, 91% of Democrats favor a path to citizenship for those here in the U.S. illegally. For the whole population only 15% oppose giving illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship and 84% support doing this. Which suggests that Trump is only appealing to his base of support, not adding to it, as Cillizza points out in the WP fact check.   ...

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Krugman points out that the federal tax rate for the top 1% is 34% in 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office, because president Obama let the high end Bush tax cuts to expire. It is the number to remember says Krugman- 34. In 2008 the figure was 28.2. Under Hillary Clinton the average tax rate for the top 1% would go up by 3.4 percentage points, according to the Tax Policy Center. Some of this would help pay for the tution plan to provide access to the middle class to public universities. Under populist Trump, Krugman points to the elimination of the inheritance tax and tax rates going down substantially, and no such programs to promote the upward mobility that everyone is talking about, and no way to pay for a big infrastructure building effort for growth and jobs- upward mobility that is the focus of every candidate's election campaign including Sanders, Trump in appealing to older white working class families, Clinton, Ryan, Bush, and others in both parties.   ...