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American workers at the bottom of the income scale, black, younger and low wage workers benefitted the most from wage increases in 2022.

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During the Republican Senate campaign in 2022 to replace Pat Toomey, both candidates Oz and McCormick had assets over $100 million according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. This seat was won by Dan Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania. The contrast between the wealthy and the middle class candidates and their distance from average Americans struggling to make a living was very clear, almost similar to the billionaire former president and the Harris-Walz Middle class candidates vowing to rebuild the American middle class atrophied from outsourcing of jobs overseas and wages falling behind cost of living for ordinary workers.

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Why did Kraft Heinz wait so long (2027) to ban artificial dyes in food. Why was pressure from Robert Kennedy Jr and HHS needed for this to happen? This is a sad commentary on the people running American business, just as outsourcing hurt American workers and American communities across the landscape and continued as a practice from the largest US corporations well into the second DJT administration.

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By settling for a 15% tariff Japan was protecting its other industries from the higher tariff of 24-25% proposed earlier. US industry has operated with no assistance from the US government and faces a financial markets structure in the US that is not helpful to American industry making long term investments that overseas makers with support from their governments are able to make. US workers suffered badly over three decades and the ineptitude of previous US presidents in protecting American workers from this situation. The Europeans and the Japanese, South Koreans know this and understand that the US plays the critical role in the free world and without it, without the workers and rural communities of the US, their way of life and freedom will suffer irreparable harm. Japanese PM Ishiba and its business organization Keidanren are focused on implementing the US Japan Trade Agreement mitigating any effects inside Japan. Japan was able to protect it's auto export model to the US from high tariffs settling for a moderate tariff of 15%. A similar agreement was accepted by Germany when Leyen accepted the 15% tariff on German car export model. For decades Germany and Japan have used their auto export model to take a large share of the US market, joined by Korean makers, putting American car makers and their workers at a disadvantage since the 1980's. This creates a level playing field in world trade and is in the interest of workers in the US. ...

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The US has expanded access to products from China and other countries gradually leading to a loss of US manufacturing over 2 decades. Today both Republicans and Democrats see the dangers of such economic policies for American workers and families. Mr. Trump first raised this issue that has been raised for a decade or more. Mr. Biden realizes what this means for the future of the Democratic party with the loss of manufacturing communities in the US. For this reason the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and new economic alliances in Asia are being built in a different way. This may not seem much today but as the US shifts its investment, and the European Union shifts its investment, to home countries and countries in Asia and Latin America, Africa, till 2030- 2040 over two decades this will create huge opportunities for the US, Europe, India and other partners in the free world. It is a mistake to think that a better life for the people of the free world can be built on the mistaken idea that the loss of American manufacturing communities was somehow acceptable. The sudden failure of the trade policy with China after the loss of so many American manufacturing communities shows that in the long run only policies that benefit both American workers and foreign workers will work and deserve support. The return of US manufacturing and European manufacturing to US and Europe must therefore be the very foundation of our effort and with it can evolve the building of manufacturing communities in friends in the free world such as India and other Asian, Latin American and African countries.  For India this is the kind of policy that Mohandas Gandhi would have chosen because of his broad and deep knowledge of the world and how it works best, he would have seen policies that benefit American manufacturing communities needed as much as building manufacturing communities in India. The ripping up of manufacturing communities in the US and Europe and what it has done to American and European workers and families, as has happened with globalization, would have been abhorrent to Mohandas Gandhi. This is why the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and economic alliance in Asia starts with the right principle even in its basic form, with the hard work of all and creative ideas creating the right solution for the Free World as it evolves to 2040. With respect for all, opportunity for all, confidence of all, efforts of all. ...

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This report in the WSJ shows American households are acting prudently by building up savings of $1.6 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As much of these savings are not distributed evenly across the population, and coming back from a period after the 2009 financial crisis when savings in the lower classes had dropped to alarming levels, this saving is good for the future of the American people by building a path to sustained growth for the long term. Readers responses to this report show their dismay at calling savings hoarding, dismay at the idea that saving 3-6 months of expenses would be considered prudent when 1-2 years would be a minimum  and 2-3 years desirable would be considered decent protection in times like the last 2 decades of manmade disasters (shipping out American manufacturing, 2009 financial crisis) or nature driven disasters (the pandemic). For the Biden administration the saving also provides hope that the mistakes of the last two decades and the 2009 period can be avoided. By targeting the $1 trillion in infrastructure spending plan to projects that build synergy throughout the economy and generate more growth for every dollar spent in a long term Renewal America project. Recent WSJ reports show this is happening. The $2 trillion Families and Workers Plan works in a similar way to bring hope in improving the quality of life in America through children's education, childcare, paid leave, health care, affordable housing, climate change investments. The public in America is showing equal prudence by aligning the savings to this approach to set America on a path of long term renewal and development that could be sustained to 2030 or 2035. This will also enable the investments needed to build America's role in the world and help its partners in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa take the same approach for sustained and balanced growth into the next decade.  ...

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Fed Governor Waller, a research director of the St Louis Fed argued that in the post pandemic situation fighting inflation would not increase unemployment. The actual decisions were made by Fed chairman Jerome Powell who also grasped the situation and gave priority to winning the fight against inflation. In his arguments Powell pointed out the disturbing effects of inflation on workers. Powell's determined effort and careful policy management also made it possible to bring inflation down- the manner and way this was achieved and Powell showing a sensitivity to workers and their interests. Powell also communicated this effectively and the Biden administration made this possible through its efforts to rebuild American manufacturing, its investments in infrastructure and getting bipartisan deals through Congress. Without this combined effort by Biden and Powell this may not have worked out the way it did. 

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Gerald Seib, executive editor of of the WSJ, attributes the divisions in America both on the left and the right to a deep skepticism among people about the intentions of the U.S. political and financial establishment to conduct the country's affairs in a way that benefits all people. Both the traditional Democratic and Republican establishments, the Bush-Reagan, Clinton-Obama politicians and the financial community were seen as self-serving and looking after their own interests. The right of center supply side economics and the the tolerance for immigration levels of 30% rise in the last decade were discredited. A much larger recovery program was seen as needed from the deeply bruising effects of the financial crisis of 2008, started by the reckless financial establishment behaviours, than either the Reagan supply siders or the Obama people had understood or planned. This opened the way for Mr. Trump to take up the cause of ordinary Americans with a message of ambitious infrastructure development, confronting China's use of trade adversely affecting American workers, and slowing down immigration. And within the Democratic party the emergence of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders with programs for a wealth tax that would finance Medicare for All and college education supported by the federal government. Both the traditional Republicans under Bush and Democrats under Clinton Obama were seen not upto the task, after the 2008 financial and economic crisis created deeper scars than were imagined possible. The lack of effective policies under Bush or Obama simply aggravating the situation further. The culture wars have split Americans down the middle with a breakdown of the traditional American family and social structures creating deep anxieties in America. Obama's comments unsettled people in the heartland when he said that economic decline in the Rust Belt had made people there to "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them."   The trillions of dollars spent in wars in Asia and the Middle East were seen by Mr. Trump as an enormous waste when much needed investment was deprived of attention at home. Mr. Trump hammered this point home till today it is well accepted across America.  Even as political divisions persist they are now on how to tackle the redevelopment and growth of the U.S. The new focus of agreement has shifted with agreement across the country that infrastructure development in the U.S. and defending workers rights to jobs and opportunities is the top priority. That trade relations need to be reshaped keeping this priority ever present in negotiations. As a result all parties could agree on infrastructure and the recently concluded agreement for trade with Mexico and Canada and phase 1 of negotiated agreement with China. In overseas affairs the U.S. under Trump seeks cost sharing with a 2% of GDP defense spending by other nations so that money can be diverted to use at home. In this sense the debate has already shifted in the U.S. and the UK to how to address the problems of uneven development and growth across the two countries and better allocation of scarce resources to needs at home. Which is for the U.S. a good thing in the middle of all the perception of divisions.      ...

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The progress of efforts to be inclusive as seen in the UC University of California system of colleges over 25 years has increased the representation of Hispanics to 36%, blacks marginally to 2.5%, and reduced the presence of white Americans to about 18%, while allowing Asians to increase representation to above 40%. As white communities declined with the outshoring of manufacturing the loss of income opportunities was accompanied with less access to education. In this sense it has created problems of negatively impacting non-minority access as it worked to solve a problem of minority representation. The other problem the Supreme Court noted in its decision to stop race based admission or affirmative action was its stereotyping students into groups not treating them with respect for individual character. The bigger problem that has emerged that now overshadows others in its effect on America is the poor access to college for white people particularly white men, over three decades in which manufacturing shipped overseas has destroyed the middle class incomes in manufacturing with whole manufacturing  based communities erased off the map of America. Restoring college opportunity for all Americans, including black people, and including the sons and daughters of generations of white Americans and settlers who built America is the task of this generation, so badly has it been eroded. ...

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US president Biden points out in his letter to the US Congress- "When I was elected President, a pandemic was raging and our economy was reeling, and trickle-down economics had undermined our nation’s growth long-term. I was determined to rebuild from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down, because when the middle class does well, we all do well. We can give everyone a fair shot and leave no one behind. Our plan has brought transformational progress." "Along the way, we’ve achieved one of the most successful legislative records in generations, bringing new opportunities to communities of all sizes nationwide. We’re tackling years of underinvestment in public infrastructure, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing, making sure the future is made in America by American workers. We’re making the biggest investment in American infrastructure in generations, including over $400 billion for 46,000 projects in 4,500 communities to date. These projects are rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges, railroads, ports, airports, public transit, water systems, high-speed internet, and more, in every part of the country. We’re also making the most significant investment in fighting climate change in history—advancing breakthroughs in clean technology, boosting energy independence, lowering electricity costs for hardworking families, and revitalizing fence-line communities smothered by a legacy of pollution. At the same time, we’re working with the private sector to strengthen America’s semiconductor and advanced manufacturing industries as well, empowering workers and small businesses to share in the benefits. Already, my Investing in America agenda has attracted $650 billion." ...

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This report in the WSJ points to president Biden's speech to a joint session of the US Congress that providing two years of free community college would "change the dynamic" for education in America taking the first step to correct a dangerous drop in college enrollment for young men in America and ensuring working class families have access to college education. The last thirty years of skewed wealth distribution, loss of manufacturing in America, have created alarming distortions in  the access to college education for working class families. Mrs. Biden is a fervent advocate for community college access in today's America, as a community college teacher for 30 years. Biden's $45.5 billion 5 year plan would waive tution for 2 years of public community college. States would have to opt-in to participate, and federal government would provide 100% funding in the first year, decreasing contribution by 5% each subsequent year, with states picking up rest of the cost. It is quite shocking that this is being dropped from the Biden $3.6 trillion Families and Workers Plan that is now being whittled down to $2 trillion. Not because it is not badly needed for American economic competitiveness, and helping workers and families. But because following narrow parochial interests the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities opposes it. And because the US Congress is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans 50-50 in the Senate. The Association of Independent Colleges sees a shift to community colleges and a sharp drop in its enrollment. Community colleges saw a dangerous drop in enrollment of 12% to 4.5 million students in 2020 from the spring of 2019, according to National Student Research Center. Never was a program more badly needed, as American men are alarmingly falling behind in enrollment. Here are some responses to the failure to take even the first steps to broaden college access so that America can return to economic competitiveness. "What kind of world do we want to live in?" Martha Kanter, College Promise. "That's kind of a devil's choice, isn't it? The whole system has to work from infant care all the way through." Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota. This is because child care and children's education will be funded yet a struggling generation of college students will be left out. US Chamber of Commerce opposes a $45 billion program that is critical to American competitiveness with China and other countries. US Congress drops a program that at $45 billion is only about 2% of the $2 trillion package and which is critical to economic competitiveness. Former Republican Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee supports community college access as a pillar of economic development and it passed the supermajority in 2014. Mike Krause, Republican former director of the state higher education commission says- "I have been surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for what is really a massive workforce development concept that also provides a path to the middle class. You'd think that would hold some appeal for Republicans and Democrats." The lack of clarity and concentration, lack of unity of purpose to get all vaccinated,  is visible in America's vaccination drive. That same lack of clarity and concentration, lack of unity of purpose, is visible in America's faltering efforts at correcting serious and alarming problems for access to college and American competitiveness in the world. Julie Bykowicz and Douglas Belkins wrote this article in the WSJ.   ...

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The head of the Germany Program at Institut Montaigne in Paris, France, Robinet Borgomano looks at the renewal of German society under the ideas of "respect" put forward by Olaf Scholz of the SPD party. What does Olaf Scholz see as the main issue of our time? - Borgomano says it is the disintegration of European and American societies under the combined effects of technological progress and globalization. Where does Scholz get his ideas of "respect" for workers and families? Isn't Mr. Biden sharing the same ideas in the US? The SPD party got its start at the Bad Godesberg Convention in 1959 when it embraced the idea of a social market economy as a party of the people. Wily Brandt as chancellor from 1969 to 1974, whose personal struggle against the Germany of World War II was based in the Nordic countries, embodies best this renewal aspect of the SPD. Scholz sees his role as renewal of Germany, Europe, hand in hand with Mr. Biden's renewal efforts in the US on the same basic ideas of respect of the dignity of the worker and families that in Germany were seen with Wily Brandt and in the US with Harry Truman who followed FDR. Scholz rejects the overemphasis on the of merit in German society, European society, or American society, in the way it has taken shape in the last fifty years. Scholz cites Michael Sandel's Essay "The Tyranny of Merit" rejcting it because it makes a case for inequality based on merit, on capital allocation on an implied idea of merit of free markets managed in damaging ways for personal interest. It is wrong because it robs the worker and families of the basic dignity that is the right of every individual and of every person. It is wrong because it makes a false justification for growing inequality, and makes those who do not succeed feel that it is their fault. Meritocratic elites have made the idea that those who work hard and play by the rules get all the benefits and wealth even if the rules were first set in a way that benefits them alone. When these rules become implicit they are rarely questioned as happened in the period after 2000. It is not just in Europe and America that this happens, and not just in the 20th century.  Strange but true- During the 1850's in the heyday of industrialization in Britain the Ethnological Society of Britain justified the inequality between the British and Indians in the British Empire by saying Indians were inferior in exams and did not have the motivation or the aptitude and energy to excel in the way British students did. Dadabhai Naoroji, the first Indian member of the British parliament in Mr. Gladstone's Liberals singlehandedly took up the job Sandel and Scholz and Mr. Biden are taking on today to restore the respect of workers, farmers, and families in America and Europe and in all parts of the world. Sandel goes on to say what Scholz has heard clearly- "the parties that made the offer of upward mobility to workers and families have missed the insult implicit in it to a large number of working people." In a way it is going back to the roots, to the founding fathers in America who said in the 18th century that "all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," -nothing less.   ...

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China after American and European offshoring of supply chain and manufacturing over three decades is going through a rapid reversal. People to people contacts are also falling off a precipice as it were, showing how badly structured efforts by business focused on profit and not people to people fail miserably, hurting the long term prospect of peaceful cooperation. Foreign Investment that was $100 billion in the first quarter of 2022 is now $20 billion. Tourism down by about 80%. At Zhangjiajie National Park goes from half a million foreign tourists to 50,000 last year. It is typical of this staggering change.  People are not going from America and Europe to China unless they have to. It shows the complete failure of a purely business relationship such as offshoring manufacturing when it hurts workers and families in America and Europe, who turn against it leading to a free fall in relations. American and European business and the governments allied with it failed in this sense to build a world of better interpersonal relations between Asia and the western world. China's experience with industrialization and modernization begun in 1990 is now a cautionary tale for other regions such as India and the Middle East that are planning their own modernization. Much of it happened less from a people to people relationship than from an effort by US business to seize the opening of China after Mao's revolution to offshore American manufacturing as if realizing a new opportunity without understanding its long term consequences for the American people. European business followed American business in this offshoring. It damaged the basic structure of the American and EU peoples based on locally based supply chains and manufacturing at home needed for strong healthy communities, leading to this situation today. The rancor and deeply seated discontent all across America and Europe from communities losing factories and the jobs and wealth coming from it from offshoring by business interests has created this situation.  ...

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The 7.1 million Venezuelan refugees who have settled in other Latin American nations puts a great burden on the region and its resources. This NYT report shows how it is affecting Mexico today. Shown are migrants who are by the rail tracks trying to board a freight train north in Mexico. It is an endless dilemma for Americans, for Democrat states facing Republican opposition, and has been a problem for both Republican and Democratic administrations. How do you deport Venezuelans as US has no diplomatic relations with Venezuela? The Biden administration is pursuing legal immigration channels by taking in a specified number and cutting the dangerous migrant flow over the Mexican border, the only policy open to Republicans also in this situation. At some future date the Venezuelans absorbed into the US can fill worker shortages, in the present it is creating some chaos for many nations including Mexico and the US and other latin American nations, and neither party Democrat or Republican has easy answers. As the Democrats are deporting nearly as many as the Republicans. ...

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Japan's acute shortage of labor has even spread to the government sector says this report in DW.com. Japan's aging population means a growing need for immigrants from Vietnam and other countries. Nursing, elderly care had shortages which have spread to construction and delivery business, taxis, forestry companies and train operators. Many jobs remain unfilled. It is a situation the US may also experience in a few years as it is feeling the effects of shortages of workers in industries such as hospitality. NK Logisitics Research estimate is that 34% of goods will remain undelivered by 2030 because of lack of transport workers, that is 940 million tons of goods undelivered every year. Already taxi drivers have shrunk by 40% from the peak in 2009. Japan's immigration policy planned for an influx of 345,000 skilled workers over 5 years in 2019 but this came a bit late as the pandemic delayed the influx. Now it has a new urgency. Even with the influx of new immigrants Germany has 1.6 million jobs unfilled according to DW.com citing research in an accompanying article on German workers in today's Lyrarc.com. The US needs an organized program of immigration to attract foreign workers yet the influx from Venezuela of mostly middle class educated people into the US through  events no one had foreseen or expected may years from now be seen as meeting the needs of sectors in the American economy that needs good workers, in the same way that Japan and Germany see their economies and worker shortages. ...

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This essay by Hein De Haas in the WSJ says there is a need for honest discussion about immigration in the US, about how best to accomodate the need for workers in certain trades and occupations in an organized way. In fact there is no need for the issue to be politicized this much. It needs to be depoliticized now that the needs for these workers are going to be larger not smaller as the US population ages and there is need for workers in healthcare and support for aging, and in other places such as construction, building infrastructure as US rebuilds aging bridges, roads and airports. In the seventies it was ned for agricultural workers and temporary workers moving back and forth across the border. Only in recent times has the border crossings assumed the scale and dimension it now has with 2.5 million border crossings at the peak. By comparison to the needs for workers only 500,000 are given work permits. And the laws have not been changed since the Reagan administration amnesty and legislation. Haas says workforce enforcement is negligible today in recognition of the fact of worker needs even under Republican administrations showing the need for honest discussion and resolution of this problem. The other problems of rebuilding manufacturing, US competitiveness, education and vocational training, are very different and require different solutions so that letting the immigration issue spill over the way it has is bad for America in deciding the future direction of the country and the economy, and renewing hope for the future. ...

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"We will never abandon the American worker and her community wherever it is located," says president Biden's head of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). He tells the Economic Policy Institute that many economists had questioned the policies that hurt American workers even as early as 1996. He joined EPI in 1992 and says he has followed the trade debate since then and heard the warnings as China entered the WTO in 2001 after years of negotiations in the last year of the Clinton administration.  Common sense questions were asked- Why asked Thea Lee now at the Labor Department is it good to have protection of intellectual property rights but not labor rights under NAFTA. On TPP and FTA's or free trade agreements in general he who writes the rules gets to benefit from them. Free trade having far less to do with free trade as generalized is the first thing he noticed when coming to Washington. Certain business groups captured the task of writing the rules in TPP  to benefit them.   ...

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Countries dependent on remittances of workers overseas are hit hard by the coronavirus. This WSJ report shows the situation in Central America which gets $24 billion in remittances form its workers in the U.S. E Salvador gets $5.6 billion in remittances. This is down by 40% in April central bank numbers show, because of jobs lost in the U.S. by workers from El Salvador who migrated to the U.S.  Unemployment rate for Hispanics in April was 20%. El Salvador depends on remittances more than any other Latin American country as remittances are higher than exports. In some rural areas this means older residents have no money to buy food and depend on charities for food supplies.

Today the situation in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and other countries in Asia which depend on remittances of overseas workers is also leading to a difficult time for families dependent for such support.

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China has a loss in its construction industry, yet has worked hard to achieve a win in its EV industry, to bring the prices of EV's down to where it can be a people's car instead of a high end automobile. It is a win also for climate change and for getting European and US makers including Tesla to get their act together and make the cars at a price workers and ordinary people can afford. For this to happen for a level playing field the US government assistance to EV makers is essential to build America's industrial manufacturing base.

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Harold Meyerson poses some difficult questions for those who like Mitt Romney say America's choice is between the merit based society Romney sees and the "European social democratic vision." In Romney's words- "a merit-based opportunity society- an American-style society- where people earn their rewards based on their education, their work, their willingness to take risks and their dreams." Meyerson cites several studies to show that European societies today are more dynamic on several measures of performance than America's. In intergenerational mobility he cites a Brookings Institution study by Julia Isaacs, that shows incomes are three times more likely to remain the same in America compared to Denmark, Norway and Finland, and one and a half times more frequently than in Germany. Another measure evident from Germany's experience is the degree of union-company-government cooperation to worker retraining, corporate boards that have representatives of workers and management, the "kurzarbeit" program of retaining employees to smooth out impact of cyclical swings in the economy on workers and companies, and worker's willingness to show restraint on wages especially because management wages are not way out of line as in America. Meyerson reminds readers that the U.S. had a more merit based society in terms of upward intergenerational mobility, distribution of rewards of work between workers in manufacturing and service sectors and management, educational mobility with the G.I. bill, in the first 30 years after the Second World War. In a separate article in the Washington Post on Jan. 5, 2012, David Ignatius poses questions about the effects of globalization in shrivelling the middle class. The access to lower wage manufacturing in China, India, Mexico, and other countries, and lowering of wages in the U.S. to be competitive, was part of globalization. The two tier wage structure in the U.S. automobile industry is one example, making middle class wages a thing of the past. Globalization opened up new markets for American companies. Yet many of the gains in employment were made in emerging markets, as the example of GM's expansion in China showed, with automobile manufacturing expansion inside China....

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Jenny Medina looks at America's Biden 10 months into his presidency. Biden compared his presidency to that of FDR in his first years in office in 1933 with America in the depths of the Great Depression.  This report says FDR was better able to communicate how the New Deal would help families and workers in the face of distrust. Biden needs this today. During the ten months of the presidency Biden has already taken the tough decisions that are needed. For the vaccination drive, for the vaccine mandate on the coronavirus pandemic. On Afghanistan Biden took a similar tough decision to step away after learning the lessons of that conflict. He has quietly moved forward to build the alliance with Europe. On the infrastructure plan he has made the tough decision to make certain the essential components of spending on healthcare, education, childcare, support for mothers and older Americans are put in place, so that one bill for infrastructure is not passed without the bill for healthcare, childcare, mothers, elderly and education. Only this can provide the needed credibility for Republicans in states such as Tennessee who support community college open to all to come behind the overall Biden families and workers plan, and for working families throughout the whole country to support further spending for renewal of America.  ...

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The important thing is doing the right thing- building America, building jobs and wages for average Americans. All Americans. Dionne writes in The Washington Post that Biden investments  in renewable energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing, are promoting growth in all parts of the country, many of them rural, Republican leaning, that have experienced decades of neglect. And others once part of the 50's and 60's Truman Kennedy period Democrat leaning- parts of the northeast, the midwest that had suffered badly from outsourcing and sending of jobs to China. A rising tide lifts all boats, in the words of John Kennedy, and Biden tells a Philadelphia rally of union workers that looking back 10 years from now it would be seen that this is when it all started.

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Mr. Trump has decisively changed the Republican party. Most Republicans support Mr. Trump personally, less the Republican party. Mr. Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina, says of the Republican party before Trump that it had become a bit staid, that we looked like the banker next door who may foreclose on your house. Mr. Romney epitomized that in his view. Gone are the views on deficits, on wars, and on imports and transfer of technology to China as being acceptable.  Five years from 2015 when Mr. Trump came into prominence with his new style taking on the establishments of both parties with a fierce disdain for convention, both the Bushes and the Obamas and Clintons, the Republican party is completely transformed. Registered Republicans are now 60% non college educated in 2020 compared to 50% non college educated in 2016. The Trump policies on trade putting American workers first and America first have a resounding popularity with this audience- this should be no surprise after decades of job losses and factories shipped overseas under the previous administrations for 2 decades. Most of these workers are not college educated and are white and had enjoyed a good standard of living with a high school education in American factories till the shift of American manufacturing to China destroyed good paying jobs and impoverished the American working class.  Only 30% of college educated people are registered Republicans in 2020 compared to 40% in 2016. Overwhelmingly about 90% of registered Republicans are white.  They are majority male and older but there is a significant about 40% female and 40% young population under 40 years of age. This might resemble the party put together by Missouri Congressman Harry Truman as he led the Democratic Party in 1948 with a majority of non college educated Democrats, fighting for American workers and America first in the cold war with Russia. Truman also had a rough Missouri farm language and accent comparable to Mr. Trump's rough style and language disdainful of the old establishment and new tech establishment. Both were heavily disliked by the media and both did not let this bother them in any way. Both liked facing large crowds as Truman showed in campaigning by train across the country and Trump has shown in campaign rallies run in his own way. ...

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Is a Win-Win possible for the US/Israel and Iran possible with the US/Israel strikes and operations started March 1, 2026. Not just for the American and Israeli people, but for the people of the Arab countries and for the people of Iran, and for the people of Russia. Greg Ip in the WSJ, Marc Thiessen in the NYT, and Bret Stephens of the NYT have looked at this in this way and offer an alternative view of what might happen, even though the tendency of the WSJ and the Washington Post is to be skeptical and the NYT with an opposition to all things DJT offering pessimistic version. First, all the anticolonial writings that were read by Khamanei in Moshaad are no longer the case as the US is no longer acting to secure some benefit to itself as the British and French colonial powers did for themselves or their oil companies in pre1960's Iran. Second the US truly wants to learn the lessons of 30 years of troubles in the region at every level of the DJT administration which is to extend a true olive branch to the subdued foe as it did to Germany and Japan under generals Eisenhower and McArthur. Third moderates in Iran could emerge as in Germany ( Adenauer) and in Japan Shigeru Yoshida who worked to adopt the 1947 Japanese Constitution under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Behind the student protests and now national protests there is a realization in Iran that living perpetually under sanctions is not the way to live, that it can increase oil production, get investment in its industry, and raise standards of living, by doing something different. That nuclear weapons development, supporting movements overseas, perpetual conflicts with Arab states, these things have been tried and are not working. That this is the last chance to build a prosperous Iran before fossil fuels are replaced by renewable energy over 10-15 years and which will make it that much harder to modernize and develop Iran for the benefit of Iran's future 110 million people. The gap with India will only widen as India catches up with China, the way China caught up with Japan. It is better to accept that these anticolonial writings that emerged from decolonizing Arab North Africa applied to the British and the French, and that the world is a different place today as the Indians and the Chinese have realized modernizing ancient societies with ancient religions is possible with the help of the Americans and the Europeans, working with the Americans and the Europeans. Theodore Roosevelt says in his Autobiography that one should be careful to judge people as the best have some negative aspects and the worst have some positive aspects, an experience he described in his dealings with progressives and those who opposed changes. Adenauer and Yoshida had contacts and dealings with earlier governments defeated in the war, but wanted to search for an entirely different path for rebuilding their countries having learned from experience. A thoughtful moderate Iranian outcome is possible as happened in Germany and Japan and which is beginning to develop in Venezuela.   ...

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President Trump's willingness to use U.S. economic strength through tariffs, sanctions and other methods comes from the view that in the decade of the 1990s and 2000s U.S. worker and the U.S. was suckered by others. In this situation it was seen as acceptable to use U.S. tariffs and economic pressure to fix a global trading system and a China trade surplus with the U.S. exceeding $300 billion a year. Mr. Lighthizer it should be remembered, now the top trade negotiator with China was also the trade negotiator with Japan when it enjoyed a similar trade surplus with the U.S. during the Reagan administration. Economic pressure did not have to be ratcheted up to this level with Japan at the time. Japan was an ally at the time in the Cold War, Today China is seen as both a global competitor in world affairs and a technological competitor. Unlike the situation with Japan many Republican and Democratic administrations had failed to tackle the growing trade imbalance with China till it had become unsustainable. The views of Mr. Trump on trade were views articulated by Mr. Lighthizer for the last ten years resulting in a shift in opinion on trade in the U.S. by 2016 where a majority of people in the U.S. felt that globalization and world trade was working against American workers and industry. Mr. Trump as a Republican was both responding to the failure of others to tackle trade issues hurting the U.S. worker and business, as well as rallying support from workers, farmers and business to his party.   ...