PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS LEARNED NOTHING.

The departing president took a few questions during a visit to Lima, Peru.  (Going to Lima, Peru?  Par for the course.  Going to Lima, Ohio, where the economy hasn't been the same since Lima Locomotive quit?  Doubtful.)

Rich Edson of Fox News uses the election outcome to ask Mr Obama about a possible party realignment on his watch.  "Are you worried you could be the last Democrat president for a while?"

The president's response correctly notes that reports of the demise of major parties is often anticipated.  But then he casts blame everywhere else.

There was a poll this week subsequent to the election that showed that the general public has a more favorable view of Democrats than Republicans. As I noted, my approval ratings are quite high yet what has been true during the course of my eight years is that does not always translate. In fact, too often it hasn't translated into working majorities at the state level or the federal level.

Now, some of that is the nature of our system. And geography. As long as Wyoming gets the same number of Senators as California there is going to be some tilt towards Republicans when it comes to Congressional races. The fact that a lot of Democratic voters are bunched up in big cities and a lot of Republican voters are spread out across geography gives them an advantage when it comes to Congressional races. Some of it is just political bad luck.

For example, I came in as the economy was in flow fall and although I took the right steps to save the economy, in my midterm election of 2010 people couldn't yet see the recovery and not surprisingly the president's party got punished. We lost control of a lot of not just Congressional seats but also governorships and state legislative seats and that happened to be the year that the census was done and you start doing redistricting. And so those Republicans took advantage of political gerrymandering to lock in majorities even though in a numerous subsequent elections Democrats have actually cast more votes or more votes have been cast for Democratic Congressional candidates than Republicans and yet you end up having large Republican majorities. So there are just structural problems we have to deal with.

Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Delaware also get the same number of senators as California, but those states are, for some reason, more likely to be the destination of Democrat-leaning voters than Wyoming or the Dakotas.  Or perhaps it's a failure of Mr Obama and the rest of the Democrats to do anything constructive for swing voters away from the coasts.  That's part of Michael Barone's most recent pass through the returns.

But the Obama coalition turned out to be too heavily clustered to be easily replicated in an election decided by electoral votes, and much too heavily clustered to make the party competitive in congressional and legislative elections conducted in equal-population districts.

That's been going on all through the Obama presidency.

Retrieved from Washington Post on 21 November 2016.

You'd think his party might have seen some of the benefits of that economic recovery in 2012 and 2014.

Losing skippers blame the boat, the wind, the crew, the race committee, the seagulls ...

VANGUARDISM COLLIDES WITH EMERGENCE.

Shamus Cooke contemplates the latest iteration of a Popular Front.  There are people protesting the election of Donald Trump.  Those people protest for a variety of reasons.

People from all walks of life have performed their first protest of any kind, confronting the repressive “riot” police and not backing down.  New groups are springing into existence as people spontaneously self-organize.

How powerful is the new movement? Time will tell. But it’s up to activists, organizers, and revolutionaries to prioritize throwing fresh logs on the movement flame, buying time to activate and educate new people while building and leveraging power.

Yes, time to head to the Finland Station, to the barricades, to the local campus of Trump University.

The Left can achieve miracles in this moment if it strategically grows and broadens the infant social movement. What is possible depends on the strength of the movement. In math terms: if X grows larger (the social movement), then Y (anything) is possible, including preventing Trump from assuming power.

The anti-Trump movement will either grow or shrink. But it’s up to activists to grow the movement by any means necessary. Historically speaking, the most obvious evidence of powerful social movements are massive, ongoing street demonstrations that grow in proportion to the momentum the movement produces. The anti-Vietnam war movement is just such an example.

Who is to provide the Tet Offensive for this insurgency?

Oh, wait, one dimension of the protest is over Russian involvement in the election, strategically leaking material damaging to Hillary Clinton ...

But this nascent rebellion, if that's what it is, contains the seeds of its own destruction.

Instead of each separate group organizing their own, smaller actions over their own particular issues, organizations must work together in democratically run coalitions to organize ongoing massive demonstrations around issues that include everyone under attack, so that they can be coordinated nationwide.

There is already a call for a massive demonstration on Trump’s inauguration day, but there is time to organize several nationwide massive mobilizations before then. Each one would embolden new layers of people to take to the streets, and will, hopefully, get the labor movement engaged in a big way, while invigorating the Black Lives Matter movement, Latinos, women, students, LGBTQ, Muslims, and everyone who fears a Trump presidency. All should be demonstrating together, striking blows collectively.

The movement can be easily squandered.  Sectarian divisions that have plagued the left for years are re-asserting themselves. Some groups want to opportunistically use the moment to recruit to their own group while doing nothing to grow the movement. Groups and individual activists denounce the actions of others while doing nothing productive themselves. This ego-driven gossipy infighting has been a cancer on the left for years and needs to die now, lest it kill the movement.

All Left groups should be calling for local coalitions that organize ongoing street demonstrations that also make demands on local city and state governments. By making local demands — and winning them — the local movement will strengthen itself, and be better able to defend against a possible Trump presidency.

Local demands should be “united front” demands, meaning there are a few powerful demands that have broad support from the majority of the working class, mobilizing them into action. The existing energy must be funneled into something concrete locally to help grow the movement nationally.

Perhaps, although it is the very diversity that Mr Cooke invokes in assembling this supposed coalition that will lead to the fracturing of the coalition, or to vanguardists attempting to impose their own structure on the spontaneous order.  All the same, a democratically run coalition of the virtue-signallers and the privilege-checkers will make for amusing television.

HOW TO LOSE ELECTIONS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE.

The editorial board of New York's Post suggests that, in calling on incoming vice president Mike Pence to hear their appeal, the cast of Hamilton might well have contributed to the very conditions that made Donald Trump the president.

Red America has no choice but to listen to Blue America all the time.

And, sorry, it’s Blue America that routinely screams “Shut up” to voices it doesn’t want to hear. That’s the essence of political correctness, and not just on campus: Recall, for example, the PC condemnation of the incredibly sensitive and nuanced “red” film “American Sniper.”

When you can’t understand how your fellow Americans could make “that man” our next president, maybe it’s time you stopped assuming it hasn’t heard you, and started listening yourselves.

Yes, but virtue-signalling trumps logic. Besides, logic is another bourgeois construction.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE QUESTION.

Der Spiegel have been doing a series on Moslems in the States, including a visit to a Scout troop in Sterling, Virginia.  Might be the same troop we highlighted earlier.  The question in question: "Seid ihr mehr Amerikaner oder Muslim?"

Give assimilation a chance.

WE WANT BETTER CHOICES.

During the Republican primary season, and again after the conventions, Chris Matthews often baited #NeverTrump advocates with the usual "binary choice" logic: if you're conservative and #NeverTrump, aren't you effectively voting for Hillary.  No, #NeverTrump can be #NeverHillary.

Tingles, you're a slow learner.

WEAPONIZING IDENTITY.

Alan Jacobs suggests Slacker Nation was paying attention to the "Azzas ..."

In precisely the same way, when, somewhat later, academic leftists preached that race and gender were the determinative categories of social analysis, members of the future alt-right were slouching in the back rows of their classrooms, baseball caps pulled down over their eyes, making no external motions but in their dark little hearts twitching with fervent agreement.

That's the same argument Andrew Sullivan made before the election, when (and he's likely to be stressing this rather than his reservations about Trig Palin's parentage, going forward) he, almost alone among the MSNBC Approved People, predicted a Trump win.

Mr Jacobs's essay is one of several Rod Dreher cited in a recent American Conservative essay in elaboration of the hypothesis that identity politics from the left has midwived a similar identity politics from the right.  By all means go there, read, understand, follow the links.

Or, in a more aggressive vein, consider Brendan O'Neill in Spiked.

For a few years now, the term ‘white men’ has been used as shorthand for evil. Apparently white men are running, and ruining, society, the economy, the internet, and everything else. Now, following Trump’s rise, ‘white women’ are getting it in the neck, too. ‘How white women’s fear helped elect Donald Trump’, one headline sneers. Feminists tell us these white women suffer from internalised misogyny, the poor dears, where their brains have been fried by ‘the culture’ and they end up hating themselves.

He's having none of it, and he ends with a reprimand to the social theorists of the left.

As if the white man who owns a bank is indistinguishable from the Rust Belt white guy who works on a production line. As if the white man who runs the European Commission is the same as the white men who must trek from the east of the EU to the west just to find some (hard) work. Radicals’ obsession with whiteness speaks to their utter abandonment of the idea of class, and of any attempt to analyse and rethink social relations.

There's more in Mark Lilla's The End of Identity Liberalism.  It runs in New York's Times, thus maybe a few of the appletini set will read it and understand it.

Hillary Clinton was at her best and most uplifting when she spoke about American interests in world affairs and how they relate to our understanding of democracy. But when it came to life at home, she tended on the campaign trail to lose that large vision and slip into the rhetoric of diversity, calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, L.G.B.T. and women voters at every stop. This was a strategic mistake. If you are going to mention groups in America, you had better mention all of them. If you don’t, those left out will notice and feel excluded. Which, as the data show, was exactly what happened with the white working class and those with strong religious convictions.

Neglect part of the electorate at your peril, warns The American Interest.  "Both left and right see the politics of group identity as useful to securing short term gains. But in the long run, it will not produce anything good—only tribalism, distrust, and, ultimately, violence."

Particularly where identity politics as practiced becomes "My transgressiveness is O.K.  Yours is not."

But it is to the continuation of Mr Jacobs's argument that I wish to return.  "No longer did we have to fear being brought before the bar of Rational Evidence, that hanging judge of the Enlightenment who had sent so many believers to the gallows! You have your constructs and we have our constructs, and who’s to say which are better, right?"  Or, as I have been arguing for a quarter century, deny coherent beliefs, enjoy the incoherence.  Identity politics, authenticity, transgressivity, all the rest?  Only possible when radical skepticism deteriorates into the absence of skepticism.

TORIES TO WINDWARD.

Thus did my coauthor David Smyth remark on my pointing out the upscale housing being built on the west side of DeKalb.  It's a bit of political wisdom going back to the Steam Era, and to modern eyes, it's an incredible reason.  Path dependence is like that. "Past pollution still having an economic impact."

The east sides of New York, London and Paris are noticeably and famously poorer than their western sides. And it turns out there’s a reason for that.

Researchers have found that it’s due to the impact of air pollutants at the time of the Industrial Revolution, as prevailing winds in the U.S. and Europe typically blow from west to east. And it’s an impact that has lasted into today.

Yes, research often confirms things people think staggeringly obvious, but it's in developing the tools to be unable to reject the staggeringly obvious that one obtains the ability to make sense of the truly mysterious.

THE ANKLE-BITING CHIHUAHUA.

Or perhaps it's F. Chipmunk Todd.  I've never understood what NBC saw in making former Democrat operative Chuck Todd the successor to Tim Russert and Lawrence Spivak.  Perhaps it's the aesthetics that put me off.  A dirty-face goatee turning gray?  The aging of the Thirteenth Generation isn't going to be pretty.  Or perhaps it's his habit of treating conservatives and Republicans more rudely (I'm sure his advocates will say it's simply aggressive questioning) than he does court intellectuals and Democrats.  Take nine minutes to watch his interview with Kellyanne Conway, successful manager of the Trump presidential campaign.

Let me highlight a few exchanges, as from the transcript.

CHUCK TODD: Before the election, there were Democrats telling Hillary Clinton if she won, she needed to spend time in red America. Does Donald Trump need to spend some time in blue America and not just have rallies with his supporters but maybe have town halls with opponents?

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Sure. He's already shown his willingness to spend time in blue America. It's actually how he won the election. Busting the blue wall that people said we couldn't do.

CHUCK TODD: Now, but there's a difference. Talking to--

KELLYANNE CONWAY: But he also--

CHUCK TODD: It's-- There's one thing talking-- going to states where he finds voters who agree with him. But talking to voters who disagree with him.

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Well, he found a lot of voters who disagreed with the Republican Party all along, and they voted for him. Those were the undercover Trump voters we tried to talk about for months under a hail of ridicule.

Chipmunk has to change the subject, because Mrs Conway has done her homework, and she's going to match him one "In September you said this ..." with a proper response.

Then we get to the chief of staff, but it's more important for Chipmunk to invalidate the election.

CHUCK TODD: So what you're saying is he's not-- he wouldn't come in to say, "Let's burn Washington down proverbially"?

KELLYANNE CONWAY: I think that the president-elect is there to actually implement his first 100-day plan. And those around him know that and will appreciate that, whether it's within his inner circle or on Capitol Hill. I-- we are very grateful in Trump world to both Bannon and Priebus. And I think you'll see them wor-- continue to work together. We all work very closely together. This is a mandate. And those of us, those of us who are around him will support him--

CHUCK TODD: It's a mandate? But, the pop--

KELLYANNE CONWAY: --wanting to do stuff.

CHUCK TODD: All right. But you say it's a mandate. How do you explain losing the popular vote?

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Well, you've got big states in there like California, and Illinois, New York.

CHUCK TODD: All, all part of America.

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

All par-- Well, of course they're part of America--

CHUCK TODD: No, but that's my point. So that's half the country. I mean, it's one thing to claim a mandate. And I, I think governing-wise, I get what you're saying. But you do have a public opinion-wise or popularity-wise that's a different story. How do you--

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Popularity.

CHUCK TODD: --square the two? How do you square the two?

KELLYANNE CONWAY: You know, Chuck, for, you know, my colleagues across the aisle in Brooklyn and team Clinton are very smart people. I respect them very much. But they misread America. They, they did not have her in red states. They, they were pretending that they were going to turn red blue. They were pretending. It was literally said. And all of you covered it like it was gospel.

Literally said, "We will know this election result before election day because of the early vote." False but written about. We, well-- She had good election-- She had good early voting but horrible election day turnout. We-- Then it was, quote, "We will have historic turnout." False. But it was written about and covered as if it were true because it came from them.

She can't say it, but I will. Democrats were more effective at buying proxies when they had to do so with their own money, at three votes for the price of five slaves. I'm going to get into the contested Electoral College in the next few days, and the way the Democrats buying proxies with other people's money shaped the aftermath of 2012.

She also can't note, because it's too obscure a reference, that a lot of people sat this election out, and that the Cleveland Indians were actually leading the World Series after 63 innings, but baseball isn't cricket.

And Chipmunk's interrupting and playing to the Democrats prevented Mrs Conway from pointing out that in making Mr Priebus chief of staff, Mr Trump is able to work with the people he will have to make deals with to get his plans through Congress, whilst in making Mr Bannon special advisor, he is able to get a sense of what the people who got him there are thinking.  But getting that dig in about the popular vote is more important.

SORRY, WISCONSIN, UNCONVINCING.

We previously noted the cry-bullies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison retreating to a safe space to plot the disruption of a Ben Shapiro talk on campus.  The disruption itself began with the discontented people yelling SAFETY! in response to Mr Shapiro asserting things that did not confirm their priors.  University flacks have now offered their Official Response, noting that Mr Shapiro had been invited by a Registered Student Organization (that's a proper noun, meaning their freedom of assembly has Official Approval, something that in a world of free speech zones and sensitivity codes cannot be taken for granted) and thus worthy of a forum.  Fine.

What the opening boilerplate of the statement giveth, the closing paragraph taketh back.

We are dedicated to promoting a campus environment where all people feel valued and respected.  To that end, the university expects community members to engage in discussion, especially over controversial issues, in ways that are respectful of others’ viewpoints and that promote greater understanding. We are disappointed that some attendees at the event chose not to do so.

Well, no, creating protected classes of people, and treating some viewpoints as problematic or triggering or microaggressive, is going to enable the people who enjoy the protections to Otherize or marginalize those viewpoints.

GOING TO A SAFE SPACE TO ORGANIZE A NOISY PROTEST.

I can't make this stuff up.  Daily Wire editor Ben Shapiro appears on a forum organized by the Madison chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, and his talk, "Dismantling Safe Spaces: Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings," set off the people who get off being set off.  Ann Althouse filed a dispatch.

It's not enough that the University of Wisconsin has antagonized the legislature with its defense of professorial privileges, now its assembly policies are under scrutiny.  This is Duey Strobel, a state senator, speaking.

As a taxpayer funded university, Madison should make efforts to have more events open to the public. It is important student organizations have the ability to – without cumbersome red tape – host events to include the public. Every time university officials lobby my office for more taxpayer resources, they argue how important the school is to the state. Student organizations should have the freedom – without fear of complaints – to create a larger discussion with the broader public community. The CfLI should dismiss this grievance as baseless. Complaints are not to be used as a weapon against organizations with different viewpoints.

Right Wisconsin, the intellectual home of #NeverTrump #NeverHillary in Wisconsin, has additional coverage, including video of the speech, the protest, (flip to page 2, it's two hours!) and the aftermath.

There's a fundraising request from the University of Wisconsin, and I suspect there will be another "I regret to inform you ..." letter.

Look, I really would rather post cheerful stories about the Green Bay Packers, but they're not cooperating.  More train stories at the weekend.

HOPING THE NEW PRESIDENT FAILS.

Rush Limbaugh got all sorts of grief for hoping that Mr Obama would not be able to implement his less incrementalist agenda, because what would happen next didn't look good.  "I hope he fails" can carry that message, or something else.

Now comes Michael Cohen, in Boston's Globe, hoping Mr Trump will fail, spectacularly.

[S]uccess for Trump would be a disaster for America. If his campaign promises are to be taken at face value, his success would mean that tens of millions of Americans may lose health care insurance. It would mean a step back on fighting climate change that could have a catastrophic, even apocalyptic effect on the planet. It would mean a shredded social safety net and little federal attention to voting restrictions and structural racism in America’s criminal justice system. It would mean global instability and a weakening of American’s leadership role in the world. It would mean acquiescence to an assertive Russia and a weakening of the international institutions that help to maintain global order. It would mean disastrous trade wars and a domestic agenda that would do more to harm the people who voted for Trump than help them. It would mean mass deportation — and a humanitarian catastrophe — for millions of undocumented immigrants.

That's why we have separation of powers. When Republicans in Congress resisted Mr Obama's policy proposals, that's not obstruction, that's attempting to mitigate a disaster.  Should Democrats in Congress resist Mt Trump's policy proposals, that's not obstruction, either.  It will help, though, if Democrats have something more substantive than "mean-spirited" or something ending in "-ist" or "-phobic" to their objections.

YIELDING TO CREATIVE DESTRUCTION.

Last weekend's Wall Street Journal included a full page "Notice to Readers" in the usual corporate style of spinning a degradation of service as an improvement of service.  (Call me cynical.  Cynical me has received enough proxy statements from mutual funds, fee schedules from banks and utilities, and clawbacks of frequent buyer benefits with such spin in them that he's justifiably cynical.)

"Next week we launch a sharper and more focused print newspaper.  This refreshed edition concentrates our unrivaled journalism into two core sections, Monday to Friday, for a smarter, more concise read."

Yes, and you reduce the two ounce candy bar to 1.6 ounces at the same price and call it diet-friendly.

David Warsh -- himself, I note, once in the employ of Boston's Globe -- takes a more charitable view.  (But if you want the whole piece, click now, his site has the annoying property of only showing his latest column.)

Newspapers exist to process and assess the rival claims of experts – politicians, governments, corporations, the professoriate, pollsters, authors, whistleblowers, filmmakers, and denizens of the blogosphere.  When its own claims to authority are misplaced – a spectacular example having been the Monday before the election, when newspapers were still expecting a Clinton victory – the print press and its kith and kin correct themselves (the next day) and investigate the prior beliefs that led them to error.  A free and competitive press resembles the other great self-correcting systems that have evolved over centuries – democracy, markets, and science.

Yes, the mugging by reality going on in the palace-guard media is refreshing.  But emergence is messy, and the downsizing going on in the free and competitive press is going to turn out the same way the downsizing in transportation and higher education and manufacturing has gone.

On the other hand, the new methods of circulating information (including disinformation, speculation, and gossip) are cheaper to produce, and they compete for eyeballs.  Perhaps the management of The Journal are responding to incentives.

That’s why the WSJ decision to cut back to from four to two daily sections is significant: it acknowledges the reduced but still very powerful claim of print on consumers’ ever-more stretched budget of time.

Or maybe the USA Today folks had the right idea thirty years ago: pithy and superficial sells.

For many years, newspaperfolk considered that their businesses were mostly exempt from the laws of supply and demand. Price cuts play a big part in the lore of its past. Today, the future of the industry depends on the recognition that price/performance is everything.

Exempt from the laws of supply and demand? Or was Milwaukee mayor Henry Maier also forty years ahead of his time, when he called the old Journal Company (morning Sentinel, afternoon Journal, WTMJ on AM 620 and Channel Four) a monopoly?

For my part, I have trouble squaring "reduced but still very powerful" with anything other than a reduction of service.  Compare taking the Cleveland to Chicago sleeper off the Empire State Express.

EARNING THEIR LARGE SALARIES.

I'm not sure when faculty or staff at Northern Illinois University last received a pay raise, or when an academic department was last authorized sufficient hires to enlarge its tenure-line faculty.

But there's plenty of money in diversity, and those directors of diversity sure have their work cut out for them.

Administrators stood in the MLK Commons handing chalk to passersby and encouraging them to write messages of happiness and unity.

The initiative, which took place Wednesday, was partially in response to the presidential election, which has struck fear into some members of the NIU community.

“Truly, really and truly, our students are all loved,” said Lisa Miner, director of Institutional Communications. “And we wanted to make sure that, now more than ever, that they know that.”

Miner, who wrote her own chalk messages, was among multiple administrators who participated in the initiative, including Chief Diversity Officer Vernese Edghill-Walden and Thomas Phillips, NIU chief of police.

I'm now retired, and don't pass through the commons that often, which is probably a good thing from the administration's perspective, as my message of happiness and unity would read #MAGA.

What is not so good, from the administration's perspective, is that my response to the annual fund drive (yes, they hit up retired professors, too) will read something like "I regret that I cannot contribute to the operation of a university that asks me for money whilst high-paid administrators have time to organize politically motivated chalkings in the tiny free speech zone."

LOSING SKIPPERS BLAME THE CREW, THE BOAT, THE WIND, THE RACE COMMITTEE ...

Hillary Clinton blames the director of the FBI.

Clinton still thinks the email issue is bogus, even though she also thinks it cost her the election. On Saturday, according to the [New York] Times, Clinton said Comey's second letter, confirming his conclusion that there is no basis to prosecute her, was "even more damaging" than his announcement that the FBI had found more emails to examine, causing a last-minute drop in swing-state poll numbers. In other words, a conclusion that Clinton views as completely exonerating her was not perceived that way by voters. Evidently they did not agree with her that she should not be faulted for her recklessness and lies as long as her actions fell short of a felony.

That's a stretch, particularly for a supposedly experienced politician with the elite of spinners and the palace guard media to crap all over the story.

I had no reason to vote for Mrs Clinton: my reasons for not voting for her are the same as my reasons for not voting for Mr Obama, or Mr Kerry before him, or Mr Gore before him, or Mr Clinton ...

But even if you believe in unicorns, you might have reservations over having as your president someone who will attribute bad motives to those who vote against you.

Clip retrieved from NBC.

You might have reservations about somebody who conducted a joyless campaign.

Or you might have reservations about somebody who seemed more interested in scolding the people who supported her than in being their president.

Or perhaps the Black Swan has landed.

POLITICS IS DOWNSTREAM FROM CULTURE.

I'm not sure about the policy implications in two recent essays, but the sentiments strike me as on point.  First, columnist Terry Jeffrey.

The ultimate question is not how a person will vote, but what will give them a fulfilling life. It is not what persons will hold political office in United States of America, but what values will keep us free and prosperous.

The same values that made this nation great can unite this nation again. They are family, faith, hard work and the desire to live a long and good life without government standing in your way.

Put another way, the Trump electoral victory looks a lot like the standard geographic pattern.

Among voters in urban areas, Clinton beat Trump 59 percent to 35 percent. But among voters in the suburbs, Trump beat Clinton 50 percent to 45 percent; and among voters in rural areas, he beat her 62 percent to 34 percent.

When voters move to the suburbs and the country, it hurts the liberal cause.

There are other subtleties, but those are for another post, after more information comes in.

Second, Commentary's Noah Rothman suggests it probably isn't useful for extremists to apply the label "extreme" to everything they disagree with.

America’s exceptionalism is founded, in part, upon its routinized politics. The standard deviation between Democratic and Republican administrations has traditionally been a modest one, and it is that predictability that makes America a safe investment and, thus, a prosperous society. Only when the left decides to stop demonizing those policies with which they disagree as beyond the bounds of acceptable American conduct will we see the true definition of the word “extreme” restored. That alone will not go toward sating the public’s desire to see a radical transformation of the political process regardless of the consequences to American stability, but it’s a start.

Yeah, that privilege-shaming and virtue-signalling has worked so well.

We have much to look forward to.

THE CULT OF THE PRESIDENCY IS KILLING THE REPUBLIC.

So I suggested, back in September when the conventional wisdom was Voters Had Enough, but somehow Hillary Clinton and a divided Congress was the most likely outcome.

Secular orders are emergent, and sometimes complex adaptive systems yield a black swan.  Or Donald Trump winning Pennsylvania.  Sorry, Tingles.

But Reason's Jacob Sullum asks a rude question that, well, deserves to be asked.  "Will a ridiculous president encourage Americans to take the presidency less seriously?"  He continues.

Trump will not be my president. But neither is Barack Obama, and neither were any of the eight other men who have occupied the White House since I was born.

The phrase "my president" smacks of subservience, as in "my liege," "my lord," or "mein führer." In our constitutional republic, the person selected for the job that Trump will assume on January 20 presides over the executive branch of the U.S. government, not over you or me.

Exactly. The president does not run the country. He does not run the economy. He does not run the government. His powers are checked by a Congress that has Article I powers.  "For those who see the president as a savior with the power to Make America Great Again, Trump's presidency will deliver a salutary lesson: Lower your expectations."  Perhaps what the failures of process-worship warped by Hope and Change could not do to The Cult of The Presidency, Celebrity Apprentice Goes to Washington can.

BE GRATEFUL IT WASN'T A ZAKAZUKHA.

The feel-good picture of Mrs Clinton walking her dog, that is.  "In the context of the media, the word 'pokazukha' is often applied to crude publicity stunts used to dupe or impress viewers of state-controlled TV."  Spot on, that.  The zakazukha is more pernicious.

The term "zakazukha" refers to a practice that became widespread in Russia in the 1990s of paying newspapers to publish tendentious articles. These would either praise the paymaster or his political or business associates, or else smear his opponents. For many Russian newspapers, these articles became a significant source of revenue.

The purely mercenary zakazukha is probably not as common today as it was ten years ago, but the practice of using the media to denigrate your political opponents is very much alive.

I was tempted to say something about the Democrat - Media - Entertainment complex, but in light of the events of last week, where Mr Trump finished his long march through the institutions, first taking down the Bush dynasty, then the Clinton dynasty, with her palace guard media paying for his promotions, maybe our establishment press aren't as good as the Russians.  (Sitting around in the early dark and playing chess might have something to do with that.)

But Charlie Sykes, yes, the Wisconsin-based organizer of the Never Trump movement, hoists a zakazukha warning over the Trumpening.

Rush Limbaugh has this line where he talks about the state-controlled media. We are now going to see what one really looks like in this country, where you are going to have this media network that will act like an echo chamber and an enforcer for somebody in power in the White House. You know that it will be deployed to attack and vilify other conservatives who might want to oppose Trump on initiatives.

It's Breitbart that Mr Sykes is referring to, although there's a Soviet era joke that will help. "Fairy tale used to begin, 'once upon a time.' Now it begins, 'Pravda says.'"

He continues.

All of that would be overwhelming, and it would also be intimidating. A lot of people I know in the media and in politics basically decided they were going to go along with Trump because it's just not worth it. It's just not worth the abuse you're going to get on social media. It's just not worth the kind of vilification you're going to get.

It's going to have a tremendous effect going forward, I think, on conservatives.

Get. A. Grip.  Use your medium to tell the truth about Barack Obama and the palace guard media will spin it in the worst possible way for however much of the viewing audience it still has; their epigones on CNN and MSNBC will find all the Geniuses who will Point Out The Errors; then the evening comedians will dial the ridicule up to Full Condescending Concern Trolling.

Use your medium to remind Donald Trump that Article I gives powers to Congress and Article II enumerates powers of a President and you cower in fear of a twitter-storm?  Mr Trump is not a libertarian conservative, not a constitutional conservative, not a cultural conservative, not a Chamber of Commerce conservative.  He will require support from interested people of those stripes.  But those people ought not rally to the support of, let alone remain silent in the presentation of, policies that they cannot agree with.  Particularly if it's out of fear of social media going crazy.  Social media is all about going crazy.  Consider the source.

DID THE WRITERS KNOW BROWN COUNTY DELIVERED THE DAGGER?

Last week's Saturday Night Live featured a skit with some serious privilege-checking.

[Dave] Chappelle played a guest at an election night party with a group of white people. The sketch perfectly captured the smug confidence that Hillary Clinton supporters in New York City felt, followed by the terror and crushing defeat they felt when Trump won. And, thanks to Chappelle and special guest Chris Rock, it was funny.

Enjoy the show.

"Yeah, the brothers dig the Packers!"

In the sketch above, when the white people are saying that this election loss makes them think America is suddenly racist, or when they say the election loss is the worst thing the country has ever done, Chappelle and Rock just look at each other and roll their eyes and laugh. Comedy is a great tool to gently push the point that melodrama of the past week is not perceived the same by everyone outside of certain echo chambers.

The coastal chin-pullers are discovering that Wisconsin votes matter.

[Mrs] Clinton herself never campaigned here during the general election, and [Mr] Trump deluged the airwaves with television advertising, which may have helped him secure the victory margin of less than 30,000 votes, state political analysts said. And, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, Trump made at least five visits to the state in the final three months of the campaign.

You'd think the coastal Smart People and the self-styled progressives would catch on.  For all the talk of a weak state economy, of union busting and recalls, of gutting the University of Wisconsin, of passing on the upgrade to the Hiawatha Service, of the strong economy and the emerging football team in Minnesota, it's Wisconsin that provides the intellectual ammunition for the Never Trump conservatives, plus enough oomph in the national party that Mr Trump has to bring the Wisconsin touch into his White House.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, of Janesville, is considered one of the party’s brightest young stars, and Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, grew up in Green Bay. Both chambers of the state legislature have Republican majorities, and the governor, Scott Walker, is a Republican.

Mr Priebus will be White House Chief of Staff. Mr Trump will have to make smart deals with Speaker Ryan.

PAPERS, PLEASE.

Kurt Schlichter's People's Republic is speculative fiction in which the Democrat-controlled states part ways with the Republican-leaning states.  Then the Democrat-controlled states collapse, or something.  But the Cause that Impelled the People to their Separation was ... Hillary Clinton becoming president.

That didn't turn out exactly the way anyone planned, did it?  Except California, Oregon, and Washington voted for Mrs Clinton and a lot of Democrats down-ballot, and the secession talk emanating from the people who don't live in Jesusland has resumed, with California, Oregon, and Washington first out.

Which provokes some speculation from Fred Frailey about international commerce on the rails.

Will the Republic of California have free and open borders with neighboring counties, including Mexico and the United States? Or will passengers aboard the California Zephyr and Southwest Chief and Sunset Limited be required to carry passports or, worse than that, be required to go to the California embassies and consulates in the U.S. to acquire visas for their passports? At the international frontiers west of Reno, Nev., and in Needles, Calif., and Yuma, Ariz., will there be gentle knocks on your bedroom door, as someone says, “Your passports, please”? Or will passengers have to disembark from the Amtrak trains and file through security?  I so hate those lines. . .

Freight traffic . . . oh wow! BNSF Railway is running some humongous doublestack trains these days. Will the boxes be carefully searched in both directions, and what impact will this have on the fluidity of both BNSF and Union Pacific train operations? This could consume hours or even days. The yards in Needles and Yuma aren’t much to speak of anymore, so some serious expansion of tracks would seem in order.

We already have overweening Federal officials conducting unreasonable searches on the Zephyr, the Sunset, and the rest.

As far as those stack trains?  With the enlargement of the Panama Canal, Jesusland (or is it The United States?) can resupply through New Orleans, while the hipsters on the west coast will have less congestion at the Ports of Seattle or Oakland or Los Angeles - Long Beach.

Did Mr Frailey have Mr Schlichter's Kindle opus in mind with that reference to People's Republic of California?

THE LUMP OF LABOR FALLACY.

Chicago Boy David Foster contemplates an Attack of the Job-Killing Robots.  Fordist production technologies, including the eNtrance - eXit interlocking machine, which obviated the muscles of the old-time leverman in the signal tower.  "Articles on the job elimination expected as a result of robots and artificial intelligences–and there seem to be dozens of such articles coming out every week—very rarely include any attempts to put current innovations in historical perspective."  There is always more work to be done than there are resources to do it: the challenge, the knowledge problem, if you will, is in discovering ways to do it.

POKAZHUKA.

Thursday last, NBC Nightly News signed off with an attempt at a feel-good story.  Young mom takes her baby outside for fresh air, encounters the former First Couple out walking the dog.  Mr Clinton takes a picture.

Cheer up, Face, the War is Over.

Retrieved from Twitchy on 12 November.

But it may be another Palace Guard Media setup.  Twitchy reports that the mom's social media feed no longer includes the picture, and the closing segment is not available on Nightly's basket of highlights for 10 November.

As if the Democrat - Media - Entertainment Axis hasn't given normal Americans reason enough to hate them already.  From the left, Neal Gabler fears that the media part will cave.  "With the mainstream media so delegitimized — a delegitimization for which they bear a good deal of blame, not having had the courage to take on lies and expose false equivalencies — they have very little role to play going forward in our politics."  In Mr Gabler's world, the shelling the Phony Press took from Mr Trump came from softening up by the usual suspects.  "Retiring conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes complained that after years of bashing from the right wing, the mainstream media no longer could perform their function as reporters, observers, fact dispensers, and even truth tellers, and he said we needed them."  Yes, and Mr Sykes's show gets a lot of mileage from the failure of the zanies running the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (once part of the same corporate family as his WTheMilwaukeeJournal radio station) to perform as reporters, observers, fact dispensers, and even truth tellers.  The heart of the matter, Mr Gabler, is here.  "Democracy only functions when its participants abide by certain conventions, certain codes of conduct and a respect for the process."

Perhaps it's not too late for people of the left to rediscover the bourgeois conventions their thought leaders have been mocking, deconstructing, interrogating, and otherwise destroying over the past fifty years.  It won't come too soon for Trump Nation.

It figures that another part of the NBC octopus would marinate in the smug.  That set Town Hall's Bryan Crabtree off.

MSNBC was proud to report that Trump won 76% of counties with a Cracker Barrel and 22% of counties with a Whole Foods grocery store. This is code for “the dumb people in America voted for Trump and us smart people get a pass for being wrong.”

To infer [c.q.] that the ‘Cracker Barrel crowd’ is any less relevant to our country is no different than asserting someone has less relevance because of their race, religion or national origin. It's bigoted and it should not be indulged. I’m not offended by it and I’m certainly not angry like many of the petulant children who we've seen rioting and protesting in the streets because they don't like the outcome of our democratic process.

We'll get back to the petulant children in time. (How fitting is it that the symbol of a safe space last week was a safety pin? Conjures up images of diapers, doesn't it? Thought so.)

First, though, Mr Crabtree's connections to Cracker Barrel.

I know the ‘Cracker Barrel crowd.’ It’s called “my family.” I grew up in middle Tennessee working for the company that manufactures all the rocking chairs at the Cracker Barrel's across America. In fact, it was my first job and it was the hardest work I've ever done.

On any given day, many of my close and extended family may eat at Cracker Barrel. They are what we call ‘the silent majority.’ They go to church on Sunday, they save for retirement, they teach their kids morals/values and they give to charity. They don't like confrontation or conflict and they rarely like discussing politics (with outsiders) because they don't want extra strife in their life. They want to live humbly and peacefully in a free nation and enjoy their life without extensive government or outside interference.

They are disgusted by the direction of this nation. They don't hate anyone and they certainly don't feel that they are ‘better’ than anyone else.

He says "silent majority," I say "normal Americans." And those social justice warriors trashing neighborhoods in the remaining Democrat outposts such as Portland, Chicago, Milwaukee?

The advice of Gen^l Sherman to a social justice warrior of his day is something today's social justice warriors ought consider.

You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it... Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with.

I hope it does not come to war, but if it should, all the social media presence and all the ability to brew overpriced coffee and quote Marx or Foucault will be for naught.  As will the ability of the Democrat - Media - Entertainment Complex to appeal to the better angels of our nature.

It may only be the forbearance of Normal Americans that is providing the crazies with a safe space.  Back to Mr Crabtree.

The infinite wisdom and patience of the ‘Cracker Barrel crowd’ to endure the Obama presidency, the developing civil unrest in our nation and the degradation of our leadership and economic authority in the world - is staggering.

They are not simple in purpose even if they may appear simple (to some) as people.

We can learn from them. They have been silent and humble for years in cultural defeat and they have remained silent and humble even in victory.

But even a sleeping bear can be roused to anger.

HOW THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKED OUT.

Not well, suggests V. D. Hanson, whether for the country or for the Democrats who pushed it.

Barack Obama entered office in 2009 with both houses of Congress, two likely Supreme Court picks, and the good will of the nation. By 2010 he had lost the House; by 2012, the Senate. And by 2016, Obama had ensured that his would-be successor could not win by running on his platform.

A failed health care law, non-existent economic growth, serial zero interest rates, near record labor non-participation rates, $20 trillion in national debt, a Middle East in ruins, failed reset and redlines, and the Iran deal were albatrosses around Democratic Party’s neck. Obama divided the country with the apology tour, the Cairo Speech, the beer summit, the rhetoric of disparagement (“you didn’t build that,” “punish our enemies,” etc.), the encouragement of the Black Lives Matter movement, and a series of anti-Constitutional executive orders.

In other words, even as Obama left the Democrats with ideological and political detritus, he also had established an electoral calculus built on his own transformative identity that neither had coattails nor was transferrable to other candidates. Indeed, his hard-left positions on redistribution, social issues, sanctuary cities, amnesty, foreign policy, and spending would likely doom candidates other than himself who embraced them.

We'll be taking a closer look at where the remaining Democrats in Congress hail from, and what is in ruins there, in the next few days.  We shall see about Mr Hanson's prognostications.

It is now a municipal party. It has no real power over the federal government or state houses. Its once feared cudgel of race/class/gender invective has become a false wolf call heard one too many times. The Sanders-Warren branch of the party, along with the now discredited Clinton strays, will hover over the party’s carcass. Meanwhile, President Obama will likely ride off into the sunset to a lucrative globe-trotting ex-presidency. His executive orders will systematically be dismantled by Donald Trump, leaving as his legacy a polarizing electoral formula that had a shelf life of just two terms.

I note only that in my lifetime, the Democrats have been written off at least twice before (1968 - 1972 and 2004), as have the Republicans, thrice (1964, 1974 - 1978, 2006 - 2008.) Complex adaptive systems tend to do what they d**n well please.

THE CASE FOR VOTING.

Better this way, than with pitchforks, torches, tar, feathers, pikes, tumbrels, and the odd diseased yak lobbed over the city walls.

Let us continue.

RETHINK THE CULT OF THE PRESIDENCY.

Betsy Newmark's morning roundup includes a lot of the early reactions to Dewey Defeats Truman, er, Clinton Defeats Trump.  She's in about the same place I am.

While I was a #NeverTrumper, I am enjoying the downfall of Hillary Clinton. She is a low, despicable woman and got what she deserved. And how typical that she wouldn't come out last night to thank her supporters and give a gracious concession speech. It just isn't in her make-up.

Yes, the Democrats could have found a symbol with the voice and stage presence of a leading lady from the Golden Age of the Talkies, a first class temperament, and an international reputation for probity at the bar, and that would likely have been enough.  But the whole symbolic politics thing is a distraction.  Does it matter if the sanctimonious technocrat with an excessive faith in Governance by Wise Experts and a willingness to be soft on foreign enemies is named Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis or Al Gore or John Kerry or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?  No.  It's the Governing Habit that is in error.  Back to Betsy's Page.

While President Obama will probably blame the loss on Hillary, at some point he and his party need to look at what has happened to them since his Hope and Change victory in 2008. They lost both houses and many legislatures and governorships across the land. And despite all of his and Michelle's frantic campaigning around the country, they couldn't drag Hillary across the finish line even against Donald freakin' Trump! Obama's record of never being able to help elect anyone besides himself continues.

And now all those executive orders that he signed and his bragging about what he could do with his pen and his phone without Congress are at risk of being turned back by a President Trump. Just as the Senate Democrats set future landmines with getting rid of the filibuster so that Republicans will now be able to set about getting their nominees on the courts, he set similar road bombs by how blasted through the checks and balances of our system. I despised what Obama did to the Constitutional order as president. I don't want a President Trump to follow that model. I would prefer for a return to regular order in both Congress and among the branches of government. I have no faith, however, in Donald Trump's understanding or respect for our Constitutional system.

The good news is that in getting to the White House, Mr Trump has given the leaders of his party in Congress reason to check him.  To get the repeal of Hillary Care through the House, he's going to have to work with a Speaker he has referred to as a loser.  Imagine, dear reader, if the appropriation bill for The Great Wall doesn't get out of the Rules Committee because a coalition of the Hispanic Caucus and the Chamber of Commerce Republicans won't vote it out.  In the Senate, he's going to have to make great deals with the just re-elected "Little Marco" Rubio and "Got Captured" John McCain, plus among the senior leadership there's "Lyin' Ted" Cruz and "Crazy Bernie" Sanders.  And politicians, unlike businessmen, are quicker to bruise and slower to heal.

Here's Charles C. W. Cooke of National Review, recognizing that a president's Article II powers are checked by the Article I powers of Congress.

Obama failed. He is a failed president. This is his successor? We knew that Obama couldn’t sell anything but himself, but we didn’t realize how much that was true. Nor did we realize how much the Democrats’ coalition was really a transient Obama coalition; how unpopular Obamacare was; or how bad an idea it was to run a candidate as damaged as Hillary.

I am on the record as being opposed to Donald Trump, and I shall likely stay that way. But I have two hopes. The first is that he proves me wrong. The second: That the disgraceful progressive moment, which has spent years trying to dissolve the Madisonian system of checks and balances, will come finally to its senses. I cannot say I hold out much hope that, culturally, we will go from “opposition is racist” to “opposition is virtuous” in the space of just two months. But perhaps we will. Perhaps now separation of powers will be seen as a good thing. Perhaps now those who advocate it will be cast as something other than revanchists. Perhaps now Chris Hayes will realize — urgently — that “if Congress won’t act, I will” is not remotely acceptable.

Chris Hayes is young. Old bull Lawrence O'Donnell apparently is catching on.  "The Founding Fathers anticipated Donald Trump. They feared tyrants, they were overthrowing the rule of a king, and they designed a separation-of-powers government in which all of the true powers belonged to Congress, those can then be reviewed by the courts..."

As far as "opposition is virtuous," we'll likely see a reprise of "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."  Which it is, and if the Donks had listened to the dissent on the health insurance reforms and the stimulus, they might not be in the place they find themselves today.

IT DIDN'T START WITH DONALD TRUMP.

Count David Brooks among the shell-shocked.

We like to think of democracy as a battle of ideas and a process of individual deliberation, but this year demography has been destiny. The campaigns have pushed us back into our tribal bunkers. Americans now seem more clannish, and more incomprehensible to one another.

Politics is downstream from culture. Celebrate a trashy, splintery culture long enough, all will be trash and splinters.

While you were admiring the crease of Mr Obama's trousers, Mr Brooks, signs of unraveling were there if you'd but open your eyes.

The moral health of the polity is in even scarier shape. Any decent society rests on codes of etiquette and a shared moral ecology to make cooperation possible, to prevent economic and political life from descending into a savage war of all against all.

Codes of etiquette and a shared moral ecology?  Otherwise known as stifling bourgeois norms, or as narratives to be interrogated and deconstructed?  Have fun navigating the wreckage.

It wasn't Mr Trump who put sneer quotes around words like truth and fact.

With his constant, flagrant and unapologetic lying, he has shredded the standards of intellectual virtue — the normal respect for facts and truth that makes conversation possible. With his penchant for cruelty, bigotry, narcissism, selfishness and even his primitive primate dominance displays, he has shredded the accepted understandings of personal morality that prevent the strong from preying on the weak.

If Mr Trump isn't an Old White Guy, might his "primitive primate dominance displays" be hailed as authentic?  Mr Brooks, without the proper moral foundations for a common culture, a third political party for alienated Democrats and Republicans -- there are plenty of both types today -- is just more "whatever, dude."

Last week Thursday, Chris Matthews brought on Andrew Sullivan, who, when he's not obsessing over Trig Palin's parentage, can come up with insightful stuff.  He ... almost alone, among the usual suspects on MSNBC, anticipated a Trump win, and here's his take on the identity politics that midwived it.

SULLIVAN: And the left is partly responsible. The left has promoted identity politics for a generation. They`ve said all that matters is what you are, whether you`re a Latino, whether you`re black. And now, white people are saying, well, we can play that game, too. And that`s what`s fueling Trump –

More precisely, the identity politics left has been making the simple complicated, dragging in the multiple oppressions of race, class, gender, there may be more these days.  Too often, though, it's not to make an intellectual argument, rather it's to enable difference and call it authenticity or transgressivity or something.  But when white folks dealing with the oppressions of class or gender get upset, that's a temper tantrum.  Or deplorable.  (To Mr Matthews's credit, he's been digging for root causes.)

THE PERFECT EPITAPH FOR THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY.

Canada’s Immigration Site Crashes as Liberals Panic.

Fitting, since the first of the many failures of Obama Care (which used to be Hillary Care) involved a website.  Perhaps, somewhere in the exit polling, there are correlations of "received a bill from the state exchange" or "got the details of my employer's latest plan" with "voted Republican."

TWEAKING THE SELF-SELECTION CONSTRAINTS.

In the course of a meditation on the Viewliner dining cars, Travel and Trains's Jim Loomis diverts into the arcana of pricing to encourage self-selection.

Amtrak marketing people may indeed have been right—at least in one context—to take the diner off of the Silver Star and having passengers pay for their food in the café car on that train.

I was toying with the idea of taking the train from Washington to Jacksonville following NARP’s April meeting and compared fares for the Meteor and the Silver Star on the day I would be traveling. If I chose the Meteor, a dinner and a breakfast would be included in my fare . . . but the cost differential was $156.

That was a moment-of-truth for me, at least as far as this specific issue is concerned. I would be in a Viewliner sleeping car on either train. And so it all boiled down to this: Was I willing to pay $156 in additional fare for one dinner and one breakfast in an Amtrak dining car?

I thoroughly enjoy the dining car experience and I look forward to every meal when I’m traveling on one of Amtrak’s long-distance trains. So much so that, yes, I would be willing to pay more for that experience. But $156 more? I’m afraid not.

It’s a unique situation with the Silver Service, of course, because there are two overnight trains running on almost the same route. But give the marketing guys their due: the no-diner option does seem to be working.

To succeed, a second-degree price discrimination must make the bundle of service offered attractive to the segment of the market the management intends to serve, and unattractive to other segments.  (Here's a long-winded elaboration.) With two bundles, it's relatively simple: price the more attractive bundle high enough that some consumers will forgo it, and make the less attractive bundle sufficiently unattractive that other consumers will pay the higher price to use the more attractive bundle.  That's a problem older than railroading: stagecoach passengers paid more to ride inside than outside, and the way the early passenger railroads extracted premium fares was to offer seating in gondola cars at a low price and seating in enclosed cars with windows at a higher price.  The people making do on /6d a day would not pay the high fare, and the carriage trade (see where that term came from, kiddies) would not ride outdoors simply because all the seats got to the station at the same time.   That's how incentive compatibility works.  It may be the famous Walter Bagehot himself reflecting on the pricing and the quality of service, and the necessity of an Act of Parliament stipulating conditions of carriage in Third Class.  (Jules Dupuit also got in on the action, are there any historians of economic thought lurking?)

But tweaking the bundles and the fares is complicated: so much in the UK that eventually Second Class disappeared, and Third became Standard.

But Amtrak now run sleeping cars and Business Class on the tri-weekly Cardinal, a reversion to the old forms?  Larger airplanes may have a Deluxe section, a Business section, and a Steerage section.    One of the British train operating companies proposed to offer three classes of service, and look at this bit of angry consumer advocacy.

If we have first class for the better off in society, anything below that should surely be second class, reserved for society’s riff-raff, unless there’s no room for first class passengers. Theoretically, this could cause a problem because if second class passengers had to move, where would they go? To my mind, it’s simple: re-introduce third class travel.

This might actually encourage more ordinary working class people to use trains. The new coaches could be “low cost”. No need to bother with seats, or even a roof. There must be hundreds of old coal trucks which are no longer in use. Why don’t First give them a quick power wash and attach them to the back of their geriatric fleet of HSTs?

Each time I travel by train, after taking out the necessary overdraft, I am reminded of the class divide that still exists. Not long ago, I travelled on the London to Paddington line and had to stand for much of the way. This was not exactly what I had hoped for given the amount of money I was handing over to First’s gleeful shareholders, but needs must. Having squeezed my way from one end of the train to the other, I found two first class coaches, populated between them by around six people. The number soon became around five people as the guard made his ticket check and found someone who had tired of standing all the way and rested his weary body on one of the many empty seats. The guard was not amused, first demanding that the man move immediately and then threatening to throw him off the train and even be arrested.

Amidst the griping, there's one missed opportunity ... the guard (conductor) didn't use the occasion of the empty space in First to sell upgrades.  Pullman conductors and porters made an art of that, keeping track of who was off where, who was going to the dining car, and could get upwards of forty people into a 28 seat parlor car, with The Pullman Company pleased with the revenue, and the satisfied passengers bestowing generous tips on the railroad men.

CHANGE YOUR FOCUS, CHRIS.

Last week, I alluded to a Chris Matthews coda to Hardball that took seriously the discontent driving the Donald Trump insurgency.  Go to Cleveland, conclude some terms with a couple of train firms, stoke up on Hungarian Hot Dogs, come home, and check the archives.  Paydirt.

Six days to go to the election, I find it important how close this election is drawing. Not close enough for Donald Trump to win, I remain convinced, but enough for the ruling class to pay attention. By that I mean the people who think they have it all together and think the regular people out there should leave them to run the show, letting them continue to alternate Democrats and Republicans, one party replacing the other in the revolving door of routine establishment politics.

You have a platform, Mr Matthews. Why not, once the votes are counted and the electors' reports certified, be a prototype of paying attention?  For instance, identify some interesting local developments and some up-and-coming young reporters and give the issues and the reporters a platform.  James Fallows has been out on the road, and the good news is that not all the news is bad.  Maybe there's something involving school choice in Rockford or Section Eight housing in Dubuque or economic development on the reservations that doesn't rely on casinos and the attendant hotels and eateries or mass transit in Phoenix and Salt Lake City ... any of which, Mr Matthews, is likely something you might not know, and that more than a few of your viewers don't know.  That would be a refreshing change of pace from the usual suspects beginning their handicapping of the 2020 race.

If this election is close, if Donald Trump carries big states like Ohio and Florida, if he comes within a couple of states of winning the presidency, if someone carrying his trainload of baggage is able to seriously challenge someone with Hillary Clinton`s resume, it`s an election for the record books. The people of this country will have spoken very loudly, so loudly even a deeply flawed candidate like Trump gets hoisted up all the way to 40 percent, that means he could have won this thing without all that baggage he`s accumulated year by year.

If he could manage in one year of campaigning to get close to winning after all those years of behaving like he did, it tells you something about the power of his message. I believe he was on to something in this race. I believe that half the people in this country maybe more have had it with establishment elite politics. They`re tired the of the same best and brightest who took us into Vietnam, went for broke there and then come back to take us into Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Syria and God knows what next desert war.

They`re tired of watching whole wastelands of this country where manufacturing once was king or the government to establish an honest immigration policy all Americans would be proud to see work. They`re tired of the elite making decisions or failing to make them and dump everything on the working people. The ill-conceived wars, the global economics that destroys so many local economies, an immigration flow that affects where working people live, leaves the elite to live where it has the least possible impact.

The first paragraph invokes Mrs Clinton's resume. The second paragraph lists the action items on her resume. The third paragraph gets to the heart of Mr Trump's appeal.  If you agree with the wall and a different approach to waging war and a more protectionist trade policy, the locker room talk is irrelevant.

And Chris, there is so much more to add to that recitation of government failures.  Urban renewal.  Conrail.  The so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Its undoing is in progress.  You've been in the political punditry business for a long time.  Set an example.  Pay attention to that discontent.  Call out the elites.  Stop sitting around under pictures of Washington landmarks participating in the Cult of the Presidency.  I repeat: focus on something else for the next three years.

If Trump comes close, if he gets a popular vote in the mid-40 percent, the ruling class ought to note the percent he got, not the percent he came short because that 40 percent could soon be looking angrier and for a leader, even stronger.

Perhaps, Chris, more diverse as well.  The Chicago Cubs just celebrated a World Series win.  The despair, and the carnage, elsewhere in Chicago continues.  The elite live east of Wrigleyville or along the lake or near the Magnificent Mile or the Loop, including, for whatever it's worth, in Chicago's Trump Tower.  Go south from Wrigleyville to Printers Row in the South Loop, and east to the lake, you have what, fifteen square miles of privilege surrounded by the Third World.  How long can the Democratic part of that bicoastal, bipartisan elite sustain that coalition?

We still transfer power with ballots and ceremonies.  The militias await.  Or the pitchforks, torches, tar, feathers, pikes, tumbrels, and the odd diseased yak lobbed over the city walls.

ABOLISH CHIVALRY, ABOLISH GENTLEMEN.

How bizarre is the idea that chivalry is the othering of women?  So bizarre that when metrofexual soccer players at Harvard start down the path to emulating the entitled gladiators of the SEC, the best Margaret "University Diaries" Soltan can do is toss off some puns and move on.  But there's substance among the puns.  "[T]he eyes of the nation must as one swivel to Cambridge, and everyone must feign astonishment that a country whose incoming president compulsively grabs pussy also contains high-SAT men who consider women animated vaggies."  Astonishment?  Not here.  Create a culture with no norms, don't be surprised when you get rating schemes, perhaps as a prelude to compulsive grabbing.

Friday afternoon, Rush Limbaugh devoted a segment to the Harvard "on a scale of one to ten" story.  His focus is on the more recent developments in education, wherein the "toxic masculinity" has to be cast out of the boys.  Thus in Mr Limbaugh's take, the lads' rating scheme is simply an upraised middle finger to the Powers that Be.

Boys have been raised to believe that in their natural state, they're unacceptable. They are predators; they are potential rapists; they are rough, insensitive, selfish, all of these things, as defined by women.  So the chickfication of the education system -- and there's no other word for it. All it means is that women now dominate positions of power in education, and they have done their best to redefine masculinity.

Those women, whether they hold such positions or not, are dealing with the consequences of an earlier effort to redefine masculinity.  Yeah, I'm still fighting the culture wars of the early 1970s, when bourgeois was a dirty word, but that, ultimately, is the ground to be taken.

National Review's David French gets it.

I’m one of those crazy, dangerous, religious nutjobs who believes that sexual activity should be reserved for a lifelong covenant marriage between husband and wife. Moreover, my clearly insane and oppressive beliefs are grounded within a cohesive worldview that asks its adherents to flee from temptation, treat each and every person as a child of God created in His image, and refrain from actions such as drunkenness that impair moral judgment.

Harvard and its morally bankrupt secular peers encourage the polar-opposite worldview. From the moment their young, hormonal students set foot on campus, they’re encouraged to obsess about sex. Free condoms are available by the armload. From Thursday to Sunday, thousands of students drink themselves into literal stupors. And all the while they seek hookups and one-night-stands by, yes, rating appearance on apps such as Tinder, Bumble, and Grindr. Students are encouraged to question and defy virtually every element of traditional, religious moral teaching. Indeed, they’re taught that such teachings are oppressive and malicious.

In other words, these colleges intentionally replace Judeo-Christian morality with a bizarre form of quasi-puritanical libertinism that defies everything we know about human nature. The libertinism is obvious. You see it all around you on campus. The puritanism comes later, dropping like a hammer on those people who transgress the shifting, arbitrary moral codes that purport to place boundaries around the bacchanal. These schools beg students to play with fire, then come flying in with fire extinguishers only after someone gets thoroughly burned.

Borrowing again from an old New York Times editorial, "We want and deserve trashy relationships in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."  Also at National Review, Mene Ukueberuwa concurs in part with Mr Limbaugh while suggesting that deconstructing chivalry is a bad idea.  Main message: "The problems emerging from today’s stripped-down sense of masculinity are grave."  The outlines of the old evolutionary stable strategy are still there.

An alternative approach to this one has managed to endure — at least through its continuing practice in millions of American households (if not in the words of gender-studies professors and magazine think pieces). In this approach, it is presumed that most attitudes that we associate with maleness emerge from the essence of the men who possess them, and as such, should be nurtured and trimmed to grow into habits that are deeply decent . . . and yet still distinctly male.

Dissident feminist Christina Hoff-Sommers extends.  Because it's a Vox interview, the presidency intrudes, but focus, dear reader, on the structure.

I don’t think he conforms to conventional masculinity. Trump is a reminder of what masculinity can be like outside of conventions. He exhibits what might be called amoral masculinity.

He lacks a moral compass. He ridicules, bullies, and threatens anyone who crosses him. He insults war heroes and disparages entire ethnic groups. He preys on women. All of this without any apparent remorse.

This is very different from the honorable style of manliness shown by say, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, or Barack Obama. These were and are highly assertive men, and aggressive when circumstances warranted, but who were also decorous and honorable; in a word, gentlemen. History teaches us that masculinity constrained by morality is powerful and constructive, and that masculinity without ethics is dangerous.

Put another way, Messrs. Roosevelt, Reagan, and Obama understood what being a gentleman entailed.  It's precisely the absence of convention that lets the lechers redefine what a male leader looks like.

CHECK OUT THOSE PRESIDENTIAL BUNS.

Behave yourselves.  It's become a tradition for aspirants to the Oval Office to sign a weenie bun at Tony Packo's Cafe in Toledo.

Doesn't hurt the bun-signing tradition that Ohio has been a contested state for some time.

I stopped there to satisfy the inner man en route from a successful train-buying excursion to Cleveland.  (Yeah, went from near the biggest urban celebration in recorded history to a city where the biggest event of the weekend was a hip-hop concert and an afterset from Shrieking Hillary Clinton.)