On both sides of the presidential primary the term “establishment”, while ill-defined is something everyone seems to agree is a negative. Almost every candidate seems to want to yell “Not It!” at the very mention of the word. Even Clinton is testing the line that Sanders is more establishment because he has been in DC longer than she has. While that’s technically true I doubt it will work and it misses the point. On the GOP side at least for a while there was almost an inverse relationship between DC experience and rankings in the polls. The “Establishment” is supposedly responsible for all of Washington’s problems, including especially the seeming inability to get anything done. Both primaries have seen candidates deemed anti-establishment do very well in polls.
However, the more I think about it the more I realize the opposite is true. It is not the establishment, but rather the storm-the-barricades anti-establishment, especially on the GOP side, that has caused our current governing crisis. THEY are the ones who refuse to do anything that might look like a compromise. THEY are the ones who publicly and spectacularly seem to repeatedly fail “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” – Civics Edition. The Dem anti-establishment isn’t nearly as embarrassing, but I am reminded that our current President was arguably the anti-establishment candidate compared to HRC and frankly his lack of experience of the ways of Washington has showed from time to time. The knock on him from some quarters is that he doesn’t schmooze enough with members and leaders of Congress.
IMO, the presidency is the bulwark of the establishment, and should be held by someone who has been part of the establishment. There are places in Congress for anti-establishment voices and they are needed to keep everyone honest. On paper the GOP presidential field is a strong one with several current and former senators and governors, people who would likely have a good grasp on what is required of the presidency. Strong disagreements we would have with them not withstanding, many of those who have already dropped out or are in single-digits are objectively more qualified to be President than Trump, Carson, or Fiorina.
I would not go as far as the Ancient Romans and require a specific “cursus honorum” to qualify for each successive office in the hierarchy, but it does seem that senators, governors, and cabinet secretaries have the most appropriate resumes for the top job. I highly value preparedness which is why I support Clinton, part of the establishment without question, as she is the “total package”. Sanders is certainly more qualified than some of the leading Republicans, but someone with his narrower focus is better suited to the Senate IMO. For me, when it comes to the presidency, being a member of the “Establishment” is a net positive. They are more likely to know what needs to be done AND be able to do it.
after dissing Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign of being part of the ‘political establishment’ by endorsing Hillary. Two endorsements he really wanted to shore up his bona fides with women and the LGBTQ community.
‘Establishment’ has become this cycle’s new attack pejorative.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
It feels transitional. I heard someone on the radio last night comparing the Republican race now to our campaign in 2008, but I don’t think that’s right, we were having more fun then than they are now.
I’m wary of the term establishment. I think I’d go with governance, but your point is taken.
Come on. Do you really think the GOP crazies would vote his way if he would just have a drink with them sometime? Sure, they like to say that to make themselves sound reasonable. But no reasonable person believes that. You should be ashamed of yourself for promoting the Republican lies.
…and while it does comes across a bit whiny it also matches what seems to be his MO from my observations.
Part of Hilary’s baggage is her support of ASFA [ the hideously misnamed act that claims to keep families safe but dismembers them and largely eliminated supports for struggling families]. She says one thing, and has taken actions the opposite of her words so many times I cannot support her. At least Sanders lives as he talks – which I view as a grand qualification and likely to lead to strong judicial picks who just might have a clue on the impact of their judicial actions and not be wholly owned corporate subsidiaries. The HRC baggage disgusts me.
…does not have any correlation with establishment. I don’t agree with the GOP establishment candidates on much, but they are still better qualified to hold the office than their non-establishment counterparts.
if they are silo-ed in their observations and ideology. This type of “experience” produces errors in thinking, and not very conducive for being a leader of many different thinking people.
…is exactly how I’d describe many of the anti-establishment especially on the GOP side which is precisely why I am skeptical of their being able to get anything done.
and most of that is how people feel about the economy and other issues.
If they are not unhappy (which is different from happy), then establishment beats outsider.
So going back a few years….
1976 Country is a mess. Outsider Carter wins primary and election.
1980 Country is really a mess. Outsider Reagan wins primary and election.
1984. Country is pretty good. Insider Mondale wins primary and can’t beat Reagan.
1988 Country is still pretty good. Insider (?) Dukakis can’t beat insider Bush.
1992. Country feels like recession. Outsider Clinton beats insider Bush.
1996 Country is good. Insider Dole can’t beat Clinton.
2000 Country is still good. Insider Gore and Insider/Outsider Bush tie.
2004 Country is sorta good. Insider Kerry can’t beat Bush.
2008 Country is horrible. Outsider Obama beats Insider Clinton for the nomination, then beats insider McCain.
2012 Country is sorta okay and Insider Romney wins nomination and can’t beat Obama.
2016 Country is not okay. This would suggest than an outsider is going to win.
Just broad brush strokes here but the past suggests we are in a change year.
But curious: what would you define as “not okay” right now? I mean, I could come up with a million things, but what do you base your sense of right direction/wrong direction on?
For example if you’ve got a steady job and a house, you’ve probably got an okay view of things. But here’s a few:
Jobs are scarce. Good jobs scarcer. You or your kid might not have a good job (have you read the stuff about underemployed lawyers? They’re doomed).
Housing is expensive almost everywhere. Some places very expensive.
Student debt is off the hook.
We seem to be facing external threats. I say seem because the average person’s chance of being affected by terrorists is small, but you never know. I would include in external threats climate change.
The government unsettles people, and that could be anything (including reading your town financial report!). You could be concerned about police violence.
So that’s a short list.
Most of my friends, peers, and same aged colleagues are upset about the status quo particularly on the economic front. My parents and grandparents had already been able to get houses and have families at a comparative age point in their lives but my only friends who actually own their homes right now either had well off parents to help or lucked into lucrative jobs (it’s good to be in finance or firefighting!).
We get a sense that our wages aren’t keeping up with purchasing power, even friends who have much higher paying jobs than I do are concerned about being able to afford to buy in Cambridge and can barely keep up with renting there. Added to that is anger about policing and anxiety about the future more broadly with the rise of so many forms of extremism, and yes many friends are concerned about climate change even the Republican ones. So I definitely see our vote breaking Bernie’s way-assuming we show up in the primaries which is sadly a larger ‘?’
I bought my first house, a new condo for $95K in 1985. I was 26. I had two new cars, one cost $6K and the other cost $7K. We made about $50K a year together. We had no student loan debt. We were regular folks without parental support. Most young people we knew were about in the same boat.
Using a rough metric, gross pay was about 50% our house, and 4X our cars. This metric still works in my life today, but I’m much older.
So today a couple of 26 year olds would need about $150K together to afford a $300K condo and a couple $30K cars, and that’s a raw salary for someone that age. Add in student loan debt and it becomes a real killer.
I used an on-line mortgage calculator.
I entered the following:
mortgage amount: $240,000
Term in years: 30
Interest rate: 4%
Annual property taxes: 3,759
Annual home insurance: 456
The last two are based on the Somerville rates per thousand. Note that the “Annual property taxes” figure excludes the residential tax exemption that this hypothetical couple would presumably qualify for.
That calculator suggests a monthly PITI of $1,497.05. Let’s call that $1500.
You said “gross pay was about 50% our house”. That sounds like a gross of pay of $3,000/month. That’s an annual income, together, of $36,000. The “first ratio” I currently hear from bankers is 33%. For a PITI of $1,500, that corresponds to a monthly gross of $4,500 — or an annual combined income of $54,000.
Where does your $150K requirement come from? Your number is three times higher than what I get.
I agree with you that life is much harder for 26 year olds today than it was when we were that age. Still, let’s not overstate how hard it is.
My sentence wasn’t clear
Purchase price for a house is roughly 2 times annual gross salary for a couple.
A new car costs at least 25% of your annual gross salary.
The challenge is that these costs have risen faster than wages (and have many others) and student debt is added.
Some costs have gone down. I paid $750 for a 27″ TV in 1990. Food is down as a percentage of income. You could buy a used car I suppose. Housing is the big challenge though. You can go further out but you have to go really far to make a difference.
I appreciate the explanation, that explains the number you used.
I first entered the housing market in 1979, and the accepted maximum for the first ratio (monthly PITI/monthly gross) was 25% then. The standard mortgage was, I think, 25 years then as well (perhaps 20?). Since then, banks have eased the first ratio to 33%, and mortgages are now typically for 30 years.
It would be interesting to compare the 2x annual gross w/ the first-ratio approach. Must be possible, I just haven’t done it.
During that time, there was also a rule of thumb that purchase price for a property was 6x annual rent. Good luck with that these days — for a standard “2/2” two-family in Somerville, with each unit at $2K/month, that’s a purchase price of $288K.
I agree that we have a profound structural issue to solve.
How much do you have to pay a young person to afford the rents in major urban areas? Even hot tech companies need accountants, jr marketing, and customer service. Not everyone is technical.
I know at least two affluent families that are subsidizing their children’s NYC rents as they work their “good” (meaning these jobs are interesting, utilize their education, have a future, etc etc) but not lucrative entry level jobs.
I worked in a tech company in 2000 and we got into an open source technology business and they needed to recruit from outside MA. It was hard to get people because the MA rents at the time were $1200/mo average and some of these people were coming from $400/mo. Numbers are different now, and as I understand it many young people are draw tot he cities, but there’s got to be a limit.
I bought my house in 1981 for $40,000. But the interest rate was (I think) 16%. Now, it is more like 4%, so it’s an apples/oranges comparison for payments.
and rates were high 80-82 and then dropped.
I paid I think 10% by ’85 and it was roughly that for many years. One way to save money in the 80’s and 90’s was to go adjustable.
By any measure the cost of housing as a function of income is way up over the last 30 years.
What is the value of your house today?
housing prices will steady or drop a bit. After all, housing prices are driven by the prospective purchasers’ ability to pay. 28% of gross monthly income for the mortgage payment, including principle, interest, PMI, property taxes, and insurance. If interest goes up, amount available for principle goes down, and with it the market price of the homes.
As porc experienced, the payment for the new owner is the same — the difference is in how much goes to the former owner and how much the bank keeps.
Housing prices have been steadily going up for years in most urban areas, and at a rate faster than inflation and without regard to interest rates. Prices barely came down 2008-2010.
Listen I don’t actually care that much. If you think housing prices are in line with what you expect and people can afford, I’m not interested in changing your mind.
By the time I was jconway’s age (28 right?) I had LONG since moved out of my parents house. I was struggling. I started my first shop at age 25. I had to work a second job at nights, I worked over 70 hours a week just to make ends meet. Only 5 sick days a year from my part time job, and ZERO sick days a year as a small business owner. For me failure was never an option.
Today, I am rich! I bought my wife a very expensive Mercedes Benz for Christmas. She now wants me to take the bow off it because it’s been a month and the bow is getting really dirty, but I just want the whole neighborhood to know just how much I love my wife.
Anyway, I don’t want to go off track but basically what I’m trying to say is living at home at age 28 must suck! Oh god, I’d probably feel like a complete dick. The last thing I’d be doing with my time is blogging that’s for sure. I’d probably be working 70 hours a week again even if it meant 70 hours working at McDonalds and Burger King. At least I’d be paying my own rent. The difference between supporting yourself at age 28 and having your parents support you at that age is like night and day. It really is a truly rewarding experience.
masquerading as shameful sick sarcasm. Your personal attack language is vile and contemptible.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
N/T
Her friends all drive Porsches, and he must make amends
It was certainly not by choice. I have never been fully employed, but not for lack of trying or credentials.
And this is NOT snark, or meant to be mean.
Credentials are not the same as marketable skills. MANY young people have been snookered by the Academic/Industrial Complex, and there are just so many legal/professional jobs out there.
I truly believe you try, and that you followed the path that your elders laid out for you, promising white collar rewards that may never materialize.
…though I’d like to think I have SOME marketable skills and try to play those up in my chosen fields.
if only part time. I had a nephew who graduated Umass, couldn’t find anything and went to work for an electrician “pulling wire” (it’s the crappy jobs, cleaning up, crawling in attics). He now has his master’s license. UPS part time pays well, but you work your butt off.
I assume you UBER, that seems to be the new extra income job.
Weekend waitstaff etc. Just go with the attitude that no job is beneath you and you will be fine.
Not sure what your dream job is but the “networking” that develops from doing other jobs and interacting with people may surprise you.
But I am glad my ‘dream job’ at least in terms of location and vocation, if not in pay yet, came after 6 years of working in different kinds of firms and meeting new kinds of people. It definitely helped me shed any snottiness I might’ve had coming out of an “elite school” (don’t worry Porcupine, they are only getting the money they are owed and not a penny more) and learn a lot from the experience given. I particularly liked the brief part time teaching job, even if the guy running it was an asshole. And my fiancée loves her community college colleagues far more than the cutthroat premed environment at Chicago.
I substitute teach, which is at least also a bit relevant since I’m licensed to teach history and that is one of the areas I have pursued. I like to refer to it as “gainfully unemployed”.
…that in 2016 the country is in fact more OK than we’ve been in quite a while.
nt
Two. The number of consecutive presidential elections won by a Democrat.
I believe we have pretty low unemployment and are in one of our longest sustained periods of consecutive monthly net job creation. I’m not aware that inflation is very high either.
Participation rates are low, reducing the demnominator.
Part time and underemployment increase the numerator.
The fact that wages, benefits, and relative job security are not measured.
I will use the words of Thomas Paine to define what Senator Sanders deems as establishment. In the opening words of “Common Sense”:
“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than”reason.”
Bernie Sanders is not talking about knowledge or skill(of which he has plenty by the way). The list of “suit-iness” listed above is narrowed down to a few categories, when the ability to connect with a wider audience, and get things done is what is missing from “establishment politics” and “establishment economics”.
Bernie has strongly sensed for a long time that the way we practice these aspects of society is in need of major repair. And there is immediacy to change because too many are suffering here and abroad for too long.
We must have our eyes open to see citizens’s votes are being manipulated by money, and by the people who are beholden to that power.
Our very health, is enslaved to insurance companies who make obscene profits from people who are ill by using every trick at their deposal not to cover them, even getting around the ACA. We now know middle aged white men are dying at a higher rate than before. Medical bankruptcy still exists in too large numbers, and 29 million uninsured die at a significantly greater rate than their properly insured counterparts.
There is a major economic difference in a wage of $30,000 a year versus $24000 a year. The latter leaves you poverty stricken, and the former provides adequate survival income.
Legislation in the past put too many people in jail, and provided little available help to overcome mental health or addiction diseases.
Bernie’s agenda for change involves all without breaking people into large groups, snuffing out any consideration of individuality. It is only a matter of degree. His proposals are societal in nature and more basic to what is the root of our ghettoization, of one another. His plans are to unify this country, not split it apart. He calls no one his “enemy”.
I think you get what I’m driving at. Bernie is not talking about just experience, but the entrenched way we accept present politics and economics.
His political and economic “revolution” is to expand rights to as many as possible to achieve our most precious freedom, freedom from harm.
Sticking to tradition with slow incremental change is the dictionary definition of CONSERVATISM. Most “realities” are human made, and therefore can be changed with strong social movements.
Hillary Clinton is practicing establishment politics and establishment economics. She fits the above definition.
…of how THEY define establishment, but a more objective universally-accepted term is more allusive. Some say it’s those who have been there a long time, a definition Sanders himself fits. You’re right about the last line, but that’s precisely WHY I think she is better suited for this particular office.
I am not talking about people who have been in politics a long time. By that definition Bernie is an establishment politician. His focus is on how politics is run with money and low voter turnout. You have reframed what I have said. If you think she is more suited to the office, then your view is she is a conservative. The Presidency is not defined by a person’s politics, but what the people of any given time want from their government. Looking at polls of the direction of the country, approval of Congress and the Presidency, it looks like people are looking for substantial change. Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are just as suited for the presidency, but the people will decide what pace of change they prefer in upcoming votes.
“in politics for a long time” other than HRC and her campaign
There is no sin in being conservative or liberal. However todays GOP is reactionary and divisive, not conservative. Theirs is not a movement to the right, but a belief that we should be split into silos, and groups should be treated differently, not as individuals.
True Conservatives are not present in today’s Republican Party. The political center has moved to the right in the face of their extremist views.
Hillary Clinton’s politics is on the side of incremental change and therefore she more accurately embraces Conservatism. Senator Sanders sees more urgency for change, and embraces the definition of liberalism.
that the GOP might be “right wing” but that no longer correlates with conservatism in any meaningful way. Also, I am not at all convinced that the GOP right wing insurgent outsiders are at all angry at the establishment for “not getting things done.” Cruz and his supporters vilify the establishment because the establishment wants to these things. The right wing activists do not want to do anything at all if doing something means horse-trading in a traditional political sense, with the opposition. Hence the willingness to embrace debt default and government shutdowns.
HRC’s attempt to cast BS as establishment reminds me of the “No, you’re an elitist, because you’re wealthy” in that it might be technically true but misses the point in a way that indicates that the candidate and the campaign do not even know they are missing the point, and is therefore a bit of a negative indicator. (A little bit like a campaign adopting “people vs. the powerful, Bob Shrum messaging).
She’s a realist; she’s centrist; she’s competent; she’s decidedly anti-guns; and she knows how to be effective in working with Congress and getting things done.
On the other hand, she comes with a lot of baggage.
She’s flip-flopped when convenient (the Keystone pipeline, TPP). Some of her collaborators are good, competent policy makers – but she’s also surrounded herself with yesmen and shady characters. She failed to live by the feminist standards she expects of others when she bashed women who had been abused by her husband. She was paid millions in speaking fees after leaving office; her foundations have gotten questionable donations, raising serious concerns about conflicts of interest. She broke secrecy laws for her own political gain – and may end up being indicted in the middle of the election campaign.
I think some people are deliberately trying to be confused. The issue isn’t the establishment in terms of length of service in Washington. It is complicity in the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few throughout the Western world. People trying to make attacks about how long X or Y has been a senator or governor are missing the boat. Bernie has been in DC for a while, but hasn’t voted the same way Hillary has.
Is that what you’re defending, Christopher? The export of our criminal justice system to private prison corporations, the export of health care system to insurers, and our economic management to Wall Street, and the new push to privatize our education system into charters? That’s my issue, whether you call it the “establishment” or not. And Hillary is certainly complicit in it.
…and some evidence that someone knows how to get things done in Washington. Maybe I should have focused on just one party or written separate posts. People got defensive about Sanders awfully quickly on this thread whereas by far MY bigger complaint is about the GOP version of anti-establishment.
on a resume sheet can be misleading. Whether it fits the times and objectives you are considering, is the key issue.
…and for my decision on the presidency, resume is a key consideration. I supported HRC in 2008, Kerry in 2004, and Gore in 2000, all I felt best prepared of our choices. If I were a Republican there is a good chance I would support Kasich this year for much the same reason.
I don’t know if I’m defensive about Bernie. I’m not sure I’m voting for him, as I’ve repeatedly said. However, I think knowing WHAT to do is just as important as knowing HOW to do it. I will never deny Hillary’s experience, though I’m not sure it really towers above Bernie’s.
I will say this: just as people in Spain, France, etc., are disgusting with their elites’ decisions, so are Americans. And since our electoral system has become a cartel of two parties, voters have different options on how to break those elites’ hold. I think that is motivating a lot of the behavior — but just as it is wrong to confuse a Communist and FN voter in France, it’s dangerous to conflate the two sides in the U.S.
… it is largely white and it is largely male. If you want a definition of the establishment it is the long held habits of mind, customs and traditions of prior generations left over and left unquestioned, indeed often usurped by, the present generation. And those habits of mind, customs and tradtions have a distinct beige hue remaining to them.
When Barney Frank ‘came out’ to Tip O’Neill…. O’Neill’s response was sadness, “I always thought you would be the first Jewish Speaker of the House,” he said to Frank, with an underlined, unspoken, notion that “That’ll never happen now…” Since that exchange, in the early 1990’s we still haven’t had either a Jewish or gay, Speaker of the House. That’s a strong establishment… to come as far as we’ve come, and still not having the visible expression of that distance in the actual lawmakers.
In a sense this is true. Barack Obama went from working in a law firm that specialized in civil rights ( probably the most ‘anti-establishment’ work there is, civil rights lawyers routinely take on both governments and long established laws and customs directly) to the Presidency in about 20 years. This is a remarkably short time and certainly means his actual involvement in the ‘establishment’ was merely tangential.
And I think it is the ‘establishment’, and not just the GOP, that stood in his way precisely because of what Christopher says above: “They are more likely to know what needs to be done AND to be able to do it.” The idea of “know[ing] what needs to be done” isn’t guaranteed to align with the progressives’ beaux ideals any more than the popular vote is guaranteed to align with the electoral college. Sometimes, from the point of view of the establishment, what “needs to be done” is to protect the establishment. Tip O’Neill knew it, and lamented it, long ago.
From Obama’s efforts to close Guantanamo (blocked by members of his own party) to his successful health-care push, which owed more to Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus, than to anybody we would think of as ‘establishment’ there is no domestic instance I can think of where the establishment didn’t oppose him directly and only did they come to his aid in the waging of wars and military endeavors.
Even for all her long involvement with the establishment, HRC, can credibly assert non-establishment credentials by virtue of her uterus. This is not in praise of her uterus but in starkest contrast to the still overwhelming amount of testosterone in the establishment. And even all over her scheming, conniving, maneuvering and triangulation (just as her husband did) can credibly be seen as attempts by a natural progressive to outfox the establishment. (this does NOT endear me to her… so don’t go reading that as an endorsement)