The American economy has been growing at less than 2% per year. Productivity, which leads to higher wages, has grown at less than one percent, accounting for the very slim raises the last year or so.

Of the growth that has occurred, most of it has gone to the top 10% of taxpaying families, who now take one-half of all income reported in this country. Bernie Sanders has no practical response. Donald Trump ignores the issue.

So what could reasonably be done? Since some of the inequality comes from the rising premium for technical skills, we need to provide more vocational education for underemployed Americans of all ages. Since much inequality comes from single parent households, we need to strengthen marriage by targeting income support for two-parent households. Since excessive incarceration for non-violent felonies has weakened minority communities, we can strengthen them by offering the unemployed jobs repairing public facilities. Community corrections should replace prison terms. Since discrimination against women contributes to poverty too, stronger unions should demand equal pay for equal work. That work should earn a new minimum wage of $10-12 an hour. Studies show that this modest increase in the current minimum wage would not raise prices or unemployment unreasonably relative to the benefits for those who need it.

A program like that would attract my vote.

President Obama reminded the nation that the United States is not at war with Islam, but only with violent fundamentalism. Such fundamentalism is not only Islamist — witness the recent shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.

Hawks want to declare World War IV against what they call “Islamic radicalism” and use ground U.S. troops to destroy the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. But I.S.I.S. arose in response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and even if we eradicated I.S.I.S., we should expect it to metastasize. Meanwhile, the drain on the nation’s lives and budget would be immense.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Western triumphalists claimed that there henceforth would be no alternative to global capitalism with a veneer of liberal democracy. But our destruction of a secular — if highly imperfect — alternative (namely, Communism and even socialism) left few outlets other than religious extremism. As global climate change and economic globalization put great strains on people, we can expect more violent challenges, unless we make space for truly democratic alternatives to the current economic and military world order.

These calculations often involve such parsing of words and careful phrasing, that politicians seem to have developed an art of saying nothing while appearing to be saying something. Most politicians practice this art and that’s why people say “they’re all the same.”

Then along comes someone like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, both of whom APPEAR NOT to be playing the Game. I say the APPEAR NOT to play the Game—time will tell if they are.

Yet the two men are different. Trump doesn’t appear to be ABLE to play the Game of calculated response because he is so impulsive that he has to say out loud whatever comes to his head. Yet his lack of calculation has been part of his appeal. Some voters support him in spite of the outrageous quality of his remarks, his inconsistencies and his lack of specifics.

Bernie Sanders appears to be driven by issues he thinks are important—income inequality and poverty. One gets the sense that he says what he thinks, but that it is not about him or his electoral success.
Hillary Clinton has sincere, long held and articulated policy views. Nonetheless, many get the feeling that what she says and HOW SHE SAYS IT betray too much reliance on calculation.

Does a politician have to play the “Campaign Game” in order to win? Apparently, most politicians think so. I hope they are wrong!

He was referring to Danish policies such as universal health care, free college education and subsidized day care that give more aid to workers than their American counterparts receive. Danes in their prime working-years are more likely to be employed than similar Americans, and they take more vacation too. Although taxes are higher, studies claim Danes are happier than people in most other countries.

Conceding that she too likes Denmark, Hillary Clinton responded that the United States had a capitalist economic system which needed to be controlled, not replaced. She might have added that the United States is a much larger and more diverse country, increasing the cost and complexity of providing public services like the Danish ones. The United States also has responsibilities Denmark does not, most notably in defense, where American spending far exceeds Danish outlays.
What neither seems to have noticed, however, is that for some time, the voters in Denmark and its neighboring countries have been questioning the generosity of their social and economic policies. Indeed, this summer, the Danes elected a more conservative government amid anti-immigrant, anti-European Union sentiments that have been growing rapidly.

So perhaps the real question Americans should ask about Denmark is why the achievements many outsiders admire are increasingly questioned at home.

Sources:

Transcript of Democratic debate
Danish social and economic policies
Danish happiness
Defense spending
New Danish government

No matter their home, immigrants have not usually come from the most successful and cultured parts of their societies. Instead, they were, in the words of Emma Lazarus on the base of the Statue of Liberty, “wretched refuse.” While they may have been “yearning to breathe free,” they were often troublesome and dangerous when they set foot on American soil.

The van used to transport prisoners became known as a “paddy wagon” due to the nationality of many of its 19th-century riders. Long-settled German Jews looked with dismay at their later-arriving “cousins” from Eastern Europe. A classic survey of New York immigrants in 1890 described the Chinese as the most vicious and criminal. Today, they are regarded as a model minority.

What happened? A host of institutions, some public, like the schools, and many private, like settlement houses, clubs, and civic groups, helped immigrants assimilate. The process did not happen quickly or fully; ethnic differences still add to our culture. But no longer are past immigrant groups the threat they once were.

Scholars disagree about how well this process works today and whether Mexican immigrants present special problems, chiefly due to low skill-levels, a barrier in an increasingly high-skilled economy. But important as controlling our borders might be, Donald Trump and others should be talking more about what we need to do to help people coming to our country learn how to be Americans.

Sources:

Donald Trump presidential announcement

Emma Lazarus poem

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, 1890.

Scholars disagree: For a review, see: Stephanie Hanes, “Immigration: Assimilation and the Measure of an American,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 7, 2013.