Paul Krugman Profile picture
Aug 4, 2019 5 tweets 1 min read Read on X
Of course Trump's racism and incitement to violence have played an important role in the rise of white supremacist terrorism (which we need to start calling by its proper name). But what about other Republicans? 1/
My guess is that Moscow Mitch and other leading GOP figures aren't especially racist, and may even be slightly troubled by mass murder. But they stand firmly behind Trumpism. Why? 2/
The answer, surely is that while they aren't necessarily big supporters of white supremacy, they *are* big supporters of plutocracy. And catering to racism helps them cut taxes on rich people and in general tilt the economy against workers 3/
So the basic story of most of the GOP establishment — and I don't think this is hyperbole — is that it considers the slaughter of innocent people an acceptable price to pay for lower taxes on profits and capital income 4/
If you ask me, this is just as immoral as being a genuine believer in white supremacy. 5/

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @paulkrugman

Jun 13
This was a bit cryptic, so a quick explanation 1/
Imports are about 14 percent of US GDP. Federal income tax revenue (not including payroll taxes) is about 8 %. So you might think replacing it would require a tariff rate of 8/14 or around 57 percent. But ... 2/
Tariffs would raise the cost of imports to consumers, so we'd import less, which would mean you need a higher tariff rate. But this reduces imports further, meaning a still higher tariff, and so on 3/
Read 6 tweets
May 21
The Fed survey of economic well-being is out; some changes at the margin, but the basic story remains that Americans say they're doing mostly OK, their local economy isn't too bad, but the national economy is terrible 1/ Image
Consistent with polling. Here's Quinnipiac on Wisconsin voters 2/ Image
And here's WSJ on swing states 3/ Image
Read 4 tweets
Feb 17
With the recent rise in consumer sentiment, time to revisit this excellent Briefing Book paper. On reflection, I'd do it a bit differently; same basic conclusion, but I think partisan asymmetry explains even more of the remaining low numbers 1/ briefingbook.info/p/asymmetric-a…
The Michigan sentiment index has two components: current conditions and expectations. It's kind of legitimate to have partisan diffs on expectations, if you think your party has better policies. It's the gap on current conditions that's startling 2/ Image
Michigan doesn't provide partisan breakdowns every month until 2017 (hence the limited range of that chart). A quick and dirty approach is to use annual averages, with whatever months they do provide for each year, which lets us push back to 2006 3/
Read 7 tweets
Feb 10
Recent economic news has been extremely good. But there's a strange meme among some D consultants that Biden shouldn't boast about it, because it seems out of touch — that people aren't feeling the good economy. But they are! 1/
The venerable Michigan survey has rocketed up lately 2/ Image
It's true that consumer sentiment is still weaker than you might expect given the economic numbers. But that's largely partisanship. Using Civiqs numbers, Democrats have more or less fully accepted the good news 3/ Image
Read 7 tweets
Feb 2
Immigration is looming larger in the campaign, partly because it's becoming harder for Republicans to run against Biden on the economy. But there's a strong case that immigration has been a key part of Biden's economic success 1/
Inflation has come down so easily in part because of strong labor force growth. How much of that growth can be attributed to foreign-born workers? All of it 2/ Image
Some people might look at that and say that foreigners have stolen 3 million jobs from Americans. But we have full employment, indeed a very tight labor market. Look at what the Conference Board survey says 3/ Image
Read 6 tweets
Jan 26
A tale of two inflation measures. Some analysts are still citing the blue line, when they should be citing the red line. This is professional malpractice 1/ Image
Using annual core CPI puts you way behind the curve, for 2 reasons. First, annual: even core CPI was 4.6 in the first half of 2023, 3.2 in the second half. Second, known lags in official shelter prices lagging far behind market rents 2/
So annual CPI creates a spurious impression of stubborn inflation, with a difficult last mile to cover. PCE puts a lower weight on shelter, and on a shorter-term basis tells us that we've already traveled that last mile 3/
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(