By Daniel Payne
Thursday, November 24, 2016
I have to admit, I was surprised to read this
particular rant by Paul Krugman, the Nobel-winning economist and columnist
for the New York Times (he won the
Nobel for his work on economics, not his writing). Having read a New York Magazine piece that theorizes
that some state election machines may have been “hacked,” thereby costing
Clinton the election, Krugman declared:
[N]ow that it’s out there, I’d say
that an independent investigation is called for…Without an investigation, the
suspicion of a hacked election will never go away.
Really: “never?” Well. Krugman quickly backed off after
Nate Cohn challenged this thesis (so much for “never”), but a number of hours
later he shared a Vox piece: “The election probably wasn’t hacked. But Clinton
should request recounts just in case.” Just in case!
It might be fair to say that Trump’s election kind of
broke the brains of many people both left, right and center: nobody expected it
and a great many people really didn’t want it to happen. But the Left seems to
be taking it the hardest, and this is perfectly exemplified by Paul Krugman, a
genuinely brilliant fellow who has started to sound like a tinfoil-hat-wearing
neighborhood crank.
Just so we’re clear, the “suspicion of a hacked election”
that Krugman latched onto—the one that “will never go away”—was spelled out
this way:
While it’s important to note [the
Center for Computer Security and Society] has
not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing to the
campaign that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review — especially
in light of the fact that the Obama White House has accused the Russian
government of hacking the Democratic National Committee.
Yes, it is surely “important to note” that there has been
no “proof of hacking or manipulation.” But that doesn’t go far enough by half:
there isn’t even any evidence of
such, except for some voting patterns that, as Nate Cohn points out,
vanish when you control for certain variables. Gabriel Sherman mixes up the
cause and effect: proof is
demonstrated after an investigation, the latter of which is undertaken only on
the basis of strong-enough evidence—which
doesn’t exist here (unless you’re an aggrieved liberal pundit, I guess).
But the real story here isn’t the wacky teeth-gnashing of
the American Left, though that is quite a story in its own right. No, the most
astonishing aspect of the whole thing is that Paul Krugman could be swayed by
such a flimsy and unsubstantiated accusation. What it suggests is that the
election damaged the political psyche of liberals in ways that it will probably
take a while for us to understand.
Consider, by way of example, this excerpt written by a
prominent liberal about a decade ago:
Unlike the crazy conspiracy
theories of the left — which do exist, but are supported only by a tiny fringe
— the crazy conspiracy theories of the right are supported by important people:
powerful politicians, television personalities with large audiences. And we can
safely predict that these people will never concede that they were wrong.
The writer was none other than Paul Krugman. The column
was entitled, “Who’s Crazy Now?” Good question, Dr. Krugman!
Krugman’s flip-flop—from a denigrator of “crazy
conspiracy theories” to an eager promoter of them—exposes perhaps just how
fragile the political psyche of modern American liberalism is. The current
American Left—the most prominent set of politicians, pundits, writers and
academics working today—was forged in the fire of the Bush years, for the Left
a time of paranoia, nonstop anger, smug self-righteous back-patting and
intellectual balkanizing. These tendencies have been present among progressives
for decades, of course, but it is hard to overstate just how much George W.
Bush exacerbated them. Prominent among these liberals, of course, is Paul
Krugman, who was a constant, sneering critic of both Bush and Republicans more
generally during those years.
The election of Barack Obama allowed the Left to channel
these behaviors proactively rather than reactively: instead of screaming every
time George Bush blinked, or holding anti-war protests in a desperate attempt
to recapture the Yippie magic, they could apply all the moral preening and
political posturing in an active way. They did this for eight years, and though
they had varying degrees of success due to oppositional congressional
majorities, they had the presidency at the very least. (For good measure, they
constantly kept alive the specter of George Bush, blaming him for virtually all
of the nation’s problems even after two terms of his successor.)
A Wake-up Call for
the Left
You could see the Left settling into this routine: they
have the media, they have the colleges, they have the youth when it comes to
numerous important metrics, and they had the presidency for the foreseeable
future: Hillary Clinton was more or less ordained, she would re-make the
Supreme Court in her image, and they assumed that changing demographics would
ensure them both the executive branch and Congress for years to come. Upon this
foundation—one of seething, permanent Bush hatred mixed with a belief in their
own infallibility—progressives constructed a political edifice of smug
near-total self-assurance. Donald Trump’s nomination seemed to only set
everything in stone: Trump of all people could never snatch the presidency away from Clinton, they reasoned, and
in any case he wouldn’t dare.
Upon this foundation, liberals bit a shaky edifice of
assumed political superiority. The election of Donald Trump—not merely an
earthquake but an extinction-level asteroid event—brought it all crashing down.
And you can see that in the behavior of Paul Krugman, a man who has been
confronted with, and is struggling mightily to accept, the way the world is.
Really, this wake-up call has kind of been a long time coming: there are few
columnists on the scene today more intellectually closed and pompous than
Krugman, a fellow who once wrote about a particular policy debate, “I…have been
right about everything.” Even when you’re right about everything, you don’t
write, “I have been right about everything.” Unless you’re Paul Krugman, that
is.
But here’s the real majesty of this whole debacle, the
rather astonishing aspect of it all: there is no real indication that the
education of Paul Krugman is going to stick. Responding to a story that North
Carolina governor Pat McCrory is attempting to challenge the election results
in that state’s gubernatorial race, Krugman tweeted:
The assault on democracy extends
well beyond Trump. This is an attempted coup
Got that? When a Republican challenges the results of an
election, it’s a “coup.” When the loser is a Democrat, however, such a
challenge is absolutely necessary, “just in case.” The next four years are not
going to be kind to Paul Krugman and to people like him: they are going to
discredit themselves even more thoroughly than they already have, all under the
auspices of an insufferable, smarmy intellectual superiority. Can you imagine
what it will be like for them when Trump wins a second time?
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