“In the long run”, said Milton Friedman, and as an economist, Jew, celebrity, and a Nobel prize winner, he’d know better than most, “we’re all dead.”
[[ “In the long run”, said Milton Friedman, and as an economist, Jew, celebrity, and a Nobel prize winner, he’d know better than most, “we’re all dead.” ]]
It was NOT Friedman who said that.
I believe it was John Maynard Keynes, the leftist.
Regardless of the quote attribution, Pat Buchanan is right, once again. No joy in that.
As Buchanan notes, Texas will “tip left” in a generation, and then topple over. After that, it’s all over — the Republicans will never be able to win the presidency again.
There’s a “possible solution”, although many here would oppose it. That would be for the “red states”, RIGHT NOW, to change the way electors are assigned in presidential elections, to the “Nebraska/Maine” method.
NE and ME don’t assign electors on a “winner-take-all” system, but rather by each congressional district.
Consider a state like Pennsylvania, which is considered a “battleground” state but which hasn’t voted for the Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Under the current winner-take-all system, PA could be lost to the Republicans forever. But under a “congressional district” electoral vote system, PA would assign its electors roughly 50-50. In real-world terms, this would be a pickup of roughly 10 electoral votes in future elections for the GOP. 50% is better than nothin’....
And so it will go with a state like Texas. Again, under the current system, TX will “go blue” within a generation. If Texas were to change its electoral vote policy, we would lose -some- electoral votes TODAY, but would not be doomed to lose ALL of Texas’ votes in the future.
Just something to consider.
We can go the way we’re going, with results that are inevitable.
Or, we can literally “reconstruct the system” into a new framework that will give us more of a chance in the future.
I don’t expect that to happen.
But I can see what’s coming....
Again, Mr. Buchanan is dead right on this one.
I think Milton Friedman was quoting John Maynard Keynes, who said it first.
I think Keynes said that.