CNN Money is giving Donald Trump exactly the kind of headline that he needs and wants by giving him credit for Ford’s decision to cancel plans to move some manufacturing jobs to Mexico. In this case, Ford will invest $700 million in a Flat Rock, Michigan plant that will “produce more electric and self-driving cars.” Originally, the plan was to build a new factory in Mexico, but that plan has been scaled back, the Ford Focus will be manufactured at a pre-existing Mexican plant, and the new-tech cars will be made in Michigan.
Ford’s CEO Mark Fields met with Vice President-Elect Mike Pence before making the announcement, but was careful to insist that he didn’t make any “deals” with Donald Trump. He did say, however, that the decision was a vote of confidence in Trump and his promises to ease regulations and pursue more pro-business policies.
United Auto Workers vice president Jimmy Settles was quick to take credit for saving American jobs, too.
For perspective, we’re talking about an estimated 700 jobs that were saved here, which is not small potatoes. But President Obama bailed out the auto industry and saved an estimated 1.5 million jobs (and made the government a profit while doing it). Ford now employs about 85,000 Americans, which is “up 28,000, or nearly 50%, in just the last five years.”
President Obama didn’t accomplish this by bullying CEO’s on Twitter and threatening to illegally slap a 35% tariff on individual companies. And he didn’t need to resort to lax regulation or some business-tilted tax scheme.
I think it’s quite plausible that Ford would have gone ahead with their original plan if Clinton had been elected, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to give Trump some credit for changing the calculus here. But he’ll get more mileage out of it than he deserves, especially when you consider how ungrateful folks turned out to be to President Obama.
Democrats need to face reality here: what Trump is doing here is going to be immensely popular.
I wish Obama had done the same thing.
Agree on the former, not so much on the latter.
Of course, visibly fighting for American jobs is good politics, but marketing was never Obama’s strength in office.
But that’s a lesson to learn, isn’t it?
Figuring out how to take credit for things is not a minor skill in politics. See also the great NYT piece today about Obamacare in the Times.
But then, as other writers have noted,Kloski didn’t know he had benefited from Obamacare:
There is political incompetence surely in not letting people know they benefited from the program.
For all his warts, I do not think Trump would EVER make that same mistake.
It is a lesson we are going learn I fear.
I think we all are guilty of giving people too much credit for being able to figure things out without it being funneled into their cerebral cortex.
Like the majority that loved Kynect but hated Obamacare.
The media cannot report on events, only on assertions. So if Trump loudly asserts he saved jobs, that’s newsworthy, even if it’s only 700 jobs. If Obama saved 1.5 million jobs and didn’t brag–beyond bland press released–that’s not news.
The uncertainty of how T intends to back up his threats has managed to get their attention, it seems.
It has served to change the conversation on outsourcing. We’ll see what eventuates.
As I’ve said before (and received those troll rates for), if Trump improves employment (or just gives the impression of saving jobs) and the economy is even marginally better (probably due to deficit spending and massive infrastructure spending), you will see a republican sweep and Trump landslide in 2020.
Politics IS perception. A successful politician has to be a showman. Can you imagine Obama reading the comics on radio/TV like LaGuardia did? As for trash talking, that’s the main thing people remembered about “Give ’em Hell Harry”, not the Marshall Plan or integrating the Armed Forces or proposing national health Insurance. I predict that in the future, voters will say, “That President Trump, he didn’t take any shit from anybody!”
What bloggers forget is that most voters don’t give a damn about policy and don’t understand it. They understand machismo. Barack Obama was and is a very intelligent even tempered man, but he projects zero machismo. My wife doesn’t follow politics and has no interest in it. Her perception? “Obama is a wimp. He let’s his enemies spit on him and won’t stand up.” No, she’s not a Republican. She even voted for Hillary on a sexist basis. On election day, at her request, i prepared a cheat sheet for her to take into the booth. At her request, “Who do you want me to vote for? All of it except for President.” She knew I was against Hillary. A direct quote, “I’m tired of asshole men.” Maybe there was a sympathy factor too. “Her husband ought to be neutered.”
I don’t think he has to fix it, I think he just has to look like he is trying.
Exactly. By running as Obama’s third term, Clinton couldn’t promise to fix the economy because officially there was nothing to fix. I’ll even concede the overall employment and GDP figures (NOT the falsified inflation figures). But due to the nature of the EV system, pockets (actually great gaping sores) of unemployment and decay were very important.
But, he’s on a roll.
Whoa! Shining too much light on the ethics issue for him? That is too funny.
I’m fighting my immediate impulse of “if this had been Obama the same article would have found a dozen Republicans to explain why it was no big deal or actually bad” and will settle for irritation at the media impulse to simply repeat this information with no attempt at context. I’m old enough to know better.
Yep
If Obama had done it it would be……
crony capitalism
While I agree that Obama was a disaster at marketing his successes, I am also in complete agreement with your characterization of Americans as ingrates.
I’m not entirely surprised he’s pretty much disappeared off the map.
If there is one thing that certainly be confirmed as we move forward into the Trump years, it is that what is factually true is going to be inconsequential. Only what people believe to be true is going to matter. And it is becoming pretty apparent that the short period has passed where the media seemed to be thinking it might be important to report things as they are. We are quickly going to move into full throated adoration. It will something akin to a “Dear Leader” phase, which could last for some time.
Hardly knew. Politicians have been using the “I believe blah, blah, blah” in their campaigns for decades (if not far earlier). “Social media” is slowly replacing the old source of foolish things people believe in and act in accordance with those beliefs, and also democratized foolish beliefs that politicians were the guardians and sources of. How many of the Senate floor speeches on Iraq WMD were made without inclusion of “I believe?”
“Social media” is slowly replacing the old source of foolish things people believe in …
When I encounter someone on social media posting things which they “believe”, but which are demonstrably false, I often ask them, “How certain are you that this is true”? Without fail, it doesn’t matter to them if it is true or false, it only matters that it is “out there” and it is being repeated among people they know. That makes it “real to them”, and that is all that matters to anyone. There is just no way that one can penetrate that type of conscious ignorance. It is essentially a faith based worldview in which faith trumps evidence, if evidence conflicts with the desired state of things.
Exactly what I said. A new form of faith-based stinkin-thinkin replacing the older form. Don’t know if “virtual reality” is more powerful in dispensing faith-based foolish things over facts, but it’s at least an equal to what churches have been serving up for a very long time. Both “feel so real” that they have to be true. There was a reason why team Clinton spent so much money on “social media.” The only thing they overlooked is that it’s no longer contained to the coasts and Republicans aren’t too dumb to use it themselves. Apparently better at targeting where the bucks spent may have the biggest bang.
it’s fatal:
I think you are going to have to steel yourself to much, much more of this. Including the useless–indeed enabling—response of the corporate media.
This Ford announcement (the Gospel of the Day) is in complete accord with Authoritarian Fascist theory, in which a symbiotic relationship exists between CEO/plutocrat and Great Leader–the leader gets the glory and adoration of the working class, and the capitalist gets the increased expected profit–here taking the form of alteration or abolition of a variety of important regulations. In other industries, the (always vehemently denied) quid pro quo will be an increase in wasteful government contracts as a means of looting the Treasury.
The strongman gets to bask in the show of “strength” and receives additional political capital. The plutocrat obtains additional hard capital. The cretinous public is gratified, since it has no working conception of the public good, especially since its members are part of the reserve army of the unemployed.
Usually the strongman also has some means of sharing in the corrupt gain of the plutocrat(s), and Grifter Trump & Sons will certainly be no exception. Reichsmarshall Goring’s spectacular art collection springs to mind. And Ford has a proud tradition in the strongman area.
What’s important is the openly acknowledged tie between the plutocrat and the strongman. The government no longer exists to counteract or oppose massive corporate power, it now exists solely to further it. Ultimately, there is no one to left to protect the public interest; the glory of the strongman is the public’s “compensation”…in effect, we have a corpocracy.
So true. My fears about Trump’s “success” are likely going to come true. He is going to engage is a song and dance with big business where he pretends to be hard on them, they “capitulate” and both live to see another day and more profit at the expense of the masses.
Meanwhile, there are no truth tellers with enough clout to shine a light on the game that’s being played.
We’re screwed. The Democratic Party is done and I feel totally lost in this new political reality.
This is an important insight, and one worth using as an analytical framework in the weeks and, alas, years to come.
“The government no longer exists to counteract or oppose massive corporate power, it now exists solely to further it.”
The essence of Fascism and Right wing thinking in general.
Kevin Drum points out that Ford’s plans probably have nothing to do with Trump at all, although I’m sure Ford is glad to let him take credit and avoid media attention on their falling Fusion and Mustang sales:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/01/fords-plans-mexico-have-nothing-do-donald-trump