The improving economy has put the Republican Party in a tough position for 2016, hence why people like Jeb Bush sound like Democrats these days.
Jeb Bush recently gave a speech in Detroit, and he didn’t sound like your typical get-the-government-off-my-back Republican presidential candidate of the last few decades. The New York Times quoted a number of lines that went like this:
- “The recovery has been everywhere but in the family paychecks…”
- “The American dream has become a mirage for far too many.”
- The opportunity gap is the defining issue of our time…”
- “…more Americans are stuck at their income levels than ever before.”
These lines don’t sound too different from Barack Obama’s theme of “middle class economics” that we’ve been hearing about as of late.
So is Jeb Bush some sort of new moderate type of Republican politician? Well, probably not. Instead as Matt Yglesias pointed out a few weeks ago the shift to taking about inequality instead of blasting Obama’s economic record is really the product of a steadily improving economy. As Matt put it:
Structurally speaking, the two main out groups in American politics today—the left wing of the Democratic Party and the mainstream of the Republican Party—are facing a common problem. After years of intense crisis, things are clearly getting better. That leaves them pivoting toward the same thing: the short-comings of the recovery – a lack of opportunity at the bottom or the rise of inequality at the top.
In short Jeb has to talk about something, and a growing economy, falling deficits, and lack of American casualties in overseas wars means he can’t really talk about those things. So he turns to things like inequality and stagnant wages. That’s better than hawking quack medicine, but it be a lot easier he Jeb could just talk about a high unemployment rate.
So expect to hear more of this kind of rhetoric as long as the economy continues to do well. But that doesn’t mean that the Republican Party is undergoing major changes.
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