Joel Kotkin Lists the Winners (and Losers)

Joel Kotkin is happy to tell you that he does not like Trump at all, and that he is Left-inclined.

So his thoughts on the recent Fraud are worth pondering.

...In the presidential race Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the backing of Wall Street, tech, and Hollywood moguls, including bundlers who allowed them to raise unprecedented money. Among financial firms, communications companies and lawyers, Biden outraised Trump by five to one or more.

All these interests had one main priority: to remove the disruptive, irascible, and unpredictable Donald Trump. If spending tens of millions wired from the coasts to may not create a Democratic Senate, the executive alone can deliver on the critical aspects of the oligarchic agenda: friendly ties to China, the suspension of antitrust action, a full-bore assault on the tangible economy, and executive action that damages the great American heartland in favor of the dense, high-cost coastal areas. Consider this agenda’s winners and losers one by one....

Look at the map of States joining Texas' lawsuit for a picture of what Kotkin described there.

By the way, if you were a Liz Warren/Bernie Sanders supporter, this post's for YOU!

After Kotkin points out 'the winners':  China, Tech, Finance, he points to the losers:  small business, the working class, and the middle class.

...Already an estimated 100,000 businesses nationwide have been liquidated. The recent urban disorders have added extra grief in particular to inner-city and minority businesses, already devastated by the lockdowns.

Overall, as Democratic analyst Ruy Teixeira notes, the Democrats largely have abandoned large parts of the working and middle classes, something reflected by the votes in both 2016 and 2020. The pandemic-related lockdowns, strictest generally in blue states, have crushed workers in industries like hospitality. Almost 40% of those Americans making under $40,000 a year have lost their jobs, seeing wage gains made during the first three years of the Trump Administration evaporate.

Under Biden’s executive control, people employed in basic industries like energy, agriculture and manufacturing, critical to electing Donald Trump, now face a full-bore assault from regulators. At risk are people who often hold relatively well-paid blue-collar jobs. Energy prices, almost certain to rise due to Democratic demands to eliminate fossil fuels, affect so many other things, like our daily bills, and employment opportunities for people without elite college degrees....

How will the displaced survive?  Through welfare, of course.  And guess who benefits from welfare?

That spending will be financed through debt.  Like the "stimulus," that spending can also be spelled I-N-F-L-A-T-I-O-N.  Who wins in inflationary times?  People who own commodities and properties, and people who leverage business through debt.  Oh yes, and people who can command raises from their employers almost at will.  Not to worry:  you are not one of them.  Union membership will be helpful, but not a solution.

More?  Sure!!

...the Biden Administration’s greatest political imperative will be to rescue their strongest political constituency—that of the big, dense cities. These were already losing population before the pandemic, but that pattern of population and job losses has accelerated since the pandemic. For places like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, only a raid on the national treasury can fund their lavish pensions...

And Tin-Pot Tony Evers' Grand Green Scheme is in the mix--to the detriment of Wisconsin citizens, of course:

...far bigger sectors like logistics, agriculture, and manufacturing would also face serious problems with intermittent and expensive “green energy.” These policies have already been tied to the persistent blackouts in California that forced the Golden State to depend on imported energy and even delayed its planned decommissioning of gas plants....

Later in the essay, Kotkin expresses some hope for the future.

But his next book is titled "The Coming of the New Feudalism."  We're having a hard time reconciling the optimism and "feudalism" ourselves.