Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I know you must be girding for the crushing defeat the Patriots will sustain this weekend.
Gail Collins: My husband is from Boston and we have learned, from being a Patriots household in New York, what it means to be truly ostracized. There are probably more Republicans in our Upper West Side neighborhood than there are Patriots fans.
I’m not normally a sports person. But Donald Trump has educated me in their big plus: Whenever things are terrible in the rest of the world, you can just talk with your friends, or neighbors or relatives, about who the best quarterback is. Or how the Mets will do this year. It’s a very unifying concept.
Bret: And speaking of crushing defeats, that’s a fairly good description of what Trump has just sustained in his shutdown showdown with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. As a purely political matter, do you think he can recover?
Gail: I’m almost finished writing a book on the history of older women in America, and it is really a treat to watch Nancy Pelosi wiping the floor with Donald Trump. I’d be happy to see any reasonably progressive, reasonably sane politician doing the job, but this particular saga really tickles me.
Bret: This is a good moment to admit that I was totally mistaken about Pelosi. I thought her election as speaker would play into Trump’s hands, because he would lampoon her as the quintessential left-coast liberal elitist. Instead, she wasted no time cutting his, er, fingers off.
Gail: Have you noticed that he’s terrible even at the things he was supposed to be good at during his cheesy reality show period, like making deals and firing people?
He’s toast. Do you agree?
Bret: Anyone who survives a half-dozen bankruptcies and goes on to win the presidency should never be written off.
Gail: Sigh. Good point.
Bret: Trump is a master of inventing new dramas to make us forget the old ones. And if unemployment and growth figures remain good a year from now, he’ll still have a powerful argument for a second term.
That said, Trump’s hopes of being re-elected depend on his appeal to his base, and his base support is eroding. A poll from earlier this month has him down a net of 10 points with Republicans, down 13 with white evangelicals and down 18 with suburban men. If I were looking at those numbers as the head of the Republican National Committee, I’d be thinking that Trump would be wise to declare that he won’t run for re-election. Whether he would do that is, of course, another question entirely.
Gail: Well, you’re presuming he has a life outside of this.
Bret: Depends on his legal jeopardy, I guess.
Gail: If the jeopardy level is high enough, he’d need to run again just because you can’t indict a sitting president. I for one do not want to imagine a 2020 campaign in which the base believes he’s a martyr who has to be saved from imprisonment.
Bret: Maybe Bob Mueller can offer him immunity if he promises not to run. O.K., now I’m dreaming.
Gail: We’re both trapped in an anti-Trumpian vortex where we agree about so much, but I know that deep down you’re a serious conservative, particularly on economic issues. So I want to ask about … oh God, Davos.
Bret: God is of no use in Davos, Gail. Go on.
Gail: Davos, as you may have heard, is an annual gathering in Switzerland where the economic and political elite come to have dinners and chat and pontificate. This year there were two things that interested me. One was that Anthony Scaramucci was there. This is the guy who lasted 11 days as White House communications director, appeared as a contestant on “Celebrity Big Brother” and then vanished from the series to reappear at Davos.
I truly believe that reality TV is a thermometer of our cultural mind-set. Maybe the Mooch connection is proof that Davos is indeed a magnet for the best and the brightest.
Bret: My long-held view of Davos is that nothing good that happens there is real, and nothing real that happens there is good. The Mooch’s presence this year proves both those points. Go on.
Gail: One big topic was what happens to working people when automation takes over the world. Don’t care so much what the Davosians thought as I do about your opinion. You wrote a really powerful column the other day about socialism ruining Venezuela. But I don’t see how capitalism survives a techno-boom where automation puts half the population out of work. Thoughts?
Bret: I’m not too worried. Capitalism survived the transition from horse-and-buggy to the Model T. It survived the transition from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy to a service-based one. And it survived the creative destruction of countless other forms of employment. Where, for instance, are the typesetters these days?
Gail: Well, they’re not creating hot new social media sites.
Bret: Now the question everyone is asking is what will happen to all those truck and cab and Uber drivers — a total of three million professional drivers — once driverless cars become ubiquitous. There’s no doubt the transition will be painful for some of them, and policymakers need to be sensitive on that point. But if history is any guide, things will work out. Many of those drivers will find work in industries that currently don’t exist. Just ask yourself, where was the mobile apps economy at the turn of the century? Where was the internet economy in 1990, or the personal computing industry in 1975?
Gail: I still don’t see the truck drivers working on mobile apps. And if you’re worried about the left’s solutions, I don’t see a whole lot of candidates running around talking about the state taking over the means of production.
Bret: Just wait an election cycle or two.
Gail: But if we’re moving to an economy in which trucks are automated, robots do all the warehouse work and some kind of artificial intelligence is taking orders at the restaurant, we’ll need a government that can create a whole lot of useful public service employment to make up the difference.
Bret: Heaven forfend.
Gail: And underwrite free college education for everybody who needs it.
Bret: No!
Gail: And assure lower-middle-class people decent housing.
Bret: My soul is dying.
Gail: All of which would have to be paid for by large taxes on the very rich.
Bret: Now it’s dead.
Gail: That’s one area where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes a lot of sense.
Bret: And buried.
Gail: I love it when we have a real argument.
Bret: You know, I was going to change the topic to Roger Stone, where we’d be nodding our heads in unison. But let’s explore our disagreements a bit more.
Gail: Yeah, I suspect we are in accord about Roger Stone, career political con man and threatener of small, fluffy service dogs. So back to good government …
Bret: I’m all for universities figuring out ways to become more affordable for those who need and deserve it, but making college free for everybody makes it bad for everybody. We would wreck a university system that’s still the envy of the world.
Gail: Ahem. I believe I said free college for everybody who needs it. And happy to have vigorous government oversight. Employing talented Americans tossed out of their old jobs by robot accountants.
But continue with your verbal shudder …
Bret: As for affordable housing, I’d sooner trust the invisible hand of the market than the heavy hand of the state. Large taxes on the very rich won’t raise the kind of income you need, and sooner rather than later those taxes will land on the decidedly less rich. And A.O.C. should start mastering her facts rather than getting into Twitter wars with fact checkers.
Gail: Hehehe. Knew I’d get you with A.O.C. That’s what people love about her.
The weather is lousy, Bret, but I’m seeing a little bit of sunshine. The government’s running, for the moment. Nancy Pelosi knocked down Donald Trump’s wall plans. Roger Stone is indicted and the Mueller investigation is chugging right along. Now let’s raise some taxes and build some bridges.
Bret: I was with you until you mentioned taxes. Purely theoretical question for you (and our readers) for our next conversation: If Congress would agree to cut the top marginal rate to 33 percent in exchange for a pledge by Trump not to run again, would you take it? I’m sure we’ll be hearing from readers on the comments page.
Gail: Can’t wait to take this up.
Bret: In the meantime, go Rams.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Gail Collins is an Op-Ed columnist, a former member of the editorial board and was the first woman to serve as Times editorial page editor, from 2001 to 2007. @GailCollins • Facebook
Bret L. Stephens has been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. @BretStephensNYT • Facebook
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | It’ll Be a While Before Anyone Underestimates Nancy Pelosi Again
Opinion | It’ll Be a While Before Anyone Underestimates Nancy Pelosi Again
Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I know you must be girding for the crushing defeat the Patriots will sustain this weekend.
Gail Collins: My husband is from Boston and we have learned, from being a Patriots household in New York, what it means to be truly ostracized. There are probably more Republicans in our Upper West Side neighborhood than there are Patriots fans.
I’m not normally a sports person. But Donald Trump has educated me in their big plus: Whenever things are terrible in the rest of the world, you can just talk with your friends, or neighbors or relatives, about who the best quarterback is. Or how the Mets will do this year. It’s a very unifying concept.
Bret: And speaking of crushing defeats, that’s a fairly good description of what Trump has just sustained in his shutdown showdown with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. As a purely political matter, do you think he can recover?
Gail: I’m almost finished writing a book on the history of older women in America, and it is really a treat to watch Nancy Pelosi wiping the floor with Donald Trump. I’d be happy to see any reasonably progressive, reasonably sane politician doing the job, but this particular saga really tickles me.
Bret: This is a good moment to admit that I was totally mistaken about Pelosi. I thought her election as speaker would play into Trump’s hands, because he would lampoon her as the quintessential left-coast liberal elitist. Instead, she wasted no time cutting his, er, fingers off.
Gail: Have you noticed that he’s terrible even at the things he was supposed to be good at during his cheesy reality show period, like making deals and firing people?
He’s toast. Do you agree?
Bret: Anyone who survives a half-dozen bankruptcies and goes on to win the presidency should never be written off.
Gail: Sigh. Good point.
Bret: Trump is a master of inventing new dramas to make us forget the old ones. And if unemployment and growth figures remain good a year from now, he’ll still have a powerful argument for a second term.
That said, Trump’s hopes of being re-elected depend on his appeal to his base, and his base support is eroding. A poll from earlier this month has him down a net of 10 points with Republicans, down 13 with white evangelicals and down 18 with suburban men. If I were looking at those numbers as the head of the Republican National Committee, I’d be thinking that Trump would be wise to declare that he won’t run for re-election. Whether he would do that is, of course, another question entirely.
Gail: Well, you’re presuming he has a life outside of this.
Bret: Depends on his legal jeopardy, I guess.
Gail: If the jeopardy level is high enough, he’d need to run again just because you can’t indict a sitting president. I for one do not want to imagine a 2020 campaign in which the base believes he’s a martyr who has to be saved from imprisonment.
Bret: Maybe Bob Mueller can offer him immunity if he promises not to run. O.K., now I’m dreaming.
Gail: We’re both trapped in an anti-Trumpian vortex where we agree about so much, but I know that deep down you’re a serious conservative, particularly on economic issues. So I want to ask about … oh God, Davos.
Bret: God is of no use in Davos, Gail. Go on.
Gail: Davos, as you may have heard, is an annual gathering in Switzerland where the economic and political elite come to have dinners and chat and pontificate. This year there were two things that interested me. One was that Anthony Scaramucci was there. This is the guy who lasted 11 days as White House communications director, appeared as a contestant on “Celebrity Big Brother” and then vanished from the series to reappear at Davos.
I truly believe that reality TV is a thermometer of our cultural mind-set. Maybe the Mooch connection is proof that Davos is indeed a magnet for the best and the brightest.
Bret: My long-held view of Davos is that nothing good that happens there is real, and nothing real that happens there is good. The Mooch’s presence this year proves both those points. Go on.
Gail: One big topic was what happens to working people when automation takes over the world. Don’t care so much what the Davosians thought as I do about your opinion. You wrote a really powerful column the other day about socialism ruining Venezuela. But I don’t see how capitalism survives a techno-boom where automation puts half the population out of work. Thoughts?
Bret: I’m not too worried. Capitalism survived the transition from horse-and-buggy to the Model T. It survived the transition from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy to a service-based one. And it survived the creative destruction of countless other forms of employment. Where, for instance, are the typesetters these days?
Gail: Well, they’re not creating hot new social media sites.
Bret: Now the question everyone is asking is what will happen to all those truck and cab and Uber drivers — a total of three million professional drivers — once driverless cars become ubiquitous. There’s no doubt the transition will be painful for some of them, and policymakers need to be sensitive on that point. But if history is any guide, things will work out. Many of those drivers will find work in industries that currently don’t exist. Just ask yourself, where was the mobile apps economy at the turn of the century? Where was the internet economy in 1990, or the personal computing industry in 1975?
Gail: I still don’t see the truck drivers working on mobile apps. And if you’re worried about the left’s solutions, I don’t see a whole lot of candidates running around talking about the state taking over the means of production.
Bret: Just wait an election cycle or two.
Gail: But if we’re moving to an economy in which trucks are automated, robots do all the warehouse work and some kind of artificial intelligence is taking orders at the restaurant, we’ll need a government that can create a whole lot of useful public service employment to make up the difference.
Bret: Heaven forfend.
Gail: And underwrite free college education for everybody who needs it.
Bret: No!
Gail: And assure lower-middle-class people decent housing.
Bret: My soul is dying.
Gail: All of which would have to be paid for by large taxes on the very rich.
Bret: Now it’s dead.
Gail: That’s one area where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes a lot of sense.
Bret: And buried.
Gail: I love it when we have a real argument.
Bret: You know, I was going to change the topic to Roger Stone, where we’d be nodding our heads in unison. But let’s explore our disagreements a bit more.
Gail: Yeah, I suspect we are in accord about Roger Stone, career political con man and threatener of small, fluffy service dogs. So back to good government …
Bret: I’m all for universities figuring out ways to become more affordable for those who need and deserve it, but making college free for everybody makes it bad for everybody. We would wreck a university system that’s still the envy of the world.
Gail: Ahem. I believe I said free college for everybody who needs it. And happy to have vigorous government oversight. Employing talented Americans tossed out of their old jobs by robot accountants.
But continue with your verbal shudder …
Bret: As for affordable housing, I’d sooner trust the invisible hand of the market than the heavy hand of the state. Large taxes on the very rich won’t raise the kind of income you need, and sooner rather than later those taxes will land on the decidedly less rich. And A.O.C. should start mastering her facts rather than getting into Twitter wars with fact checkers.
Gail: Hehehe. Knew I’d get you with A.O.C. That’s what people love about her.
The weather is lousy, Bret, but I’m seeing a little bit of sunshine. The government’s running, for the moment. Nancy Pelosi knocked down Donald Trump’s wall plans. Roger Stone is indicted and the Mueller investigation is chugging right along. Now let’s raise some taxes and build some bridges.
Bret: I was with you until you mentioned taxes. Purely theoretical question for you (and our readers) for our next conversation: If Congress would agree to cut the top marginal rate to 33 percent in exchange for a pledge by Trump not to run again, would you take it? I’m sure we’ll be hearing from readers on the comments page.
Gail: Can’t wait to take this up.
Bret: In the meantime, go Rams.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Gail Collins is an Op-Ed columnist, a former member of the editorial board and was the first woman to serve as Times editorial page editor, from 2001 to 2007. @GailCollins • Facebook
Bret L. Stephens has been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. @BretStephensNYT • Facebook
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