Monthly Archives: March 2017

A Plan Set Up To Fail

So now we know what Republicans have to offer as an Obamacare replacement. Let me try to avoid value judgments for a few minutes, and describe what seems to have happened here.

The structure of the Affordable Care Act comes out of a straightforward analysis of the logic of coverage. If you want to make health insurance available and affordable for almost everyone, regardless of income or health status, and you want to do this through private insurers rather than simply have single-payer, you have to do three things.

1.Regulate insurers so they cant refuse or charge high premiums to people with preexisting conditions 2.Impose some penalty on people who dont buy insurance, to induce healthy people to sign up and provide a workable risk pool 3.Subsidize premiums so that lower-income households can afford insurance

So thats Obamacare (and Romneycare before that): regulation, mandates, and subsidies. And the result has been a sharp decline in the number of uninsured, with costs coming in well below expectations. Roughly speaking, 20 million Americans gained coverage at a cost of around 0.6 percent of GDP.

Republicans have nonetheless denounced the law as a monstrosity, and promised to replace it with something totally different and far better. Which makes what theyve actually come up interesting.

For the GOP proposal basically accepts the logic of Obamacare. It retains insurer regulation to prevent exclusion of people with preexisting conditions. It imposes a penalty on those who dont buy insurance while healthy. And it offers tax credits to help people buy insurance. Conservatives calling the plan Obamacare 2.0 definitely have a point.

But a better designation would be Obamacare 0.5, because its really about replacing relatively solid pillars with half-measures, severely and probably fatally weakening the whole structure.

First, the individual mandate already too weak, so that too many healthy people opt out is replaced by a penalty imposed if and only if the uninsured decide to enter the market later. This wouldnt do much.

Second, the ACA subsidies, which are linked both to income and to the cost of insurance, are replaced by flat tax credits which would be worth much less to lower-income Americans, the very people most likely to need help buying insurance.

Taken together, these moves would almost surely lead to a death spiral. Healthy individuals, especially low-income households no longer receiving adequate aid, would opt out, worsening the risk pool. Premiums would soar without the cushion created by the current, price-linked subsidy formula leading more healthy people to exit. In much of the country, the individual markets would probably collapse.

The House leadership seems to realize all of this; thats why it reportedly plans to rush the bill through committee before CBO even gets a chance to score it.

Its an amazing spectacle. Obviously, Republicans backed themselves into a corner: after all those years denouncing Obamacare, they felt they had to do something, but in fact had no good ideas about what to offer as a replacement. So they went with really bad ideas instead.

The big news from last nights speech is that our pundits is not learning. After all the debacles of 2016, they swooned over the fact that Trump while still lying time after time and proposing truly vile initiatives was able to read from a teleprompter without breaking into an insane rant. If American democracy falls, supposed political analysts who are actually just bad theater critics will share part of the blame.

But that aside, I was struck by Trumps continued insistence that hes going to bring back coal jobs. This says something remarkable both about him and about the body politic.

He is not, of course, going to bring back coal mining as an occupation. Coal employments plunge began decades ago, driven mainly by the switch to strip mining and mountaintop removal. A partial revival after the oil crises of the 70s was followed by a renewed downturn (under Reagan!), with fracking and cheap gas mainly delivering the final blow. Giving coal companies new freedom to pollute streams and utilities freedom to destroy the planet wont make any noticeable dent in the trend.

But heres the question: why are people so fixated on coal jobs anyway?

Even in the heart of coal country, the industry hasnt really been a major source of employment for a very long time. Compare mining with occupations that basically are some form of healthcare in West Virginia, as percentages of total employment:

Even in West Virginia, the typical worker is basically a nurse, not a miner and that has been true for decades.

So why did that state overwhelmingly support a candidate who wont bring back any significant number of mining jobs, but quite possibly will destroy healthcare for many which means jobs lost as well as lives destroyed?

The answer, Id guess, is that coal isnt really about coal its a symbol of a social order that is no more; both good things (community) and bad (overt racism). Trump is selling the fantasy that this old order can be restored, with seemingly substantive promises about specific jobs mostly just packaging.

One thought that follows is that Trump may not be as badly hurt by the failure of his promises as one might expect: he cant deliver coal jobs, but he can deliver punishment to various kinds of others. I guess well see.

For obvious reasons. Evidently the McCartney empire has been scrubbing almost all online versions; hope this lasts long enough for people to enjoy

Update: Searle, not Seattle. Damn spellcheck (or maybe the AI was making a Microsoft joke?)

Izabella Kaminska has a thought-provoking piece on the real effects of technology on wages, in which she argues that much recent innovation, instead of displacing manual workers, has displaced high-paying skilled jobs. As it happens, I sort of predicted this 20 years ago, in a piece written for the Times magazines 100th anniversary (authors were asked to write as if it was 2096, and they were looking back.)

I argued then that menial work dealing with the physical world gardeners, maids, nurses would survive even as quite a few jobs that used to require college disappeared. As it turns out, big data has led to more progress in something that looks like artificial intelligence than I expected self-driving cars are much closer to reality than I would have thought, and maybe gardening robots and post-Roomba robot cleaners will follow. Still, the point about the relative displacement of cognitive versus manual jobs seems to stand.

An aside: given the way Google Translate and such work, Seattles Searles Chinese Room Argument doesnt look as foolish as I used to think it was.

Anyway, Kaminskas point about the disruptiveness of such technological change is something we should take seriously. After all, it has happened before. The initial effect of the Industrial Revolution was a substantial de-skilling of goods production. The Luddites were, for the most part, not proletarians but skilled craftsmen, weavers who constituted s sort of labor aristocracy but found their skills devalued by the power loom. In the long run industrialization did lead to higher wages for everyone, but the long run took several generations to happen in that long run we really were all dead.

So interesting stuff. Id note, however, that it remains peculiar how were simultaneously worrying that robots will take all our jobs and bemoaning the stalling out of productivity growth. What is the story, really?

The WSJ reports that the Trump administrations budget planning assumes very high economic growth over the next decade between 3 and 3.5 percent annually. How was this number arrived at? Basically, they worked backwards, assuming the growth they needed to make their budget numbers add up. Credibility!

But the purpose of this post is mainly to explain why such a number is implausible not impossible, but not something that should be anyones central forecast.

The claimed returns to Trumpnomics are close to the highest growth rates weve seen under any modern administration. Real GDP grew 3.4 percent annually under Reagan; it grew 3.7 percent annually under Clinton (shhh dont tell conservatives.) But there are fundamental reasons to believe that such growth is unlikely to happen now.

First, demography: Reagan took office with baby boomers and women still entering the work force; these days baby boomers are leaving. Heres UN data on the 5-year growth rate of the population aged 20-64, a rough proxy for those likely to seek work:

Just on demography alone, then, youd expect growth to be around a percentage point lower than it was under Reagan.

Furthermore, while Trump did not, in fact, inherit a mess, both Reagan and Clinton did in the narrow sense that both came into office amid depressed economies, with unemployment above 7 percent:

This meant a substantial amount of slack to be taken up when the economy returned to full employment. Rough calculation: 2 points of excess unemployment means 4 percent output gap under Okuns Law, which means 0.5 percentage points of extra growth over an 8-year period.

So even if you (wrongly) give Reagan policies credit for the business cycle recovery after 1982, and believe (wrongly) that Trumponomics is going to do wonderful things for incentives a la Reagan, you should still be expecting growth of 2 percent or under.

Now, maybe something awesome will happen: either driverless or flying cars will transform everything, whatever. But you shouldnt be counting on it.

Everyone knows that stocks and interest rates have soared since the election; at the same time, if you arent worried about erratic policies from the Tweeter-in-chief, youre really not paying attention. So are markets getting it all wrong?

Ive been wondering about that and yes, in the first few hours after the election I thought, briefly and wrongly, that a crash was coming quickly. But anyway, I decided to crunch a few numbers and surprised myself. I still think markets are underrating the risk of catastrophe. But Im not as sure as I was that theres a huge Trump bubble buoying markets because when you actually look at the data, the market action has been much smaller than the hype.

Look first at stocks. Yes, theyre up since the election. But how does this rise compare with past fluctuations? Not very big, actually:

What about real interest rates? Ive been arguing that the widespread belief in serious fiscal stimulus is wrong, which means that a really big rise in real interest rates wouldnt be warranted. But it turns out that the movement isnt that big:

There was an overshoot early one, but at this point its only about 30 basis points, consistent with fiscal stimulus of maybe 1 percent of GDP. Still high, I think, but not yuge.

Inflation expectations are also up, but that may reflect various non-Trump things like growing evidence that we really are close to full employment.

I still think that markets are too sanguine. But the truth is that they havent moved nearly as much as the hype suggests, so the case for either a huge Trump effect or a huge Trump bubble is a lot weaker than you might think.

What Trump has done or tried to do over the past two years wait, its really only been two weeks? is incredibly bad. But spare a bit of attention to what doesnt seem to be happening. Has anyone heard anything, anything at all, about domestic policy development?

Remember, after the election Wall Street decided that we were going to see a big push on infrastructure, tax cuts, etc.. Some analysts were warning that progressives should be ready for the possibility that Trump would engage in reactionary Keynesianism. Worrying parallels were drawn between Trumpism and autobahn construction under you-know-who.

But if theres a WH task force preparing an infrastructure plan, its very well hidden; maybe theyre waiting to figure out how to turn on the lights. Seriously, Ive been saying for a while that there will be no significant public construction plan. Wall Street economists, at least, are starting to catch on.

Meanwhile, that Obamacare replacement is still nowhere to be seen, with GOP Congresspeople literally running away when asked about it.

Big tax cuts and savage cuts to social programs are still very much on the Congressional Republican agenda, and they could put it all together, hand it to Bannon, and have Trump sign it without reading. But Im starting to wonder: surely they planned to unveil things during the Trump honeymoon, with the public prepared to believe that it was all done with the little guys interests in mind. Even pre 9-11 Bush could count on media goodwill and supine Democrats to ram through his tax cuts.

But now? With massive public distrust, and media fully willing to do real reporting on the distribution of tax cuts, not Democrats say that the rich are the big winners? With the media infatuation on Serious, Honest Paul Ryan at least temporarily dented by his avid support for Muslim bans and all that? Maybe theyll do it anyway, but it seems a lot less certain than it did in November.

At this point Im starting to wonder whether there will be any real movement on economic policy, as opposed to random insults aimed at allies.

Its odd that the markets are, so far, not reflecting any of this; theyre basically unchanged from the levels they reached after the initial Trump Boom euphoria. But surely the odds have shifted, and theres now a real possibility that on domestic policy, at least, were in for a period of sound, fury, and tweets signifying nothing.

Cant imagine what made me think of this.

Peter Navarro, the closest thing Trump has to an economic guru, made some waves by accusing Germany of being a currency manipulator and suggesting that both the shadow Deutsche mark and the euro are undervalued. Leaving aside the dubious notion that this is a good target of US economic diplomacy, is he right?

Yes and no. Unfortunately, the no part is whats relevant to the US.

Yes, Germany in effect has an undervalued currency relative to what it would have without the euro. The figure shows German prices (GDP deflator) relative to Spain (which I take to represent Southern Europe in general) since the euro was created. There was a large real depreciation during the euros good years, when Spain had massive capital inflows and an inflationary boom. This has only been partly reversed, despite an incredible depression in Spain. Why? Because wages are downward sticky, and Germany has refused to support the kind of monetary and fiscal stimulus that would raise overall euro area inflation, which remains stuck at far too low a level.

So the euro system has kept Germany undervalued, on a sustained basis, against its neighbors.

But does this mean that the euro as a whole is undervalued against the dollar? Probably not. The euro is weak because investors see poor investment opportunities in Europe, to an important extent because of bad demography, and better opportunities in the U.S.. The travails of the euro system may add to poor European perceptions. But theres no clear relationship between the problems of Germanys role within the euro and questions of the relationship between the euro and other currencies.

And may I say, what is the purpose of having someone connected to the U.S. government say this? Are we going to pressure the ECB to adopt tighter monetary policy? I sure hope not. Are we egging on a breakup of the euro? It sure sounds like it but that is not, not, something the US government should be doing. What would we say if Chinese officials seemed to be talking up a US financial crisis? (It would, of course, be OK with Trump if the Russians did it.)

So yes, Navarro has a point about Germanys role within the euro. And if he were unconnected with the Bannon administration, he would be free to make it. But in the current context, this is grossly irresponsible.

Ive noted in the past that I get the most vitriolic attacks, not when I denounce politicians as evil or corrupt, but when I use more or less standard economics to debunk favorite fallacies. Sure enough, lots of anger over the trade analysis in todays column, assertions that its all left-wing bias, etc..

So maybe its worth noting that Greg Mankiws take on the economics of DBCFT is basically identical to mine: subsidy or tax cut on employment of domestic factors of production, paid for by sales tax. Greg and I disagree on whether replacing profits taxes with sales taxes is a good idea, but agree that all of this has nothing to do with trade and international competition because it doesnt.

I suspect, however, that Greg is being nave here in assuming that were just seeing confusion because border tax adjustment sounds as if it must involve competitive games. Theres some of that, for sure, but one reason the competitiveness thing wont go away is that its an essential part of the political pitch. Lets eliminate taxes on profits and tax consumers instead is a hard sell, even if you want to claim that the incidence isnt what it looks like. Claiming that its about eliminating a dire competitive disadvantage plays much better, even though its all wrong.

To be fair, these tax-and-trade issues are kind of two-ibuprofen stuff at best. But confusions persists even longer than usual when they serve a political purpose.

Cardiff Garcia has a nice piece trying to figure out what might happen to the economy under Trump, taking off from the classic Dornbusch-Edwards analysis of macroeconomic populism in Latin America. Garcia notes that surging government spending and mandated wage hikes tend to produce a temporary sugar high, followed by a crash. Nice idea but I suspect highly misleading, because Trump isnt a real populist, he just plays one on reality TV.

The Dornbusch-Edwards essay focused on the examples of Allendes Chile and Garcias Peru; an update would presumably look at Argentina, Venezuela, and others. But how relevant are these examples to Trumps America?

Allende, for example, was a real populist, who seriously tried to push up wages and drastically increased spending. Heres Chilean government consumption spending as a share of GDP:

Thats huge; in the U.S. context it would mean boosting spending by almost $1 trillion each year.

Is Trump on course to do anything similar? Hes selected a cabinet of plutocrats, with a labor secretary bitterly opposed to minimum wage hikes. He talks about infrastructure, but the only thing that passes for a plan is a document proposing some tax credits for private investors, which wouldnt involve much public outlay even if they did lead to new investment (as opposed to giveaways for investment that would have taken place anyway.) He does seem set to blow up the deficit, but via tax cuts for the wealthy; benefits for the poor and middle class seem set for savage cuts.

Why, then, does anyone consider him a populist? Its basically all about affect, about coming across as someone wholl stand up to snooty liberal elitists (and of course validate salt-of-the-earth, working-class racism.) Maybe some protectionism; but theres no hint that his economic program will look anything like populism abroad.

In which case, why would we even get the sugar high of populisms past? A tax-cut-driven boom is possible, I guess. But there wont be much stimulus on the spending side.

Not the usual concert joint with the NOW Ensemble, with Elliss (the songwriters) classical-trained roots very much on display. But still a great experience; their sound is like nobody elses, and theres really nothing like live performance. And the new album, which Ive been listening to (blogging has its privileges) is great. Shot on my smartphone!

Trump tantrums aside, you may be finding the whole border tax adjustment discussion confusing. If so, youre not alone; Ive worked in this area my whole life, I co-wrote a widely cited paper (with Martin Feldstein) on why a VAT isnt an export subsidy, and I have still had a hard time wrapping my mind around the Destination-Based Cash Flow Tax border adjustment that sort-of-kind-of constituted the basis for the Mexico incident.

But I have what I think may be a (relatively) easy way to think about it, which starts with the competitive effects of a VAT, then analyzes the DBCFT as a change from a VAT.

So, first things first: a VAT does not give a nation any kind of competitive advantage, period.

Think about two firms, one domestic and one foreign, selling into two markets, domestic and foreign. Ask how the VAT affects competition in each market.

In the domestic market, imports pay the border adjustment; but domestic firms pay the VAT, so the playing field is still level.

In the foreign market, domestic firms dont pay the VAT, but neither do foreign firms. Again, the playing field is still level.

So a VAT is just a sales tax, with no competitive impact.

But a DBCFT isnt quite the same as a VAT.

With a VAT, a firm pays tax on the value of its sales, minus the cost of intermediate inputs the goods it buys from other companies. With a DBCFT, firms similarly get to deduct the cost of intermediate inputs. But they also get to deduct the cost of factors of production, mostly labor but also land.

So one way to think of a DBCFT is as a VAT combined with a subsidy for employment of domestic factors of production. The VAT part has no competitive effect, but the subsidy part would lead to expanded domestic production if wages and exchange rates didnt change.

But of course wages and/or the exchange rate would, in fact, change. If the US went to a DBCFT, we should expect the dollar to rise by enough to wipe out any competitive advantage. After the currency adjustment, the trade effect should once again be nil. But there might be a lot of short-to-medium term financial consequences from a stronger dollar.

I think this is right, and I hope it clarifies matters. Oh, and no, none of this helps pay for the wall.

Its hard to focus on ordinary economic analysis amidst this political apocalypse. But getting and spending will still consume most of peoples energy and time; furthermore, like it or not the progress of CASE NIGHTMARE ORANGE may depend on how the economy does. So, what is actually likely to happen to trade and manufacturing over the next few years?

As it happens, we have what looks like an unusually good model in the Reagan years minus the severe recession and conveniently timed recovery, which somewhat overshadowed the trade story. Leave aside the Volcker recession and recovery, and what you had was a large move toward budget deficits via tax cuts and military buildup, coupled with quite a lot of protectionism its not part of the Reagan legend, but the import quota on Japanese automobiles was one of the biggest protectionist moves of the postwar era.

Im a bit uncertain about the actual fiscal stance of Trumponomics: deficits will surely blow up, but I wont believe in the infrastructure push until I see it, and given savage cuts in aid to the poor its not entirely clear that there will be net stimulus. But suppose there is. Then what?

Well, what happened in the Reagan years was twin deficits: the budget deficit pushed up interest rates, which caused a strong dollar, which caused a bigger trade deficit, mainly in manufactured goods (which are still most of whats tradable.) This led to an accelerated decline in the industrial orientation of the U.S. economy:

And people did notice. Using Google Ngram, we can watch the spread of terms for industrial decline, e.g. here:

And here:

Again, this happened despite substantial protectionism.

So Trumpism will probably follow a similar course; it will actually shrink manufacturing despite the big noise made about saving a few hundred jobs here and there.

On the other hand, by then the BLS may be thoroughly politicized, commanded to report good news whatever happens.

Trumps inaugural speech was, of course, full of lies pretty much the same lies that marked the campaign. Above all, there was the portrayal of a dystopia of social and economic collapse that bears little relationship to American reality. During the campaign Trump got away with this in part because of slovenly, craven media, but also because of persistent misperceptions. The public consistently believes that crime is rising even when it has been falling to historical lows; it believes that the number of uninsured has risen when it has also fallen to historic lows; Republicans believe that unemployment is up and, incredibly, the stock market down under Obama.

The interesting question now is whether fake carnage can be replaced by fake non-carnage. How many people can be convinced that things are getting better under the Trump-Putin administration even as they actually get worse?

Will they actually get worse? Almost surely. Unemployment will probably rise over the next four years, if only because it starts out low historically the unemployment rate has a strong reversion to the mean, and it probably cant go much lower than it is now but can go much higher. The number of uninsured will soar if Republicans repeal Obamacare, whatever alleged replacement they offer.

Crime is less clear, since we really dont know why it fell. But big further declines dont seem highly likely; certainly we wont see an end to the prevalence of urban war zones, because, you know, they dont exist in the first place.

Oh, and this team of cronies is unlikely to help raise real wages.

But can Trump voters be convinced that things are getting better when they arent? The truth is that I dont know. Views on many issues are driven by motivated reasoning, and when people say that things got worse under Obama, what they may really be saying whatever the actual question was is I hate the idea of a black man in the White House.

Go here to read the rest:

Economics and Politics by Paul Krugman - The Conscience of ...

Outside contributors' opinions and analysis of the most important issues in politics, science, and culture.

Iowa state Sen. Mark Chelgren wants to tweak the dossier that candidates submit when they apply to teaching jobs at the states universities. In addition to a CV, sample syllabuses, and some writing samples, hed like one other thing: their party registration.

Im under the understanding that right now they can hire people because of diversity, he told the Des Moines Register. And where are university faculty less diverse than party registration? Thats the theory behind the proposed bill Chelgren has filed, which would institute a hiring freeze at state universities until the number of registered Republicans on faculty comes within 10 percent of the number of registered Democrats.

Bills proposed in state legislatures are easy fodder for outrage some wacky proposals get introduced every year. But Chelgren who, it should be noticed, claimed to hold a degree in business that turned out to be a certificate from a Sizzler steakhouse is not an outlier. In North Carolina, a similar proposal was introduced and then tabled earlier this month. And at CPAC, the conclave for conservatives held in Washington last month, newly appointed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos zeroed in on college faculty. She warned college students in the crowd to be wary of attempts to indoctrinate them: The faculty, from adjunct professors to deans, tell you what to do, what to say, and more ominously, what to think.

Fear of a liberal university faculty has been a feature of modern conservatism for decades, woven into the very foundations of the modern conservative movement although the attacks on universities have not always taken the form of legislation or calls for ideological diversity. The adoption of the language of diversity and pluralism serves mainly as a new way to skewer the left using its own vocabulary.

But no matter how often conservatives call attention to the ideological imbalance in the professorate, they fail to affect the makeup of college faculties. Indeed, faculties are markedly more liberal today than they were when the fight began. But persuading sociology departments to hire more Republicans is not really the point. Instead, these attacks have turned into a tool for undermining higher education, part of a far more serious and far less conservative project of dismantling American universities altogether.

It began with the communists. (Almost everything about modern conservatism begins with the communists.) At the dawn of the cold war, the Red Scare snaked its way through American universities, targeting left-leaning professors who found that not even tenure could save them from political persecution. The scare turned conservatives and liberals alike into happy red-hunters, as administrators and professors entered a contest of patriotic one-upmanship: loyalty oaths, hearings, purges.

Ray Ginger, a historian at Harvard Business School, was forced to resign in 1954 when he refused to take the loyalty oath Harvard demanded of him and his wife. They had to leave their home; his wife, nine months pregnant at the time, was forced to give birth as a charity patient. The marriage soon fell apart, and alcoholism claimed Gingers life at age 50. Rutgers fired two professors and allowed a third to resign after they refused to testify before the Senate red-hunt committee. No US university would hire them, and two were forced out of academia altogether.

The university scare more closely resembled the Red Scare in Hollywood than the one within the federal government. With the government, the fear was straightforward espionage: spies and blackmail and treason. With entertainment and education, it was the more nebulous fear of brainwashing, a worry that there was a softness in the American mind that could be exploited by nefarious filmmakers and professors.

For conservatives, anxieties about communist professors co-existed with anxieties about liberal ones. Indeed, a significant part of the conservative theory of politics was that the slippery slope toward communism began with New Deal-style liberalism. In his 1951 book God and Man at Yale, written in the midst of the university scare, William F. Buckley Jr. had little to say about communists. He instead made the case that Yale University had become infested with liberal professors who, in promoting secularism and Keynesian economics, had torn the school from its traditionally Christian and capitalist roots.

As McCarthyism waned, Buckleys argument became more prevalent on the right. Thanks to growing affluence and the GI Bill, millions more students were entering Americas colleges and universities. They were unlikely to become communists, but Keynesians? That was far easier to imagine.

In a 1963 piece for his Ivory Tower column in National Review (a regular feature on higher education underscoring just how much the state of Americas colleges worried the right), Russell Kirk dismissed concerns with communist professors. People who think that the Academy is honeycombed with crypto-Communists are wide of the mark, he wrote. At most, never more than 5 per cent of American college teachers were Communists. The real threat, Kirk maintained, came from liberal groupthink.

And how had the academy become so biased toward liberalism? Because administrators promoted liberals and demoted conservatives. That was the common conservative critique, anyway. William Rusher, publisher of National Review, laid out the plight of these conservative scholars: They face many tribulations. Advancement comes hard. They are victimized by their departments. Passed over for funds to support their research, Rusher argued, these conservative professors became a neglected generation of scholars.

The arguments that folks like Buckley and Kirk and Rusher were advancing in the 1950s and 1960s are nearly indistinguishable from those conservatives make today. But while the arguments have remained the same, something crucial has changed: the case for what to do about it.

Conservatives are certainly correct in their central claim: In the professoriate at large, and particularly in the humanities, the number of liberals and leftists far outstrip the number of conservative. This varies by field (you will find conservatives in in economics departments, business schools, and some sciences) and by school (Hillsdale College and Bob Jones University are hardly hotbeds of liberalism). But in general, the ivory tower indisputably tilts left. Whether this constitutes a problem that needs solving is open to debate, but even among those who feel it is a problem, solutions are hard to come by.

In God and Man at Yale, Buckley held that left-leaning faculty should be replaced by ones more in line with the universitys more conservative traditions. The best guardians of those traditions, he argued, were not faculty or administrators but alumni, who should be given the power to determine the colleges curriculum. They would do this through the power of the purse: withholding donations until the university administration became so desperate that they restructured the curriculum and changed up the faculty to meet alumni demands.

Whats important here is not the mechanism for change Buckleys alumni model was unworkable (it assumed Yale alumni all agreed with his goals and had more financial leverage than they did) but the theory behind it. Buckley was opposed to Yales liberal orthodoxies not because they were orthodoxies, but because they were liberal. He believed the university should be indoctrinating students; he just preferred they be indoctrinated in free-market capitalism and Christianity.

Over time, conservative efforts shifted from changing the liberal makeup of the university to building alternative institutions and safeguarding conservative students. Organizations like Young Americans for Freedom and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute became gathering spaces for young right-wingers, while a swath of new think tanks were erected for the purpose of getting conservative research and ideas into circulation. By the 1980s, anti-liberal student magazines like the Dartmouth Review served as feeders for Buckleys National Review and other conservative publications.

But what of the professors? They came under fire again in the 1990s and 2000s. Books like Allan Blooms Closing of the American Mind and Dinesh DSouzas Illiberal Education popularized the idea that professors infected their students with relativism, liberalism, and leftism, laying the intellectual groundwork for a new effort to limit the influence of liberal scholars.

But when those attacks came, they came wrapped in an entirely new logic and language: ideological diversity.

Lets pause here for a second, because this is important. In the 1990s, there was a real shift in American culture and politics, centered on multiculturalism and the postmodernism. Multiculturalism held that diversity was a positive value, because people from different backgrounds brought with them different perspectives, and a wide range of perspectives was good for intellectual debate. Postmodernism, a more academic idea, held at least in some of its guises that truth was inaccessible, perhaps nonexistent, that everything might be relative, everything might be perspective.

Conservatives didnt like either one of these shifts. Social conservatives like Pat Buchanan and Bill Bennett saw multiculturalism as a thinly veiled attack on the West (read: white European culture). Likewise, the rejection of knowable truths was an affront to believers in a fixed moral universe based on shared values. Multiculturalism, postmodernism these were anathema to their conservatism.

Except multiculturalism was also incredibly useful. If diversity of perspectives was good, and if universities valued that diversity enough for it be a factor in hiring, then surely the paucity of conservative professors was a wrong to be remedied?

Enter the pro-diversity conservatives, who have taken the arguments of the left and turned them into tools to expand conservatives presence in university faculty. The most visible early proponent of this approach was a former leftist, David Horowitz, who in 2003 founded the Campaign for Fairness and Inclusion in Higher Education (later renamed Students for Academic Freedom). The very name of the campaign suggested that Horowitz was committed to a pluralistic model of higher education dedicated to equity and balance.

The central project of Students for Academic Freedom was the Academic Bill of Rights. In its definition of academic freedom, the Academic Bill of Rights homed in immediately on intellectual diversity. It never mentioned conservatism, but rather advocated protecting students from the imposition of political, ideological, or religious orthodoxy. Given that Horowitz had widely criticized the one-party classroom and the liberal atmosphere of the academy, this equation of academic freedom with intellectual diversity amounted to a call to protect conservative professors and students.

That same framework could also be found in the 2009 book The Politically Correct University, published by the American Enterprise Institute. It included a chapter laying out the route to academic pluralism and another that claimed the academys definition and practice of diversity is too narrow and limited, arguing instead for a more inclusive definition of diversity that encompasses intellectual diversity.

In some rare cases, conservatives borrowed the language not just of diversity but of postmodernism. Horowitz asserted that the reason there needs to be more ideological diversity on campus is that there are no correct answers to controversial issues. This is a long way indeed from conservatives traditional rejection of relativism. Indeed, one could fairly wonder whether there was anything conservative about it at all.

So conservatives found a new argument for hiring more conservative professors. What they had not found was a way to convince universities to actually hire them. And this is the perennial problem with conservative critiques of higher education, the reason they scurried away into think tanks or places like Hillsdale college: There doesnt appear to be any mechanism to make universities hire more conservative faculty members.

This is in sharp contrast to the rights power to shape precollege education. Through school boards and state legislatures, conservatives have had real impact on public school curricula around the nation. They have won wars over textbooks, standards, even Advanced Placement guidelines. But that power smacks into a wall when it comes to higher education, where traditions of academic freedom and shared governance between faculty and administrators create real limits to external meddling.

Which is why conservatives are so often left lobbing rhetorical bombs at universities, and why bills like those in Iowa and North Carolina usually wind up quietly tabled. There is no legislative fix for ideological imbalance in the classroom, nor any general agreement that it is a problem that should be fixed.

The most interesting work being done on the topic on liberal academic groupthink is at Heterodox Academy, directed by the NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. The organization brings together scholars from across the country who are committed to promoting greater viewpoint diversity on campuses. But look through the list of solutions Haidt and his colleagues provide, and you wont find a single piece of legislation among them. Indeed, what youll find reading lists, student government resolutions, college heterodoxy ratings is aimed almost entirely at students, not at hiring committees.

The right is still intent on undercutting what they see as the liberal political power of the university. But theyre taking a different tack, pursuing their goals in more structural ways: weakening tenure, slashing budgets, upping teaching loads. It would be easy to dismiss this as simply a result of austerity programs, which have cut public services to the bone in states across America. But in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina, however, the cuts have been accompanied by rhetoric that makes the true goal clear: attacking curriculums and professors who seem too liberal, and weakening the overall power of the university.

Take North Carolina. Since Republicans took over the state government in the Tea Party wave of 2010, the states universities have been under constant attack. Centers on the environment, voter engagement, and poverty studies have all been shuttered by the Board of Governors, which is appointed by the state legislature.

No sooner had Pat McCrory come into the governors office in 2013 than he began making broadsides against the university, using stark economic measures to target liberal arts programs, like gender studies, with which he disagreed. His stated view was that university programs should be funded based on how many of their graduates get jobs.

Notably, the McCrory campaign was bankrolled by Art Pope, founder of the Pope Center for Higher Education (now the Martin Center), an organization dedicated to increasing the diversity of ideas taught on campus. As its policy director, Jay Schalin, explained in 2015, the crisis at the university stems from the ideas that are being discussed and promoted: multiculturalism, collectivism, left-wing post-modernism. He wants less Michel Foucault on campus, more Ayn Rand.

But bills calling for the banning of works by leftist historian Howard Zinn or hiring professors based on party registration havent yet made it out of the proposal stage. What has? Steep funding cuts that have led to higher tuition, smaller faculties, and reduced access to higher education for low-income students.

That is the real threat to the professorate, and to the university more broadly. And as with the strategic conservative embrace of postmodernism, it also represents an erosion of a worldview that once understood the value of an advanced education beyond mere job preparation or vocational training. Unable to reverse the ivory towers tilt, many on the right are willing to smash it altogether, another sign of the nihilism infecting the conservative project more broadly.

Nicole Hemmer, a Vox columnist, is the author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics. She is an assistant professor at the University of Virginias Miller Center and co-host of the Past Present podcast.

The Big Idea is Voxs home for smart, often scholarly excursions into the most important issues and ideas in politics, science, and culture typically written by outside contributors. If you have an idea for a piece, pitch us at thebigidea@vox.com.

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Eternally frustrated by "liberal" universities, conservatives now want ... - Vox

Updated March 08, 2017 12:18:07

It is shaping as the Barnett Government's last roll of the electoral dice.

Later today, the WA Premier and Treasurer will front the media armed with their Treasury-assessed election costings, hoping to cast themselves as the trusted hand to guide the state back to a balanced budget and economic prosperity.

But for a government that pledged to fight the election on jobs and the economy, its campaign has looked more like lily-pad politics, skipping from issue to issue without a consistent message or clear core theme.

Some Liberals are understood to be increasingly frustrated by the lack of focus in their party's campaign message.

While Liberal campaign advertising has questioned the experience and credentials of Labor leader Mark McGowan, it has also traversed a wide range of issues from the renewable energy target to claims Labor is planning a swag of secret tax increases.

On the campaign trail, the messaging has been equally mixed. A joint media conference by the Premier and Treasurer last week seemed to flag a targeted attack on Labor's costings, and its unwillingness to submit them to Treasury.

But in the days preceding and following that media conference, the Premier's public pledges ranged from a tourist road to Balladonia and a boost to aquaculture, to sporting statues at the new stadium and an expansion of free public transport on public holidays.

Questioned about the Liberal campaign's apparent lack of focus, Mr Barnett denied it was out of touch with the voters' main concerns of jobs and economic security.

"No-one has made that comment to me, but can I say we have put out 70 policies. We have put out, from my experience, the most detailed agenda across every area," he said.

"A lot of that is about the growth in new sectors such as tourism, such as international relations, agriculture in particular."

By contrast, WA Labor has been relentless in its attack on the Barnett Government's plan to part-privatise Western Power, both in its advertising and on the campaign trail.

Mark McGowan was interviewed on the ABC 7.30 program on Monday night and appeared to be in a parallel universe as he all but ignored the questions from presenter Leigh Sales, and repeatedly returned to his campaign themes.

Asked about minor parties, he responded:

"Well, minor parties have always been around, and they've always attracted votes. But my role as the leader of the Labor Party is to set out a comprehensive agenda for Western Australia, and that's what we've done," he said.

"And it's based around jobs, not selling Western Power, our plan for health all of those sorts of initiatives are the sorts of things that we're standing for."

Asked about union election advertising, he responded:

"I don't know. I don't know the answer to the question."

"But there are important issues out there that all sorts of groups are advertising around. The sale of Western Power, which I oppose. Better funding for schools, which I support. Making sure that we have a decent approach to health and community safety and the like."

Mr Barnett spent most of the same day defending his party's preference deal with One Nation, and being increasingly frustrated by media questions about One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.

"Look it is not what the West Australian public is talking about, the only people talking about Pauline Hanson, with great respect, are the media. No-one else is," he said.

Treasurer Mike Nahan dismissed questions suggesting the Liberal campaign had lacked an effective central theme to make up the ground on Labor in the last days before the election.

He said jobs and growth remain the Liberals key campaign issues and they would be reinforced with the release of the Liberal party election costings.

"It shows good government, focuses on what has to be done even if it's not necessarily popular. There's no flim-flam in our policies," he said.

He said the Liberals had a clear and credible plan to reduce debt and fund capital works through the part sale of Western Power, and would chart a path back to budget surplus by the end of the decade.

He said Labor had no plan.

"How do you reduce the deficit? How do you pay down debt? And how do you fund $5 billion in extra promises?" he said.

"If people fall for that, the warning I have for them is it's a one way street. After Saturday, they're stuck with him for four years."

Topics: government-and-politics, elections, wa

First posted March 08, 2017 08:44:19

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Analysis: Liberal lily-pad politics undermines efforts to cut through on Labor promises - ABC Online

A federal tax-reform plan will not be concluded in time for Finance Minister Bill Morneaus 2017 budget as the Liberal government waits to see how promised tax changes in the United States will affect Canada.

During the 2015 election campaign, the Liberals pledged to raise $3-billion in new revenue by eliminating tax breaks that primarily benefit wealthy Canadians or are ineffective.

March 22 federal budget will focus on job growth: Morneau (The Canadian Press)

Mr. Morneau had intended the budget to reflect the final results of a review of all tax credits, but sources say the process will extend beyond that date. The budget, to be delivered on March 22, is likely to eliminate some tax credits and will also focus on skills training in response to rapid changes in the work force.

Read more: To paint a portrait of the Liberals federal budget, Morneau will have to get crafty

Our budget will be very much about trying to increase jobs in this country, to create opportunities for people today, for their children and for their grandchildren, Mr. Morneau said. It will be about how we can help Canadians get the skills that they need in a dynamic and changing economy. Mr. Morneau has little room for new spending, so his budget is not expected to include a major change in direction. It will provide new detail on existing government plans for infrastructure spending, innovation and research in addition to the review of tax credits. Business groups had argued that the more complex aspects of the tax reforms would need more debate and consultation beyond the budget date.

Tax credits are worth more than $100-billion a year in forgone federal revenue. They cover everything from tax breaks for apprentice vehicle mechanics buying tools to deductions related to investments such as stock options or the sale of a primary residence.

Extending the tax review would allow the government time to see how U.S. President Donald Trump implements his pledges of major tax reform and factor that in to its own plans. Business groups say Canada could be at a disadvantage when it comes to retaining companies and highly skilled workers if the United States sharply reduces personal and business tax rates.

Sources say the budgets focus on skills will be part of a longer-term approach to the economy as the ratio of working-age Canadians to retirees shrinks. Measures to encourage specific groups including aboriginals, low-income people and women with young children to boost their participation in the work force will be a central theme.

Well be thinking about not only how we can grow the economy, but how we can ensure that Canadians are prepared for the exciting and good opportunities that will come out not only for this generation, but for the next generation as well, Mr. Morneau told reporters after announcing the budget date in the House of Commons.

Conservative finance critic Grard Deltell said he hopes the government shelves the tax credit review in light of the changes in the United States.

If the Trump administration tables some new direction to have less fees and less tax for business, well, we must address it because its very serious, Mr. Deltell said. America, as you know, is our most important partner, but also our most important competitor.

The Conservatives also want a more ambitious timeline for erasing the deficit. A finance department report recently said the budget will not be balanced until the 2050s.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said the Liberals should follow through on closing tax loopholes for the rich and deliver on their promises to Indigenous people.

Mr. Morneaus advisory council on economic growth which worked directly with the Finance Minister and his team over the past year called for an increased focus on skills training in a February report.

The Liberal government was elected on a central plank of running deficits to boost economic growth through infrastructure spending, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer and a Senate committee say the money has been slow to get out the door.

The 2017 budget is expected to provide more detailed breakdowns of the long-term spending plan for infrastructure. The numbers are not likely to change much from what Mr. Morneau outlined in his Nov. 1 fiscal update, which increased the total to $186.7-billion over 12 years.

While some new projects are expected to be highlighted in the budget as examples of what is to come, funding announcements on big projects will have to wait. Ottawa has not formally launched its second phase of funding for large projects, which means provinces have not submitted wish lists.

Mr. Morneaus Nov. 1 update added trade and transportation as well as rural and northern communities to the three categories public transit, green infrastructure and social infrastructure on which the Liberals have promised to focus.

One senior government official said the budget will have more to say on federal efforts to promote trade infrastructure.

John Gamble, president and CEO of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies Canada, said his members are not seeing evidence of increased construction in spite of promises from the Liberals and the Conservatives before them to hike infrastructure spending.

Were very excited and very supportive of the fact that weve seen three successive budgets, from two governments, and each one of them has legitimately claimed to be the largest infrastructure investment in Canadian history, he said. However, in practical terms, we have just not seen the corresponding level of design activity so far. We know there are a lot of reasons. Were just trying to convey a sense of urgency.

With a report from Robert Fife

Follow Bill Curry on Twitter: @curryb

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Liberals extend tax credit review beyond 2017 federal budget, keeping an eye on Trump - The Globe and Mail

An attempt by the Liberal governmentto gut the genetic discriminationbill was defeated by a coalition of MPs from across party lines Tuesday evening, despite constitutional concerns raised by Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Alberta Liberal MPRandyBoissonnaulthadintroduced a motion in the House to remove key sections of the legislation, including those relating topenalties for genetic discriminationand languageforbidding employers from subjecting job applicants to a genetic test. His efforts to dramatically reduce the bill'sscope weredefeated in a voice vote.

A number of Liberal backbenchers, including Toronto-areaMPs Jennifer O'ConnellandPam Damoff, spoke in favour of Bill S-201 An Act to Prohibit and Prevent Genetic Discrimination as originally drafted by recently retired Liberal senator Jim Cowan.

Conservative and NDP MPs also offered their support and chided the cabinet for accepting the "scaremongering" rhetoricof the insurance industry.

Now, at the request of the government, there will be a recorded vote (also referred to as a standing vote) on Boissonault's amendmentsWednesday evening.

Cowan said in an interview with CBC News Tuesday that the Trudeau cabinet's opposition to the bill is "curious" given the party's vocal embrace ofsuch legislation during the last election campaign and raisedthe possibility that aggressive lobbying efforts by the insurance industrysoured support.

Anna Gainey, the president of the federal Liberals, wroteto the Canadian Coalition for Genetic Fairness in October 2015 promising a Liberal government would "introduce measures, including possible legislative change, to prevent this [genetic] discrimination."

"Today, even people without symptoms can be denied life, mortgage and disability insurance and even rejected for employment based on genetic testing that shows risk of future illness. Many other countries have passed legislation on this problem. Canada is an outlier," she said in the letter addressed to the chair of the coalition, Bev Heim-Myers, and obtained by the CBC News.

Public lobbying records show there have been a number of meetings between the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Associationand ManulifeFinancialand senior members of Wilson-Raybould's office over thelast year where Bill S-201was the subject of conversation.

Liberal P.E.I. MP Sean Casey,who was, until recently,the parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice, was also lobbied by the insurance associationsix times in the last year.

Cowan, who introduced the legislation in the Red Chamber more than a year ago, pointed to the lobbying efforts as a potential explanation for the cabinet's skittishness.

"All I can say is look at the number of lobbyists from the insurance industry; they have been very, very active at the federal and provincial levels, and they've been lobbying [the government] very heavily, and lobbying MPs and senators. Now, is that the reason [the cabinet] is opposed to this bill? Some would say yes. But, as they say, I couldn't possibly comment."

After a strong commitment for the bill from the party in the last election, "it makes no sense to me," said Cowan.

Records are vague as to what was discussed during these lobbyist meetings, but the industry has not hidden its opposition to Cowan's private member'sbill, a piece of legislation easily passed the Senate last April, and the House of Commons justice committee inDecember.

Bill S-201, introduced by Cowanin December 2015, would add genetic characteristics as a protected ground under the Canadian Human Rights Act, introducepenalties for discrimination, and forbid employers from subjecting job applicants to a genetic test.

Recently retired Liberal senator James Cowan says aggressive lobbying by the insurance industry could be the reason the Trudeau cabinet is now opposed to his genetic discrimination bill. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The bill would also allow people to refuse to disclose the results of a genetic test to anybody. Medical experts have said the legislation is necessary to counter the fears associated with potentially lifesaving genetic testing, which could produce resultsthat would help doctors better tailor health treatments.

The insurance industry recently committed to never asking an applicant to undergo a genetic test, but said it will ask for and retain the right to potentially use genetic testing information for life insurance applications for coverage over$250,000.

"The $250,000 limit helps ensure that individuals with knowledge of significant health risks through genetic testing information, cannot apply for unusually large life insurance policies without disclosing this information. Otherwise, the cost of insurance would increase for everyone and fewer Canadians would be able to afford coverage," the group said in a statement.

Cowan said there is no proof of widespread fraud in any other jurisdiction that has protections against genetic discrimination, including in the U.S., Great Britain, France and Israel.

"Their initial point was this will ruin the insurance industry as we know it. What's happened in all other countries that have protections like this? As far aswe know the insurance industry is doing just fine," he said.

Wilson-Raybould has said she is opposed to the legislationbecause she believesit treads on provincial jurisdiction over the insurance industry. (The bill does not specifically mention the insurance industry by name.)

She recently wrote a letter to the Council of the Federation, the group that represents the provinces and territories, asking for its opinion on the legislation.Three provinces, B.C., Manitoba, and Quebec,have raised some issues with the bill as written.

NDP MP Don Davies said during the House debate on Tuesday that the government'sclaims of constitutional problems are "a smokescreen and no more."

Cowanadded constitutional experts have been widely consulted on the bill, and have testified beforethe Senate and House committees that Parliament is well within its rights tolegislate in this area.

He said hewrote letters to the provinces when drafting this legislation and not one responded to his inquiries with any concerns about the bill.

CBC is not responsible for 3rd party content

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MPs reject Liberal government's attempt to gut genetic discrimination bill - CBC.ca

Is there any party less aptly named than the Liberal Democrats? A truly liberal party would embrace the chance to shape Britains future as a self-governing nation outside the EU, free to trade with the world. And a democratic one would respect what the people voted for in one of the biggest exercises of democracy in modern times. Instead, the Lib Dems want to stop Brexit.

With only nine MPs, the Lib Dems can do little harm in the House of Commons, but there are over 100 of them in the House of Lords, many rashly given peerages by David Cameron to placate his Coalition allies. Those peers are seeking to force the Government to hold a second referendum on the final Brexit deal; they say they will vote against the Bill that will authorise Theresa May to trigger Article 50 unless their scheme for another public vote is written into law.

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The Liberal Democrats should learn to respect democracy, even if they don't like the Brexit result - Telegraph.co.uk

March 7, 2017 BOSTONPerhaps it was only inevitable that in Americas most Democratic state, Nilo Asgaris elephant sticker would get her in trouble.

Amid the intense fervor of the 2016 election, the Boston University student was eating lunch when a fellow student spotted the Republican emblem on her phone case and accosted her.

He came up and started yelling at me, says Ms. Asgari. He didnt know anything about me.

Like the fact that her parents immigrated to the US from Iran, for example and that she opposes the Trumpist rhetoric about immigrants and foreigners.

There are some values that people associate with the Republican Party that can be really offensive to certain groups, says Asgari. People assume that just because someone identifies with the Republican Party that they share those views and its not necessarily true.

Confronted with such pushback, conservatives at Boston universities are flocking to College Republican clubs causing membership to double or even triple. Some of the new members feel inspired by Trump to up their political engagement, but often it is to reaffirm to themselves as well as others on campus that there are more strains of conservatism than just Trumpism.

Feelings about politics are running very strong, says Virginia Sapiro, a professor at Boston University who specializes in political psychology. I think pretty much everyone who cares about politics feels vulnerable for various reasons. And for those in the minority, seeking a safe and congenial space to have conversations with like-minded people would seem attractive.

According to a 2016 Pew Research poll, 57 percent of Millennials identify as Democratic and 36 percent identify as Republican. Democrats also claim more female and college-educated voters. That can make conservatism a tough sell.

During the Obama years, the Northeastern College Republicans had about 30 members, with 10 to 15 attending the weekly meetings. Since the election, the club has grown to almost 100 members, with 35 to 50 attending each meeting.

The Boston University (BU) College Republicans and Tufts Republicans cite similar increases. BUs attendance has tripled in recent months from 10 to 30 students, and Tufts attendance has doubled over the last year, with about 40 students attending each meeting.

Once inside the safety of a Northeastern University classroom, a handful of students swap winter beanies for the iconic red hats stowed in their backpack: Make America Great Again. One student opens a laptop emblazoned with a "Johnson-Weld 2016" sticker, and another shows off a new camouflaged NRA baseball cap.

This is the College Republicans club a weekly reprieve from liberal campus life, if only for an hour. This is the only place on campus during the week when you can say whatever you want and nobody will judge you, says Nathan Kotler, the clubs secretary.

During an overview of the weeks media coverage, club leaders play a Fox News segment, UConn professor claims Trump voters motivated by white supremacy. All 40 students laugh in unison at what they see as the lame responses of the professor to Mr. Carlsons questioning.

At the end of the meeting, they put their red hats and TRUMP for President T-shirts back in their backpacks before leaving the classroom.

We are a minority on campus, says Noah Tagliaferri, president of the Northeastern College Republicans. It is cool when students find out there is a group on campus where they dont have to feel like an outcast.

Despite the camaraderie of College Republicans club, young conservatives say they feel scared or embarrassed to publicize their political beliefs for fear that other students will ostracize them or professors will grade their assignments differently.

Nobody wants to be called a name or have no friends because they are the Republican kid in the group, says George Behrakis, a freshman economics major at Tufts University and president of the Tufts Republicans club. And if you write something in class and you show any sort of bias toward conservatism people feel like they will get lower grades.

Patrick Collins, executive director of public relations at Tufts, says the university "encourages the free exchange of ideas, diverse opinions and beliefs" and supports an environment "in which all students feel free to express themselves."

Noah Tagliaferri, president of the Northeastern University College Republicans, and Nathan Kotler, secretary of the Northeastern University College Republicans.

Since the election, Asgari says she has removed the elephant logo from her phone case and any other public Republican paraphernalia. But she says she is still a proud Republican: She interns with the Massachusetts Republican Party and she is the membership director for BUs College Republicans.

Like Asgari, young Republicans at Boston universities are trying to distance themselves from the stereotype of a Trump-supporter racist, sexist, opposed to same-sex marriage, and so forth.

There are different strains of conservatism in Northeasterns club, says Mr. Tagliaferri: Some members abhor Trump, and some identify as libertarians. But I will say none of them are the strain that are on Buzzfeed or Vox giving the Nazi salute.

Mr. Behrakis says he wants to start challenging preconceived notions on campus by chiming into the political debates with a moderate conservative viewpoint. And when professors make jokes at Republicans expense in class, he plans to call them out.

When we try and do outreach we try to change the narrative on campus about who Republicans are, says Behrakis. If we can prove some people wrong, that is a step in the right direction.

Club members believe they could be a majority on campus someday if only the Republican Party would mirror their clubs platforms and let go of a social ideology that opposes abortion rights, same-sex marriage, or allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice.

Those are ageist issues, says Tagliaferri. Those are issues for 75-years-olds who sip their bourbon and yell to their grandkids about how Bulgarians are ruining the country.

But for some reason the old-school Republicans wont let it go, adds Mr. Kotler. But the younger Republicans, he motions to the classroom, there is nobody in this room that opposes gay marriage.

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In liberal Boston, College Republicans see club membership triple - Christian Science Monitor