The Cotton Candy Machine

Paul Krugman recently wrote that the never-die MAGA kernel appears to be 19%. That's the number still insisting, despite mounds of evidence, that the economy is terrific. It's an interesting number, because political scientists have long estimated the MAGA base at 31-33%. These are the full-throated supporters — the rally attendees, etc. But a lot of them imagined that Trump would improve the economy, reveal and prosecute Epstein participants, and avoid forever wars, so they are peeling off at a decent clip...revealing the white-hot inner core of 19% who'll stick faithfully forever. I played a jazz gig in Galicia, Spain on Francisco Franco's birthday in 1990. The guy (native to Galicia) had been dead 15 years, and it seemed the anonymous consensus in Spain that Franco's reign had been a nightmare. Evidence was glaring; while Spanish youth were tall, well-fed, and sophisticated, a great many older people looked like pygmies, stunted by malnutrition and nearly as provincial as their…