Shhh, don’t tell Trump that! The optics of Trump saying the military is now “rich” and should use their money to build his wall are too awesome to stop so soon.
Technically he will still be supporting the troops as long as he also sends some of the troops to the Mexican border.
To be clear, the military having a real budget is an awesome thing. Even without increasing the previous budget, having an actual budget is a massive improvement, because we’ve been creeping along with CR’s that basically just waste money don’t stuff that the military didn’t even want.
I don’t mind the boost to spending that much, since I know that some people of it will go to innovative research and pay for the warfighters.
Or maybe they’ll just toss it all into the black hole that is the F-35. Trump loves the thing.
You can’t even see it.
It’s stealthy because no photons (or dollars) can escape its gravitational pull.
This bill is nuts. It has the massive military spending increase the GOP wanted, but it also fails to cut any of the programs they promised to cut, and increases the budgets for a ton of stuff that Dems wanted increased (and the GOP threatened to eliminate). Essentially, in the midst of the worst partisan politics gap we’ve ever seen, Congress and Trump somehow just passed what can only be considered a bi-partisan budget.
Of course, combined with the tax cuts, it still adds ridiculous amounts to our debt…yet another thing the GOP used to rail against daily, but now seem to embrace whole-heartedly.
Yup, that’s the biggest problem.
Money pit politics.
It’s designed to get them through the 18 elections with as little damage as possible. I have a feeling they will continue to do something like this for a few years. When the middle class tax breaks are set to expire then the Rs will get out the knives and try to cut social spending. “It’s cut funding for abortions, welfare queens, etc. or raise your taxes,” they will say.
GOP are kinda screwed without Trump in the near term since he’s still the most popular one of them.
While we don’t know to what extent all that will be reversed in November, they’re certain to make substantial gains. And it’s worth considering where they’d be right now if 100,000 votes were shifted in the Rust Belt and Hillary Clinton had won the electoral college in addition to the popular vote. The Republican Congress not only wouldn’t pass any legislation even remotely favorable to liberal goals, it would be occupied with an orgy of investigation of everything the Clinton administration did — Benghazi times 100. There would be a new tea party taking to the streets and generating energy in advance of the 2018 elections. Those elections would be almost guaranteed to deepen the Republican hold on Congress and state legislatures. A whole new backlash would be underway.
But now, with the creation of a new generation of activists and candidates, we may well look back on this moment as a rebirth of liberal activism, just as the 1964 election began the flowering of conservative grass-roots action that grew out of the Goldwater campaign. In that case, it took 16 years before those activists seized control of the country’s politics and elected one of their own to the presidency, but things happen a lot faster these days.
So, it’s preferable to lose elections as long as it energizes your base?
Without reversing GOP gerrymandering, there’s zero chance to win the House or local congresses. Dems can be energized all they want.
Even when they’ve won districts that went to Trump by a 20 percent margin?
The margin doesn’t matter as much as the number of seats. In fact, the high margins in some districts may be a result of the gerrymandering.
No, it’s preferable to lose this election as long as it energizes your base.
Really, though, “preferable” isn’t a fair way to put it. It’s more a matter of considering whether there’s a silver lining in Trump’s win. It’s definitely a cloud:
But I agree wholeheartedly with that piece: Trump’s win has been a boon not just for swelling the ranks of the Democratic Party, but for generating a whole different kind of support. I’m trying really hard not to be too optimistic about the mid-terms. It’s not easy.
-Tom
The margin is what lets you win those gerrymandered seats.
Gerrymandering just gives one side an electoral advantage in that district… but it can be overcome if you get out enough votes. You just need to get more folks than you would normally in less gerrymandered districts.
A 20% margin (what papageno stated) in one district is pretty useless. Better to have 20 districts with a 1% margin. And what is a “less gerrymandered district”? If one district is gerrymandered, then by definition all the rest are gerrymandered as well.
But that’s the thing.
The current shift is way more than the previous advantage that these districts we’re gerrymandered around.
PA06 was ridiculously germandered in PA… they had that special election with the old map. And the Democrats won anyway. With the new map it’s going to be a huge shift.
Germandering was designed to shift voters around to give just enough advantage to win in a bunch of districts. And if the Democrats can get huge turnout, they will overcome it.
It’s just not going to happen. (Oh, wait, wrong thread. LOL :) )