The Post’s editorial page, both the newspaper’s editorials and the op-ed, has gone decidedly right-of-center since Katherine Graham passed. Their regular op-ed columnist line-up includes George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Katherine Parker, Charles Lane and Robert Samuelson; they include E.J. Dionne as the token center-left voice.
You don’t go straight to torturing humans without practicing on animals, duh.
And Dana Milbanks, Jonathan Capeheart, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Garrison Keillor…
TBH; If Belarus falls, that wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen. Last dictatorship in Europe and all. (Well, that and soon to be Theresa May’s UK)
And the country that gobbles them up.
The crazy thing is, @JonRowe and @ravenight are both right. Two different ways of objectively looking at the exact same situation. Forget about the alt-right bastards, forget about EMAILS, a large portion of the people who supported and voted Trump did so because they felt (correct or not) that their personal situation was not improving or getting worse over the past decade, and Trump made a very loud and direct promise to address that exact issue. From the rural farmer, to the small-town factory worker to the suburban sales/middle management person, to the inner city restaurant worker and everyone in between, this is the most important issue. How do I fit in? How do I support myself and my family? How do I succeed? When you feel like none of those things are happening, you need someone to blame, and that someone was “the government”.
None of what is happening right now (Dodd-Frank, Betsy DeVos, Immigration Ban, Sean Spicer and Kellyann Conway lying, Steve Bannon on the NSC) means shit to these people. The only way they wake up and understand that Trump lied and that the GOP is screwing them far harder than the previous administration is when it’s already done. It will take 4 years of decreased prosperity, 4 years of these people actually losing ground instead of gaining it, before they will understand that they’ve been had. Everything else is noise to them.
If the opposition was smart and organized, they would be running campaigns right now based on educating these people about the one issue that matters most to them, their own prosperity. Forget about attacking Trump on immigration, forget about harping on how unprofessional and ill-equipped he is to handle the political aspect of POTUS, forget about his ethical conflicts of interest, those are all things that only reach people who are already horrified at what the Trump Administration is doing. Fight those fights in the courts and the media, but focus a concerted effort on educating people who voted for Trump that he’s failing to bring the success they expected, and is actively doing things that will make their situations worse. A good example is the ACA. The outcry when people realized the ACA and Obamacare were the same thing, and that they were benefitting from it, and it was going away, is (in addition to being hysterically funny) a prime example of the sorts of things the opposition needs to hammer home with these folks.
Trump is taking away your health insurance (or making it 3 times as expensive), Trump is taking away your social security and/or Medicaid benefits. Trump is going to raise prices on everyday goods and reduce our profits on farm produce shipped overseas with his trade tariffs. Trump is going to kill the increased minimum wage movement. Trump is going to return the banking industry to the same state it was when they caused the mortgage crisis, the student loan crisis and the bank bailouts. Trump will cost you money and hinder your ability to move up the ladder, because the ladder is for Trump and his Wall Street friends, not for you.
This is the message that will win in 2018 and 2020.
You mean Goebbels them up right?
Har Har
Hah, nicely done. :)
What I am hoping for is that these campaign promises end up being “Read my Lips, no new taxes” that can sink Trump. He promised to fix things, so he better.
And honestly, George HW got the raw end of the deal there, compromising across the aisle. Though, to be fair, his own party cannibalized him for that as well.
There will be an enormous backlash if he doesn’t fix the economy (which has remained stagnant for the middle class). We will see if he can sell people on 4 more years. This is probably why “repeal and replace” has calmed down, and the word “repair” has started to pick up mention. Yeah, making insurance cost more is not going to win over voters, very bad PR. And while Trump is the “Teflon Don” who might survive, things could be a lot worse for the house representatives and senators in battleground states if things tank. Losing the GOP majority is a definite possibility, as so many seats in both the house and senate are going to be close races.
Great points there. All the craziness is just exhausting but many people won’t care if their personal situations improve. I can’t see that happening so the Dems really need to focus on it, like you said.
+1, Like, etc.
“It’s the economy, stupid.”
Welp. New EOs signed today.
Hot take on the EOs:
- Remember when Trump issued an executive order freezing all federal non-military hiring? I kind of hope at their first meeting, they say, “yeah, we’re doing pretty well when it comes to crime” and adjourns.
- “Fuck you, protesters.”
- Did Bannon or Trump watch about twenty minutes of Sicario? Is this groundwork for a second Mexican-American war? Or are we concerned about the Mafia again? Certainly I can’t imagine they’ll be going after Russian hackers.
I especially like the provision in there that says, in essence, “If you can’t prove they are doing the things you suspect them of, use unrelated charges to get their asses in prison/deported”.
I strongly suspect that Trump’s ideas about the current crime rate come from watching the Dirty Harry and Death Wish movies from the 1970’s.
Iowa sounds fun. Utah sounds as if they’ve already come to terms with everything and have moved on.
Great, I had to google 3 Doors Down.
Thanks Mississippi.
That first EO on “law and order” is exactly why nominating Sessions as AG was a bad, bad thing. Hello War on Minorities.
Regarding the second EO, it’s a shame we don’t already have laws that make it a crime to commit violence against law enforcement personnel.
That can’t be real.
If so, way to go Alabama.