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| Irrelevant |
Democrats think Trump is in trouble. Chaos at the White House. Cognitive decline. "Shit hole." Porn star hush money. Mueller investigation.
Democrats have it backwards. They are the ones in trouble.
Trump has trolled and tweeted Democrats into focusing their attention on Trump-the-bad-boy, and on digging in as the party defending illegal immigration. These are two loser issues.
The 2016 election demonstrated that Trump's temperament and bad-boy behavior is not a disqualifier. The erratic things he says and does demonstrate in big bold body language that he is shaking things up. Democrats need to learn and integrate into their thinking that Trump’s vulgarity and flagrant dishonesty are irrelevant to his base and base-sympathizers. Relevant to evangelical Christians was that he nominated Neil Gorsuch.
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| Trump has his story. |
Trump's "shit hole" comment has Democrats going deeper into political self destruction. Of course Trump's comments were offensive, so Democrats are rushing to be the anti-Trump, defending illegal immigration, and closing ranks as the party of diversity as the top of mind policy issue.
No Democrat can appear "soft" on the anti-Trump, anti-"shit hole" issue. This makes it impossible for a Democrat to voice the kinds of immigration comments that Bill Clinton made fifteen years ago, where we welcomed legal immigration with rules and borders. Trump pushes acceptable progressive policy to the political fringes, because Democrats must be the counter-Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump remains unanswered as he calls himself the cause of a strong and growing economy. Democrats are ceding the most important and relevant issue to Trump. It's the economy, stupid. The issue being talked in the media is Trump, "shit hole" and identity politics, with Democrat after Democrat defending the dignity of people from Africa, Haiti, and Central America. Democrats followed the Trump bait back into identity politics and away from jobs, taxes, and economic fairness for middle income Americans.
This is exactly the positioning that caused Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin to vote for Trump. He talked about jobs. Hillary talked about harmony and diversity, "stronger together."
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| Guyer: Democratic |
Thad Guyer, a frequent commenter on this blog, said it gracefully in a tweet.
Advice to Democrats: Diversity is a good thing, but it is not the main thing.
Jobs, prosperity, access to health care, and fair taxation are the main thing.
Trump's flagrant exaggerations and dishonesty gives a Democrat a basis for recasting the "Trump economic miracle" story that Trump is out selling right now. He claimed credit for no plane crashes, he claimed his crowds were huge, he claims more job growth than Obama. Trump-as-dishonest, someone who flagrantly grabs undeserved credit, is a meme that is already out there. A Democrat can say "Not so fast, Donald." A Democrat can get in front of this with a segue from claiming false credit into the story of Democratic economic success.
That argument will not happen by itself and currently no Democrat is making that argument. Therefore Trump's version is settling in as the truth: Trump jump started the economy.
Trump manipulated Democrats into a dead end path.
[Note: recent posts have documented that in fact the economic recovery has been underway for 7 years, six of them under Obama, and that Trump is riding the continuation of a trend, not the fresh beginning of one. He simply ignored the economic recovery that he inherited, called it carnage, and then said, one month into his presidency, look how great things are.
[Note: recent posts have documented that in fact the economic recovery has been underway for 7 years, six of them under Obama, and that Trump is riding the continuation of a trend, not the fresh beginning of one. He simply ignored the economic recovery that he inherited, called it carnage, and then said, one month into his presidency, look how great things are.
Click Here, January 9, 2018
Click Here, December 26, 2017
Click Here: December 21, 2017
The above are three posts which document the recovery statistics.]
Click Here, December 26, 2017
Click Here: December 21, 2017
The above are three posts which document the recovery statistics.]
3 comments:
This makes sense of course, but could you also explain how Democrats can convince the public that Trump isn't responsible for the up turn in the economy. People see things like the stock marked seeing record highs and companies like Walmart saying it will increase wages etc. because of the new Tax reform bill. I would like to tell people the facts but you didn't give me any.
Ann, I edited my post to include links to three recent articles I created on the unemployment rate, GDP, and the stock market. The financial system survived a near collapse in October, 2008, thanks to intervention to provide liquidity to banks that had made awesomely bad investments. Obama was elected that November. The economy hit bottom shortly after and then made a steady recovery. There were more jobs created in 2016, under Obama, 2.2 million, than in 2017 under Trump, 2.1 million. Trump inherited a recovery and has not screwed it up. I added the following to the end of my post today.
[Note: recent posts have documented that in fact the economic recovery has been underway for 7 years, six of them under Obama, and that Trump is riding the continuation of a trend, not the fresh beginning of one. Trump has not destroyed the economy. He simply ignored the economic recovery that he inherited, called it carnage, and then said, one month into his presidency, look how great things are.
Click Here, January 9, 2018
Click Here, December 26, 2017
Click Here: December 21, 2017
The above are three posts which document the recovery statistics.]
Any politician who takes credit for economic success likely has no other accomplishments to tout. Monetary policy is set more or less independently of pressure from Congress or an administration and is seen to follow the broader economy not lead it. Government can and should act as to address inequalities that arise from economic injustice through taxation and regulation, but even then these actions act at the edges of commerce.
One exception is military spending. Much of the economic success since WWII has been because the arms industry never stood down. The US is the largest supplier of arms in the world, and the biggest military, and this spending is a major driver of the economy.
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