Immigration, Health Care, and the Economy

Pelosi: "Manifesto of untruths."

We see the outlines of the Trump 2020 campaign.

Immigration: He sharpens the attack. 

Healthcare:   He muddles, deflects, and says me-too.

Economy:    It's great and it is all him.

Democrats know what they face. 

They have time to adjust.

Trump rode the issue of illegal immigration through the Republican primaries and into the White House. Populism needs an enemy. Right populism needs a dangerous foreign influence, corrupting from below. Trump had it: immigrants, especially illegal ones, especially ones from Latin America and Asia. Not Norway. 

Trump hammered the immigration issue in last night's speech. He spent ten minutes talking about illegal immigration. At minute 41 it was healthcare for illegal aliens and the wall, which he said "would bankrupt our nation by providing free, taxpayer funded healthcare to illegal aliens."  They sponge off us, and you are paying. I will protect you.

At minute 55 it was for 8 minutes on the danger they pose. Criminals. Drugs. Murderers. He criticized open borders, catch and release, sanctuary cities. He introduces a crime victim’s brother and a proud Latino ICE officer. You have reason to fear. I will protect you.

State of the Union video

The Democrats’ issue is health care. American voters--and near universally Republican voters--disliked the ACA and they rallied to Republican calls to repeal the law right up until, in fact, its repeal was possible. Then, actually, they realize they like it, or at least the key elements of it, as long as it wasn't called Obamacare. 

A broad majority of Americans like the idea that people with pre-existing conditions aren’t locked out of health insurance. Everyone can identify. What if your own employer got merged or sold, or you had to change jobs, or for whatever reason you lost health insurance and your new employer’s insurance company said, sorry, we don’t like your blood pressure or your husband’s back aches? You risked losing everything if someone in your family got sick. 

But Republican opposition has inertia. They say they hate it as a matter of ideology, even as they like its provisions. Republicans may succeed in killing it in the courts or by starving it for money. It is a good issue for Democrats.

On health care, Trump deflected and muddled the Democratic issue. He lied, and shamefully and persuasively, about what Republicans are doing in the courts and with GOP legislators. “We will always protect patients with preexisting conditions. That is a guarantee.”  He seemed so confident, so adamant. He contrasted himself with Democrats: "As we work to improve Americans' health care, there are those who want to take away your health care, take away your doctor, and abolish private insurance entirely. . .  a socialist takeover of our healthcare system. . . . We will never let socialism destroy American healthcare." (minute 39) Democrats, he said, are the ones who endanger health care. I will protect you from them, he said.

The economy. The economy, measured by productivity, by unemployment, by the stock market, all rebounded sharply during the eight years of Obama's presidency. There were reasons for Obama not to sound triumphant. 

Republicans had stymied infrastructure spending, so there were few visible symbols of federal action. No Hoover Dam. Obama's policy was to rebuild the financial institutions, which meant there were no visible prosecutions of finance executives. That fueled resentment of elites. Quantitative easing inflated assets, which re-collateralized mortgages for banks, but it made home ownership less achievable for working people and did nothing for the vast majority of the population without significant stock holdings. 

Unemployment for Obama inauguration to the present.

Trump inherited an eight year trend, and it continues. Still, on in inauguration Trump would call the economy "carnage" and say that the unemployment and GDP numbers were totally phony. 

Then, with apparently sincerity, two months into his presidency, he said the economy under his stewardship was, in fact, great. The great economic numbers proved it.  

Amazing chutzpah, but it worked. Trump sold it and people bought it. A significant majority of Americans agree the economy is strong, and that Trump is responsible.

Meanwhile, Democrats, especially Sanders and Warren, focus on the negative, which would have political traction in a recession; but we are not in recession and have not been for a eleven years.

Democrats now know what they are up against. Trump has his story: Democrats are weak in protecting Americans from scofflaw foreign sponges and criminals, they are destroying health care with socialist schemes, and they critical of President Trump who has presided over a great economy.