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The Ongoing, Bipartisan Effort to Make Democrats Look Stupid
The State of the Union address has been described as kabuki theater; an elaborate, carefully orchestrated, melodramatic spectacle heavy on showmanship and light on content. President Trump is good at this, he has built a very successful career in business and entertainment by excelling in theater, in one form or another. His production of, and performance in, yesterday’s State of the Union address was aptly masterful. Nothing that happened there was an accident. The whole show was carefully, and brilliantly, planned and executed. And I think that’s fine; play to your strengths. This is one of his strengths.
My problem was the other side of the show. The behavior of Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in attendance was absurd. What makes that absurdity particularly noteworthy is that it was just as carefully planned and executed as President Trump’s address. They had months to prepare for this. They knew exactly what President Trump was going to do. And the best they could come up with was wearing white, expressing disapproval at America’s successes, and tearing up his speech after he gave it. The Democrats were essentially filming Republican campaign ads for them, making themselves look ridiculous, clueless, and meanspirited, and this was after months of careful planning. This was exactly what they intended to do. I just don’t get it.
If I were a Democrat voter, I would really wonder about this. “Couldn’t they come up with something, anything, better than this? The Republicans are going to try to make us look stupid, petty, and vicious. Why are we helping them?”
To be fair, the Democrats really can’t campaign on results. By nearly any measure, Trump’s presidency has been a remarkable success. Domestic policy, economic policy, foreign policy, and so forth… it would be extremely difficult to portray his presidency as a failure. They could try, of course. But they don’t try. They rarely mention policies or results. Which is probably sensible.
And the Democrats don’t have any realistic alternatives. Their policies are either impractical (Medicare for all), detrimental (open borders), or completely insane (Green New Deal). They don’t have any promising candidates to run against Mr. Trump in the upcoming election. And whoever they do run will lose if s/he admits what they actually believe in. The leadership of their party is either unlikable (Chuck Schumer), criminal (Hillary Clinton), communist (Bernie Sanders), deluded (AOC), confused (Biden), or all of the above (Pelosi).
So Trump’s presidency has been an obvious positive for the United States, and they have no suggestions for how to improve on it. So what to do?
I’m not sure. But surely, not this.
Again, Trump is really good at this sort of thing. He makes his opponents look bad. It’s remarkable, really.
But the Democrats are helping him. With endless planning and coordination, they are helping him.
I just don’t get it.
Published in General
We had Pierre Delectobility.
Ho-hum. Will the day ever come when you can recognize his achievements without the obligatory “but he’s still yucky” caveat?
Do you ever hear a lefty say “for example…”?
You think you’d think that because you actually aren’t a Democrat. The ones I know–nice, smart people—buy into the left-wing histrionics entirely.
They did the same thing when Romney annihilated Obama in their first debate.
The Dems are playing a long game. And they have a good chance of winning.
Howard Zinn’s far left A Peoples History of the United States is the US History text in many high schools and colleges.
The 1619 Project, arguing that slavery was the core belief on which this nation was founded, is spreading rapidly. I believe it was Ben Shapiro who stated that he felt in 20 years, The 1619 Project will be the principal basis on which US History is taught nationwide.
First year “orientation” in many US colleges and universities involves, essentially, swearing fealty to the entire Race, Class and Gender agenda of the Woke.
The Left owns probably 95% of K-16 education in the US. The “moderate” Nancy Pelosi has maybe 5 years left in politics. AOC could have 50. We have the facts of the conservative approach fostering the better life. But they have the culture. And as Andrew Breitbart said “Politics is downstream of culture.”