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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat Trump Has Discovered
January 15, 2018 at 8:19 am EST By Taegan Goddard
David Frum: The Trump presidency has been a disorienting moment in American political life. Imagine a time traveler starting in the year 1990. He steps forward 25 years to 2015. Who are the leading candidates for president? Bush and Clinton again! What are the top issues? Iraq and healthcare again! Now step backwards 25 years from 1965. The most powerful men in Washington are the head of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 55 unions across the US, and J. Edgar Hoover. Theres a draft and a telephone monopoly and urban riots and liberal Republicans. Its a different world.
I sometimes feel that what Trump has done is restore motion to a political system that froze in place when the baby-boomers reached middle age. Whats coming next? Something radically different. The baby-boomers will keep ageing, and their dependence on government will grow. Trump discovered and confirmed that ethnocultural resentment mobilizes conservative voters better than economic issues ever did.
The Republicans seem to be heading for heavy losses in this years elections making Trump even more important as a single remaining focal point for party identity and party loyalty. Voters who cannot stomach Trump, especially college-educated women, are quitting the GOP. What will be left is a party that no longer commands a national voting majority. Only one Republican has done that since 1988 George W. Bush in 2004 and then only barely. But what Republicans are also discovering is that with sufficiently ruthless methods, a national voting majority may not be needed to wield national power. Thats part of the meaning of Trumpocracy, and its more disturbing than Trumps fast-food diet.
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https://politicalwire.com/2018/01/15/what-trump-has-discovered/
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)Clinton and Obama primarily reacted to what Republicans did under previous presidents, or to what Republicans were doing in Congress. Democrats had the majority in the Senate and still let Republicans delay or stop many judicial nominees. When Republicans had the majority, they stopped Merrick Garland from even coming to a vote for almost an entire year - unprecedented in US history. SCotUS justices have been rejected before, but never had one not gotten a vote for so long. And, now that Republicans have the presidency and the Senate, they're ramming through as many judges as possible, Democrats be damned and the people be fucked.
Irish_Dem
(47,107 posts)Just bouncing back and forth between momentous eras in American history.
brush
(53,779 posts)Blackwell and Ohio). Their only fair win since Eisenhower was daddy Bush in '88.
Their only chance is to cheatvote suppression, voting machine tampering, supplying broken machines in Dem precincts, reducing early voting opportunities and numerous other dirty tricksthey deployed all of those things in 2016 as well, while also adding a new and significant wrinkle, conspiring with foreign actors as in 2016, Russians and Assange.
Remember they lost by 3M votes.
They have to cheat to win.
As far as white women voters, Let's keep our fingers crossed that the majority of them don't vote for the repugs again as they did in 2016.