KER Politics – Tue 30 Jan, 2018

By Big Al All the Dems can seem to say is that: “We are not Trump”

Big Al says: “Kind of a sad state of affairs when that is all the opposition can seem to say”

No ideas, policies, talking points: Doddering Pelosi crew leans on ‘We are not Trump’
BY ANDREW MALCOLM Special to McClatchy

PicNo ideas, policies, talking points: Doddering Pelosi crew leans on ‘We are not Trump’
BY ANDREW MALCOLM Special to McClatchy

Picture
MIKE STOCKER Sun Sentinel

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., left, and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speak during a town hall meeting Jan. 25, hosted by the Florida Atlantic University College Democrat in Boca Raton, Fla.

Distracted by Donald Trump’s disputatious style and flagrant violations of political norms, Democrats have consistently underestimated his political appeal. No way he could beat their candidate in 2016. But he did.

No way the New Yorker would actually make a conservative Supreme Court nomination, let alone get it through. But he did. Signed tax reform and repealed Obama-care’s core mandate, too. Plus dozens of executive orders contradicting his predecessor’s efforts.

Now Democrats and their sympathetic media are eagerly awaiting the oncoming annihilation of many of Trump’s congressional ground troops in the midterm elections just 40 weeks away. Maybe so. Republicans losing one or both chambers would stymie Trump’s agenda for at least two years, not to mention his district and higher court judicial appointments.

But Democrats appear to be making a familiar mistake again, one that’s become chronic for them this century. That is, in the words of another Republican president they misjudged, “misunderestimating” their GOP opponent.

Presidential midterms are usually political report cards on the party controlling the White House. Bill Clinton got shellacked in 1994. Riding support after 9/11, George W. Bush gained House and Senate seats in 2002, but then lost both houses in 2006.

All signs so far indicate Democratic candidates and the money-strapped national party are counting on winning back at least part of Congress, specifically the House, this year by playing off the country’s widely-held displeasure or disgust with Trump. They are confident that “We Are Not Trump” is sufficient to carry the day Nov. 6.

Anti-Trump animus might seem a tempting bet. A majority of Americans have disapproved of Trump’s job performance seemingly since within minutes of his taking the oath 53 weeks ago. Although eight-of-ten Republicans have stuck with him, Trump’s overall job approval has bobbed along from the low-forties to mid-thirties, historically low for a new chief executive.

Trump was elected by a dedicated plurality, promising to shake up Washington’s comfortable self-centered ways on both sides of the aisle. He’s certainly shaken things up from a style perspective, even going after his own party’s establishment leaders.

Trump has, in fact, invented the political equivalent of fracking, finding and creating vast reservoirs of subterranean turmoil to exploit for sometimes murky reasons.

Now, no one ever seeks or becomes president with a minute ego. Trump’s is, let’s say, plus-size. All the turmoil keeps the daily — even hourly — focus on him, which seems important to …read more

Source:: The Korelin Economics Report

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