Fighting Trump and the GOP policies will not be easy

3 Columns today highlight the difficulty in opposing King Donald and the necessity of doing so.

The 1st column, written by a former conservative radio talk show host, highlights the success and danger of the successful delegitimization of main stream media by conservative media.  Many Trump supporters believe the truth and facts are fabrications and only alternative facts and King Donald's beliefs are the truth.  The writer regrets participating in this, but it stills highlights the need for a focused Democratic effort on the policy front to convince Trump supporters who still read main stream media that they have a coherent economic message.

Why Trump Supporter's Don't Care That He Lies

The danger of this is the fact that some of these Trump supporters think 9/11 and Sandy Hook were executed by agents of the U.S. Government because that is what Alternative Media like the Drudge Report and Breitbart News are telling them.  Unless those sites change their ways, which they will not because they make their money off the clicks on their website and giving the reader what they want to read is the way to keep them coming back.  They are the media equivalent of the Tobacco and Alcohol Industries.  Not to mention that most of them think President Obama is a muslim born in Kenya and who rode that falsehood to the pinnacle of power.

The 2nd column is written by Ross Douthat and simply highlights the fact that the country is split 50/50 and the rhetoric that the Democrat's both need to use to combat Trump and and keep their base motivated turns off the other 50% and makes it difficult to get them to listen to what else the Democrats have to say.  Crafting something that will make sense to potential swing voters in the Rust Belt and N.H./N.C./Florida is essential but how you communicate that is a challenge that must be meet for the Democrats to have success in 2018/2020.

Douthat "The Counternarrative ...Excludes too much of America"


Meanwhile, there is the issue of the courts and they are the last obstacle to holding King Donald somewhat in check.  And the key issue that Democrats must focus on is not Roe v Wade, other Social issues, or gun control, it is basic civil liberties and the separation of powers.  The courts are last barrier between President Trump and King Donald.  And how Supreme Courts nominee Judge Gorsuch answers questions about those issues should determine how Democrats vote on his nomination.

Link to Linda Greenhouse column

Finally, someone agrees with me. GOP must renounce talk radio

Donald Trump is the result of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham and any number of other burn the bridges down and never ever discuss compromise with the Democrats.  They have promulgated lie after lie after lie and they provided the license for ordinary people to believe Donald Trump's behavior was tolerable because these radio show hosts are hero's to these people and they support Donald Trump.

Link below.


Thank You Michael Gerson

Conservative Blogosphere Illustrates Why Trumpies Have Abandoned the GOP Establishment

I have been waiting for my friend RedStateVT to enlighten me on how conservatives are going to respond to the desires of the Trump supporters for health insurance that works for them, protecting Social Security and Medicare and doing something besides cutting taxes to support economic growth.

Instead, all he can do is write about how liberals want more income redistribution. I don't deny that Bernie Sanders, his Senator, whom I know he has never voted for (nor did I) is running his campaign to do that, but Hilary's moderate supporters understand there are limits to income redistribution and just want a government that funds itself to meet its promised obligations while creating and maintaining a well regulated playing field.

That in essence is what the Trumpies want too and what Donald Trump is promising them, although in his case, he would also destroy international trade to get his way.

But in any case, I would have thought the conservative blogosphere would be looking for conservative solutions that address people's problems.  Like affordable health insurance.  Health insurance was a mess before Obamacare, which was designed by the Heritage Foundation (a GOP think tank) as a way to expand the number of insured while keeping the private sector involved.  But instead, the conservative blogosphere is just criticizing Bernie supporters for wanting a free college education and more income redistribution.  Where is the critical introspection for dealing with the fact that Ted Cruz and all the other establishment conservatives have been rejected by a majority of the voting GOP.

Conservatives have been so busy criticizing everything Obama, they forgot they needed to have ideas that the voting population can believe in.  And now that they are losing, they are blaming the voters for wanting a government that works and seeing liberal instincts in that.  Every GOP President since Eisenhower, except maybe Bush II, believed in making government work for the people who vote them into office.

The conservative blogosphere does not acknowledge that as a lesson of this primary season.