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Will the ‘Trump economy’ save the GOP? Here’s the Democratic strategy to prevent that.
WaPo Opinion ^ | 8-3-2018 | Greg Sargent.

Posted on 08/05/2018 11:45:32 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot

It has become an article of faith among Republicans and some pundits: If only President Trump would stop with the racism and cruelty (as with family separations), the authoritarian assaults on the press and on the Mueller probe, and the panting embraces of Vladimir Putin, Republicans could bask in the glorious “Trump economy” and stave off big losses this fall.

In this telling, if the election were about only the economy, Republicans would still face stiff headwinds but might at least weather them to the degree needed to hold the House. Friday morning, the monthly jobs report showed the unemployment rate ticking down to 3.9 percent, which would seem to support that notion.

But Democrats have reached a very different conclusion. They believe they can actually win the argument over the economy in a way that advantages them in the midterms. Indeed, they think it’s imperative they break through to the voters with an economic argument if they are going to win at all.

(snip) This reading of the midterms is laid out in a new polling memo from the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA.

……..

Crucial to winning the argument over the economy in a way that advantages Dems in the midterms is using it to reach what the memo describes as “weak Trump voters.” The memo argues that these voters (as opposed to gung-ho Trump supporters), who include non-college-educated whites and independents, among others, react badly to Trump’s trade war, and a large majority of them (57 percent) see worsening health-care costs.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Issues; Parties; Polls
KEYWORDS: 2018midterms; dems2018midterms; districtofcolumbia; incometaxes; mediawingofthednc; partisanmediashills; presstitutes; smearmachine; taxcutsandjobsact; taxreform; tcja; trumpeconomy; washingtoncompost; washingtonpost
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Democrats want to convince the public that the booming economics you see right now is not a good thing, so that they can win the election this Nov.

Read it whole. But keep in mind this is Greg Sargent, and WaPo.

1 posted on 08/05/2018 11:45:32 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
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To: Sir Napsalot

Who ya gonna believe...ME or your LYING PAYCHECK?


2 posted on 08/05/2018 11:49:48 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Sir Napsalot

Obama will say he made it happen...and the press will agree.


3 posted on 08/05/2018 11:50:23 AM PDT by Hojczyk
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To: Sir Napsalot

WaPo is unhappy that the Obama Recession is finally over.


4 posted on 08/05/2018 11:51:18 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Sir Napsalot
Democrats want to convince the public that the booming economics you see right now is not a good thing, so that they can win the election this Nov.

They tried this during Reagan's first term too, which really took off in his third year (1983), although hopeful (and somewhat surprising) signs began to appear in the second half of 1982.

The MSM and Democrats talked down the economy every chance they got. They said all the new jobs being produced were "hamburger flipper jobs," and they never, never uttered any piece of good economic news without immediately balancing it with a bad piece of economic news, even if they had to make it up (for instance "economists fear that the rapid growth in the job market will lead to higher inflation later").

It didn't work.

Their attempts to re-play this strategy are more strident and frenzied this time, but the push-back from our side is stronger this time too. Remember, in 1982 there was no Rush Limbaugh (who was 29 at the time), no World-Wide Web (the internet did exist, but could only be used by people in universities, big corporations, and the government), no Sean Hannity, no Laura Ingraham, and no Conservative Media (other than National Review and The Weekly Standard, which had comparatively tiny readerships).

5 posted on 08/05/2018 11:52:13 AM PDT by Steely Tom ([Seth Rich] == [the Democrat's John Dean])
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To: Sir Napsalot

It’s because everybody has to work 2 ,3 or sometimes 4 jobs!

That’s the REAL story! /s


6 posted on 08/05/2018 11:53:45 AM PDT by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal the 16th Amendment)
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To: Sir Napsalot
Sorry, I didn't mean to say "The Weekly Standard," I meant to say "The American Spectator."

And I was also going to say that the Democrat-MSM constant push to make things look bad really went nowhere, even in 1982. Ordinary people could see the signs of an improving economy. More new cars, more "Help Wanted" ads, more construction and home-building, more mortgage ads on TV, more of your friends taking vacations and buying their first homes.

I even remember an ad for The Trump Organization, that played on Philadelphia's rock-oriented FM radio stations back then. It was narrated by The Donald himself, and it started with these words: "The Trump Organization is always growing," and he stretched out the word "aahlways" in a most impressive manner.

7 posted on 08/05/2018 11:57:43 AM PDT by Steely Tom ([Seth Rich] == [the Democrat's John Dean])
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To: unixfox

I won’t go to that site. I get enough crap as it is.


8 posted on 08/05/2018 11:58:26 AM PDT by arrogantsob (See "Chaos and Mayhem" at Amazon.com)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...
And by "here", the shill at the Compost means, his op-ed, filled with DNC talking points. Thanks Sir Napsalot.

9 posted on 08/05/2018 12:02:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: Sir Napsalot

10 posted on 08/05/2018 12:16:20 PM PDT by Vendome (I've Gotta Be Me https://youtu.be/wH-pk2vZGw2M)
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To: unixfox

Really?


11 posted on 08/05/2018 12:18:44 PM PDT by antidemoncrat
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To: Sir Napsalot

12 posted on 08/05/2018 12:19:22 PM PDT by Vendome (I've Gotta Be Me https://youtu.be/wH-pk2vZGw2M)
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To: Steely Tom
I came to the States in 1985. And well remember my professor, his graduate assistants, and everybody (I mean everybody in the academia) LOATH Reagan with such passion that I never saw before in my life.

Comparing that to Dubya (to a degree) and Trump (especially), I'd say Trump got worse treatment because the Left has become totally unhinged.

13 posted on 08/05/2018 12:28:02 PM PDT by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = USSR; Journ0List + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey)
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To: Sir Napsalot

The comments are the most illuminating part. Delusional and in a bubble. I suspect they will be dumbfounded again when no Blue Wave appears.


14 posted on 08/05/2018 12:32:02 PM PDT by DaxtonBrown
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To: Sir Napsalot

I see at least forty-one reasons why the GOP is favored over the Democrats for the 2018 midterm elections:

1. President Trump and the GOP waved their magic wands (as Obama put it during the 2016 election) and produced a booming economy in less than two years in power. This Trump/GOP economy is one of the best economies since WWII, and one that quickly materialized, even after decades of chronic under-performance and low-level recession during the lackluster Bush/Obama decades. Voters vote their pocketbooks more than any other issues by far, and a booming economy is always bad news for the party that’s out of power.

2. The Trump/GOP major tax reform has benefited we regular folks and super-charged the economy. Most of whose benefits of tax reform have yet to even arrive, e.g., hundreds of billions of repatriated profits still are arriving onto our shores from the rest of the world and have yet to be invested into domestic manufacturing infrastructure.

3. Worker pay and benefits are climbing at the fastest pace than any time during the last ten years.

4. In less than two years, President Trump’s economic policies have added 3.7 million jobs to the U.S. economy, precipitated the longest job growth streak in U.S. history, and resulted in the lowest black unemployment rate in history, the lowest Hispanic unemployment rate in history, and the highest female wages in history. Polls have shown significant increase of support for President Trump from these groups of voters (currently at 29% support from blacks), groups who are normally the bedrock of Democrat support, and this growth alone could spell doom for the Democrats.

5. In less than two years, President Trump’s and the Congressional GOP’s economic policies have produced the highest stock market in history, and oil/gas production are at the highest level in U.S. history.

6. President Trump and the GOP Congress eliminated the vile, costly and counterproductive Obamacare mandate, which required people to pay a fine for the privilege of not buying nearly useless, overpriced medical insurance.

7. President Trump’s temporary punitive tariffs have panicked the EU into complete capitulation on the issue of tariff-free fair trade, with Canada and China soon to follow. Mexico is not far behind with U.S. threats of withdrawing from NAFTA all together if Mexico doesn’t cooperate. At this point, our foreign trading partners know for a fact that President Trump is serious about forcing fair trade and that he will not hesitate to take whatever actions are necessary to bring that about, even if some of those actions might temporarily be antithetical to some segments of the U.S. economy.

8. President Trump and the GOP Congress have implemented massive deregulation of industry.

9. CAFE auto fleet mileage standards that are extremely harmful to our auto industry are on the verge of being rolled back by President Trump’s EPA.

10. President Trump’s EPA has eliminated scientifically-baseless carbon regulations that have pointlessly stifled U.S. energy production and thereby raised the cost of living for everyone in the U.S.

11. President Trump has probably made AND kept more campaign promises than any other President in U.S. history. President Trump has kept his campaign promises on dozens of issues, including killing the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement nonsense, withdrawing from the odious and unconscionable Iranian “deal”, and halting payment of U.S. foreign aid to U.S. enemies like Palestinian terrorists. Implementing such a massive number of campaign promises and without backtracking or equivocating is essentially unprecedented in U.S. history. It’s extremely rare for any politician to keep their campaign promises (especially Republicans), and keeping campaign promises inspires confidence in the integrity of those who keep their promises.

12. President Trump has put warriors back in charge of our war department and made warfare the principle aim of the military instead of promoting various social justice ideologies, thus reinvigorating the U.S. as the world’s only superpower and diminishing the probabilities of war via a much stronger hand for peace through strength.

13. President Trump instructed his military to QUICKLY destroy ISIS, but has otherwise kept us out of foreign wars, as well as eschewing fruitless and ridiculously expensive “nation building” exercises in corrupt, dictatorial third world countries that can barely keep the power on and the water running, much less give a tinker’s damn about democratic elections.

14. President Trump has forced NATO nations to pay billions more of their agreed-upon share of expenses, with more billions to come.

15. President Trump’s North Korean denuclearization efforts are headed in the right direction so far, e.g., North Korean rocket engine testing infrastructure is currently being dismantled, and Korean War KIA remains are being repatriated.

16. President Trump is a strong supporter of Israel, including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

17. President Trump has strong relationships with Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

18. President Trump has been playing hardball at every juncture at the U.N., including a 24% reduction in U.S. payments to the U.N.

19. President Trump halted unvetted immigration from terrorists countries and implemented extreme vetting for all legal immigration, greatly reducing the influx of America-hating Muslims, as well as greatly reducing the pool of radicalized terrorists.

20. President Trump has cracked down on illegal immigration in general, stemming the flood from our southern border.

21. President Trump’s policies have resulted in deporting MS-13 and other drug-dealing gang-members and many other criminal illegal aliens as well.

22. President Trump and the GOP Senate have already appointed one strict Constitutionalist to the U.S. Supreme Court, with a second strict Constitutionalist soon to follow.

23. President Trump and the GOP Senate have appointed 44 Federal judges to date.

24. Polls repeatedly show that the GOP is more trusted on economic and national security issues than the Democrats.

25. Polls consistently show that voters don’t care very much about issues that the leftist fake stream enemedia and the Democrat Party are pushing. The great majority of voters pretty much care only about the economy and illegal immigration according to a recent Gallup poll.

26. President Trump’s approval numbers are higher at this point than Obama’s were at this same time in his first term, despite the leftist fake stream enemedia’s universal adulation of Obama then, and their universal hatred of Trump now.

27. President Trump has implacably fought back against the leftist fake stream enemedia, driving them to such extremes of rage that they have now essentially destroyed themselves for all time by losing credibility with we regular folks and losing their ability to convince people of things that are not true. The term “fake news” has now forever entered the lexicon of American politics. (Thank you, President Trump!)

28. President Trump has nearly destroyed the 1984ish Newspeak “politically correct” restrictions on free speech that the leftists have been perpetuating for decades as a means to limit people’s ability to speak the plain truth. (Thank you AGAIN, President Trump!)

29. President Trump has exposed the Bushite/GOPe/RINO/Globalist/anti-Trumper pretend-”conservatives” as being toadies of the oligarchs and plutocrats and NOT the champions of the peoplethat they’ve always pretended they were, thus destroying the non-Democrat half of the REAL party of the wildly wealthy, namely the GOPe/Democrat “Uniparty”.

30. President Trump’s election and the Clinton’s resultant loss of their singular iron grip on the Democrat Party has effectively broken the Democrat Party for the time being. The Democrat Party essentially has no platform other than “Trump is evil and must be destroyed at all costs”. The Democrat Party has now lost all party discipline, splintering into internecine warfare and enabling its lunatic and radical socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-law-and-order, anti-border, anti-nationalist, and anti-American wings free rein to dominate the national media and national conversation, thus exposing the Democrat Party to the nation-at-large as a radical, anti-American party that’s totally antithetical to traditional American values still cherished by the great majority of our citizens.

31. Recent polls have shown that younger voting generations are now equally split in support of Republicans and Democrats, which is completely unprecedented; recent polls have also shown that younger voters are also unlikely to vote in great numbers in midterm elections. Youngsters have traditionally been supporters of Democrats so both these sets of polls are bad news for the Democrats.

32. The Democrat Party is having extreme difficulty with fundraising at the national level, while the national GOP has record fundraising.

33. Since 2016, Congressional Democrats have continuously demonstrated that they are completely unwilling to assist in governing our nation and have demonstrated their contempt for the well-being of our people, instead adopting strident, scorched earth policies of obfuscation, propaganda, lies, and “resistance”, no matter how badly such behavior may hurt our citizens and our nation. A good case in point was when the “Right to Try” bill, designed to give dying patients a last chance, was opposed by 147 House Democrats.

34. The leftist fake stream media, Hollywood “celebrities”, and Democrat leaders like Maxine Waters have deliberately encouraged an environment of extreme public hostility, abandoned all norms of civil behavior, publicly hounded and attacked all who disagree with them, and attempted to stifle freedom of speech at every turn, even provoking weak-minded individuals into extreme violence, such as the attempted assassinations of Congressional Republicans at the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity in 2017. These acts simply do not inspire the average voter to want to put these kinds of people back into power.

35. The Democrat Party is wildly out of sync with the attitudes of the vast majority of we regular folks, overtly promoting open borders and encouraging floods of illegal immigrants who do not speak, understand, or write English and who depress wages and soak up tens of billions of dollars of free medical care and welfare paid by the taxpayers, as well as opposing the right of we regular folks to own firearms for self-protection, proclaiming the desire to repeal the wildly popular and wildly effective GOP tax reform, impeaching President Trump solely because they refuse to accept that Trump won the election, abolish ICE (the agency that protects our borders and vets imported goods to prevent the import of weapons of mass destruction and counterfeit and/or dangerous goods), and the insane promotion of so-called “sanctuary cities”, in which violent, drug-dealing illegal alien gang-members and all other violent predatory illegal alien felons are protected from deportation so that they can continue to prey on we regular folks.

36. Private-sector rank-and-file union members are no longer knee-jerk supporters of the Democrats, finally realizing that Democrat (and Bushite) economic policies have been designed to flood the U.S. market with cheap illegal alien labor while at the same time driving manufacturing offshore to 3rd world countries with cheap labor supplies of their own, whereas President Trump and the Congressional GOP have been implementing policies to reverse these destructive trends. Additionally, a recent Supreme Count decision has eliminated public sector unions from extorting money from non-union public sector workers via the forced garnishment of union dues from government paychecks, with the result that these unions will be deprived of tens of millions of ill-gained dollars that they’ve been funneling to Democrat candidates, as well as facing the loss of hundreds of thousands of members who joined only because they had to pay anyway whether or not they were members.

37. A recent poll shows 76% of U.S. voters will not vote for a socialist candidate, an unpleasant result for Democrats who are busily making socialism the newest de facto plank in the Democrat platform.

38. President Trump’s successes and Democrat’s excesses have triggered the “walkaway” movement with Democrats of every generation and socioeconomic status leaving the Democrat party in highly public ways.

39. President Trump’s supporters are more enthusiastic about Trump than ever before, including prior to the 2016 election. Many voted for Trump reluctantly, some simply in reaction to the awful choice of Hillary Clinton as the alternative, but had low expectations that Trump would keep his promises and/or govern effectively. President Trump has kept his promises and proved that he can govern very effectively, and thus has moved many doubtful supporters into the enthusiastic-supporter column. Republican voter approval of President Trump is also at astonishingly high level, higher even than during the election.

40. Election polls are likely to continue to under-count President Trump voters like they did in 2016. Aside from the rigged nature of many of these polls in which tricks are used like oversampling Democrats, an even bigger problem is that many of President Trump’s supporters jealously guard their privacy and refuse to participate in polls, assuming that they can even be contacted by telephone in the first place. An additional factor to the reluctance of President Trump’s supporters to participate in such polls is the extreme hostility the fascist left and their leftist fake stream enemedia allies have engendered, making President Trump’s supporters even more reluctant to discuss their preferences with strangers than during the 2016 election.

41. President Trump has committed himself heart and soul into assuring that Congressional Republicans continue to hold majorities in both Houses come 2019 (including a likely increase of their Senate majority) by traveling and holding campaign rallies several times a week until the November 6th election. Trump’s rallies were a major part of Trump’s success in being elected President in 2016, and the enthusiasm for attendance at his rallies has only increased since then. President Trump’s 2018 rallies, though staged locally, are being broadcast live to the entire nation by Fox News Channel, thereby providing both state-wide and national exposure to Republican candidates who would never otherwise be able to obtain that amount of positive media exposure. President Trump is probably making the best use of the Presidential bully pulpit in U.S. history.

Thus, it looks to me like nearly all the political winds are pointing to a crushing defeat of the Democrats in 2018.


15 posted on 08/05/2018 12:34:03 PM PDT by catnipman ((Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!))
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To: Sir Napsalot
I was in graduate school at the time, and I saw the same thing. The loathing of Reagan was intense, and unremitting.

I think Mr. Reagan "got lucky" in a way because of the assassination attempt against him in March of 1981, just two months after he was inaugurated.

His behavior and performance during that crisis was so good, so cool, so well-calibrated, that it softened many hearts.

I'm thankful President Trump has had no such thing happen to him, of course.

President Reagan was very good at handling the MSM, but Trump is a man for our season. The MSM-Democrats are for more toxic and dangerous than they were in the '80s, and Trump, who was a successful media figure for decades before he ran for President, revels in the fight against them.

16 posted on 08/05/2018 12:34:27 PM PDT by Steely Tom ([Seth Rich] == [the Democrat's John Dean])
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To: DaxtonBrown

The top mosted voted one in the comment section is

“There is no Trump economy, this is all Obama economy” (paraphrasing)

That one got a real good chuckle out of me.


17 posted on 08/05/2018 12:34:32 PM PDT by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = USSR; Journ0List + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey)
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To: Sir Napsalot

The Dems have nothing. Absolutely nothing. Actually they have less than nothing if they plan to run against a booming economy. Pitiful.


18 posted on 08/05/2018 12:38:12 PM PDT by Huskrrrr
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To: Sir Napsalot
It has become an article of faith among Republicans and some pundits: If only President Trump would stop with the racism and cruelty (as with family separations), the authoritarian assaults on the press and on the Mueller probe, and the panting embraces of Vladimir Putin, Republicans could bask in the glorious “Trump economy” and stave off big losses this fall.

The opening bias salvo in the first sentence! No need to read any further. FAKE "JOURNALIST" + FAKE NEWS = FAKE DISGUSTING MEDIA!

19 posted on 08/05/2018 12:38:33 PM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: Sir Napsalot
“There is no Trump economy, this is all Obama economy” (paraphrasing)

I saw one headline that stated "This is the TENTH YEAR of the economic recovery."

20 posted on 08/05/2018 12:45:57 PM PDT by Oatka
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