Posted on 10/17/2017 10:14:05 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
The Democratic Party, as it did after Hubert Humphrey’s close loss in 1968, seems still to be misdiagnosing its 2016 defeat.
Democrats see too little identity politics rather than too much as their trouble, and thus are redoubling on what has been slowly shrinking the party into coastal enclaves.
Promoting Black Lives Matter and open borders, promising free tuition and tax hikes, opposing fracking and pipeline construction, pushing single-payer health care and an ever-expanding transgender agenda as well as abortion—these are not majority positions. Neither will embracing Hollywood, the media, or the NFL protests win over voters. Thinking (or hoping) that President Trump will implode, quit, be jailed, sicken, die, or be impeached is not an agenda.
*snip*
Unprecedented Subordinate Power Trump’s forte is his invective and brawling. He is not a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton wonk, who micromanages even the smallest details. The result is that his cabinet secretaries, generals, and high appointees enjoy more latitude than during any administration in memory.
Trump on the parapets not only means that others to the rear are freer to make and administer rules without much presidential oversight, but also that Trump, not themselves, is the controversy. That exemption means that a cabinet official has wide parameters, with less worry that he must fight the media and his political opponents.
One of the reasons why the luminaries of Trump’s team do not resign after his supposedly embarrassing outbursts is that they realize Trump’s outrageousness allows them to play the good-cop, adult in the room role, usually with media sympathy. And when a president is doing downfield blocking, others are relieved of the interference. A Trump secretary of defense or national security advisor exercises power and influence in ways unimaginable in comparison to most earlier counterparts.
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
This is the best VDH article I have read in a long time.
Bookmark.
Close, except VDH still doesn’t get that these “brawls” and fights, especially with people inside the administration (Sessions, Tillerson), are pure WWF entertainment/sideshows/distractions.
Cheese in the maze, Vic.
Cheese in the maze.
It is obvious to everyone except the media.....................
I freaking love Victor Davis Hanson..!
his stories of the Fresno area while he bicycles along are insightful, poignant, detailed and often hilarious.
He’s a great speaker and fantastic writer.
Later.
Other than Tom Price, the media find themselves taking sides with the secretaries because they hate Trump so much. Of course, that doesn’t work for alleged “alt-right” types whom the media brands as “Nazis” for no reason other than blind hate.
Trump takes the bullets and the results are surprisingly good in many cases. The media won’t admit how big a success he has been but main street is noticing.
shhhh. we don’t want stuff like this to get out because it is dependent on the democratic party being uninformed and clueless to what is taking place. in the future stuff like this should only be talked about in low whispers when those that want to talk about it have made sure there is no Democratic supporter in the room.....
LOL...LOL...LOL
Trump is not playing Chess and the Democrats are not playing checkers ... both are playing a game of keep away and the small child trying to get the ball back is the democratic party and it is trump and his administration tossing the ball around in an attempt to wear out the Demacratic party.
bmp
Great article. VDH understands and explains DJT very well.
Best analogy by VDH: Trump is the always racing Roadrunner, and his enemies are the hapless Wile E Coyote.
In their fanatical zeal to blow up Trump, his enemies usually blow themselves up instead, much like Wile E Coyote. By the time his enemies stop seeing stars from the latest explosion, Trump the Roadrunner has already zoomed on to the next agenda item.
It’s a thing of beauty to watch.
Agreed. Best article by ANY author in a while. VDH really understands what’s going on and how Trump is playing the game. Brilliant analysis. Can’t argue against any of it.
...don’t dare attack Trump unless you are willing to be dragged down with him into a netherworld whose rules he has mastered. Just ask Low Energy Jeb, Little Marco, or Lyin’ Ted.
Crooked Hillary may want an input as well.
When will the public tire of Trump’s imbroglios?
Likely when a few of several scenarios happen: he gets into a major optional war that bogs down; he so insults his own appointees that we finally see four or five marquee cabinet sequential resignations; he does not build the wall, reform health care, or achieve a middle-class tax cut and therefore loses his base; or he cannot achieve 3 percent annual economic growth or is plagued by a recession or return to stagflation.
An interesting scorecard - ISIS has just lost their capital city, his appointees appear to be targets rather than arrow-shooters, Mueller and Sessions in particular walking around with bulls-eyes painted on their backs, the wall is, despite furious Democrat and RINO resistance, in the design selection stage, health care is proceeding despite that same resistance and certain RINO careers may find themselves challenged in '18 for that resistance, the tax cut is still in its formative stages, and the only quibble I find with VDH's list is that 3% economic growth - the focus is on jobs, not necessarily a reported abstract number such as GNP. The public sees jobs and the Dow, however incomplete those two indicators are, and any report on other numbers is leavened by a healthy distrust of the media doing the reporting. It may not be optimal, but that's how it is.
Either way, the Trump presidency is moving at a speed likely unmatched by his predecessors, and he is getting somewhere fast.
The media in particular are struggling to catch up, tripping over every rock Trump tosses out the window in the form of Twitter postings that take all of two minutes apiece. The Dems are still focused on an election they refuse to admit they lost. So far, so good.
He does get that. The last couple paragraphs spell it out. He’s creating the smoke screen at the front to distract enemies and draw their fire while the commanders in the rear capture ground.
VDH is, like me, a Kalifornia native from way back in the state’s heyday and his writing speaks to me like no other.
He has seen the destruction the Left has wrought on the once-great State of California and he and others(like Schlicter, Steyn, et al)are fighting to see that the rest the country doesn’t suffer the same fate.
This article by Hanson is simply brilliant.
Good article....but can VDH explain 1 thing for me?
Why isn’t Susan Rice in prison? Lynch? Lerner? Clinton?
There is more than enough evidence to convict all of them....so why? If Trump is clearing the way for Sessions to do his job....why isn’t Sessions doing his job?
Until some criminals are put behind bars, I’m not buying it.
bkmk
In a few days his epic work on WWII comes out — can’t wait.
“and he is getting somewhere fast” in regards to President Trump.
I don't see any of these dooms day scenarios occurring. In fact, I think Trump will achieve beyond our imaginations and become unbeatable in 2020.
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