After reading just a couple paragraphs of E.J. Dionne’s latest humorfest, it’s difficult to take the left seriously anymore. I can’t say that Mr. Dionne’s opinions are representative of the left’s worldview. Unfortunately, I can’t say that they aren’t commonplace, either.
For instance, Dionne wrote that “It is this spirit that began to take hold almost immediately after Trump’s election. Americans in large numbers, particularly the young, quickly realized that the coming months and years will require new and creative forms of political witness and organization. Trump’s ascendancy is already calling forth social and political initiatives aimed at defending the achievements of the Obama years (particularly Obamacare), protecting the environment, standing up for immigrants and minorities, preserving civil liberties, civil rights and voting rights, and highlighting how Trump’s policies contradict his promises to working-class voters. Here is a bet that the mobilization against Trump will rival in size and influence the tea party uprising against Obama.”
I can’t identify the types of drugs Mr. Dionne is using but they’re undoubtedly expensive. I don’t doubt that progressives’ morale is lower than a snake’s belly. That doesn’t mean that they’ve got the right to totally ignore reality. Since President Obama’s inauguration, Democrats have gotten utterly devastated. They’ve literally lost 1,000+ legislative seats. They’ve gone from having a majority of the governorships to having less than one-third of the governorships. After the 2008 election, Democrats had a 257-seat majority in the House. After the 2016 election, Democrats controlled 194 seats in the House of Representatives, a drop of 63 seats.
From the outline of his policies so far and from the right-wing Team of Billionaires he has chosen to run large parts of his government, it’s hard to see how Trump will advance the material interests of those who voted for him.
If you’re an elitist, it’s impossible “to see how Trump will advance the material interests of those who voted for him.” If you aren’t an elitist, then it isn’t difficult to see how President-Elect Trump’s agenda will advance the agenda Trump ran on.
EJ Dionne Jr.’s delusional thinking aren’t helping him connect with voters. Rather than listening to the DC Echochamber, he should listen to real people. If Dionne listened to more people, it isn’t likely he’d say this:
Lastly, it’s hard to imagine a president more likely to inspire Obama Nostalgia than Donald Trump.
Obama’s agenda never was popular after 2009. We voted in 2010, 2014 and 2016 to kill it. It isn’t like people are insisting on more pathetic economic growth or overregulation or stabbing allies.
Technorati: Obama Nostalgia, E.J. Dionne, Democrats, Income Inequality, Election 2016
