I think the scales are beginning to fall from Fareed Zakaria’s eyes if his recent Washington Post post column is any gauge:
Liberals have to avoid Trump Derangement Syndrome. If Trump pursues a policy, it cannot axiomatically be wrong, evil and dangerous. In my case, I have been pretty tough on Trump. I attacked almost every policy he proposed during the campaign. Just before the election, I called him a “cancer on American democracy†and urged voters to reject him. But they didn’t. He is now president. I believe that my job is to evaluate his policies impartially and explain why, in my view, they are wise or not.
Many of Trump’s campaign promises and policies are idiotic and unworkable. It was always likely that he would reverse them, as he has begun to do this week on several fronts. Those of us who opposed him face an important challenge. We have to ask ourselves, which would we rather see: Trump reversing himself or Trump relentlessly pursuing his campaign agenda? The first option would be good for the country and the world, though it might save Trump from an ignominious fall. The second would be a disaster for all. It raises the quandary: Do we want what’s better for America or what’s worse for Donald Trump?
I presume he thinks that question is rhetorical. Our problem is that it’s not.
I think there’s a substantial fraction of Americans, not limited by race, gender, or political party, for whom politics is strictly “zero sum”. In game theory terms that means “I win and you lose”. Indeed, if you do not lose they do not believe they have won.
Swing, miss:
What do Americans think of U.S. military intervention in Syria’s civil war? The Washington Post noted yesterday that “reflective partisanship†is evident in the latest polling.
More Americans than ever view the news through red-colored glasses. In 2013, when Barack Obama was president, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that only 22 percent of Republicans supported the U.S. launching missile strikes against Syria in response to Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against civilians.
A new Post-ABC poll finds that 86 percent of Republicans support Donald Trump’s decision to launch strikes on Syria for the same reason. Only 11 percent are opposed.
That’s an astounding shift in attitudes, and partisan instincts almost certainly explain the rapid change. Republican voters opposed Obama, so they had no use for his plan to attack the Assad regime, and Republican voters generally back Trump, so they support last week’s strikes.
But look a little closer at the details, and the asymmetry between the parties becomes more obvious: four years ago, 38% of Democratic voters backed Obama’s proposed strikes in Syria, and now, 37% of Democratic voters support Trump doing the same thing. In other words, there’s been effectively no change.
Basically, the centrist war team is trying to get a war, any war–maybe two–and they’re going with the one of the few rhetorical tricks they have, which is to pretend everybody resembles them in their hackery. Both sides do it, etc. Jeremy Scahill–who was relentlessly against Obama’s foreign policy–got under Zakaria’s skin by pointing out the obvious truth: your average pundit would copulate with a rocket.
The greatest American limericist of our time:
A strapping young nerd name of Hector
Was quite fond of the launcher-erector
The squishes and pops
Of acute pressure drops
Wrecked Hector’s hydraulic connector
Swing, miss:
What do Americans think of U.S. military intervention in Syria’s civil war? The Washington Post noted yesterday that “reflective partisanship†is evident in the latest polling.
More Americans than ever view the news through red-colored glasses. In 2013, when Barack Obama was president, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that only 22 percent of Republicans supported the U.S. launching missile strikes against Syria in response to Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against civilians.
A new Post-ABC poll finds that 86 percent of Republicans support Donald Trump’s decision to launch strikes on Syria for the same reason. Only 11 percent are opposed.
That’s an astounding shift in attitudes, and partisan instincts almost certainly explain the rapid change. Republican voters opposed Obama, so they had no use for his plan to attack the Assad regime, and Republican voters generally back Trump, so they support last week’s strikes.
But look a little closer at the details, and the asymmetry between the parties becomes more obvious: four years ago, 38% of Democratic voters backed Obama’s proposed strikes in Syria, and now, 37% of Democratic voters support Trump doing the same thing. In other words, there’s been effectively no change.
Basically, the centrist war team is trying to get a war, any war–maybe two–and they’re going with the one of the few rhetorical tricks they have, which is to pretend everybody resembles them in their hackery. Both sides do it, etc. Jeremy Scahill–who was relentlessly against Obama’s foreign policy–got under Zakaria’s skin by pointing out the obvious truth: your average pundit would copulate with a rocket. I’m not sure why anybody sane would buy this nonsense.
Brings to mind the works of the greatest American limericist of our time:
A strapping young nerd name of Hector
Was quite fond of the launcher-erector
The squishes and pops
Of acute pressure drops
Wrecked Hector’s hydraulic connector
But it is apparently so much more cathartic to call him a toddler, blame your preferred candidate’s loss on wild conspiracy theories and nickname him Cheeto. Speaking of toddlers……
So far there is only one completed policy move, the nomination and confirmation of a very well qualified high court judge. The judge will now rule as he sees fit.
The beginning of regulatory reform has begun, but has a long way to go. Same for ObamaCare.
Recent events signal a less dithering and naive foreign policy stance. But a logistics disrupting bombing and humanitarian driven rap on the knuckles is hardly an indication of reckless interventionism envisioned by The handwringers.
Immigration? Where are the Elian Gonzales deportations in the dead of night? Oh yeah, that was Clintonian. But the posturing sure seems to have had an effect.
All the rest of the TDS seems a hodgepodge of mind reading, fabulist spy vs spy innuendo and “just you wait and see” projection. It’s really just ginned up concern designed to play that zero sum game. What else explains the complete disinterest in Susan Rices bald faced lying about surveillance ?
I said before and will say again the big issue Trump will face is on the economy. Many performance statistics are looking long in the tooth and indicate the economy came limping across the finish line as he took over. Confidence is not to be discounted, and it has returned. But you need followthrough. Grandma Yellen seems to have discovered rate increasing. We will see. But there hasn’t been enough time yet to move the needle.
Let the Dems play their wild eyed conspiracy games. Let CNN and NBC do their best Pravda imitations. We get it. Besides, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and Don Lemmon are are always good for a laugh, despite the fakctbthat it’s impolite to laugh at the impaired. (And when did Chris Mathews become part of the opioid crisis?) One year in and I bet we are talking about the economy.
I still think that a recession during the next four years is more likely than not. Just look at the BI I highlighted in an earlier post. That’s not what it should look like during an expansion.
“Recent events signal a less dithering and naive foreign policy stance. ”
LOL. They have no policy, just responses based upon the emotion of the day. Or maybe you would lie to take a stab at it and tell us about their policy. They can’t.
Back on topic, I think the Trump campaign had a few good ideas. I hope they can deliver, especially on health care where he promised that everyone would be covered, it would cost less and it would be GREAT!
Steve
I don’t think liberals can avoid Trump Derangement Syndrome, because indulging in it protects their view of themselves as the inevitable winners standing at the end of history. TDS excuses their repeated failures over the last eight years, a subject discussed by Thomas Frank here:
https://youtu.be/x0o1gvpQcIw?t=894
There’s little difference between Zakaria, the Iraq War supporter, and Ajami, the traitor to his own neocon.
Ben,
The people who are going to be bitching about TDS ad infinitum are not the people who have anything useful to say. It’s pure concern trolling.
The left should be forcing the Democrats to repeat their support for single-payer everyday. They should be talking about class structure, and how Obama should have offered a mortgage bailout. They shouldn’t be coming together to celebrate another war, or making taking seriously the idea of entitlement reform. When hacks like Zakaria mention Trump Derangement it’s going to be in reference to how mean it is to be calling terrible bullshit terrible.
This Matt Bruenig interview is good: https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/matt-bruenig-and-daniel-denvir/
Good post, Drew! Wryly worded, but to the point.