An impressive series, some true, mostly not, and how to state that
It can seem like Trump is having a lot of successes lately. Some who may not be fans might nevertheless be impressed by these successes. Knowing how to respond, both honestly and accurately, to people with that impression is important.
Trump does deserve some credit, which will be defined, but for those who follow the news carefully we know that almost every success is really crap under the hood. There’s no need to dig into a lot of that but to give one example, the bill he got through Congress includes work requirements for Medicaid. Some people will like that requirement, and at a very superficial level it makes sense, but we know from states that have required that in the past what it mostly does is lead to a lot of people losing coverage who are low-income working people who should qualify but get snagged in the red tape. Something that could seem good on the surface turns out to be damaging to the country.
For fans, though, or for those with only a superficial awareness, the picture would look very different. Wow, he bombed Iran and gave them “what for” for trying to build nukes. Sneaking across the border is way, way down. He got that big bill passed that has some nice tax breaks, like no tax on tips, and has some savings like work requirements for Medicaid. The Supreme Court has agreed with him on a number of things like ending Birthright Citizenship and sending immigrant criminals to tough prisons in smaller countries. He got NATO to cave on spending more on their own defense. This guy is making things happen!
Yes, he is making things happen, and that’s part of where he deserves credit, but of course most of the above items have a different or darker side to them. The Supreme Court wins are equivocal. Iran was an act of war on a country that wasn’t warring on us, and will likely create terrible international messes in the future. Et cetera. So most of the successes are the appearance of success. That’s a lesson progressives could note. Creating the appearance of success can be bad if deceptive, but it can also be a useful tool if used in a productive way to create momentum for real success on positive goals.
More broadly he is showing that bold leadership can accomplish a lot. Of course it’s harder when you’re sticking closer to the rules, unlike say firing all the FBI leadership you don’t like and replacing them with inexperienced loyalists so it can become your tool to harass opponents, but still, Democrats could have accomplished much more in years past with more of this boldness, and then maybe people wouldn’t be so frustrated as to vote for an insurrectionist. Even mild amounts of breaking the rules, and then let the system push back, but you’ve made your point, can be good.
Trump has succeeded at a couple of things. Undocumented immigration is way down. Of course it was accomplished by an inhumane way of going at it, but clearly it could have been reduced before with more humane methods. We need immigrants, but it would be good to have that happen in a more planned and coordinated way as far as possible. (There’s also a lot of history of GOP obstruction but too much to cover here.) NATO, though, is a mostly clean success, getting the partners to agree to spend more. It was needed and he got that done.
But for anyone you know who is a fence-sitter impressed with successes, really, almost all are not. They are hollow (Supreme Court has yet to truly decide on birthright citizenship), or negative (the big bill is going to damage the lower half, help the topmost, and rack up debt), or false (groceries have not generally gone down) or for show (rounding up non-criminal, hard-working immigrants and shipping them to distant harsh prisons). At the same time, acknowledge the true successes. Also that Democrats have long needed a positive version of such boldness. Something like a modern FDR. Nothing else has gotten that message through the thick heads of the leadership. If we’re lucky, perhaps before long that will happen, and the message will have come from the destructive actions of one with careless boldness.
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