LA Times: Trump has managed to push the most conservative agenda in a generation
I’ve been thinking about this subject recently, but the LA Times’ Steven F. Hayward has noticed, too. While most of the media is focused on his covfefe tweets, the President has, in fact, been pushing a conservative policy through the legislative process;
In assessing Trump’s accomplishments, let’s not get too distracted by his unconventional conduct. This hitherto ideologically unmoored man has set in motion an administration arguably more conservative than Ronald Reagan’s. While the Congress controlled by his adopted party remains gridlocked, Trump is rolling back regulations and a number of the Obama administration’s most controversial achievements, including the internal structure of Obamacare and the Clean Power Plan. His foreign policy resets look increasingly sure-footed. His judicial nominees are uniformly conservative. It is inconceivable that any of the other leading Republican candidates from the 2016 cycle would have governed as boldly as Trump has.
Trump’s rhetorical and behavioral recklessness — his government-by-tweet — still make it hard to discern whether there is a method to his madness, or whether he is just going with the populist flow he helped unleash. He has yet to be tested with a serious crisis, where showmanship and bluster count for nothing. Aristotle wrote that “rule shows the man,” but what we’re seeing so far is still confusing.
We’re looking at tax reform for the first time in almost thirty years. Tax reform that benefits taxpayers, not necessarily the government tax collectors.
A year ago, ISIS controlled vast swaths of Syria and Iraq. Today they’re hiding in caves in Syria.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been reined in with their anti-business agenda. Obamacare and it’s anti-growth policies are on the ropes.
My investment values have improved by 25% in the last year after stagnation during the Obama uncertainty. The GDP has improved by 3% this quarter.
While I agree with most people that Trump should get off Twitter, maybe that’s part of his plan to distract everyone while he pushes a conservative agenda past us, giving us what we need while we’re not paying attention.
Category: Politics
“He has yet to be tested with a serious crisis, where showmanship and bluster count for nothing”
That guy from LA Times doesn’t get it. The genious of the Trumpminator is that he have managed, so far, to convert every crisis in a showmanship duel with the media.
For the first time we have a president who understand the battlefield. Perception is reality, and the Left controls perception through their control of the media, therefore the media is the REAL ™ battlefield.
I am still in awe that we won that election and that Trump proved to be, so far, better than I ever hoped.
Proud to be an American.
(Yes, I am a naturalized American, but still very proud of it. Best decision I ever made, best opportunity I ever received. )
Welcome to the team.
“Yes, I am a naturalized American, but still very proud of it. Best decision I ever made, best opportunity I ever received.”
Yes, Yef, you are correct, especially the last five words. Every naturalized citizen I have met has pretty much repeated the same thought. It’s a shame that certain folks who are citizens by birth aren’t smart enough to see what is so obvious to those who had to work to attain that self-same opportunity.
Agree with 11-B Mailclerk! Hearty Welcome to you!
“It is inconceivable that any of the other leading Republican candidates from the 2016 cycle would have governed as boldly as Trump has.”
That seems to be the difference between Trump (it’s bidness) and politicians.
I think the twitterpating is some sort of broken wing maneuver he uses to distract the coyotes prowling about the fringes of his turf. So far, the angst-ridden waves of sobbing, squawking ‘nevertrumpsters’ have surged and broken against the breakwater he’s set up to deflate them.
On another note: the Obama Library has been removed from the National Archives’ funding authority and will not be getting any federal funding. Instead, it will be the Obama Center, and is now looking for private funding. It appears that it may be something like a zen center for the Disenfranchized Dreamers. Just wanted you all to know that your tax dollars won’t pay for that stuff. And they do need a safe space, after all. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obamacenter/ct-obama-center-met-0512-20170511-story.html
Well that’s a blessing. But how long before it gets included in some 10,000 page bill that congress passes without reading?
As for Trump, there might be a distractionary element to it. It obviously pisses off the left and the media, so he’ll keep doing it. One thing to keep in mind is that Trump’s tweeting is truly transparent, unfiltered commentary from the big man himself. Like the fire side chat changed how the country knew their president, I think Trump might have set a new standard.
No, it don’t get any federal funding, period. It will be left up to private donors and the taxpayers of the state of Illinois and the current governor (Rauner) has said the state can’t afford the $100 million cost at this time.
However, in view of the number of obsessed followers he has, there’s no reason a sort of sanctuary and study center could not be set up in the Loop. There are more than enough buildings available for it where they could ‘find sanity’ and a ‘safe space’, whatever that means.
For a couple of thou, they could probably buy some old porta-potties.
I’ve never cared for. Trump as a person, but then again, I’ve had fellow soldiers I didn’t jive with either but I’ll never have anything negative about their performance on and off the battlefield. Is Trump unconventional, sure, can he be abrasive and carrys some personal baggage yup. But. He is doing a good job IMHO. It’s time to support him and from time to time call him out when he’s wrong. I see more upsides than down in his job performance .
As usual, hyperbole over a fallacy in the media.
Trump’s agenda isn’t even as conservative as Clinton’s was in 96. He is clearly attempting to return the political system back to the compromise of the mid 1990s.
As for “more conservative than Reagan”; that is just a shibboleth the left trots out anytime a policy isn’t left of King Joe or Uncle Mao.
Clinton’s “Conservatism” came at the force of a Republican controlled Congress. If Clinton wanted anything at all, he must first please Congress with welfare reform, increase arrests, defend the border, and sign onto a balanced budget.
He still managed to leave a deficit and recession for Bush.
Actually for me Obama was good for my investments, Trump has proven more so, so I definitely appreciate that. If he lets me keep a little more of my money while minimizing the deficit spending I’m on board.
Too many “conservatives” spend like lefty Democrats…..so anything less would be a step in the right direction.
It was the entire Obama agenda that created this Frankenstein we all call Trump.
“Cambridge police acted stupidly”, “If I had a son he would look like Treyvon”, “BLM”, no use ever of the word Islamic extremist, when we all know that it’s not all of “Islam” that’s to blame.
I think it was more the stark contrast between Trump and Hillary. She was and is so personally dislikeable that voters took the lesser of two evils.
That being said, I think the President is doing a pretty good job given a Congress that can’t make a decision on shit or go blind.
Steven F. Hayward.
Is that the same Steven Hayward of Powerlineblog?
http://www.powerlineblog.com/about-us
One of my favorite blogs
No, this one is at Berkeley.
Jonn – Steven Hayward from Powerline did write that Op-Ed. He is teaching at Berkeley as a visiting professor.
“Hayward, the conservative columnist and Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, begins a three-year term as a visiting scholar at the campus Institute for Governmental Studies, where he will teach classes and hold events in an attempt to expose UC Berkeley to conservative thought.”
http://www.dailycal.org/2016/08/30/conservative-scholar-steven-hayward-teach-uc-berkeley/
am I the only one raising his eyebrows at a known conservative teaching at Berkeley?
Shhhh, don’t announce it. A group of black-clad, masked people tossing bricks will come out to “peacefully” protest it.
He’s there to insure that they properly utilize their “safe spaces.” After all, if they aren’t exposed to conservative thought once in a while, the places will never get used.
I have to give credit where it’s due. Trump’s judicial selections have been excellent, as have some of his staff appointments (Mattis, Kelley, maybe Tillerson, still reserving judgment on him). I’m glad to see some of Obama’s anti-business edicts rolled back. And although I have some reservations about Betsy DeVos, I’m glad to see her restore some measure of due process to college disciplinary investigations.
I’ve never bought the notion that Trump’s tweeting and verbal recklessness were part of some four-dimensional chess game he’s playing; I don’t think he’s that disciplined. I think he’s getting things done in spite of his flaws, not because of them. I’m still hopeful that as he continues to get the hang of his job he’ll realize that he has good people working for him, and that it’s advantageous to let them do their jobs and not muck things up with unnecessary distractions.
Winning.
Really, really winning.
This.
I saw this from the beginning of his presidency, even before. He’s deliberately being erratic, and unpredictable. When does things like take to Twitter, he’s doing it for multiple reasons. One of them is equivalent to attempting to shoot a shark to start a feeding frenzy… To build on what Ex-PH2 said above.
The way this theory works is that you shoot a shark and cause it to bleed. Then, wait for other sharks to “smell” the blood, then zero in and eat the shark. During their frenzy, they’re going to cut each other up and cause more blood… And thrashing… Masking human activity in the water in another location, but close.
I haven’t seen this done while I was in the Navy, others may have seen it at work. True or not in the water, President Trump is doing the equivalent with Twitter… Shooting the media shark, cause them to go into a frenzy, then push one initiative after another knowing full well that the media is going to go crap crazy.
He has been in both, the business and entertainment world. He knows precisely what he’s doing. This is an example of what PSYOP does overseas, it’s working nicely for President Trump.
Twitter also allows him to push beyond the media firewall. This contributes to driving them nuts. They are the very things they accuse us conservatives of being. His Twitter posts challenges their control of the narrative. Their reactions are similar to what I see of the phonies that we argue with here, when they start seeing that they’re losing control of their phony persona. It’s like they’re taking swings out of pure emotion and little to no thought in a bid to stop losing the boxing match.
He took a page out of Obama’s playbook.
The younger crowd loves the social media and even though this old fart hates it I love the way he uses it against his enemies.
and they take the bait every single time
Brilliant!
Twitter = electronic chum.
I truly believe that Trump is playing the long game and not revealing the method to his madness.
What is fun is watching the Lamestream Media fall for it.
Every. Single. Time.
Something interesting about the Los Angeles Times editorial is that it could mark a certain sea change. Up until last month, the editor and publisher of the paper was Davan Maharaj who by some accounts had risen to that level by being very good at playing office politics. He has now been replaced as editor by Lewis D’Vorkin who is seen as something of a wild card in that circle of people who follow the existential threat to journalism as a business.
The LAT may also be getting some pressure from the Orange County Register which has lately shown itself to not be shy about running editorials which veer from the Southern California limousine liberal norm.
Years ago, j-school students were sometimes taught that a workable paradigm was to think of a newspaper as both a window and a mirror. They could open the window and show readers what the world looked like outside their own community, or hold up the mirror and let the community take a look at itself. Either approach was useful, they were not in conflict, and could sometimes be used simultaneously.
What seems to have changed is that the news media now still looks out the window, but the scope of what it sees is myopic. And when it holds up the mirror, it reflects mostly just the news media itself. Most recently, the “news” tends to be that which is defined by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN. Everything else is just an echo, or a further interpretation of the echo. None of which should be a startling revelation.
I’d agree the press needs to focus more on what President Trump is actually doing, and less in getting caught up in the emotion of the petty crisis du jour. The path the MSM is currently following might indeed result in Trump getting thrown out of office, that seems the main goal, but the risk is that the news media could also win the pyrrhic victory of more-or-less destroying itself in the process.
I view the majority of the so-called media as the tantrum-throwing 3YO who only screams when he’s on camera.
It’s quite plain that Trump is wise to them, to their tactics and knows what to do to both get on their nerves and get his job done.
They don’t have the real experience of journalists like Huntley & Brinkley or Koppel or the common sense to sort out what is real and what isn’t.
Instead, they go with the e-world they live in, which is more real to them than the real world, and there’s an addict’s fix involved in this, too. Trump’s tweets are the same stuff I used to throw at pigeons on my lunch hour. The feeding frenzy was comical, and the pigeons knew me by sight, following me whether I had food or not.
These twits are Trump’s crowd of pigeons.
I don’t think even a single member of the libtard MSM is capable of mentioning President Trump sans sneering and steam blowing out their ears!
I just wish “the most conservative agenda in a generation” wasn’t such a low bar…
Sometimes what you need, is not what you want.
Thanks for the socks Grandma! said no kid ever, but when you had cold feet….
What I like is How President Trump has given the inner DC Beltway “Good Ole Boy Country Club” a kick in the teeth it has needed for at least decades, they’re still shitting themselves and acting like members of the Dutch Rudder Gang. He’s made the left come out of the woodwork screeching, revealing their Nazi-like hatred and showing their true colors, the more they do that the more secure his 2020 election victory is!
My wife and I love Trump!
He is playing 10 dimensional chess and the tweets are only one part of his game
We need to primary all the rinos and get the Republican Party solidly behind him
“An establishment’s power to define is amplified through its dominance of mass media outlets.” – The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control, 3rd ed, 2009. – Bowers, Dohs, Jensen, Schulz
Trump tweets or speaks. The media simply react like herds of lemmings. Meanwhile, he goes on getting things done. Perfect.