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kleinbl00  ·  2015 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Trump and the End of Smugness

You were right and I was wrong about Trump being a one-term president. I deeply hope you're wrong about Trump being a two-term president. That aside, the argument made by the article (and the argument you're making here) is that Trump has some sort of crazy-like-a-fox strategy that is allowing him to "get things done."

And it's just not true. I'm not going to make the arguments again because apparently you ignored them the first time so repeating myself isn't going to edify either one of us. I will cheerfully agree that setbacks are being portrayed as victories and the status quo is being portrayed as a revolution but objectively speaking, Trump has accomplished exactly dick. The Republican establishment is cheerfully using his malignant neglect to let the government drown in the bathtub, to be sure - but aside from the populism, he's got nuthin'.

And populism will go a long way, to be sure. But you can't eat it, and it won't keep a roof over your head. It's the little things: we've got a project in shop class we might not get to do this year because steel tariffs have pushed it out of the budget. And if a pissant little technical college in Boeing's back yard can't get steel, how's Kenworth doing? Caterpillar? John Deere?

One thing about populist governments: they come and go quickly.