September 25, 2015--Frank Rich On Donald TRUMP

The most recent issue of New York Magazine (not the New Yorker) features a cover with a photoshopped image of Donald TRUMP in Founders' garb and a Thomas Jefferson wig. Not The Donald's usual lunatic comb-over.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/frank-rich-in-praise-of-donald-trump.html

Beyond the image, we are also informed that the title of Frank Rich's cover story is "Donald Trump Is Saving Our Democracy."

I thought that liberal Rich's perspective was going to be how TRUMP's outrageous rants about immigrants, Mexicans, and women would so mobilize these aggrieved groups that they would undertake massive voter-registartion drives to seize the democratic process in response to his and his ilk's calumnies.

But then in the article itself there is this--

What's exhilarating, even joyous, about Trump has nothing to do with his alternately rancid and nonsensical positions on policy. It's that he's exposing the phoniness of our politicians and the corruption of our political process by defying the protocols of the whole game. . . . 

It's as if Trump were performing a running burlesque of the absurd but intractable conventions of presidential campaigns in real time.

If you have been following me here, you know I have been saying versions of this for months, though, alas, not as vividly written.

TRUMP as a post-policy candidate is creating a new genre.

A genre not found anywhere except, as Rich points out,  in films such as Bulworth where the Warren Beatty character, a senator from California, abandons his scripted talking-points and begins to tell the truth, in rap!

Wells Fargo and Citibank, you're really very dear
Loan billions to Mexico and never have to fear
'Cause taxpayers take it in the rear.

April 9, 2014--Republicans Are "For Nothing"

When Frank Rich is booked to appear on the Rachel Maddow Show I try to tune in. I like the way he sees through the hypocrisy that passes for political discourse and though he is an unashamed progressive is not above giving Democrats corrective grief when he sees them pandering or posturing. Which is often.

The other night he joined Rachel to mark what they claimed was the end of the Obamacare debate. With up to 10 million newly signed up to be covered through health insurance exchanges or enrolled in Medicare, plus millions more young people covered by their parents' policies, they proclaimed there will be less political advantage to Republicans to keep bringing it up.

It's a done deal, they said, and as the benefits really begin to phase in and even people who were reluctant to be forced to buy insurance or be subsidized to do so see how good a heath care delivery system it is, they will become as fervent in their support of it as people were who hated the idea of Medicare ("socialized medicine") but now will defend it to the death. Or minimally, to the ballot box.

As evidence of this, Rich and Maddow cited the latest version of the Ryan budget which calls for the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. They mocked him for being both politically tone deaf (again, it's a done deal) and for not having an alternative to propose. They showed clips of him making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows fumbling when asked what he was proposing as a substitute to the tens of millions who would be denied coverage or would see their coverage severely restricted since he and his colleagues also want to turn Medicare into a version of a voucher system.

Ryan said, "We're working on alternative proposals." He didn't mention that his budget is the third or fourth in an annual series of Ryan budgets, each not much different than the others, and that coming up with a viable alternative proposal should not have be taking this long to develop.

This shows, Frank Rich said, that Ryan and his fellow Republicans are against everything, that they are, as he put it, "for nothing."

For a moment this did not feel to me like much of an exaggeration. Republicans are clearly not for Obamacare; they are clearly not for Medicare or Medicaid as it currently exists; they are not for food stamps; they are not for environmental protection; they are not for financial systems regulation; they are not for taxes; they are not for . . .

Listening to Rich and Maddow make this list, it sounded as if the GOP is indeed for nothing. (Though they are for increasing defense spending.)

But on further thought this seemed simplistic. Even unfair. Disagree with them as you will, most Republicans are in fact for something. Actually, many things.

Being against Obamacare and Medicare and especially Medicaid is being for less government participation in healthcare.

Being against raising the minimum wage is being for letting the market determine workers' wages.

Being against extending long-term unemployment insurance is being for a Darwinian economy.

Being against regulations is being for allowing markets to self-correct.

Being against taxes is being for trickle-down economics.

You get the point. They achieve their goals but doing as little as possible. Being for something by seemingly being for nothing.

In sum, Republicans are not for nothing. Quite the opposite.