Day: November 24, 2015
Obama Approval Rating Falls Amid Terrorism Fears
46%
Presidential Obama’s approval rating, with 50% disapproving, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll. The fall has been driven almost entirely by concerns about terrorism and refugees.
The GOP Created the Monster that Is Trump
Republican elites are panicky about the durable dominance of Trump (and to a lesser extent Ben Carson) in the presidential race. They are right to worry, but I don’t feel much sympathy. Trump is a problem of their own creation. … Trump gets ever more base in his bigotry — and yet, with few and intermittent exceptions, rival candidates, party leaders and GOP lawmakers decline to call him out. So he continues to rise, benefiting from tacit acceptance of his intolerance. … For months — years, really — Republicans have averted their gaze from Trump’s attacks on women, Hispanics and immigrants. Now the racism becomes more overt — and still, he goes unchallenged.
— Dana Millbank, writing in the Washington Post.
This Generic GOP Stump Speech Could Be Used by Any Republican Candidate
FiveThirtyEight asked former Republican speechwriter Barton Swaim to write a ?totally pandering stump speech for an imaginary GOP presidential candidate. If you’d like to see the version with Swaim’s annotations, go here.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Who’s ready to stand up for America? [applause] Who’s ready to take this country back? [applause] Who’s ready to send a message to the elites in Washington? [slightly waning applause]
You know, the Democrats want to make this election complicated. They want to convince you that taking more money out of the private sector and giving it to bureaucrats in Washington will somehow improve the economy.
How would that work? They’ll tell you, “It’s complicated; just trust us.”
They want to convince you that giving Iran’s extremist thugs whatever they want — and trusting that they won’t build a nuclear weapon — will somehow make the Middle East more stable.
How, exactly? “Well, it’s complicated. Just trust us. Just trust the Obama administration. Just trust the Democratic leadership in Congress, like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.”
They’re going to try to convince you that putting government in charge of your health insurance is somehow going to improve our health care system. You might wonder how putting government in charge of anything makes it more efficient or improves its quality.
It hasn’t exactly worked that way with the Postal Service, but hey — it’s complicated. You’ll just have to trust them.
[pause; wait for a few people to boo]
