Let Them Eat #Alt-Facts

One Democratic Party wag noted on twitter yesterday that Trump's biggest enemy isn't Democrats or conservatives or the Deep State or President Obama... but facts. The Regime and it's congressional allies have been working vigorously it discredit the Congressional Budget Office because they know when they report what Trumpcare will cost and how many people it will throw off medical insurance, there is sure to be a public uproar. They're also hurling insults at organizations like the American Medical Association (long a GOP ally), the American Hospital Association and AARP, the country's biggest organization represented seniors. Ryan flipped out when the AARP reported that a 64-year old making $15,000 annually would pay $8,400 more for coverage under Trumpcare-- over half of his annual income! Ryan would much rather voters get all their information from the National Enquirer, the original fake news outlet-- and, of course, the first newspaper to endorse Señor Trumpanzee.

Over the weekend Ron Klain made a compelling case in the Washington Post that the Democrats' most potent weapon against the GOP-- think the special elections and then the 2018 midterms-- is that instead of delivering on his campaign promises, Trump is just spewing a lot of unsubstantiated bullshit. "Democrats," he wrote, "may find that it is what Trump has failed to do-- and is likely to continue to fail to deliver-- during his tenure that provides the most powerful case against him. The importance of this line of attack is underscored by the one pro-Trump finding that stands out among the president’s dismal poll numbers: a solid plurality believe Trump is 'being effective and getting things done.' For Democrats, debunking this misperception is vital."

Let them eat... um... Trumpcare

[V]oters are looking for results on bread-and-butter issues. Trump is not delivering for them, his claims to the contrary notwithstanding.  Democrats need to point this out-- relentlessly.

Take health care. During the campaign, Trump promised immediate action to repeal and replace Obamacare. In the world according to Trump, everyone was “going to end up with great health care for a fraction of the price” that would “take place immediately after we go in.”

Now, 122 days after the election, Trump’s laughable promise to call a special session of Congress to repeal Obamacare has evaporated. The plan circulated this week by House Republicans is under fire from conservatives and liberals. And Trump has still failed to put forward any approach of his own. About that “great health care for a fraction of the price”? Don’t hold your breath.

Or take trade. Trump promised “in the first 90 days” he “would immediately start renegotiating our trade deals with Mexico, China, Japan.” Not a single one of these negotiations has begun. He also said he’d “fight for... passage within the first 100 days of my administration” for legislation to end U.S. companies’ ability to manufacture goods overseas and import them without tariffs. Again, Trump hasn’t written any plan to do that, let alone asked Congress to pass it.

Trump promised to stop the loss of jobs going overseas starting on “day one. It's so easy.” But major manufacturers continue to move jobs overseas in far larger numbers than the jobs supposedly “saved” at Trump’s December photo-op at Carrier, even including jobs at Caterpillar and Nucor, companies represented on Trump’s own job-creation task force.

And then there’s infrastructure. Here, too, Trump promised to fight for passage of a $1 trillion public-private infrastructure plan within his first 100 days. Many-- myself included-- were skeptical that the plan Trump put forward during the campaign would create jobs or fund needed projects. But even the harshest critics thought he would at least try. Instead, the White House has told allies that Trump likely won’t even send an infrastructure plan to Congress until 2018-- meaning shovels won’t be moving until 2019 at the earliest.

The list of “kitchen table” concerns on which Trump promised focus and action-- “immediately”-- in his first 100 days as president goes on: affordable child care, middle-class tax relief, simpler tax forms, savings accounts for elder care and more. But Trump has not offered plans to do any of these things thus far-- not one.

Not only is Trump failing to deliver on the economic promises he made during the campaign, but also he is breaking new ones he made as president. On Feb. 23, Trump said he’d create jobs by insisting that the newly approved Keystone XL pipeline “buy steel made in this country” and promising that all pipe used in the project would be “coming from this country.” It took just days for the White House to repudiate Trump’s promise, saying that Keystone would be exempt from any Buy American rule.

Trump and his cronies can blare all the alternative facts they want about all the fabulous jobs he's creating and all the great health care Trumpcare provides but at some point even the hard core Trumpists on oxycodone, hydromorphone, codeine, or fentanyl are going to figure out that their miserable lives are still miserable no matter what Trump says he's done for them. In 2018, it's just a matter of how many Republicans in the House drown in his undrained swamp.