Propaganda Is Boring

We need better material

Somebody has to do it, but that somebody does not have to be me. I’m feeling disgusted by all the doom and gloom my friends and favored commentators are trying to wrap around Trump’s neck. Tariffs, inflation, uncertainty, deficits, blah blah blah. Face it, guys, the economy is doing fine. The stock market is fine. Could a crash happen? Sure, but that’s always a risk.

As for Trump’s mental decline, the presidency doesn’t run on one person. It’s more a “weekend at Bernie’s” operation. We saw this with Biden. Of course Trump and his associates are monsters who could be the death of us all, their budget bill does horrible things, but we still need better material.

The tough nut to crack is that some of the worst things the Federal government is doing have the support of much of the electorate. You can’t get much lower than sweeping random people off the street and sending them off to remote concentration camps, bereft of legal representation. But they will try. Next on the list are naturalized citizens, then who knows.

Will the cuts to Medicaid etc. cause a significant shift in sentiment? Will we have orderly elections that register a change in sentiment? Maybe, maybe not. I have relatives who have been on Medicaid with not the slightest glimmer of appreciation for the Democrats who have made it possible.

Virginia will provide a much-attended signal. It’s purple and this year it has most state and local offices up for grabs. For governor, the MAGAs have put up the ridiculous, gun-toting Winsome Earle-Sears. Why didn’t they go with the more normal-looking but equally revolting state attorney-general Jason Miyares? Who knows. Perhaps they think they can steal some of the African-American vote. I’m not worried about honest elections here. I’m mostly worried about hoople-headed voters.

New Jersey is the other state with off-year elections in 2025. Here the salient question is how much a centrist Democrat for governor can prop up the state’s traditionally strong Democratic vote. For guidance on NJ politics, there are few better sources than the substack put out by my friends Bob and Barbara Dreyfuss. Unlike me in this place, they do actual reporting.

I’ve given up trying to understand how people think. I just know they need to think differently. We can see glimmers of this in New York City. Alas, the Democratic establishment is a glimmer-free zone. As they die off, the only ones who will miss them are their party cronies.