Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Ignorance Is Not Strength

Matthew Yglesias makes an important point.  Rarely has a discussion of policy been so absent from media coverage of an election.  Next week we elect a new president, a new House and a third of the Senate.  This will lead the country in one direction or another.  We have not had a discussion about what direction that will be.

Trump will largely carry out Paul Ryan's economic plan while harassing minorities.  That means something.  That means a lot more than his personal moral emptiness or Clinton's emails.

The GOP is wedded to a frighteningly extreme economic and fiscal agenda.  Electing them next week would have dramatic consequences.

But if you watched or read the news, you'd have no idea this was true.

Some of this is Clinton's fault.  I understand why they made Trump's personality their central line of attack.  The decision, however, abandons the policy discussion that could further sink him.

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