It’s hard to know how the speech worked. It’ll probably be well received by his base, since he didn’t trip over his tongue, and even waxed poetic at the end. At least as poetic as you can be talking about immigrants as “vicious, murdering criminals”, as Rachael Maddow characterized it.
Rachael, Brian Williams, et al, comment about Owens’ widow being a high point. I was cringing the whole time at the open manipulation, but I do that for most posturing like that, Democrat and Republican.
The Democratic response now, given by former Gov. Steve Beshear (D-KY) in a Kentucky diner. He makes his argument for the Democratic approach being successful, and not the disaster Trump describes. His speech is as full of generalities as Trump’s.
Then he decries rolling back rules on financial disclosure. And the billionaires in his cabinet, making him Wall Street’s minion. Hits the ACA, with every replacement cutting benefits and costing more. Really leans on the ACA provisions. “Behind these ideas is the belief that folks on the lower end of the economic ladder don’t deserve health care.”
Trump was in front of a joint session of Congress; Beshear is in a diner. There’s an inherent disadvantage. Trump did OK on his speech. He didn’t go off the rails, made his stump speech work, and even got poetic at the end. This makes the Democratic response especially hard.
But former Gov. Beshear is really kicking butt. I’m OK with his responses. Maybe it’s favoritism on my part. I certainly want Democrats to succeed. But it seems better than I’d hoped. Let me know if you feel differently, of course.
“When the President attacks [loyalty], he’s eroding our democracy, and that’s reckless.” I’m liking this.
“Our political system is broken. It’s broken because too many of our leaders think it’s all about them. They need to remember that they work for us.”
Damn! I’ve been grousing about Democratic inability to make their case for why we should care about them. And a 72-year-old, retired Democratic governor managed to school Trump, and most of the Democrats.
