WhatFinger


Tone: Pushed his agenda on trade, health care, job growth, energy, national security

Trump sounds like a president in a fairly standard, not-quite-State of the Union address



I don't really think any news was made last night, but what happened last night is all anyone is talking about today. Donald Trump was Donald Trump, saying the same things Donald Trump always says. He left out a bit of the bluster, and he did it all on a very high-profile stage. Like other presidents giving State of the Union addresses (which this was technically not), he used various citizens in the audience as props to make his points. He got applause from his party more often than not, and he rarely got it from the Democrats, who pulled stunts like inviting illegal aliens and dressing in white - the meaning of which I neither know nor can be bothered to find out. But it says a lot about what passes for news these days that Trump is thought to have done so well last night. He pushed his agenda on trade, health care, job growth, energy, national security . . . all the same things that have been his agenda all along. He made no changes or adjustments. He made no substantive news. That said, he didn't do anything that gives the press or the Democrats and excuse to call him crazy, unhinged or unstable - and thus he came off as "presidential" (whatever that means) and he "hit a home run."
So much of the coverage of the Trump presidency has become about Trump's perceived comportment on a given day. Did he tweet? Did he attack the press? Did he "lie"? Did he upset anyone? Did he use a wrong turn of phrase that can be characterized as racist or insensitive? None of this matters a hill of beans, but it's become almost the entire media narrative of the Trump era. The only thing that really matters is how he governs, and in that respect the only real news from last night is that Trump isn't backing off an inch on any priority he's identified. Not that there is any reason to think he would or should. A lot of conservatives are panicking because Trump hasn't already signed the ObamaCare repeal or various other elements of his legislative agenda into law, and lefty MSM types are already comparing how much of Trump's legislative agenda has been enacted 40 days into his presidency compared to Obama's - as if the speed with which the measures are enacted is what really matters, as opposed to how well the policies work for the country once they are enacted. I realize the GOP has a long history of disappointing us, but that doesn't mean they're wrong in this instance to take their time and get the legislation right. The ObamaCare repeal especially is one of the trickiest - but also one of the most necessary - legislative challenges a Congress has faced in many years precisely because ObamaCare has been such a clusterfark and has distorted so much about the health care and insurance markets. It's no easy task to a) get rid of it; b) replace it with something that works well; and c) keep people from getting hurt in the process. It has to be done, but it's a challenge wrought with peril, which is why it wouldn't bother me if it took them most of the year to work on it - so long as the end result is that they get the legislation and the implementation right. That is the real news that came out of last night - that we remain full-speed-ahead on every priority Trump has identified from the beginning. If people think it's bigger news that he remained poised and sounded sane, that's fine for them I guess. But it's not his tone that affects your life and mine. It's his actions.

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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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