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Democrats, Round Two
Observations of Attempts to Break Out Without Offending
The first half of the second Democratic debate (got that?) was notable for who was not on the stage. No, I don’t mean Tom Steyer.
Donald John Trump was not physically present but in spirit he was everybody’s piñata.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg had a powerful argument for the irrelevance of Trump in the Democratic Primary. “If we embrace a far left agenda,” he warned, “they’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists. If we embrace a conservative agenda, you know what they’re gonna do?” … Yes, we know, and the audience in Detroit’s Fox Theater was no doubt mouthing the words as we were at home: “They’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists.”
“So let’s just stand up for the right policy go out there and defend it.”
“They” in this case is a singular pronoun. “They” is Donald Trump, the fellow who briefly required his staff to refer to him as “The Donald,” but apparently there was a limit to how much ridicule he could stand.
That definition of “they” is a tragedy for the Republican Party. When The Donald is breaking rocks at Leavenworth, what is left of the GOP will be dealing with the consequences of electing a POTUS who has not studied political science or economics and…