The following commentary by Greg Sargent was posted on the Washington Post website April 17, 2017:
THE MORNING PLUM:
The 100-day mark of the Trump presidency is approaching, and his aides are worried that the media narrative will depict his historically awful lack of accomplishments with highly unflattering levels of accuracy. But don’t tell that to President Trump. He knows the real problem is that the news media won’t acknowledge how terrific the start to his presidency has actually been in comparison with his loser predecessors:
The Fake Media (not Real Media) has gotten even worse since the election. Every story is badly slanted. We have to hold them to the truth!
A new Gallup poll out this morning, however, strongly suggests that an increasing number of Americans just don’t believe Trump’s spin about his presidency anymore. It finds that only 45 percent of Americans think Trump keeps his promises, down from 62 percent in February, an astonishing slide of 17 points:
Silly voters. Don’t they know that Trump’s administration has had (as he has told us) one of the most tremendously successful starts in U.S. history?
* PENCE VOWS AN END TO ‘STRATEGIC PATIENCE’: Tensions with North Korea are escalating, and in an interview with CNN, Vice President Pence explains the administration’s new approach:
“We’re going to abandon the failed policy of strategic patience. But we’re going to redouble our efforts to bring diplomatic and economic pressure to bear on North Korea. Our hope is that we can resolve this issue peaceably.”
But in reality, Trump has played the situation militarily as cautiously as his predecessors did. By the way, can you please stop the president from tweeting about this situation?
* HOW TO READ TOMORROW’S SPECIAL ELECTION: Nate Silver predicts that Democrat Jon Ossoff probably won’t win tomorrow’s special election with 50 percent outright, and after that, the runoff is anyone’s guess. Here’s how to interpret the final results:
An Ossoff win would unambiguously be good news for Democrats. But a narrow loss could be anywhere from disappointing to encouraging for them, depending on the margin and whether you think 2016 represented the new normal in the district. If judged by its 2012 results, merely coming within single digits in Georgia 6 would count as a decent result for Democrats, as was the case in a special election in the Kansas’s 4th Congressional District last week.
Silver forecasts that if Ossoff falls short of the 50 percent needed to win outright on Tuesday, he has a 50-50 chance of winning the runoff.
* TRUMP ERA PRODUCES MASSIVE SURGE OF FUNDRAISING: Bloomberg Politics reports that campaigns for the 2018 House races have hauled in a record $96.1 million in the first quarter of 2017:
That’s a 45 percent increase over the $66.2 million raised during the same period two years ago, the previous record. The maximum contribution amount to campaigns was the same during both periods. Republican incumbents and challengers raised $49.8 million, while Democrats pulled in $46.3 million.
For now, they’re at parity. One big question will be whether this surging energy produces more turnout on the Democratic side, as happened in last week’s Kansas special election.
* CORPORATE AMERICA BREAKS WITH TRUMP ON CLIMATE: Axios reports that corporations seem to be increasingly at odds with Trump on his vow to pull us out of the Paris climate accord:
In a shift that is changing the debate, the biggest and most important U.S. energy companies are now dropping their resistance to a global climate deal. Broader corporate backing of global action on climate change is helping push President Trump away from his campaign promise to pull out of the climate deal, which was struck by nearly 200 nations in Paris two years ago to slow the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
We keep hearing that Trump is increasingly responsive to business leaders, which is supposed to prove he’s being more sensible. Let’s hope this applies in this area in particular.
* TRUMP’S FALSE PROMISES ABOUT JOBS: Paul Krugman punctures Trump’s false promises about restoring coal and manufacturing jobs, and adds:
While we can’t stop job losses from happening, however, we can limit the human damage when they do happen. We can guarantee health care and adequate retirement income for all. We can provide aid to the newly unemployed. And we can act to keep the overall economy strong — which means doing things like investing in infrastructure and education, not cutting taxes on rich people and hoping the benefits trickle down.
Trump is selling false promises about bringing jobs roaring back and trying to help Republicans cut the safety net (while cutting taxes on the rich), which could produce a doubly cruel outcome.
View the post here.