Back in 2015 and 2016, the mainstream media gave Donald Trump's presidential campaign a huge boost. Trump was like catnip to them, endlessly entertaining, and as a result, they made his campaign a gift of hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars in free airtime. They'd cover his rallies in full, just to see what outrageous things he said. When the Republican primary season happened, all their questions to the other candidates were basically some form of: "What do you think about what Trump said about X?" Trump was a creature of television and pop culture, and as such understood the value of generating high ratings. And the media gleefully went along for the ride. And as a result, Trump dominated the primary and then dominated the general election.

Much later on, the media went through a bit of soul-searching: "How could we have allowed this to happen? How complicit were we in the con job?" But by then, of course, it was too late.

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President Joe Biden is either a radical, far-left socialist who hates many things about America and lied to everyone in his campaign about "unity" (because deep down he really just wants to divide us to foster his own political ambitions)... or he is not. If he isn't, then he just might be a moderate Democratic centrist who has been thrust into three simultaneous crises and who has reacted by abandoning his former timidity and instead decided that the time is now to prove to the American public that the federal government can indeed be a force for good in their lives, in the biggest way possible. Joe is going big, even though his natural instinct would be to sit down with Republicans and hash out a compromise that fell far short of what the Democratic side of the aisle thought was necessary.

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President Joe Biden has proposed a very ambitious agenda, after he already successfully passed the equally-ambitious American Rescue Plan (to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic). The next two legislative initiatives Biden has now unveiled -- the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan -- are also just as breathtaking in scope. Republicans, at least so far, have been caught rather flatfooted in their response. And it is up to the mainstream media to start pointing this out, by zeroing in on questions of actual policy rather than getting distracted by the GOP's attempts at demonization and misdirection.

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Democratic strategist James Carville is getting a little attention right now as a result of an interview just published in Vox. As is his wont, he uses some rather indelicate language to identify a number of problems plaguing Democratic efforts at messaging and getting elected. But I have to say, I largely agree with what Carville says. He's essentially right on his three main points. And other Democrats should take heed at what he's saying instead of complaining about it or denouncing it.

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This Sunday, I watched some political malpractice take place. The ABC morning political chatfest had their usual duelling roundtable, although for some reason Rahm Emanuel was missing from the lineup. This allowed Chris Christie to demonize the idea that President Joe Biden will be proposing (officially, on Wednesday) to tax upper-income capital gains at the same rate as wage income. The two liberals on the panel just weren't a match for him, and got drawn into the weeds of the debate rather than framing it correctly for the American public. Because not once did they use the phrase: "millionaires' tax."

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President Joe Biden just had a pretty good week. And next week's going to be even better for him. Especially considering how far we've come since this time exactly one year ago.

In the past week alone, Biden and his administration chalked up the following achievements or milestones:

Biden has already reached his (doubled!) goal of 200 million vaccine shots into people's arms in his first 100 days in office -- a week early.

Over 41 percent of the American population has been vaccinated at least once, including over 51 percent of all those currently eligible (age 16 and up).

The average number of new infections has actually started to come down once again, and is once again lower than the peak of the second wave. It is still too high, but at least it is heading in the right direction once again. The average deaths per day seems to have plateaued at just below 750 -- again, too high, but a lot better than the peak of almost 3,500 deaths per day.

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Three years ago, I wrote an article titled "Marijuana Legalization Has Passed The Tipping Point." Now, we seem to be at the moment after the tipping point where momentum starts to quickly build, until the whole effort is speeding downhill and nothing can stop it at all.

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Some Republicans have apparently decided that political dog whistles are just no longer even necessary. After the bombast of Donald Trump, they're now quite comfortable just openly saying exactly what they mean -- no matter how racist it might be.

We refer to the formation of a new congressional caucus: the "America First Caucus." Normally, this wouldn't be all that big a deal -- just some group of extra-Trumpy GOP members getting together to figure out what their Dear Leader would want them to do in Congress. But their founding document was leaked, and it goes a wee bit further in laying out the founding principles of the new caucus. Here are their first few paragraphs on immigration, for instance:

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Ever since President Joe Biden rolled out the first part of his infrastructure plan, Republicans have been largely caught flat-footed. They just don't have much of an answer for why they don't support it. Which makes sense, because most of what is contained in the plan is actually widely supported by the public. So the one thing Republicans really haven't been able to do is to point to the plan and give any good examples as to why it would be such a terrible idea.

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As I am wont to do, I watched all the Sunday political chatfests this weekend (well... as many of them as I could stomach, at any rate...). I was mostly interested in hearing the Republicans' counterargument to the American Jobs Plan that President Joe Biden introduced last week, a massive $2.3 trillion investment in America. What I heard, however, was just laughably weak. Republicans apparently want to have a grand debate over the proper definition of the word "infrastructure," since they apparently have already figured out that talking about the specifics of Biden's plan doesn't exactly help their side. I mean, what is a respectable Republican politician supposed to do, when just about everything in Biden's plan sounds like a dandy idea to most of the public? So, rather than hold a debate about these popular specifics, Republicans instead prefer to play semantic games.

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