ChrisWeigant.com

Archive of Articles in the "Populism" Category

Friday Talking Points [488] -- Suffer The Little Children

[ Posted Friday, June 15th, 2018 – 18:20 UTC ]

Fox News unwittingly (how else?) spoke a deep truth this week. Or perhaps a deep fantasy -- it's tough to tell, coming from Fox anchors. As President Trump descended the stairs from Air Force One in Singapore, Fox And Friends gushed: "This is history. Regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators, what we are seeing right now -- this is history." Um... how many dictators was that, again? The host later tried to walk back her unintentional gaffe, but is it really all that far off the mark?

Read Complete Article »

Blame Canada!

[ Posted Monday, June 11th, 2018 – 16:29 UTC ]

Donald Trump has apparently decided to take the advice of that impressive fount of political wisdom, South Park. It's hard to come to any other conclusion, really, when you recall that one of the songs from their first big movie (a song nominated for an Academy Award, no less) was titled: "Blame Canada." President Trump was obviously inspired by the lyrics: "With all their beady little eyes / And flapping heads so full of lies," when he began his tweetstorm against Justin Trudeau after Trump left the G-7 meeting early.

Read Complete Article »

Friday Talking Points [487] -- Trump Hands Democrats Enormous Midterm Gift

[ Posted Friday, June 8th, 2018 – 18:08 UTC ]

As usual, there was a whole lot of political news this week, as President Trump continues to flail his way around the world in multiple unhinged ways. But this week, our eye was caught by the story that the Trump Justice Department has announced it is now conspiring to hand Democrats the midterm elections. Maybe Trump should appoint a special prosecutor to look into or something?

Read Complete Article »

Friday Talking Points [486] -- Hurricane-Force Lies

[ Posted Friday, June 1st, 2018 – 17:11 UTC ]

It was another rollicking week in the world of politics, which is admittedly not saying much in the era of Trump. It was revealed this week that the death toll on Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria was not just higher than had been officially reported, but at least seventy times higher, and in fact was more than twice as high as the death toll from Hurricane Katrina. You'd think this would be a gigantic media story, but (sadly) you would be wrong. Just like everything else about the devastation, most certainly including the media's treatment of it, this bombshell report was largely ignored this week. No wonder Puerto Ricans feel like second-class citizens, when they keep getting second-class treatment like this.

Read Complete Article »

Friday Talking Points [485] -- "If You Change Your Mind..."

[ Posted Friday, May 25th, 2018 – 17:22 UTC ]

We've always been planning a meeting with Eastasia. What's that? Oh, wait... we've never been planning a meeting with Eastasia. Any suggestion of such a meeting has been tossed down the memory hole -- along with the commemorative coins we prematurely minted to celebrate it.

Read Complete Article »

Georgia On My Mind

[ Posted Wednesday, May 23rd, 2018 – 17:29 UTC ]

Last night, Stacey Abrams moved one step closer to making history, by easily defeating Stacey Evans in the Democratic primary for governor in the state of Georgia. If she can manage an upset win in November, she will become the first African-American woman governor in American history. So it would be a big milestone not only for the voters of Georgia, but nationwide.

Read Complete Article »

Listen To The Candidates, Not The Beltway Cocktail Party Chatter

[ Posted Thursday, May 17th, 2018 – 17:20 UTC ]

Mainstream media political pundits are often accused of focusing too much on "the horserace" aspect of elections, to the detriment of the actual issues being fought over in the race. It's so much easier to just watch the polls go up and down (and bang out an article about it) than it is to do a deep dive into what candidates are actually running on. At the most, the pundits will critique candidate television ads, always with an eye on how they are affecting the polls.

Read Complete Article »

Seeking Five More Brave Republican Moderates

[ Posted Wednesday, May 16th, 2018 – 16:59 UTC ]

As astonishing as it sounds, the House of Representatives may actually take action on immigration reform before the midterm elections happen. Paul Ryan isn't too happy about this state of affairs, since his original plan was to do absolutely nothing about the problem caused by Donald Trump attempting to end the DACA program. Ryan had planned for the remainder of the year for the House to only hold votes on bills that might conceivably help Republicans out on the campaign trail, and being forced to confront immigration was definitely not part of that plan. But he may have no choice, since he is now being pushed from two different directions -- within his own caucus -- to hold such votes.

Read Complete Article »

Reviewing Trump's Foreign Policy Moves

[ Posted Tuesday, May 15th, 2018 – 17:19 UTC ]

Quixotic. Peripatetic. Mercurial. These are all ten-dollar words which could describe Donald Trump's approach to foreign policy matters. A less-fancy term might be "totally incoherent." Trump stands for nothing, has a situational approach to any individual foreign policy issue, and doesn't seem all that conversant with important details -- all of which add up to a foreign policy that his own foreign policy advisors can't predict. They are continually being caught by surprise by some off-the-cuff Trump tweet or statement, and regularly scramble to provide some sort of backup to whatever bee Trump currently has in his bonnet. It's Nixon's madman theory writ large, because even Trump's own White House has no earthly idea what he'll do or say next. At least Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were on the same page in their madman gambit, but Trump doesn't seem to be sharing his thoughts with anyone within his administration.

Read Complete Article »

Friday Talking Points [484] -- House GOP Is Revolting!

[ Posted Friday, May 11th, 2018 – 18:03 UTC ]

Before we get to all the Trumpy news of the week, we had to headline what is going on in Paul Ryan's House, since it hasn't been getting enough attention yet. Because the House Republicans are revolting!

Read Complete Article »