My son and daughter in law live in South Florida. They are professionals who married late. The are having their first children (twins) in a couple of months. They have decided to leave their jobs and move north to a state with better schools. You know the local schools suck when people who can afford to move do because the public schools suck. The children of people who can’t afford to leave are doomed to attend schools in Florida. But they have low taxes.
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Thumbs up fifty, you’re a gentleman.
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The question is not whether the Trump Economy is doing as well as he claims. The question is what is the public perception of his performance. On that front, the news is not good. He has suddenly zoomed up to a 7-point net approval rating.
The economy (along with immigration) will definitely be the platform on which the Koch-funded midterm campaign will be run.
I blame the Democratic party–leaders and followers–for this. The narratives that (1) the Obama economy sucked, and (2) the identical Trump economy, inherited from Obama, is terrific, is a very pure example of the party’s chronic messaging failure. Obama could have personally discovered the cure for cancer and he would have congratulated Congress for it, even as Republicans denounced it as fake news and promoted medical breakthroughs as an elitist menace. McConnell could have personally gunned down the liberal justices, and Democrats would have been calling for a more bipartisan approach from ‘Congress.’
The messaging problem is rooted in two mutually reinforcing problems: (1) the misconception that partisanship is bad, even if one partisan is infinitely superior to the other; and (2) the muddled, basically incommunicable message that results from a chronically cautious, timid, self-doubting, mildly corrupt, compromising ideology of bipartisanship.
It was obvious that Trump would spend 4 years shouting from the rooftops that he was the jobs, jobs, jobs president. I remember suggesting–to the void of TPM–that Democrats should have a website and messaging team up and running, before Trump ever took office, with the sole purpose of tallying and publicizing every single layoff, shutdown, factory closure. Brand Trump as terrible on jobs from the outset instead of waiting for policy evaluations to filter through three years down the road, by which time his brand would be set. Nope. This low-cost, high-yield no-brainer hasn’t happened.
Now we’re being screwed to death on DACA. Democrats in red states are terrified of the issue and somehow believe that they will get credit for votes and postures that are ‘moderate.’ It’s blindingly obvious that what McCaskill & Co should be saying is very simple and very authentic: “If you believe that young people brought here as children should be dragged out of their offices, homes, and schools in their hundreds of thousands, held in detention centers and then shipped off to a foreign country they’ve never seen, vote for Republicans. It’s a free world. If you believe that’s wrong, vote for the Democrats.” If someone responds, “But what about immigration…etc” you simply repeat that mantra. You do not change the subject. You confront the voters with the kind of clear moral choice they’re desperate for.
I see that I’ve gone on for too long.
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You may be right, but unless the Democrats figure out an anti-Trump economic message that undercuts his claims, the much anticipated Big Blue Election wave will barely ripple to the shore in November. You would think that the party that “owns” Hollywood could figure this one out.
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Agree 100% on need for messaging. I think you’re being unduly pessimistic about the BlueWave though. Ds will turn out in droves. That will result in big gains in any scenario. The challenge is knock down the Trump brand as a jobs & immigration hero, otherwise Rs may suddenly turn out too.
World Fact Check:
Trump oversold himself 30 years ago.
The nightmare continues.
Where is freddy krueger when you need him? lol
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Only for a select few. Too much creativity amongst the masses is dangerous to those who wield power.
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Sounds like Kansas. I was so glad to leave there in 2015, and I don’t even have kids! I was in higher ed, though, and the struggle for funding was constat at all levels of the school system.
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I happen to live in a place they are going, the mid Hudson valley, north of NYC. In addition to working in NYC, I own a small construction company. We specialize in finding old homes in good neighborhoods with great school systems (the three best in state are in our county) for those people moving here.
I’m more than tickled to be be doing this. Despite the high expense of living here, I feel NY does pretty decent with services for it’s citizens. The recession killed us, but my kids were STILL able to get great educations, in high school and college (both in-state) without too much debt. That makes paying more taxes now that we are doing well, ok.
Eventually the Blue States will be the best place to live, (despite weather, for NY anyway) because of important things, like education and opportunity. Unfortunately that also means that those exact same things will decline in those states that don’t.
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