Pelosi: Trump Defending Protests Is ‘Distraction’ | Talking Points Memo

Paid for by the usual suspect outside groups. Including a member of trump’s cabinet connected group, DeVos. Who has sworn that oath to protect and defend ALL of the constitution, not just select portions to rile up the base.

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Thanks for providing a link to that reddit comment. Would never have seen it otherwise.

As that comment shows, the orchestration is indisputable. What I don’t understand is why anyone would think otherwise when, as the comment also shows, the various groups involved even share names that are more or less identical. Is someone trying to hide the orchestration? If so, they aren’t very bright.

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Raucous rally against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order on Wednesday.

Roughly 3,000 conservatives, including members of the Proud Boys hate group and Confederate flag-waving right-wingers, descended on the state Capitol. Most participants did not wear protective masks or observe social distancing recommendations.

The protest was organized by the DeVos-funded nonprofit Michigan Freedom Fund (MFF)

and a far-right organization called the Michigan Conservative Coalition.

… a coordinated / organized / staged / contrived “show of faux outrage”

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Since when is fomenting rebellion merely a “distraction”?

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That’s not fighting like Republicans. Fighting like Republicans would be lying and saying stuff like that about Obama. Saying it about Trump is simply stepping up to the plate to tell the country a hard truth about who is running the country.

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Pelosi Says Trump’s Support Of Stay-At-Home Order Protesters Is A ‘Distraction’

You Think…

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Democrats did have leadership that would speak out and returned a salvo now and then.

Ronald Reagan?wasn’t without leadership ability, but he lacked most of the management skills that a President needs. But let me give him his due: he would have made a hell of a king.
Tip O’Neill — 1987

I can just imagine what Tip would have said regarding Trump.

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IT’s time for you to sit all the way down and shut yer piehole.

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Dems have been collectively pounding home the testing question and it has Trump and the GOP on their back foot. Pelosi is good here. She dismissed the astroturf bullshit that Fox wants to promote as what it is: political theatre.

If the blue governed states and counties keep their social distancing measures through May 31, those states have a decent change to start open and start a recovery in the summer. That should buy blue governments the time to get testing in place to get up to 3% of the population and perhaps higher.

The ad that Biden is running right now, as well as other ads, have Trump set up for a major defeat. Keep pounding the testing question and run the ads. We’ll win big and save lives in the process.

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At the moment, I wouldn’t want anyone else as Speaker. She owns the orange one from the moment she wakes up in the morning to the moment she falls asleep…and probably when she’s sleeping as well. Her time as Speaker is probably numbered, simply acknowledging she is 80 years old when I say that, but there’s no Democrat in the House right now that comes immediately to mind as her replacement. Just saying…

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A lot of this opening up rides on the idea of “herd immunity”, which in a high-exposure environment is achieved quickly. Sweden’s Anders Tegnell, who has been in charge of Sweden’s much-criticized “loose” corona strategy, now figures Sweden could hit herd immunity by June. Other Nordic countries have been skeptical for two reasons. The first was the nature of immunity, lasting or temporary. We still don’t know, so the precautionary principle prevails. The second was to protect resources. Sweden failed to protect its most elderly victims, which had been a cornerstone of the policy. But it still has had adequate capacity at all times to deal with serious cases. Finland and Norway, in particular, have done much better jobs protecting the olds, and both countries have been able to maintain adequate hospital capacity. On the other hand, if herd immunity is a real thing, they have squandered time and taken massive economic hits without moving up the immunity curve. Denmark is moving to a controlled opening up that seems like a reasonable middle course.

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With the active enthusiastic support of the media, including TPM.

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Her skill set has been honed by a lifetime in politics.
She’s a master of everything the job requires.

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I wish so too. But I also understand it would be electoral suicide. Our side wins by being the adult in the room. We appeal to the left (30% of the us) with ideas, hope, and always moving in the direction of justice, and to the middle (30%) with practical ideas and competence.

The problem is that half of the moderates hate the partisan warfare. They are repelled by it. So we win by turning a little cheek. Not too much, but trump type rhetoric may work on the reptilian right, but it just does not win us elections.

She is right, this is a distraction, and best to call it that, while stressing how irresponsible it is, and then be prepared to point to trump’s tweets, not now, but if there are renewed outbreaks. The message is “trump and these fools caused x to die, and prolonged your suffering, making us reimpose restrictions.”

Put another way, this is only a great issue for us when we can point to real consequences.

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I think Stephanopolous has it dead wrong in the premise in his question. He said 22 million Americans have lost their jobs, which is why we’re seeing protests, as if there’s a cause and effect.

While it’s very unfortunate 22 million Americans have lost their jobs, it’s clear that’s not the reason for the protests. They’re ginned up by radical right wing business interests, and as Pelosi pointed out, are relatively limited in numbers and constrained largely where there’s Democratic leadership. In other words, it’s not the job loss driving this, it’s right wing politics.

Pelosi did a good job in her response. And interesting that she’s personally taking the initiative in appearing on the Sunday shows. Obviously, she feels there’s no leadership from Trump, so she needs to step in.

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I think there is plenty of evidence that Trump never thought he’d win the election. It was a national brand promotion stunt, and winning was a shock. From a businessinsider article:

Melania, along with the rest of the Trump team, was sure their candidate would lose to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, so once it became clear his victory was all but assured on election night, she reportedly broke out in tears.

A source told Michael Wolff, who wrote a book on the early days of the Trump administration, that Trump’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., told a friend that Trump looked liked he had seen a ghost upon learning he was likely to win the election and actually become president.

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There is no way this ends well for Trump. Viruses are not lawyers.

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Perhaps its not in the corporate ownership’s interest to ACTUALLY report news and information. It’s pathetic that these small astroturf groups are getting such outsized attention. :angry:

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What Trump is seen to be doing is clearly a disgrace, if not worse – plus Team Trump (writ large) may be even more involved than we know.

Still, you can see that Pelosi is trying to put Republicans on the defensive by characterizing Trump’s disgraceful remarks as …

“a distraction from the fact that he has not appropriately done testing, treatment, contact tracing and quarantine”

Switching the subject back to these failures is … not a bad idea.

However.

Things may change and the “rebellion” may catch fire – and I agree with you that not being prepared for that eventuality would be … too stupid for words.

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