(Update with Full Speech) Joe Kennedy III Delivers Democratic Rebuttal to State of the Union

[Jopious Extronimous]

They can read all about your three account deep, obsession with me. That's for damn sure.

Quote me more.

Obsession? Oh my little puppet, don't wish out loud.

 

[Fluffernutter]

DEMs targeting that important aristocratic vote.

 

[PrinceOfPain]

I just find it odd that a Canadian is this interested in American politics. Imagine how much he must post on forums about Canadian politics

Lol, if you don't understand why non-Americans might be interested in American politics (sheer entertainment value aside) then you're pretty retarded.
You guys just have a thing for heretic.
It's bizarre.

 

[Arkain2K]

Trump’s speech was bad. The Democrats' response to it was worse.
The Democratic party showed it had learned nothing from the 2016 defeat and still has no idea how to deal with Trump and the Republican hegemony

During the State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, the American people saw a boisterous, self-confident, united Republican party rally around its president, while a defeated, grim, and moping Democratic party looked on powerlessly.

As soon as the rather long State of the Union speech was over, liberal pundits and Democratic operatives started to attack it. Some focused on the lack of concrete policies or the nativist content of the immigration sections; others pointed out the lack of energy of the speech. They had seen a “low-energy” Trump and assumed the base would be left uninspired and wondering. It again showed their complete lack of understanding of the Trump-Republican party dynamic.

For the past year, interviews and polls with Trump supporters, and the broader Republican base, have consistently shown that the vast majority of Republicans support his policies but not his tone.

They want Trump to be combative and self-confident, but not engage in petty, personal attacks. What they want is authoritarian and nativist policies with a human face, and that is what Trump finally delivered on Tuesday.

This is why people like Republican spin doctor Frank Luntz, a relative Trump-skeptic within the party, tweeted: “Tonight, I owe Donald Trump an apology. Tonight, I was moved and inspired. Tonight, I have hope and faith in America again.”

No matter that Trump presented an economic agenda that, if actually implemented, would probably bankrupt the country – hello big government! No matter that Trump connected legal immigrants to MS-13 gangsters and called for an overthrow of the age-old immigration system. No matter even that Trump called upon Congress “to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers – and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people” – hello Big Brother!

On Tuesday evening, Trump finally became the president of the whole Republican party. It shows how far the normalization of radical right ideas has come. Trump was already the true voice of the party base, but now the party elite also embraced him. Ayn Rand disciple Paul Ryan even enthusiastically applauded Trump’s $1.5tn government-stimulated infrastructure plan.

Sure, the atmosphere in Congress was, at times, more like that of a frat party. And it reached a patriotic frenzy when the whole Republican contingent broke out in a minute-long “USA! USA! USA! chant. But rather than defensive and nasty, Trump presented his administration as self-confident and successful, ready to do business with the (pesky) Democrats.

Masterfully, every nativist policy was camouflaged by using non-white enforcers and victims and contrasted with policies that are at the top of the Democratic agenda – such as citizenship for “illegal immigrants”.

The Democratic party, on the other hand, showed it had learned nothing from the 2016 defeat and still has no idea how to deal with Trump and the Republican hegemony. Not only did their members of Congress sit there defeated and moping, often not even applauding policies that were, or should be, in their own platform. They chose the personification of the east coast liberal political dynasty, Joe Kennedy III, to give the Democratic response to the State of the Union. From Massachusetts, of all places!

Kennedy’s speech was heralded by the Democratic punditry as inspiring and truly American. But as with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, it was low on substance, particularly in terms of socioeconomic policies. And, seriously, who chooses a trust-fund kid, who is the 22nd richest member of Congress, to speak to “the thousands of American communities whose roads aren’t paved with power or privilege”?

And so Kennedy did what the Democratic party has been doing for over a year now, reach out to Hispanics, including the by now obligatory few sentences in (surprisingly good) Spanish, and women – the type of “identity politics” the party has been criticized for since the 2016 defeat.

But for all the heralding of diversity, and criticism of this administration’s nativism and racism, there was no explicit reference to key issues for the non-white, and white, underclass. Issues like prison reform or voter suppression were not even explicitly mentioned. And he barely mentioned the opioid crisis, one of the most soul-crushing problems of the US in general, and his state of Massachusetts in particular, which Trump had devoted several minutes to.

Trump, meanwhile, delivered exactly what the broader Republican elite and masses wanted: authoritarian nativism with a human face. He spoke directly to the not yet convinced Republicans, knowing that his base will follow him anyway. The Democrats did exactly the opposite.

The past year saw a slew of “non-traditional” electoral victories in terms of candidates, often not the favorite of the local and state party elites, geography, in so-called “fly-over country”, and electorates, such as the disproportionate support of non-whites, in particular African American women. Despite this, the Democratic party presented Kennedy, the poster boy of the party insiders: a rich, white, male from the east coast.

While Steve Bannon might not be a player in the White House any more, and the State of the Union was markedly low on populism, the Democratic party would do well to heed the words he spoke in an August 2017 interview: “The longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”


Cas Mudde is Associate Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. He is the author of Populism: A Very Short Introduction and The Far Right in America

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...mps-speech-miserable-democrats-response-to-it

 

[Madmick]

Why?

A "rebuttal" to the SOTU is about as meaningful as the policy campaign promises of a student president in middle school.

 

[bandicoot]

I wish Richie Cunningham the best

Underrated post imo

 

[tkotom]

The hilarious part about all of this is that the Dems wheeled this guy out because they think he's their Trump card. The way the MSM was talking about this guy AFTER his D-Level speech meant that they're gearing up to run him as their candidate in 2020.

They're really reaching deep in the bag with this guy all the way back to the Kennedy Dynasty. That's literally what it is, this is 11th Century level aristocracy.

They'd honestly have a better chance of beating Trump if they ran Kamala, Oprah or Hillary again.

 

[irish_thug]

That is one unfortunate looking human being.

 

[Gregolian]

That is one unfortunate looking human being.

 

[Arkain2K]

Doesn't the lack of a soul automatically make him a Republican?

Oh shit, they’re breaking out the rarest of oppressed minorities, the ginger.




A 2020 contender has arrived!

Nobody gives a shit about the oppression of the ginger race, tho. Where's our hashtag movements and SJWs.

Why would pick a Ginger to give the rebuttal? No one trust a Ginger.

In the age of identity politics, everyone talks about Whites and Blacks and nobody remember you minority folks with translucent colorless skin.

 

[luckyshot]

The hilarious part about all of this is that the Dems wheeled this guy out because they think he's their Trump card. The way the MSM was talking about this guy AFTER his D-Level speech meant that they're gearing up to run him as their candidate in 2020.

They're really reaching deep in the bag with this guy all the way back to the Kennedy Dynasty. That's literally what it is, this is 11th Century level aristocracy.

They'd honestly have a better chance of beating Trump if they ran Kamala, Oprah or Hillary again.

I still think Joe Biden would curb stomp trump, but a big part of me hopes they go with someone younger.

 

[Ichibanner]

Joe Kennedy had some weird schmutz on his lips. I could not watch him. His tone was pathetic and his looks are distracting to me. He looks like Ted Kennedy and Cynthia Nixon from Sex in the City had a kid. It was like trying to watch the Howdy Doody puppet be serious.

 

[The Diplomat]

In the age of identity politics, everyone talks about Whites and Blacks and nobody remember you minority folks with translucent colorless skin.

We're less than 2% of the population world wide, and dwindling due to the recessive gene needed in both parents. Soon we'll be extinct, and nobody seems to give a damn!

 

[Rematch]

We're less than 2% of the population world wide, and dwindling due to the recessive gene needed in both parents. Soon we'll be extinct, and nobody seems to give a damn!

God's will be done.

 

[irish_thug]

We're less than 2% of the population world wide, and dwindling due to the recessive gene needed in both parents. Soon we'll be extinct, and nobody seems to give a damn!

That was a big concern for me when having kids. Both my wife and I carry that gene. And I make a lot of (kidding) ginger jokes.

 

[lilelvis]

I said I wouldn't post nonsense or respond to nonsense anymore so...

Does that mean you are giving up sherdog for good?

 

[Bargey]

Kind of felt sorry for the little ginger. There couldn’t be a worse gig in politics and it certainly showed.

 

[Bargey]

Defending Trump to a trollish degree isn't "an interest in politics". That's what makes it so funny, he never brings up Canadian politics or discusses the relationships between our two countries, he simply defends and cheerleads for Trump. It's weird and fun to laugh at.



Go count how many posts he's made about Trump, and how many he's made about US/Canadian relations. You can stop when you get to 30/0 and tell me if you see why we make fun of him.

This is a forum for global politics and he's shown an overwhelming interest in defending a single man from a country that isn't his own, and almost no interest in his own country's politics.

If you showed Heretic's posts here to a therapist he'd immediately assume it's someone who's father left at an early age or a repressed homosexual dealing with a crush on an older man,

I don’t think you quite get what Trump represents for people in other countries who respect America, admire the American Dream, and have seen a slow erosion of western culture and traditions like free speech, patriotism, Western exceptionalism and success through working the hardest, not complaining the loudest.

Trump (rightly or wrongly) represents a bulwark against this politically correct environment where unfortunately many leaders of other western countries have sold their citizens out for 30 pieces of silver.

You damn right there is a vested interest internationally for people who live in the west and are thankful to what their countries are and what their culture is, for Trump to be successful.

 

[HereticBD]

He looks like Ted Kennedy and Cynthia Nixon from Sex in the City had a kid.

Spot on.

 

[Jopious Extronimous]

I don’t think you quite get what Trump represents for people in other countries who respect America, admire the American Dream, and have seen a slow erosion of western culture and traditions like free speech, patriotism, Western exceptionalism and success through working the hardest, not complaining the loudest.

Trump (rightly or wrongly) represents a bulwark against this politically correct environment where unfortunately many leaders of other western countries have sold their citizens out for 30 pieces of silver.

You damn right there is a vested interest internationally for people who live in the west and are thankful to what their countries are and what their culture is, for Trump to be successful.

This is just about the dumbest thing I've ever read in my life.

Are you suggesting Trump is respected and admired abroad because he represents the American dream of working hard to make yourself something?!!

He's a fucking trust-fund baby given a $200 million dollar inheritance who's declared bankruptcy multiple times and is well known world-wide for being a disgusting conman responsible for things like Trump University.

And free speech?! He's in a the middle of a crusade to label all speech against him fake and irrelevant. Are you fucking serious?

Please tell me you're being sarcastic or trolling so I don't lose more faith in humanity.