Seven in 10 optimistic after Trump speech

The immediate opinions of President Trump’s address to the joint session of Congress last night were glowing. In contrast to the angry ranting of Mr. Trump’s campaign stump speeches, his address last night was uplifting and optimistic. The president even took the opportunity to extend an olive branch to Democrats with an offer of bipartisan compromise.

There was little criticism of the style and tone of President Trump’s address. Talk show host Erick Erickson, a longtime critic of Trump, said in The Resurgent, “Last night, the President showed he really has found his footing. He showed he really can be up to the task of being everyone’s President. He showed he is invested in the job.”

Erickson said that the speech was not conservative, that “there was big government for everyone,” but that the policy proposals would not be remembered. “What does advance is how people left the speech feeling,” Erickson said. “And Americans had every reason to feel reassured that things will be okay in the Age of Trump.”

Polling by CNN supports Erickson’s assessment. The poll of speech-watchers found that a majority, 57 percent, had a positive reaction to the speech. Sixty-nine percent felt that Trump’s policies would move the country in the right direction after the speech. This is a 11-point increase from before the speech. By that measure alone, the speech must be considered a success.

In comparison, during much of Barack Obama’s presidency Rasmussen’s right track/wrong track poll showed that two-thirds to three-quarters of Americans felt the country was on the wrong track. The week of the election, only 32 percent believed the country was on the right track. The most recent Rasmussen polling, from Feb. 19-23, show that the right-track number is now up to 45 percent.

Sixty-three percent said that President Trump has had the right priorities. The needle ticked up here as well since 57 percent agreed with that statement before the speech.

Trump also got a small boost in confidence from those who watched the speech. Before the speech, 59 percent were very or somewhat confident in Trump’s ability to carry out his duties as president. After the speech, that number increased to 64 percent.

In his speech last night, President Trump proved that he can act presidential and assume the ceremonial duties of president. He inspired much of the country with optimism after eight years of national malaise.

The question is how long the new, presidential Trump will last. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump speech was mixed bag for conservatives

President Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress last night (text here) was a triumph for the president. Without a doubt, Mr. Trump delivered one of the most effective speeches of his political career.

Stylistically, the president was smooth and practiced. The speech was in sharp contrast to his disjointed stump speeches and press conferences. Mr. Trump proved that he can deliver a polished, rehearsed speech with minimal ad libbing. In a word, Mr. Trump seemed presidential.

To a conservative, the content of the speech was a mixed bag. Much of what I heard involved new federal spending by a government that is broke. While I applaud Mr. Trump’s desire to expand the defense budget and believe that rebuilding the military is long overdue, I would have liked to hear that the new spending would be balanced by spending cuts elsewhere. Instead, I heard that there would be more spending domestically.

“America has spent approximately six trillion dollars in the Middle East, all this while our infrastructure at home is crumbling,” Trump said in a statement that sounded like it could have come from Barack Obama. “With this six trillion dollars we could have rebuilt our country --- twice.”

Trump continued, sounding even more like Obama circa 2009, “To launch our national rebuilding, I will be asking the Congress to approve legislation that produces a $1 trillion investment in the infrastructure of the United States -- financed through both public and private capital --- creating millions of new jobs.”

America has already tried a near-trillion-dollar stimulus. It failed to stimulate the economy or the job market. It didn’t work. We woke up afterward with eight years of economic stagnation and a national debt that had almost doubled.

“I believe strongly in free trade but it also has to be FAIR TRADE,” Donald Trump said.

I distrust politicians who talk about fairness. Fairness is the opposite of freedom because it relies on government to determine what is fair. Fairness is subjective. What is fair is at the discretion of who defines fairness. When fairness is the goal, government grows because government is the ultimate arbiter of fairness… if you can hire enough lobbyists to advance your notion of fairness.

When Barack Obama said that he wanted people to pay their “fair share,” I held onto my wallet. When I hear Donald Trump talk about fair trade, I expect that, if he gets his way, I will be paying more when I go to the store.

President Trump’s speech did have plenty for conservatives to applaud. His support for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare was much needed. Hopefully, he will take the lead on unifying congressional Republicans around a single plan. Trump’s promise of tax reform is also much needed. His victory lap over the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court was well deserved. His support for law enforcement after Barack Obama’s equivocations was reassuring.

Also reassuring was President Trump’s expressed support for immigration reform. While Trump did stress violent crimes carried out by illegal immigrants and promised again to build his wall, he did open the door to the bipartisan compromise that will be necessary to resolve the problem of illegal immigration. The claim that Mexico would pay for the wall was conspicuously absent.

There was a shortage on specifics in general, but especially on how a broke government will pay for his many programs.

The most moving part of the night – and probably the longest of many ovations – was for President Trump’s salute to US Navy Senior Chief William "Ryan" Owens, who recently died on a raid against al-Qaeda in Yemen. It is doubtful if there was a dry eye in the house as the president recognized Ryan’s widow, Carryn.

Reaction to the speech will largely depend on what camp the listener falls into. Trump supporters will justifiably claim that he hit a homerun. Trump opponents will point to flawed policies and very questionable claims and statistics.

As a conservative who voted for “none of the above,” I can at least think that Trump is, so far, better than Hillary would have been. Other than not withdrawing from the TPP, I cannot think of anything that Hillary would have said that would have been more palatable than Mr. Trump’s speech. A low bar, I know. President Trump, for all his flaws, has so far supported at least a partially conservative agenda and appointed some (not all) very good people to very important jobs.

Nevertheless, as the speech opened and closed, it’s easy to hear Trump saying, “Generations from now, we will look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and jobs for the jobless. This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

How did that work out?

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump campaign was behind Cruz boos

(Michael Vadon/FLickr)

Ted Cruz gave a rousing speech at the Republican Convention in Cleveland last night. In a rare experience for Mr. Cruz, the speech ended amid loud boos by many of the convention delegates. This morning it was revealed that the boos at the end of the Cruz convention speech were probably staged by Trump aides.

The booing occurred near the end of Cruz’s speech when it became apparent that he was not going to offer an explicit endorsement of Donald Trump. The booing began as Cruz began to wrap up his speech saying, “We deserve leaders who stand for principle, who unite us all behind shared values, who cast aside anger for love. That is the standard we should expect from everybody. And to those listening, please, don’t stay home in November. If you love our country, and love your children as much as I know that you do, stand and speak and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”

Donald Trump tweeted last night and it was confirmed by Ben Shapiro in the Daily Wire this morning that Trump and RNC officials had received a copy of Cruz’s speech in advance. Trump tweeted, “Ted Cruz booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!” Shapiro reports that Sean Spicer of the RNC confirmed that the speech was pre-screened.

Shapiro also points out that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort played it cagey when asked if the Trump organization led the boos. In a transcript of a conversation between Manafort and unnamed reporter after the speech, Manafort grins and chuckles when asked whether Trump aides “foster[ed} the booing” or had “people on the floor leading” it.

The booing may have been orchestrated as revenge for a crowd of Cruz supporters who booed Donald Trump as his jet flew overhead Wednesday afternoon. That event was reported by NBC News. Cruz did not attack Donald Trump in either speech.

After the speech, Trump attacked Cruz for not following through with the pledge made by all Republican candidates to support the eventual nominee. Left unsaid is that Trump himself renounced that pledge back in March.

In response, Cruz stated on CNN that he made the pledge in good faith, but “the day that was abrogated was the day this became personal…. I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father. That pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I will nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say ‘thank you very much’ for maligning my wife and maligning my father.”

Cruz continued, “This is not a game. This is not politics. Right and wrong matter. We have not abandoned who we are in this country.”

In orchestrating yet another attack on Cruz, who did not attack Trump or discourage people from voting Trump, the Trump campaign has placed petty revenge above party unity. It should make conservatives wonder whether Trump is serious about anything.

Read it on Conservative Firing Line

Facebook bans conservative meme

Screenshot of Facebook notification (David W. Thornton)

It looks like Facebook is at it again. The social media giant has a history of bias against conservatives and was the subject of criticism in May after whistleblowers revealed that Facebook employees suppressed conservative news on the site. In recent weeks, owners of conservative sites say that Facebook banned a meme that called transgenders “mental disorders.”

The meme in question, shown nearby, shows 32 gender symbols. The list starts with the traditional Mars and Venus symbols for male and female, but then includes new symbols ranging from various transgender symbols to “androgyne” to “demiagender (with third gender).” The two traditional genders were circled in green and labeled “genders.” The other 30 symbols were circled in red and labeled “mental disorders.”

In at least two cases, Facebook has unilaterally removed the meme from conservative Facebook pages while offering no recourse or appeal for the page owners.

Devin Pelkey, owner of the Conservative Soapbox page on Facebook, said, “My account was logged out on my phone, the Pages Manager [app] and Messenger [app]. I was asked to voluntarily suspend my page to remove other content that violated the Facebook terms of service.” Pelkey said that he was not the creator of the meme.

The notification that Facebook sent includes a link to Facebook’s community standards. There was no indication which standard was violated, but presumably it fell under the “encouraging respectful behavior” heading. The preface to the section reads:

People use Facebook to share their experiences and to raise awareness about issues that are important to them. This means that you may encounter opinions that are different from yours, which we believe can lead to important conversations about difficult topics. To help balance the needs, safety, and interests of a diverse community, however, we may remove certain kinds of sensitive content or limit the audience that sees it.

In the same section, under “hate speech,” the standards state:

Facebook removes hate speech, which includes content that directly attacks people based on their:

·         Race,

·         Ethnicity,

·         National origin,

·         Religious affiliation,

·         Sexual orientation,

·         Sex, gender, or gender identity, or

·         Serious disabilities or diseases.

But did the meme constitute hate speech? Was it an attack on people for their gender identity?

According to Psychology Today, gender dysphoria is a real mental disorder:

Gender dysphoria (formerly Gender Identity Disorder) is defined by strong, persistent feelings of identification with the opposite gender and discomfort with one's own assigned sex that results in significant distress or impairment. People with gender dysphoria desire to live as members of the opposite sex and often dress and use mannerisms associated with the other gender. For instance, a person identified as a boy may feel and act like a girl.

The American Psychological Association website says “a psychological state is considered a mental disorder only if it causes significant distress or disability.” It then goes on to say, “According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), people who experience intense, persistent gender incongruence can be given the diagnosis of ‘gender dysphoria.’ Some contend that the diagnosis inappropriately pathologizes gender noncongruence and should be eliminated. Others argue that it is essential to retain the diagnosis to ensure access to care.”

In other words, the APA recognizes gender dysphoria but doesn’t consider it a mental disorder unless it is upsetting to the individual. This is in spite of the fact that the APA acknowledges that gender dysphoria is listed as mental disorder in psychological manuals.

Last year, former Johns-Hopkins psychiatrist-in-chief Dr. Paul McHugh wrote in the Wall St. Journal that gender confusion “constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.”

Facebook seems to be allowing liberal bias to outweigh scientific reality in the case of speech critical of transgenders. At the very least, there is a robust debate about whether transgender is a mental disorder. Facebook’s own community standards purport to support such an “important conversation.”

Jeff Thomas, an administrator for The Common Sense Conservative page, said that his page had the same experience as Pelkey’s Conservative Soapbox. The post had been up for about a week and was generating a lot of attention and discussion, which Facebook says it encourages. Then, with no warning, the post was suddenly removed.

When Facebook removes a post, the person who posted it is notified. They have to click “continue” on the notification to get back to their account. There is no appeal if the decision is wrong or unfair. In fact, it is very difficult to contact Facebook about anything. Facebook’s help tab contains a link to “contact your grievance officer” that only works in India, but there is also a “give us feedback” link that allows users to send a message to Facebook.

Thomas says that the administrators for the page sent a feedback message to Facebook explaining about gender dysphoria. So far, they have not received a reply other than a form email that says that “we can’t respond to your emails individually, but we are paying attention to them.”

Thomas and Pelkey are both unhappy with the outcome in which an anonymous Facebook user used Facebook’s bureaucracy to quash a lively debate over an interesting and unsettled scientific and cultural topic with real-world implications.

“It’s some bullshit is what it is,” noted Pelkey.

Disclosure: The author is owner of the Common Sense Conservative page.

Read it on Conservative Firing Line