I’m struck at how many people have come up to me recently and said, “Trump’s going to get re-elected, isn’t he?” And in each case, when I drilled down to ask why, I bumped into the Democratic presidential debates in June. I think a lot of Americans were shocked by some of the things they heard there. I was.Summarizing what “shocked” Tom Friedman about the Democrat candidates was their near-universal support for (a) abolishing private health insurance “covering some 250 million,” (b) decriminalizing illegal entry into the U.S., and (c) providing health coverage to millions of undocumented illegal immigrants.
On the other hand, what Friedman hoped to see (but didn’t) was any interest in economic growth and entrepreneurship. His words: “Where do they think jobs come from?”
These aren’t words we expect from Tom Friedman. While one robin does not a spring make, Friedman begins to sound like a former progressive who has been “mugged by reality,” the classic definition of a neo-con.
Perhaps, echoing Ronald Reagan, Friedman may one day complain “I didn’t leave the Democrat Party, it left me.” He reports seeing it take the first steps away just recently.
