He’s worried that Trump will get re-elected, possibly easily. Me too.
Dear Democrats: This is not complicated! Just nominate a decent, sane person, one committed to reunifying the country and creating more good jobs, a person who can gain the support of the independents, moderate Republicans and suburban women who abandoned Donald Trump in the midterms and thus swung the House of Representatives to the Democrats and could do the same for the presidency. And that candidate can win!
But please, spare me the revolution! It can wait. Win the presidency, hold the House and narrow the spread in the Senate, and a lot of good things still can be accomplished. “No,” you say, “the left wants a revolution now!” O.K., I’ll give the left a revolution now: four more years of Donald Trump.
That will be a revolution.
I tend to think of Friedman as a twit who can turn a phrase well enough to be worthwhile reading once in a while.†
But here I think he gets the broader point: just because Republicans have a candidate many people will vote against (me included), this does not mean the Democrats should also come up with a candidate that people will vote against.
I would add two things. First, incumbents rarely lose, which plays to Trump’s advantage. Second, Democrats love Obama, and yet he put up the third worst showing of an incumbent running for re-election since Hoover: he should not be viewed as an ideal.
† I still tell this story. I highlight books. A lot. Friedman’s The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century is a book I read cover to cover, enjoyed very much, and highlighted not one thing. It was intellectual cotton candy.
has thought a lot more about this than anyone I've ever read. Another sign is that we think of consciousness as the thinking-about-doing-stuff part of ourselves. But, that can't be right either:
