Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Cognitive Dissonance of George Will

Yet again, George Will has praised something that is only possible because Donald Trump is President.  In his latest article, he discusses how the Supreme Court has corrected an error it made 41 years ago when it ruled that non-union members could be coerced into paying agency fees since they benefit from the union's collective bargaining.  His tone indicates that this was a correction that was inevitable, much like Plessy vs. Ferguson (i.e. separate but equal).  However, the ruling was 5 to 4.  Huh.  Who were the five and who were the four?  Well, the 5 were justices appointed by Reagan (Kennedy), Bush I (Thomas), Bush II (Roberts and Alito), and Trump (Gorsuch).  The four were appointed by Clinton (Ginsburg and Breyer) and Obama (Sotomayor and Kagan).  What if, instead of Justice Gorsuch, we had an appointee from President Hillary Clinton?  How would this decision have gone in that case?  Almost certainly 5 - 4 in the other direction.
 
Trump is implementing policies more conservative than either George Bush or George W. Bush.  He is pushing issues that the Republican voters have requested for decades but the party has offered nothing but lip service.  Previous presidents have been very good at speaking but not very good at doing.  Trump has this reversed.  Of course, the old adage is to pay attention to what they do and not what they say.

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