Today in Winning

As tempting as it is to begin a regular feature called “Winning Chronicles,” I’ll have to resist because I don’t think I can keep up with Trump. My pal Charles Lipson has pointed out that Trump, in typical Trumpian fashion, has essentially said, “FDR’s 100 Days? How about 100 hours?”

The first 100 hours of Trump 2 aren’t even in the can yet, and oh my! (By the way, in a larger or metaphysical sense, Trump’s first term was his cursed second term, and this is his real first term. It certainly has a first-term feel to it. Like so many other things, Trump is turning the usual presidential cycle on its head.)

By the way, while we’re doing the FDR-Trump comparison, naturally the media is highlighting the legal challenges to some of Trump’s executive orders and actions. But let’s look back on FDR’s first big executive action—declaring a “bank holiday” in his first week in 1933. It was perhaps a prudent move to calm depositors and stabilize banks, but does anyone know the legal authority FDR based the order on? Bueller? Bueller?  It was the “Trading With the Enemy Act” of 1917. No one back in those more innocent and benighted days had the wit to bring suit in federal court for such a flimsy legal grounding. But it certainly seems less plausible than Trump contesting for the interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s “birthright citizenship” clause.

Separately I have a piece up at the NY Post on the yuuuge significance of Trump rolling back LBJ’s EO 11246 (as Scott noted yesterday), but in the meantime the tidings of winning keep piling up:

Acosta is more of a dwarf star, but still. Plus this chaser:

More of this in other federal agencies please:

My suspicion is that a lot of these hires were lefties. And “non-partisan”? Puh-leese.

More of this, too:

Chaser:

And much more of this please:

U of Rochester Students Expelled Over ‘Wanted’ Posters

The University of Rochester has expelled a group of students who last fall plastered campus with posters critical of university leaders’ response to the Israel-Hamas war, The Rochester Beacon reported Friday.

The expulsions come a little more than two months after campus officials found “Wanted” posters featuring photos of the university president and other faculty and staff members—some of whom are Jewish—accompanied by text criticizing their handling of the institution’s response to the war or their alleged ties to the Israeli war effort.

Over to you, Columbia.

Chaser:

I’m sure it had to kill the New York Times to write this headline:

The full-scale assault by the conservative movement on liberal domination of the nation’s culture has begun to deliver key victories. . .

Despite the closeness of the November election, the two more liberal cable channels, MSNBC and CNN, experienced a severe decline in viewership after Nov. 5, while Fox News ratings rose

Nate Silver is noticing the same thing:

Are we entering a Conservative Golden Age?

Ezra Klein writes, the evidence for a conservative vibe shift goes beyond Trump’s narrow popular vote margin. To take a few data points:

  • It’s much harder than in 2016 to write off Trump’s win as a fluke. He won the popular vote. There’s no Electoral College, Comey Letter or (dubiously) Russian interference to blame for his win. Democrats essentially lost the election twice last year — first with Biden and then with Harris — and this came on the heels of Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016. Maybe it’s bad candidates — the Democrats’ presidential nominees lately have been about as successful as New York Jets quarterbacks — but their product isn’t selling.
  • Furthermore, Democrats show every sign of being defeated. Unlike in 2017, there’s little protest activity against Trump. MSNBC ratings and Washington Post subscriptions are down. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s teams are fighting, but none of it is particularly constructive or forward-looking, and there’s no clear consensus on what the Democratic Party should do next.
  • Trump’s win was buoyed by some sharp demographic shifts, including among voters that Democrats once took for granted as being part of their “team”: Hispanic and Asian American voters, and to a lesser degree Black voters (especially Black men) — and younger voters, too. Democrats can no longer credibly claim to win elections just by turning out their base; in fact, Republicans outnumbered Democrats in the November electorate by 5 points. Americans are also voting with their feet, fleeing blue states and cities.

There’s a lot more in this overlong piece that I only recommend to insomniacs, but this is enough.

‘Chaser:

Also, enjoy this one:

To paraphrase something Will Rogers said a century ago, it’s no trouble being a humorist when you have the entire woke left working for you.

Trump’s only error so far:

So here’s how he can make up for it:

Although this is a pretty based idea too:

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