Why do I sometimes feel like the Democrats are talking about themselves when they bash on Trump? They talk about how Trump is fracturing the country, yet they deliver 3 or 4 different rebuttals, instead of one united one to "meet the needs" of different constituents...
By
Michael C. Bender
Jan. 30, 2018 11:15 p.m. ET
273 COMMENTS
Democrats responded to President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union speech by describing his initial year in office as one defined by anxiety and fear, with the White House pitting Americans against one another and encouraging the nation’s darkest impulses.
Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D., Mass.) delivered his party’s response from a vocational high school in Fall River, Mass., where he urged opponents of the administration to continue rallying against a Trump policy agenda that, in his view, presents Americans with “one false choice after another.”
While lamenting the “fault lines of a fractured country,” Mr. Kennedy celebrated the protests sparked during the past year by a White House that he said places outsize importance on “your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size.”
“They are turning life into a zero-sum game where, in order for one to win, another must lose,” Mr. Kennedy said at the school, about 50 miles south of the Boston suburb where he lives.
A descendant of one of the nation’s most prominent political dynasties, Mr. Kennedy was one of five Democrats to deliver responses to the president on Tuesday, a sign of the discord within the minority party one year into the Trump era. While Mr. Kennedy delivered the party’s official response, there was also a Spanish-language speech from Virginia state House Delegate Elizabeth Guzman and an address from Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, that aired on social media.
Former Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland spoke on behalf of the Working Families Party, which is often aligned with Democrats, while Rep. Maxine Waters of California was scheduled to deliver her rebuttal during a Wednesday night special on BET.
Ms. Edwards suggested that there was no rift on the left. In a tweet on Monday, she said the multiples addresses were designed for “many audiences, multiple platforms, reaching people no matter where they are.”
“Same message, different voices, all calling out this president and his dangerous, destructive, and divisive agenda,” she wrote on Twitter.
In his speech, designed to paint his party as representative of middle class America, Mr. Kennedy largely avoided policy specifics while painting a broad, Democratic vision for the country. He said that undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, known as Dreamers, “are a part of our story.” He said Democrats supported higher wages, paid leave for parents and affordable child care.
Overlapping with some of Mr. Trump’s themes, Mr. Kennedy called for fairness in international trade pacts and an upgrade of the nation’s roads and bridges.
But Mr. Kennedy made clear that any alignment on policy shouldn’t be confused with approval of Mr. Trump’s opening year on the job.
By
Michael C. Bender
Jan. 30, 2018 11:15 p.m. ET
273 COMMENTS
Democrats responded to President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union speech by describing his initial year in office as one defined by anxiety and fear, with the White House pitting Americans against one another and encouraging the nation’s darkest impulses.
Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D., Mass.) delivered his party’s response from a vocational high school in Fall River, Mass., where he urged opponents of the administration to continue rallying against a Trump policy agenda that, in his view, presents Americans with “one false choice after another.”
While lamenting the “fault lines of a fractured country,” Mr. Kennedy celebrated the protests sparked during the past year by a White House that he said places outsize importance on “your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size.”
“They are turning life into a zero-sum game where, in order for one to win, another must lose,” Mr. Kennedy said at the school, about 50 miles south of the Boston suburb where he lives.
A descendant of one of the nation’s most prominent political dynasties, Mr. Kennedy was one of five Democrats to deliver responses to the president on Tuesday, a sign of the discord within the minority party one year into the Trump era. While Mr. Kennedy delivered the party’s official response, there was also a Spanish-language speech from Virginia state House Delegate Elizabeth Guzman and an address from Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, that aired on social media.
Former Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland spoke on behalf of the Working Families Party, which is often aligned with Democrats, while Rep. Maxine Waters of California was scheduled to deliver her rebuttal during a Wednesday night special on BET.
Ms. Edwards suggested that there was no rift on the left. In a tweet on Monday, she said the multiples addresses were designed for “many audiences, multiple platforms, reaching people no matter where they are.”
“Same message, different voices, all calling out this president and his dangerous, destructive, and divisive agenda,” she wrote on Twitter.
In his speech, designed to paint his party as representative of middle class America, Mr. Kennedy largely avoided policy specifics while painting a broad, Democratic vision for the country. He said that undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, known as Dreamers, “are a part of our story.” He said Democrats supported higher wages, paid leave for parents and affordable child care.
Overlapping with some of Mr. Trump’s themes, Mr. Kennedy called for fairness in international trade pacts and an upgrade of the nation’s roads and bridges.
But Mr. Kennedy made clear that any alignment on policy shouldn’t be confused with approval of Mr. Trump’s opening year on the job.
