The Slatest

Today in Conservative Media: Who Needs a “Better Deal” When Trump’s Given Us the Best?

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY)

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A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.

On Monday, conservatives derided the Democrats’ new slogan and platform for 2018: “A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future.” The Daily Wire’s Aaron Bandler took aim at a New York Times’ op-ed Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer wrote promoting the agenda:

“First, we’re going to increase people’s pay,” wrote Schumer. “Second, we’re going to reduce their everyday expenses. And third, we’re going to provide workers with the tools they need for the 21st-century economy.”

Schumer then listed policies that would do the opposite of what he promised, as he stated that the Democrats support a trillion dollar infrastructure program, paid family leave and a $15 minimum wage. And then he argued for even more government.

[…]It’s hard to see how any of this will win the Democrats any new voters. “A Better Deal” is clearly to meant to mock President Trump, who prides himself as a man who likes making deals, but literally none of the policies that Schumer lists will improve the average middle class worker, nor does it address one of the main problems the Democrats faced in November: that blue-collar whites felt like they didn’t care about them, especially as the Democrats are doubling down on their obsession with identity politics.

At National Review, Jonah Goldberg wrote that the success of the Better Deal messaging rests on whether the Democrats can turn away from identity politics and buck their “left flank.” “The Democratic party’s base literally and figuratively — coastal elites, liberal Millennials, various ethnic and sexual minorities, environmentalists, feminists, etc. — is full of people who define politics about more than kitchen table economics,” he wrote. “You can claim that, say, abortion is solely an economic issue. You can even believe it. But you can’t argue that the Handmaid’s Tale cosplay crowd sees it that way.”

In Commentary, Noah Rothman accused the Democrats of promoting a “false centrism”:

Writing for the New York Times opinion page on Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer insisted the Democratic Party’s new agenda “is not about expanding the government, or moving our party in one direction or another along the political spectrum.” Any sentient political observer could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

“First, we’re going to increase people’s pay,” Schumer wrote. “Second, we’re going to reduce their everyday expenses. And third, we’re going to provide workers with the tools they need for the 21st-century economy.” He endorsed Bernie Sanders’ $1 trillion infrastructure spending proposal, a national paid family and sick leave program, and a hike of the minimum wage to $15 per hour. To reduce the cost of consumer goods, Democrats will pursue changes in the law to allow Congress to break up big firms with oppressive capriciousness.

In the Daily Caller, Amber Athey wrote that the new agenda nicked its slogan from House Republicans’ “A Better Way” campaign last year and ideas from the Clinton campaign.

First, “A Better Deal” promises tax credits to employers who hire and provide training to apprentices — something Clinton had in her platform in 2015.

On the health care front, “A Better Deal” promises another 2015 Clinton proposal: allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

In 2016, Clinton wrote on her website that she would increase the power of anti-trust regulators to prevent “anti-competitive” behavior, yet another “new policy” promised by “A Better Deal.”

A post from the Daily Wire’s Robert Kraychik accused Schumer and the Democrats of “pushing Communism”’ “Neo-Marxist class warfare was a permanent theme,” he wrote, “with Schumer deriding ‘corporate interests,’ ‘the super wealthy,’ ‘elites,’ ‘special interests,’ and ‘the powerful’ while extolling ‘working people.’”

On Fox News, Katrina Pierson argued that the Democrats’ messaging failed to take into account both the stagnation of the Obama administration and the runaway economic successes of the Trump administration. “Who wants better when they have the best?” she asked.

[W]hen we look at what President Trump has done in the last six months, the stock market has been very positive, he’s already signed executive orders for apprenticeships, which is somethign that Chuck Schumer himself said was going to be a part of the new Democrat policy. Not to mention fighting back on illegal immigration which does suppress wages in many areas. President Trump is already on the road to making America great again, which will always be the best political slogan that will go down in U.S. history.

In other news:

The Daily Caller reported on the FBI’s alleged seizure of destroyed hard drives from former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s IT administrator. From the Daily Caller:

Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, an individual whom FBI investigators interviewed in the case told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

An additional source in Congress with direct knowledge of the case, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, confirmed that the FBI has joined what Politico previously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into “serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network” by Imran and three of his relatives, who had access to the emails and files of the more than two dozen House Democrats who employed them on a part-time basis.

“At this point, is it really all that surprising to find more evidence of corruption coming out of the Democrat Party? Seems anymore that’s like being shocked water is wet,” a post on former Congressman Allen West’s site read. “What really matters is that if wrongdoing is discovered and proven, action is taken to hold those responsible accountable for their misdeeds, something that has failed to happen in higher profile incidents like Benghazi and Hillary’s email scandal.” Rush Limbaugh devoted a segment of his radio show to the story:

This is the exact kind of story the Democrats and the Drive-By Media would want to ignore. Because exactly what they’re claiming happened with Trump and Russia and all this, it actually did happen with the Democrats! Their server was hacked; they wouldn’t turn the servers and any of the network equipment over to the FBI for forensic analysis. Instead, the IT aide aide to Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz and three of his family members were working on IT for a number of Democrats in the House, and the FBI has seized computer hard drives from this guy.