On Canada’s single payer health care system. Spoken by Trump in 2011 in the video below.
Yes, I know he didn’t commit himself to such a system, but as late as last year he was saying very un-Republican things on health care. Again, see the videos below.
Now look: I have no idea whether he sincerely believed those earlier positions, and I know his actual health care plan seems very confused and pro-free market. But what Republican presidential candidate has ever made statements like this?
And, of course, I imagine he will retreat from these positions as the Republican establishment paints as a big government “socialist.” So, no, I doubt a president Trump would ever deliver on anything substantive on health care.
I showed some of these videos to an American Democratic friend of mine. “Doesn’t Trump get any credit on this issue?,” I asked. But my Democrat friend was indifferent. That opened my eyes somewhat.
Interesting. I believe most of the reactions to Trump, for and against, are about class and class identification. Look at the frankly hysterical reactions from his critics both left and right who are themselves upper class. Niall Ferguson, Kagan, all of National Review, plus the usual voices from the left. The Washington post likened him to Hitler and called him a threat to democracy. Thomas Sowell said the same thing -- for the exact opposite reasons. Ferguson was having wet dreams about Trump's humiliation. These are not considered, rational reactions. They are tribal reactions.
ReplyDeleteI am by any reasonable definition part of the cultural upper class. I am a Canadian, from a reasonably affluent background; I listen to classical music and can scarcely name a modern pop group; I disdain professional sports, NASCAR, reality TV, and action movies; I am an atheist, pro choice, pro gay marriage, immensely permissive; I have a lot of post secondary schooling. But if this election becomes a class war, I know which side I am on. Trump's opponents will make a great mistake if they make this about the imagined failings of Trump's lower class supporters. So far I see that happening.
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