Topsy-turvy world

Articles like this Guardian piece confuse me. The authors seem to be serious, but there's such a looking-glass quality to the arguments and assumptions. They're alarmed that the new Republican platform, attributed to Trump, is moderate and popular, which makes it dangerous, because people might like it. They complain that Trump is adoping policies and positions that by rights belong to Democrats; they're apparently unaware that it's been a long time since Democrats pursued those policies.

Rather than running on the Biden administration’s oversight of job growth in distressed areas and its new industrial policy, liberals seem content to do battle on the cultural front. This discursive failing has allowed common sense policies that are more reflective of the governing practice of today’s Democratic party – from defending the social safety net to growing manufacturing jobs – to become rebranded as the bread-and-butter of the Republican party.

The Biden administration has been pursuing job growth in distressed areas and a new industrial policy?

In power, it’s likely that Trump will once again betray his working-class supporters and govern like a typical business conservative, because he is utterly committed to more tax cuts and weakening trade unions.

The authors appear unaware of the appeal to current working-class supporters of policies like reasonable tax rates and curbs on corrupt trade unions.

They complain that Trump was supposed to destroy the Republican Party, but instead he made it stronger.

And in office, he reassured establishment figures by coupling largely symbolic protectionist measures with the deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy that one would have expected from a Mitt Romney administration.

In what universe? Where do they get these ideas about what a man like Romney would have done in office?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they're so baffled. They don't seem able to look at anything outside their own heads.