Overpopulation alarmist and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman knows exactly how to beat President Trump in 2020.
In a column Tuesday, Friedman laid out the strategy, which involved the always fresh proposal for a third-party candidate, the willful self-destruction of Republican voters, and the nomination of an exceptional Democrat to do all the rest.
In short, ask Republicans to deliberately lose so that a Democrat wins. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before?
“We need a Republican who will do the most high-minded, patriotic thing I can imagine today — fall on the Trump grenade,” wrote Friedman.
Ah, yes, a favorite of the national media — the patriotic Republican who gracefully loses to help the Democratic Party. Classic.
Friedman wrote that to be successful, the “patriotic” Republican would need to run to Trump’s “right.” But this apparently confuses the columnist, who thinks this hypothetical Republican would “oppose Trump for his tariffs, his piling up of the national debt, his opposition to immigration and his immorality.”
True, Trump is a liberal on the debt. But the tariffs and the “immorality” could go either way. And immigration, Trump’s most potent issue? On what hot, flat, and crowded planet does Friedman reside where it would be more to the “right” to oppose Trump’s positions on immigration? The only way to be further right than Trump on immigration is to either completely seal off America’s borders or to, I dunno, actually implement any one of the things Trump has said he would.
Friedman also encouraged former White House and Cabinet officials who were reported to have clashed with the president to publicly oppose Trump ahead of 2020. It’s unclear what effect this would have on anything. White House and Cabinet officials didn’t elect Trump. If anything, his supporters are glad they’re gone if it means trying new ways to advance the policies that animated Trump’s campaign, all of which stalled pretty much the minute he was sworn into office.
The final nail in Trump’s coffin, according to Friedman, is a Democratic nominee “who can appeal not only to Democrats but also hold the independents, moderate Republicans and suburban women.”
Friedman’s phone is undoubtedly ringing off the hook right this moment with 2020 campaign managers seeking this insight.
To recap, all Democrats have to do is get Republicans to self-immolate and hand the election over. Oh, and nominate Jesus, who, according to South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, would not have been a Republican anyway.
Friedman further demonstrated that he lives in his own hot, flat, and overcrowded world by claiming in his column that Trump’s “extreme language and behavior” are “stimulating some fringe actors on the right to physically attack people.”
Who on “the right” is Friedman referring to? He offered no examples, and literally the only truly Trump-inspired “attack” was committed by a mentally ill Florida man, “pipe bomber” Cesar Sayoc, who said he never intended to actually hurt anyone. And in fact, no one was ever hurt.
On the other hand, does the name James Hodgkinson ring any bells? Of course not. Liberals in the media erased him — a supporter of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Democratic presidential campaign — from memory after he shot Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., on a baseball field, leaving the congressman physically impaired and relying on a cane to walk.
Democrats can take the White House in 2020. They just need to join Friedman on his hot, flat, and overcrowded planet first.
