Click on WORD or PDF for full content
In an Instapundit Post with a picture of VP Mike Pence waving at demonstrators at the Capitol, Glenn Reynolds asked,
“Is it just me, or has the entire Republican Party developed a certain swagger?”
Then Glenn asks;
It’s an astonishing transformation. Where do you think it comes from?
Matthew Continetti answers with “Trump’s Remarkable Week.”
Can we pause for a moment to consider what has transpired in the last seven days?
… TRADE: Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced it had reached an agreement with both Mexico and Canada to revise and rebrand the North America Free Trade Agreement as the United States Mexico Canada Agreement. …
… ECONOMY: The Trump Bump continues, with Friday bringing news that unemployment has reached its lowest level since 1969. …
… JUDGES: Susan Collins’s announcement that she will vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh practically guarantees he will be seated on the Supreme Court in the coming days. …
… FOREIGN POLICY: President Trump is slowly and steadily re-orienting U.S. foreign policy to face the central challenge of the twenty-first century: the rise of China to great power status. Beginning with the national security strategy released at the end of 2017, and continuing through today’s announcement of a landmark review of the defense industrial base, Trump has accomplished the “pivot to Asia” that the Obama administration so often talked about. What the pivot looks like is a policy of containment—one that should have been pursued decades ago. Trump has made this move while sanctioning Russia, getting tough on Iran, ending the farcical Middle East “peace process,” and attempting to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula. …
… Trump has achieved all of these gains, in such disparate areas of policy, through totally unorthodox means. He brags, he intimidates, he pouts, he jokes, he insults, he is purposefully ambiguous, and he leaves no criticism unanswered. …
… Where others mindlessly repeat politically correct clichés, Trump unequivocally challenges them. He has ushered in a new era of American politics by dissolving the varnish that for so long obscured fundamental cultural divisions between and within the parties. He is president of a country that is wilder, zanier, and more unpredictable than before. It is also stronger.
Donald Trump is putting the finishing touches on one of the most remarkable weeks of his presidency. For Republicans, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Lots of great cartoons.