Among those crying in their beers the day after the nation
sent Mr. Trump to the White House was Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New
York Times, who remarked to his media columnist, James Rutenberg, “We’ve got to
do a much better job of being on the road, out in the country, talking to different
kinds of people than we talk to — especially if you happen to be a New
York-based news organization — and remind ourselves that New York is not the
real world.”
Shortly after the mea
culpa, an ex-Times reporter now writing for Deadline Hollywood let the cat out of the bag: “It was a shock on arriving at the New York
Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its
editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters
scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called ‘the narrative.’
We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in
advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the
pre-designated line.” That is a perfect description of media bias overcoming
sound journalistic practice. We often have been told that there is an iron
curtain erected at newspapers between the editorial board and report staff, but
if the report staff is put on a short narrative leash by editors, sound
journalism is collared.
Collared journalists at the Times likely were shocked by
Trump’s victory. Mr. Trump did better than former Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney among black voters, 8-6
percent, and Hispanics, 29-27 percent, according to Pew research. Trump almost
tied Romney among all women, 42-44 percent, and he trounced among white women,
53-43 percent.
Here in Connecticut, Mr. Trump was not swamped by Mrs.
Clinton. Following the capture of the White House by Mr. Trump and the seizure
of both houses of Congress by Republicans, Democrats have lost their OZ.
Governor Dannel Malloy – approval rating 24 percent – will not be able to
reinvent his political career by seeking
sanctuary in a Hillary Clinton administration. Any hope that Connecticut’s two
progressive U.S. Senators, Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, will be able to
command a chairmanship of important Senate committees have been dashed. And at
some point during the Trump presidency, the lack of a single Republican within
Connecticut’s all Democratic US Congressional Delegation may be sorely felt.
The national progressive contraption will not survive the artificial prop of a
progressive-minded President who was willing to create legislation by executive
decree. Mr. Trump will not need the consent of Congress to sweep away with his
pen all the constitutionally dubious executive dictates of his now lame-duck
predecessor.
During the upcoming elections in two years, it appears that
state Republicans will have Mr. Malloy – or, at the very least, the Malloy
administration – to kick around again. There is a slight chance that the crony
capitalist Democrat and leaders in his Party may begin, following their
repeated losses in the General Assembly, to equitably share government with
Republicans, if only as a self-protective measure. The state Republican Party,
however, may be more demanding than Democrat leaders have been used to; years in the
wilderness strengthen the powers of resistance, and kumbaya has been off the table for the entire Malloy Administration.
The upcoming struggle over the state constitutional cap may
provide an instance of state GOP assertiveness. Initially, the cap on spending
was attached to former Governor Lowell Weicker’s income tax measure as a ploy
to garner votes in favor of the income tax within the General Assembly.
However, definitions necessary to implement the tax were never provided, and
last year Attorney General George Jepsen correctly declared the spending cap
inoperative.
A real spending cap worthy of the name cap should really
control spending. The 24 member committee providing definitions to members of
the General Assembly so that the cap may be constitutionally applied is split
on an important point. Democrats doubtless would prefer a cap that
excludes state employee pensions because pensions represent a large portion of
Connecticut’s debt. Co-Chairman of the committee Bill Cibes, the past
head of Mr. Weicker’s Office of Policy Management, considered by many the
architect of the Weicker income tax, has in the recent past urged the abolition of the constitutional cap. Mr. Cibes claims to be
offended when those now charged with determining the borders of the spending
cap mention the
state’s “death spiral.” He is doubly offended when they note that
state spending is, partly owing to Mr. Cibes’s heroic efforts in implementing
the Weicker-Cibes income tax, “out of control.”
It would be a hopeful sign if Republicans should resist further
attempts to enfeeble their necessary opposition; state spending is indeed out
of control, and Connecticut will enter a death spiral unless state government
seriously controls spending. An authentic attempt to control spending would
oppose putting arsonists such as Mr. Cibes in charge of the fire brigade and
insist that any effective definition of a spending cap that does not include every
dollar appropriated for spending is a recipe for more out of control spending.
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