Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation, all Democrats, are not dummies. Savvy professional politicians, they know that the way to President Donald Trump’s heart is through the mouth of Ben Carson, Trump’s U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary. In a Journal Inquirer news report   on June 21,2018, we find four members of the delegation – U.S. Senators Chris Murphy and Dick Blumenthal, plus U.S. Representatives Joe Courtney and John Larson – thanking Carson for having taken the time at their urging to visit a house in Connecticut the foundation of which was crumbling because the cement used to make the foundation was contaminated with pyrrhotite, a mineral that causes deterioration when exposed to groundwater.

The new “never-Trumpers” are mostly Democrats. The last significant remnants of formal Republican opposition quickly melted soon after Donald Trump thumped Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in an election that, despite all the post-election caterwauling about Russians possibly manipulating ballots in favor of the nouveau conservative Republican, was won handily by Mr. Trump. Jonah Goldberg of National Review got it right. “Never Trump” may have been appropriate for some on the right who supposed Mr. Trump was a member of a different tribe. But now, “Never Trump is over. Never Trump was about the GOP primary and the general election, not the presidency. The Left wants to claim it must be a permanent movement, denying the legitimacy of Trump’s election forever, or we were never serious. Well, that’s not what we — or at least I — signed up for.”