Kay made a good comment in the last post:
An opposition could simply repeat Trump’s broken promises over and over for two years. They don’t even have to address Trump voters directly at all. Is gas under 2 dollars a gallon? Are interest rates at 2? Is there world peace? Is Trumpcare in place? Are food prices at 2016 levels? Why not?
There was a lot of complaining in the comments a week or two ago when Bernie said that he’d support Trump’s effort to lower credit card interest rates. There was less noise when Fetterman said this:
“If Dr. Oz is about protecting and preserving Medicare and Medicaid, I’m voting for the dude,” Mr. Fetterman, D-Pa., said on the social media site X.
Neither of those statements really bothered me because I think they’re part of a strategy to hold Trump and his appointees to their word. Note that I distinguish saying “I’ll vote for some nominee if they pledge to do (some specific good thing that’s the basis of their appointment)” or “I’ll vote for (some specific good thing Trump wants)” from “Man, RFK Jr. has a few good ideas”. That’s because the former types of statements are basically the sleeves of a vest in negotiating terms — they are statements about things that will probably never happen with huge amounts of wiggle room. For example, Dr. Oz’ appointment is to oversee Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. There are a million ways Fetterman can say that Oz won’t preserve those two programs and therefore deserves a no vote. Similarly, Bernie’s statement sets him up to be publicly disappointed when Trump doesn’t follow through on his promise.
Even though I think there’s a positive strategy behind comments like Bernie’s or Fetterman’s, I think we can do better. On this point, Steve M makes a good observation:
Want to try holding Trump to this [credit card rate] promise? Introduce a bill to lower credit card interest rates — and put Trump’s name on it.
Sanders and Warren should write a bill limit credit card interest rates and call it the Donald Trump Credit Card Sanity Act. They should put Trump’s September quote in a “Whereas” paragraph at the beginning of the bill. They should dare him to oppose a bill with his name on it. Dare Senate Republicans to oppose a bill named after him.
I know, I know — most mainstream economists, across the political spectrum, oppose limits on credit card fees, because they make it less likely that banks will offer cards to poorer people. Last year, when Senator Josh Hawley, of all people, introduced a bill to limit credit card interest rates, the bill went nowhere and had no co-sponsors, not even Sanders or Warren.
But if you want to make the point, don’t sit around waiting for Trump not to act. Actively hold him to his word, and do it in an attention-getting, headline-grabbing way.
Trump didn’t just get elected because of his hateful base. Low information “vibes voters” who have memories of a goldfish thought that what Trump said about inflation and credit card rates sounded good. We can shit on those voters all we want, but we need to convince some of them, as well as convince our voters who didn’t turn out, that if/when we have power, we’ll actually do some of the popular things Trump promised. Proposing legislation and keeping track of broken promises — in a noisy, consistent and sustained fashion — are two ways to do that.
