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Wednesday, August 9, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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P
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Jonah
Goldberg
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be
no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.
To the Editor:
Regarding this inflated story of ”Mayor
under scrutiny” I would like to shed some light
since I actually witnessed this event.
This “over 50 petite woman” was not so
innocent while walking by reading her mail.
She deliberately stood in front of the Ryan’s
home with her cell phone out taking a video.
She clearly has an agenda; now she is playing
the victim card.
Please keep in mind that she had the audac-
ity to post it on a website.
I have lived in this neighborhood over 15
years and I have seen a bit of stuff; however,
I do know this: The Ryans are decent people
and deserve better than what they are being
dished.
Michele Williams
Coyote Springs
s
s
To the Editor:
Congratulations to Skydive Awesome on
establishing their new headquarters at Madras
where they have acres and acres of safe and
scenic landing zones for the parachutists, well
away from residential areas and obstacles.
We wish them well.
And thank you to Sisters Eagle Airport
personnel for facilitating the relocation. Skies
over our neighborhoods have been wonder-
fully peaceful with only the ordinary coming
and going of local planes and visitors.
For this we are deeply appreciative.
Suzanne Pepin
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I often sit back in silent, idle agreement
See LETTERS on page 24
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“The Trump base is
far bigger & stronger than
ever before,” the president
declared in a series of tweets
Monday morning, and that
“will never change.” Many
observers were quick to
point out that this assertion
isn’t borne out in the polls.
Such nitpicking, however,
overlooks a more impor-
tant part of this story. In the
1990s and 2000s, Trump had
political ambitions, but the
traditional two-party system
and the media landscape
served as impenetrable bar-
riers. It was the breakdown
of the old ways that opened
a path for someone interested
in breaking them down even
more — in part by embrac-
ing a new base of mostly
non-college-educated whites.
Traditionally, Republi-
cans have relied on white,
middle-class, white-collar,
married suburbanites. The
American Communities
Project identifies 106 “urban
suburbs” — the relatively
affluent near-in suburbs of
major cities. In 1984, Ronald
Reagan won 92 of them. In
2016, Trump lost 89.
As Politico’s Charlie
Mahtesian recently chroni-
cled, Republicans have been
steadily losing market share
in these crucial districts and
counties for decades, as sub-
urbanites become a bit more
liberal and a lot more hostile
to Republican populism on
cultural issues.
Just as inexorably, the
Democrats have been watch-
ing white, blue-collar work-
ers, the heart of the old
Franklin D. Roosevelt alli-
ance, migrate to the GOP for
some time now. Democrats
bet heavily on the growth of
minorities, particularly the
black vote, urban liberals,
immigrants and millennials.
This coalition delivered two
historic victories for Barack
Obama.
But opposition to Obama
accelerated the defection
of rural, working-class
and older whites to the
GOP cause, costing Demo-
crats 63 House seats and
roughly 1,000 elected offices
nationwide.
Now, both parties have
similar dilemmas: Their new
bases are too small to guar-
antee electoral success but
too strong to allow funda-
mental rethinking of how the
parties do business.
The Democratic base of
hard-core liberals and Trump
“resisters” is not a majority
coalition. But it is the domi-
nant ideological force within
the party (and mainstream
media), and hence the lead-
ership is very reluctant to
broaden the party’s message.
The new push for zero toler-
ance of pro-life Democrats is
just one obvious illustration
of the bind the Democrats
are in.
Trump, meanwhile, has
dedicated the first six months
of his presidency to keeping
his base happy. That’s in part
because he can’t get legisla-
tion through Congress, so he
tweets red meat to the faith-
ful instead.
His media cheerleaders
increasingly define conser-
vatism not as adherence to
any program, but as personal
loyalty to Trump. Hence the
rising call from figures such
as the recently suspended
Fox News host Eric Bol-
ling to purge the party of
“RINOs” (Republicans In
Name Only) who are criti-
cal of the president. If Trump
had an approval rating in the
high 50s instead of numbers
that bounced around in the
30s, following this advice
would not threaten the frag-
ile GOP majority.
The Democrats have
settled on economic popu-
lism as their unifying theme,
not so much because that’s
where all the passion is but
because they can’t agree on
any other agenda that would
enlarge their coalition. The
GOP, in turn, is shrinking its
ideological commitments —
and appeal — and focusing
instead on populist rage and
the president’s cult of per-
sonality. Both courses leave
vast swaths of the electorate
up for grabs.
As a result, there’s the
potential for an opening in
2020 for some opportunis-
tic figure — Mark Zucker-
berg? Michael Bloomberg?
— from outside the belea-
guered and sclerotic party
system who could forge a
coalition from both the tra-
ditional Democratic and
Republican columns, much
as Emmanuel Macron did in
France. An independent can-
didate always seemed like
a pipe dream in America’s
two-party system. But so did
Trump’s candidacy until not
very long ago.
© 2017 Tribune Content
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Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.