DEMOCRATS CAN'T CAPITALIZE ON THE PRESIDENT'S BROKEN PROMISES.

National Review's Kevin D. Williamson, no fan of Trumpian Populism he, elaborates.

In 2016, Trump promised Americans sustained 3-percent economic growth, but the economy has not met that standard. He promised a shrinking trade deficit, but the trade deficit has grown. He promised to build a wall along the southern border and to make Mexico pay for it, which he has not done. Which is to say, on the core issues of economic growth, trade, and immigration, President Trump is a failure by his own criteria.

It might suffice for the Democrats to point these things out, but they're off chasing something else.

[Massachusetts senator Elizabeth] Warren is unlikely to outdo Trump on a nationalism agenda, but nonetheless she has maneuvered herself into a position that is both bad policy and bad politics.

On the economy, Trump has seen modest success after tax cuts and deregulatory efforts. The Democrats oppose these for ideological reasons, but also because they have the stink of Trump on them.

A more intelligent approach for Democrats (and for us lonely few anti-Trump conservatives) would be to concede that the president’s positions on issues such as illegal immigration and trade speak to concerns that are genuine and legitimate while pointing out that his actions have been in the main ineffective or genuinely destructive. But the Democrats are so committed to their exotic fairy tale — Trump is a monster, Trump is a Nazi, Trump is a white nationalist, etc. — that they have forgotten how to run an ordinary campaign against an ordinary failure.

Put another way, the current administration's trade policies are a potted version of the industrial policy that was so popular during the shift out of heavy industry in the 1980s, without the alleged gravitas of Ira Magaziner or Robert Reich: and riling up the so-called coalition of the ascendant against Our President's bad manners might play well with that part of the Democratic base.

Those modest successes: are they good enough to keep some of the old-style Republicans on board?

Perhaps that victory will go to the side that chooses to be less crazy.