Senator Sanders Demonstrates The Right Way To Criticize Trump

Opponents of President Trump: if you want to oppose him effectively (and not just signal virtue or make yourself feel good) don’t castigate him for doing things he said he would do that his supporters want (such as the travel ban). All this achieves is makes his supporters support him more, making a Trump 2nd term more likely.

Instead, challenge him when he fails to keep his promises, betraying those who voted for him. Here’s Bernie Sanders talking about the Trump climbdown on drug policy:

Americans pay by far the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world. During the campaign Mr. Trump said that he would take on big Pharma and lower the cost of drugs. Today, he met with executives from the pharmaceutical industry — an industry where the top 5 companies made $50 billion in profits in 2015. Funny thing though. He talked about tax breaks for this tremendously profitable industry, but what he did not talk about was his campaign promise to allow Medicare the ability to negotiate prices with the drug companies. It appears Trump has already sold out the American people regarding his promise not to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Is he going to sell them out again and cave to the drug companies as well?

Meanwhile, I and colleagues will be introducing legislation to significantly lower prescription drug prices in this country, allowing our people to purchase low-cost prescription drugs from abroad and having Medicare negotiate prices with drug companies. Will Trump support this legislation and lower drug prices? Stay tuned.

Aside: it’s a shame the so-called “Democratic” Party decided to rig their primary; if they hadn’t, they might had chosen a principled, charismatic candidate who by being anti-establishment fitted with the mood of the times, and won the election. But that’s water under the bridge.

Matthew Yglesias adds:

On most of the big public policy issues of the day, Trump is a very conventional Republican. And on those issues where he hasn’t been conventional, Republican Congress members and business executives feel confident they can turn him around. On some issues, they probably won’t. But on this issue, it seems like they did.