Eternal Optimists Have to Stick Together

Don't miss the photo that accompanies this story. I listened on the radio and was spitting and cursing. We all handle utter disbelief and shock of the Trump presidency differently, though.

The gist of the article is that there is only so much damage that Trump can do. Thank God. That's still no reason that in 2018 every Republican available should be sent packing to K Street or Heritage or Betty Ford in the case of John Sweeney.

He can’t hold back the one true inevitability in demographic change: the replacement of older generations by newer ones. Underappreciated in November’s election was the continuing leftward lean of young voters, once again supporting the Democratic candidate by around 20 points — and with younger millennials, including both college-educated and noncollege whites, even more pro-Democratic than older ones. That is huge. And don’t expect these voters to shift right as they age. Political science research shows that early voting patterns tend to stick.

Another locus of disquiet, if not hysteria, on the left is the environment. But consider this: In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire; in 1979, when Obama was attending college in Los Angeles and remembers constant smog, there were 234 days when the city exceeded federal ozone standards. Our water and air are now orders of magnitude cleaner than they were back then.

I know I'm feeling better. I read another article somewhere pointing out how the coal industry is shrinking. So, there's only going to be so much coal debris to go into those streams in West Virginia.