Anti-Trump Derangement Syndrome: Are Liberals Rooting Against America?

The unseemly sight of nearly the entire Democratic congressional delegation sitting on their hands and clinging to their chairs throughout Donald Trump's State of the Union speech is further evidence that they want America to fail on Trump's watch.

Hundreds of American companies are bringing jobs to America and paying American workers' bonuses. Democrats sat stone-faced. The lowest black unemployment rate in 40 years. Democrats smirked. We are defeating ISIS in the Middle East. Ho hum. They acted like petulant 12-year-olds who fold their arms in defiance and pout miserably when things don't go their way.

Many on the Left are suffering from a severe case of anti-Trump derangement syndrome. ATDS sufferers crave bad news. In a bright sunny ‎economic sky, they point to the single cloud.  This is why Nancy Pelosi could only sniff that the bonuses workers are getting from the tax cut are "crumbs."  

The other day I was on CNN and was sparring with April Ryan of the American Urban Radio Networks – who is to say the least not friendly to Trump.  When I mentioned all of the companies that are hiring more workers and paying bonuses or raises to their employees, including as many as one million Walmart employees, I thought this might elicit some positive reaction.  Instead, she rolled her eyes.  "Look at all the stores they are closing and all the layoffs?" she complained.  Yes, 5,000 Walmart workers will be mostly reassigned, while about 200 times that number will get raises. ‎

Liberals have been protesting Walmart pay scales for years agitating for higher wages, and now Walmart is raising their minimum wage by $2 an hour.  But the left still is unhappier than ever.   ‎

For at least two weeks the TV networks on the left praised to the hilt  Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury." They obsessed over the charge of whether Trump was mentally competent to hold office, and even called for his ouster under the 25th Amendment - all based purely on unsubstantiated charges in a book that has now been exposed as mostly a work of fiction, not fact.  Most honest scholars is packed with false and made-up accusations with no sources.  Many of the Never-Trumpers don't even care whether the information is true or false.  They still act as if it is their Bible.   They are the "Birthers" on the left.

Trump's successes one year into office are now dismissed as a result of Obama policies, which is rich since Trump has one-by-one reversed Obama economic policies.  If the economy and stock market had tanked in 2017, liberals would have seized upon the bad news as evidence that his policies are abject failures.  Now that the policies are working, Obama gets the credit.  They are so blinded by ATDS, they can't even acknowledge the double standard.  

I remember at a Wall Street Journal editorial meeting when Barack Obama was first elected president and he was rolling out ObamaCare, the stimulus plan, tax increases, a regulatory assault, and a litany of other dimwitted economic policies, one of the writers said what we were all thinking: If this program works, everything we believe on the economy is wrong.  

We opposed the policies, not the man, and in the end, the Keynesian big government policies were indeed a failure. We ended up with the weakest recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.

It is true opposition to Obama on the right prompted some conservatives to similarly root against American success on his watch.  When the International Olympics Committee snubbed Obama's hometown of Chicago, there were videos of conservatives celebrating the bad news.  The cascade of disappointing economic data on Obama's watch was too-often cheered by Republicans.     

"Some of these people on the right are starting to put politics first and country second," observed then-Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who is now a Senator from that state. "The American people are starting to wonder if they are rooting against America," he charged. He had a point back in 2009. But, senator, look in the mirror.  

Why does no national Democrat stand up to the leftist Trump haters, who have morphed into America haters? He or she would be hailed as a hero. The Democrats desperately need a Sister Soulja moment.  

Most Americans are not especially ideological. We are for what works. The United States is on a roll right now and the good economic news transcends political spin. Tens of millions of Americans are starting to see the benefits in their paychecks of the tax cuts that Democrats lied would raise people's taxes. If Trump haters continue to sit on their hands and oppose America's comeback, voters will see they are putting political ideology over patriotism.  That's no winning ticket.  
 
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with Freedom Works. He served as a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign.